The Coming Hypersonic Age

[Mr King]

Everyone and their brother seems to be working on hypersonic technology, it seems like a good idea to start a thread for it. There have been rumblings in the press that the SR-72 demonstrator was spotted outside of Skunkworks, but the issue I have seen brought up, if the program is black, how would anyone one outside it know what they are looking at?

 

http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/news/a28420/hypersonic-sr-72-demonstrator-reportedly-spotted-at-skunk-works/

 

One thing I have been wondering, when you are designing hypersonic vehicles, can you still make it stealthy? Is there any point when it is giving off that kind of thermal signature?

 

 

[rmgill]

Weren't we supposed to have that new age of air travel when the Concorde and SST's were shiny and new?

[DB]

Yes, then the US east coast decided they didn't like the noise if it wasn't 'murrican, and then the Arabs squeezed the oil pipes shut.

 

The last Concorde flight was in 2003. People who weren't born when that happened are now teenagers and soon will be voting.

[Stuart Galbraith]

About 2001/2002 or so, I went to Portishead to see what I think (Im damned if I can find a reference to show the visit) of HMS Illustrious to Avonmouth docks. So we are sat there as illustrious departs, powered by RR engines, looking exceptionally impressive as she always did. Then a Spitfire arrives and does a display, and thats powered by a RR engine. And then Ill be damned if we didnt hear a low rumble, and looking up at about 25000 feet or so above, there is Concorde setting out on a flight to America. I almost overdosed on British jingoism at that moment. Im sure any RR shareholders present were absolutely over the moon.

 

Hard to believe Ill never see that again. As a child I can remember walking that dog and hearing what I thought was a shotgun. No my father said, that was just the double thump of Concorde decelerating for landing out of the bBay of Biscay or the Atlantic. We were so blase about it at the time.

Edited November 1, 2017 by Stuart Galbraith

[Panzermann]

About 2001/2002 or so, I went to Portishead to see what I think (Im damned if I can find a reference to show the visit) of HMS Illustrious to Avonmouth docks. So we are sat there as illustrious departs, powered by RR engines, looking exceptionally impressive as she always did. Then a Spitfire arrives and does a display, and thats powered by a RR engine. And then Ill be damned if we didnt hear a low rumble, and looking up at about 25000 feet or so above, there is Concorde setting out on a flight to America. I almost overdosed on British jingoism at that moment. Im sure any RR shareholders present were absolutely over the moon.

 

Not really. most shareholders do not care what a company manufactures. They only care for the bottom line and the dividend.

Hard to believe Ill never see that again. As a child I can remember walking that dog and hearing what I thought was a shotgun. No my father said, that was just the double thump of Concorde decelerating for landing out of the bBay of Biscay or the Atlantic. We were so blase about it at the time.

 

 

YOu know Stuart... all the Rolls Royce engines you mentioned there, were already museum pieces then.

 

 

Though you might see such again, RR is very much in the engine buildng business still.

[Panzermann]

Weren't we supposed to have that new age of air travel when the Concorde and SST's were shiny and new?

 

Fusion power is just around the corner!

[Mr King]

Well we know the Russians have long since been ready for the hypersonic age.

 

[Tim Sielbeck]

Sprint ABM

 

Sprint accelerated at 100 g, reaching a speed of Mach 10 (12,300 km/h; 7,610 mph) in 5 seconds. Such a high velocity at relatively low altitudes created skin temperatures up to 6,200 °F (3,427 °C), requiring an ablative shield to dissipate the heat.

[Burncycle360]

Sprint II is the ticket to counter HGVs  if you know you're the target. Its midcourse intercepts that are difficult because there teeny changes in velocity vectors make wild changes in projected intercept points, giving an interceptor a Sisyphean task wrt energy management

Edited June 28 by Burncycle360

[Josh]

2 hours ago, Burncycle360 said:

Sprint II is the ticket to counter HGVs  if you know you're the target. Its midcourse intercepts that are difficult because there teeny changes in velocity vectors make wild changes in projected intercept points, giving an interceptor a Sisyphean task wrt energy management

True but changes in velocity also cost the glider a lot of energy that it cannot regain. If it is constantly randomly changing velocities in order to throw off possible glide phase interceptors (new name for the anti missile) then they will have to constantly bleed speed and range. That would be achieving something in and off itself.

[Josh]

As for the original topic…I don’t think there will be reusable hypersonics any time soon and I think the practical applications of boost/gliders is a lot more limited than generally acknowledged. What I think will blow up end of decade is scramjet missiles that operate just barely in the hypersonic regime and use much cheaper propulsion and materials.

[Burncycle360]

The cheapest solution to the whole thing is simple: counter it via policy.  

Make it absolutely clear that if you manage to create a system like HGVs that is not practical to defend against or feasible to develop a defense against even for a country like the US who behaves as though we have unlimited resources, then that's fine -- use them on us and we'll consider it an existential threat and escalate to nukes.  Or of we don't want to set that precedent consider that conventional ballistic missiles are still plenty effective against Russian air defense, because even the systems that ostensibly are effective against things like IRBM they don't have in quantities large enough to matter. 

US leadership seems to think keeping up with the Joneses is an imperative. It's not. We don't need HGVs, just like we didn't need streetfighter or LCS to out boghammer the boghammers. If Ukraine is any indication, Russia is functionally incompetent when it comes to conventional warfare, has been this entire time since at least the collapse, and only remains relevant because they still have a nuclear backstop and some of those might even reach their targets.

