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

[#EndyGate]

I'll be joining that ditch digging party

Edited November 20, 2011 by Cero

[Stacy]

Man I thought we had enough ways to kill people already.

Speaking of which how many ways are there to kill people?

[Solkia]

Not to mention, a missile travelling at that speed would be drastically more expensive over say a typical cruse missile or any other type of standard weapon.

We're already 15 trillion dollars in national debt, and Obama keeps insisting on spending what the government cant afford to use without causing inflation of the market. I doubt he cares about expenses.

But seriously, what are we ever going to use such a weapon for? We already have an unnecessary amount of nuclear weapons just sitting in some base.

[Ferno]

Speaking of which how many ways are there to kill people?

After watching a load of episodes of "1000 ways to die," I'm surprised any of us are even alive right now. Heck, reaching age 80 is a miracle all by itself.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

We're already 15 trillion dollars in national debt, and Obama keeps insisting on spending what the government cant afford to use without causing inflation of the market. I doubt he cares about expenses.

Well, it's a good thing he doesn't have the power of the purse...or is that something else I'm completely misled about?

I don't recall military spending being part of what he's into what with cutting the F22 program, despite being commander-in-chief, but I've paid so little attention to that area of the budget I don't know the full details.

But seriously, what are we ever going to use such a weapon for? We already have an unnecessary amount of nuclear weapons just sitting in some base.

If you have some good grasp of military weapons and uses, you'd find some potential use for the weapon.

Nuclear weapons are more political tools than military ones nowadays and are used more for making threats than actually following through with them. The problem comes with the risk that if you launch just one at any country you give any other enemy who has in an incentive to launch it right back at you, and cause a massive chain of events with the weapons. There's also tactical nukes, but I'm not going into that.

However, Conventional weapons don't do that, which is practically what this missile will be used for. It's mainly to strike a high value target much faster than other conventional weapons. I can easily see what this would be used for. It could also be used for nuclear weapons, but given what I said above, it's highly unlikely that would be applied anytime soon.

[Badnik Mechanic]

We're already 15 trillion dollars in national debt, and Obama keeps insisting on spending what the government cant afford to use without causing inflation of the market. I doubt he cares about expenses.

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.

But seriously, what are we ever going to use such a weapon for? We already have an unnecessary amount of nuclear weapons just sitting in some base.

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.

Edited November 20, 2011 by Hogfather

[Johnny Boy]

Wait, so now we can use sound to kill people? Next thing you know they'll invent weapons that will let us kill people with our thoughts alone.

[CoffeeGrunt]

No, it just moves faster than sound. Sound is kinetic energy anyway. Technically, a blast wave is pretty much just a massive sound wave.

[Tornado]

then there's the F22 Raptor (which if I recall got cancelled due to it's high cost)

It wasn't cancelled so much as they scaled back the orders; because they honestly didn't need as many as they wanted at this point, but also because someone in the DoD has a massive hard-on for shoving the F35 into roles that it doesn't really fit into (they even wanted/want to use it to replace the A-10, for god knows what reason).

But seriously, what are we ever going to use such a weapon for? We already have an unnecessary amount of nuclear weapons just sitting in some base.

In addition to what Hogfather said, which is all very true, last I checked, the military cannot do precision surgical strikes with nuclear arms. And while they can do precision bombing with B2s, B2s are also very, very expensive so it may very well be worth the expense using a missile like this in situations where a B2 could be in danger (aircraft carriers are a very good example).

Edited November 20, 2011 by Tornado

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

It wasn't cancelled so much as they scaled back the orders; because they honestly didn't need as many as they wanted at this point, but also because someone in the DoD has a massive hard-on for shoving the F35 into roles that it doesn't really fit into (they even wanted/want to use it to replace the A-10, for god knows what reason).

I've heard in the past of some within the military looking for ways to get rid of the Warthog simply because it was an ugly plane, but after seeing its effectiveness in battle that they stopped trying. Apparently someone in the DoD doesn't seem to know what the hell they're doing there if they don't know that.

In addition to what Hogfather said, which is all very true, last I checked, the military cannot do precision surgical strikes with nuclear arms.

I'm wondering what sense it makes to use nuclear arms for precision strikes in the first place unless they've scaled down the destructive force for such a thing.

And while they can do precision bombing with B2s, B2s are also very, very expensive so it may very well be worth the expense using a missile like this in situations where a B2 could be in danger (aircraft carriers are a very good example).

At around $2 billion per plane, how much would a hypersonic missile fare by comparison? Sounds much cheaper than sending an expensive stealth plane to do the job.

Edited November 21, 2011 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[Death the Kid]

Fast, and not to mention deadly. good combo..however, I can't see our government really using this weapon unless it was ultimately a last resort to a end conflict real fast, namely as the atomic bomb was to the japanese in World War 2. there's a lot of thinking that goes into deploying a weapon like this; you can't simply pull the trigger because you get pissed off by some random nut.

