Hypersonic weapon: New US bomb kills long before you hear it

[Tornado]

Do you disagree with the assessment that hypersonic missile systems will reduce greatly the need for huge stockpiles of petroleum to fuel tanks, planes and ships at a time when the hydrocarbon energy system will likely be in decline?

You don't need tanks or ships to do the things that this missile will do. You need a couple B52s and a pair of F/A-18s to escort them. Or a B2 flying solo.

What you need tanks and ships to do is occupy a country and/or project power, which is something that a missile cannot do and thus has no bearing on their role in combat.

Edited November 21, 2011 by Tornado

[Patticus]

Disclaimer: Post may not bear relevance to quotes. I am le tired...

You don't need tanks or ships to do the things that this missile will do. You need a couple B52s and a pair of F/A-18s to escort them. Or a B2 flying solo.

That wasn't the yes or no answer I was expecting... dayum.

You could dispense with the flight and ground crews of the B52, everyone building and maintaining them, all the fuel and logistical resources, personnel and facilities, and go for an intelligent guided missile capable of reaching the target faster and probably being more accurate to boot.

B52s are old. They're not going to last forever, and they're certainly not going to replace smaller, more agile smart missiles; planes may still dominate, but missiles own the future.

What you need tanks and ships to do is occupy a country and/or project power, which is something that a missile cannot do and thus has no bearing on their role in combat.

Tanks exist to deliver quantities of explosives to those points on the battlefield where they are needed. That was their original purpose, and that's what they still exist to do. As they've developed, they've been adapted to fire on each other, leading to an arms race of measures and countermeasures, leading to such recent developments as ceramic plating that explodes outwards when the tank's sophisticated sensing equipment detects incoming projectiles, etc.

All of the advancements made to tanks, particularly since they began to be used to fight one another, have made them dramatically more expensive. Costs are going to soar ever higher, meaning ever fewer tanks may be built for the same money, until they reach the point when they are no longer economically viable weapons platforms and must make way for younger, more cost effective technologies (e.g. armoured exo-suits).

Occupation will always be a major problem though, and no missile can solve it. Armies are designed to destroy armies, that's what they do, and precision weapons will do that more effectively than ever before. Actually occupying a territory? Yeah, that one is always going to be labour-intensive. It's actually a lot more like basic police work than soldiery if you think about it, since it's a soldier's job to kill the enemy, while it's a policeman's job to identify lawbreakers and arrest them. The first job naturally requires courage, training, and weapons. The latter job requires all of those plus an understanding of a culture that allows you to distinguish enemies from law-abiding civilians. That job is never going to get any easier, short of tapping into the thoughts of everyone on Earth in an Orwellian effort to curb free will, and so it'll always be the Achilles' Heel of world powers. It's like how the Roman and British empires struggled with their occupations of Palestine. Even as those great powers of the past easily defeated enemy armies, so too the Americans will win wars and suffer through the aftermaths.

[Solkia]

Yeah lets bash Obama without getting all our facts right.

I guess you think that a project like this works along the following lines.

*Ring ring.... ring ring...*

Weapons maker Ello? Barns and arms, you want it we nuke it.

Obama Oi oi! It's Obama here, oi listen, can you make me a hypersonic missile?

Weapons maker Sure I'll have it over by next week.

Nope... it doesn't work like that. Without looking, can you name any technology that the human race has which is capable of Hypersonic travel at a reasonable cost? If you can count more than 4 I would be greatly surprised. Something like this would have taken years to plan and build, long before Obama was even a worldwide name let alone president. Travelling at hypersonic speeds is far from easy, even from a design perspective let alone an engine capable of doing that without it exhausting it's fuel supply within the first few seconds of it being fired.

That isn't really what I was talking about when I mentioned Obama. I was poking fun at the stupid financial choices that the government over here makes. And from what I've read about Obama's plan, it doesn't sound like he gives a damn about finances. I am aware that the technology it would take would be insanely expensive and overall not worth it.

Theres already been several possible uses for this on the previous page.

Oh I got another one. Sea Warfare. Would come in handy taking out aircraft carriers or other large naval targets.

All of which are unnecessary, as well as a waste of resources. It does sound useful for Sea Warfare however, I'll give it that.

Overall, I think it sounds like a stupid idea, and as Diogenes already said: Man I thought we had enough ways to kill people already.

[Patticus]

I don't see why it'd be such a waste to develop a device that can perform the same duties it might take several different types of vehicle, personnel and resources to do now, e.g. fleets of ships surrounding a nearly priceless aircraft carrier just to get in range, aircraft to perform fast strikes, the logistical pyramid supporting the entire strike group etc.

By getting rid of some of the armed forces, downsizing them as their training and technological abilities increase almost exponentially, and using some of the huge quantities of money saved on hypersonic missiles to replace the "lost" forces, you'll be doing yourselves a favour. America stands to gain the most from this shift, and at the highest levels it knows it.

Current methods of waging war are going to be superseded, whether you like it or not, and the age of ballistics (which made Europe's empires the preeminent powers in the world) will draw to a close. Tanks, manned aircraft, aircraft carriers - they can't last forever in a world full of threats for which they weren't designed, which it is ever more costly to arm themselves against.