Edited November 21, 2011 by Shinigami

[Tornado]

I've heard in the past of some within the military looking for ways to get rid of the Warthog simply because it was an ugly plane, but after seeing its effectiveness in battle that they stopped trying. Apparently someone in the DoD doesn't seem to know what the hell they're doing there if they don't know that.

The Air Force has hated the thing since it came out because it basically acts like a fast attack helicopter rather than an air-superiority fighter.

As to why they feel the need to use the F35 for basically everything, I have no idea. The thing can only really replace (at least not without being worse at the task) the F/A-18 (which is a small concession considering how damned expensive it is in comparison, and the F-22 is better at it anyway). It can't really match the F16 in capability (because the F16 works better as a pure bomb platform), and it can't even come close to accomplishing what the A-10 can do (especially when the A-10 costs about 1/10th to build).

I'm wondering what sense it makes to use nuclear arms for precision strikes in the first place unless they've scaled down the destructive force for such a thing.

There could theoretically be a use for a surgical nuclear strike.

For example, a bunker buster could greatly benefit from being nuclear because even if it didn't break through it would still make the area uninhabitable. Or walling off resources during wartime, or destroying an industrial area and preventing it from being rebuilt. That's actually kinda-sorta what the purpose of the Davy Crockett was.

However, this is obviously moot because they would never be used at that capacity; and carpet bombing with conventional arms would accomplish much the same thing.

At around $2 billion per plane, how much would a hypersonic missile fare by comparison? Sounds much cheaper than sending an expensive stealth plane to do the job.

Well, it's only really cheaper if there is a legitimate risk to the B2. We've only got 20 of them, they would never commit to building more, and they are admittedly very expensive.

That being said, this missile will likely be quite expensive in terms of unit cost, so they would probably only build them in small amounts and use them as necessary. There is certainly a role for a missile like this, but there aren't that many where it couldn't be supplanted with something else instead without losing much in the way of performance.

[Patticus]

Technologies like this are always expensive when they're new, but it will become cheaper over time (until an effective counter is found in an as-yet unexplored technology, which will in time force the obsolescence of this one), and the tech will eventually begin to diffuse among secondary, tertiary etc powers. Hypersonic weaponry is the future; the tank, the fighter jet, even the aircraft carrier will all one day bow to the supremacy of the intelligent guided hypersonic missile, just as stupidly heavily armoured Goliaths gave way to the smaller, faster, cheaper Davids.

I see some of you ask as to what benefits would this have. Well, war today is extremely expensive: To go to war, you need not only an actual army, you also need entire corps of cooks, medics, repair techs, comms specialists, and all the supplies that they in turn require, involving a tremendously big supply chain, which leads to invasions requiring vast sums of materiel and money.

They're vast undertakings, often taking years, costing untold trillions of whatever currency the power involved uses, involving millions of men and women, using up countless gallons of gasoline, and uncountable tons of food and other resources it takes to mobilize all of that and sustain it over an indefinite period.

But what if you could annihilate your enemy without building an impossibly intricate and inefficient war machine? What if, when you want to destroy something, instead of waking the slow, clumsy, inefficient and inaccurate giant of modern warfare, you unleash a few salvos of hypersonic death without ever having to leave your own country and risk the lives of your people?

If you can't see the benefits of this, if you think the tank will reign supreme forever more (despite the fact that it costs billions to do the same job it once took a fraction of that to do; deliver small quantities of explosives to points on a battlefield), and think present means of war-making are sufficient, you're just blinkered to the changing nature of warfare:

1. New weapon emerges. It's small, cheap, but few take it seriously, and it needs decades of advancement.

2. New weapon proves effective in combat against old weapon.

3. Old weapon is developed further, given more armour, becomes much more expensive to build and maintain.

4. New weapon is also developed, continues to be effective against old weapon, continues being cheaper, forcing old weapon to become ever more expensive and heavily armoured.

5. Old weapon is so expensive and bloated and covered in counter-measures against new weapon that nobody dares risk the few they have in actual battle.

6. Old weapon is obsolete. Replaced wholesale by new weapon.

See: The demise of the Battleship, the death of the heavily armoured Knight (or Goliath), the extinction of Horse-based Cavalry, old castles succumbing to new cannons, increasingly expensive and bloated tanks and aircraft carriers weighed down by billions of dollars of super-advanced technology.

[LATER BUDDY]

This is neat, but I just don't get the point really. I just don't understand building a multi-million explosion that's literally over before you can blink, when that multi-millions could have fed a shit ton of families. Doesn't the US spend the largest percentage of it's money on military compared to other countries by a long shot as well? I just really don't understand the extreme paranoia. I mean arming yourself is one thing, but come on, XD. To me, it's like everything else is more important IDK XD. Schools, jobs, food, etc.

Nah, let's just shoot some rockets.

[Patticus]

Would you rather your country continue to waste trillions of dollars on creating huge, expensive, inefficient war machines like we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan? Really? The real waste here is current means of making war.

Precision-guided hypersonic ordnance, launched without putting a single one of your own countrymens' lives at risk, able to cripple an enemy's military infrastructure overnight (destroying his whole means of making war), seems to be the most desirable means of making war. If we can put an end to the "let's destroy their civilian infrastructure, that'll make them turn on their leaders, even though this strategy has never worked before" mentality with this kind of missile tech, I'll be happy.

[pooshoes]

Doesn't the US spend the largest percentage of it's money on military compared to other countries by a long shot as well?

[Axl.EXE]

Hello, next Ace Combat's superweapon.

[Patticus]

The next step from your basic land-based hypersonic doom machine will be missiles stationed in orbit, capable of being maneuvered into different orbital paths, taking them over battles-in-progress and allowing frighteningly quick deployment of large quantities of explosives. Hypersonic flight aided by gravity. Nice.

Of course, they'll have to be sent up in secret, as there are treaties in place prohibiting the militarisation of space, but once they're up there, you'll begin seeing anti-satellite missiles being developed and deployed, and the arms race will continue apace. The treaties won't survive, obviously.

And then you'll start seeing orbital command stations being built and sent up. Space is the new high ground, you see: while everywhere on Earth may be eminently vulnerable to an attack of some sort, space is relatively free of those risks. Space stations set up in geo-sync orbits in the tactically vital Lagrange points between the Earth and Moon will become the key to securing power Earth-side and Moon-side.

But that's all decades ahead of us. Right now we're witnessing the birth of the weapon technology which will herald the end of the 500-year-old Age of Ballistics.

By the by, the US' high spending on its military is just a hold-over from the Cold War,

[Stacy]

Hello, next Ace Combat's superweapon.

[Axl.EXE]

Or Mcguffin!

[LATER BUDDY]

Would you rather your country continue to waste trillions of dollars on creating huge, expensive, inefficient war machines like we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan? Really? The real waste here is current means of making war.

Well, no, of course. I'd just personally rather stop, but that's not gonna happen.

[SuperStingray]

You can count on one hand the amount of countries that could detect a B2 before it would be far too late to do anything about it, let alone shoot one down.

Yeah, but odds are they're the ones that matter to America.

[Tornado]

Yeah, but odds are they're the ones that matter to America.

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.

This just goes to show how shit their military is and how much of a shithole country it must be.

Hey, it takes real money to keep 60-year-old Soviet hand-me-downs working these days; or to keep an absolutely massive standing army whose first actions during an invasion of South Korea would be "defect to South Korea."

But what if you could annihilate your enemy without building an impossibly intricate and inefficient war machine? What if, when you want to destroy something, instead of waking the slow, clumsy, inefficient and inaccurate giant of modern warfare, you unleash a few salvos of hypersonic death without ever having to leave your own country and risk the lives of your people?

Would you rather your country continue to waste trillions of dollars on creating huge, expensive, inefficient war machines like we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan? Really? The real waste here is current means of making war.

Precision-guided hypersonic ordnance, launched without putting a single one of your own countrymens' lives at risk, able to cripple an enemy's military infrastructure overnight (destroying his whole means of making war), seems to be the most desirable means of making war. If we can put an end to the "let's destroy their civilian infrastructure, that'll make them turn on their leaders, even though this strategy has never worked before" mentality with this kind of missile tech, I'll be happy.

The U.S. (and France, China, Britain, etc.) has been able to wage war in that way for decades. This missile will change nothing in that regard.

Edited November 21, 2011 by Tornado

[Patticus]

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?

Speed, range and accuracy, not to mention a large number of unmanned aircraft, will substitute for the mass forces that were required to deliver explosives to the battlefield in the 20th century.

A key result of deploying hypersonic systems will be to reverse the trend in warfare that has been under way since before Napoleon. The armies of the 21st century will become much smaller and more professional than previous forces, and highly technological to boot. Precision will also allow the reintroduction of a separation between soldier and civilian: It won't be necessary to destroy entire cities to just destroy one building. Soldiers will increasingly resemble highly trained medieval knights, rather than the GIs of World War 2. You'll still require a good deal of courage to become a soldier, of course, but more than that, what'll matter most will be the ability to manage extremely complex weapons systems.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Look at us talking like a bunch of war fanatics.

Wow the future is wild. At least we don't have to worry too much about China's ASBM with this being developed in our arsenal...right? I'm assuming this can go intercontinental and we don't have to worry about any potential sinking of a supercarrier since their ASBM can only hit within a limited range.