[SuperStingray]

We aren't going to get into a shooting match with China, Russia, Britain, France or Japan any time soon; nor do I think this missile was designed to make it so we could.

[Tornado]

You could dispense with the flight and ground crews of the B52, everyone building and maintaining them, all the fuel and logistical resources, personnel and facilities, and go for an intelligent guided missile capable of reaching the target faster and probably being more accurate to boot.

B52s are old. They're not going to last forever, and they're certainly not going to replace smaller, more agile smart missiles; planes may still dominate, but missiles own the future.

I don't see why it'd be such a waste to develop a device that can perform the same duties it might take several different types of vehicle, personnel and resources to do now, e.g. fleets of ships surrounding a nearly priceless aircraft carrier just to get in range, aircraft to perform fast strikes, the logistical pyramid supporting the entire strike group etc.

By getting rid of some of the armed forces, downsizing them as their training and technological abilities increase almost exponentially, and using some of the huge quantities of money saved on hypersonic missiles to replace the "lost" forces, you'll be doing yourselves a favour. America stands to gain the most from this shift, and at the highest levels it knows it.

A missile cannot do everything that a B52 can (and while they won't last forever, they aren't going to be replaced any time in the next 10 years). A missile cannot do everything that a platoon of Abrams/Bradleys can do. A missile cannot do everything an aircraft carrier can do. A missile cannot do everything a fighter can do.

You keep talking about replacing existing military equipment as if this missile is a catch all solution, and it isn't. It has a specific use, and to use it outside of that use is no less of a waste of money than if they still kept battleships around just to use as artillery.

How do you use this missile to carpet bomb an area? Shoot dozens of the things?

How do you use this missile to provide infantry support? Shoot them at troop positions in advance and hope they don't hit our troops?

How do you use this missile to project power? Put them on PT boats and park them outside of a country's borders?

How do you use this missile to perform air superiority? Shoot them at the sky like you are playing Missile Command where you have to lead the target by an hour?

And we didn't intend to go to war with the USSR during the Cold War- it didn't stop us from spending billions on arms development.

The USSR during the Cold War is not China, France, Britain, Japan or post-war Russia.

Edited November 23, 2011 by Tornado

[Patticus]

A missile cannot do everything that a B52 can (and while they won't last forever, they aren't going to be replaced any time in the next 10 years). A missile cannot do everything that a platoon of Abrams/Bradleys can do. A missile cannot do everything an aircraft carrier can do. A missile cannot do everything a fighter can do.

I'm thinking long-term, the next hundred years or so; the next decade will see comparatively minor developments of the hypersonic weapons system and a continuation of the status quo.

These missiles won't be needed to perform the duties of tank platoons, but they will be able to destroy them with frightening efficiency. I've already alluded to what I can see replacing the tank (long-term, naturally):

The eminently more versatile, agile, small and adept squaddy. More highly trained and technologically advanced than ever, in his armoured exo-suit he'll one day carry tank-grade weaponry, complex communications systems linking him real-time to the command structure, recon, other squads etc, lift weights many times greater than normal humans can, and operate in smaller numbers than present militaries. They will become the primary ground-side projectors of American power, possibly by the 2050s, but more likely the 2060s or 70s.

But I'm digressing...

You keep talking about replacing existing military equipment as if this missile is a catch all solution, and it isn't. It has a specific use, and to use it outside of that use is no less of a waste of money than if they still kept battleships around just to use as artillery.

Apologies, I did make it seem like a catch-all solution; obviously unmanned aerial vehicles will play roles as important as the hypersonic missile. They may even themselves have hypersonic capabilities!

It can be a solution in the field of long-range strikes, though; where presently you rely on bases in friendly countries near your targets, or risk your priceless aircraft carrier groups moving toward hostile nations, in a world of hypersonic death you'd have no need for such things; you rely on your network of spy satellites and UAVs for intel as it happens and direct missile strikes that hit within the hour.

1. How do you use this missile to carpet bomb an area? Shoot dozens of the things?

2. How do you use this missile to provide infantry support? Shoot them at troop positions in advance and hope they don't hit our troops?

3. How do you use this missile to project power? Put them on PT boats and park them outside of a country's borders?

4. How do you use this missile to perform air superiority? Shoot them at the sky like you are playing Missile Command where you have to lead the target by an hour?

1. Encapsulate numerous smaller rockets/bombs within the hypersonic missile, and make it so that once it's in the target area, it scans the place with its sensing gear (or does so with the help of dedicated UAVs and satellites), and releases its multi-missile cargo once it has acquired its targets. The main missile then returns to base, ready for re-use and saving the US quite a lot of money on replacements.

2. Intelligent guided ordnance with lots of smaller multi-missiles (or 'bomblets') contained within could strike at enemy infantry position, while the larger ones without any bomblets could hit armoured formations, artillery positions, buildings and so on.

3. If the missiles have an immediate global reach, and they eventually will, then the power they project is also going to be global; you don't need to park them just outside a country when that country knows it can be struck by missile salvos fired from within your country on the other side of the world in an hour or two.

Ground-based power projection will be performed by small armies, much smaller than today and much better equipped and trained too.

4. Unmanned fighter jets armed with small hypersonic rockets, perhaps?