By all means we should continue to work on ABM systems and HGVs, but by and large all we need to do is double down on what we know works and expand production of that.  

 

For instance, imagine a simple Dedalo like ship with 512 Mk41 tubes for Multi-Mission Tomahawk, with one attached to each CSG (so notionally 12), that is over 6,000 cruise missiles not to mention other contributing assets (SSGN, bombers etc). At these scales it doesn't matter if Tomahawks are stealthy or not, they'll exhaust SAM inventories even assuming perfect defense performance and still have enough left over to find their targets. Obviously we have nowhere near that many in the inventory but that's my point, our focus should be on making lots of the things that work.  

 

We could double Russia's entire defense budget on their European front, double their entire defense budget in the pacific front, match China's entire defense budget, 10x N. Koreas defense budget, 3x Irans budget, cut 100 billion dollars and what remains is still larger than the UK defense budget.  HGVs are like nazi wonder weapons, their presence was never going to change the outcome, these countries were never going to win a conventional war, and while they could make it a phyrric victory, they are nuclear powers; they never needed HGVs to do that.

Edited June 28 by Burncycle360

[Josh]

I don't think anything like that is necessary. If the US has its own conventional hypersonic option, then it can simply attack opponent targets in return. Conventional weapons can be the deterrent, and wouldn't have to be limited to hypersonics either. The key would be to have enough own weapons to either cause disproportionate damage to opponent forces or minimally ensure their military objectives cannot be met. I think this is an easily achievable goal using air delivered scramjets, leveraging US superiority in strategic long ranged bombers and embarked aircraft. Submarine launched HGVs would be a complement to that, albeit in much smaller numbers. I think this is a posture the US will have fielded by the early 2030's, along with a moderately sized B-21 force that will be its own conventional (and nuclear) deterrent.

Defensive measures will never be air tight, but forcing long range weapons to maneuver and having some kind of terminal defense, along with soft kill measures, can make an opponent question the viability or cost effectiveness of an attack. That can be its own deterrent.

Russia seems to be rather occupied for the short to medium term, so I don't consider their hypersonics a significant threat. Also the most potent of them is strictly a strategic delivery system anyway. The window of vulnerability to China ("Davidson window") is pretty much from here until the end of the decade (with 2027 being his given year). In that period, I think the most that can be done is stockpiling as many PGMs, especially AShMs, as possible and expanding production lines for the same. To some extent the USAF and USN are already moving in this direction, though not fast enough for my comfort.

Edited June 28 by Josh

[TrustMe]

There becomes a point were no matter how numerous your weapons are, they can be defeated relatively easy by more modern weapons. If you look at China's view point in 1991, before Desert Storm they fought that there literally thousands of Mig21 clones (J7) and twin engined Mig21 (J8) would be of use in a modern conflict. Boy were they wrong. And there subsequent military modernisation which has been going on for now for over 30 years has resulted in a modern military, that could potentally equal the US military.

To put it simply we need - for the US at least - need to focus on Hypersonics to avoid being left behind just like China did.

Edited June 28 by TrustMe

[bfng3569]

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/chinas-new-mach-30-wind-tunnel-tests-space-plane-mothership-design

 

China’s New Mach 30 Wind Tunnel Tests Space Plane Mothership Design

 

 

Edited July 18 by bfng3569

[Stuart Galbraith]

Good luck getting that to cleanly separate at mach 30. Skunk works couldnt figure out how to do it reliably at Mach 3.5.

[TrustMe]

At high mach speeds the turning circle of an aircraft like the SR 73 is massive, more so mach 30 planes would be impossible to fight convential aircraft flying at slower speeds..

[BansheeOne]

Mach 30 is orbital speed. Air resistance and turning circles will only figure in terms of orbital changes, not aerodynamic maneuverability.

[Josh]

I feel like the space plane concept has alway been a dead end as a cost efficient ground to orbit system. A little surprising the Chinese are still chasing the concept.

[seahawk]

On 6/28/2023 at 7:48 PM, TrustMe said:

There becomes a point were no matter how numerous your weapons are, they can be defeated relatively easy by more modern weapons. If you look at China's view point in 1991, before Desert Storm they fought that there literally thousands of Mig21 clones (J7) and twin engined Mig21 (J8) would be of use in a modern conflict. Boy were they wrong. And there subsequent military modernisation which has been going on for now for over 30 years has resulted in a modern military, that could potentally equal the US military.

To put it simply we need - for the US at least - need to focus on Hypersonics to avoid being left behind just like China did.

Where they? The numbers gave them better chances in a fight with Taiwan than the technology they had available at the time. Numbers matter - look at the Ukraine.

Edited July 18 by seahawk

[Olof Larsson]

On 6/28/2023 at 7:48 PM, TrustMe said:

There becomes a point were no matter how numerous your weapons are, they can be defeated relatively easy by more modern weapons. If you look at China's view point in 1991, before Desert Storm they fought that there literally thousands of Mig21 clones (J7) and twin engined Mig21 (J8) would be of use in a modern conflict. Boy were they wrong. And there subsequent military modernisation which has been going on for now for over 30 years has resulted in a modern military, that could potentally equal the US military.

To put it simply we need - for the US at least - need to focus on Hypersonics to avoid being left behind just like China did.

Well, it didn't hurt that the coalition had a numerical superiority in the air of 3 to 1, a huge advantage in competence and that the flat and open terrain made things even harder for the weaker part.

 

Compare that to Yugoslavia, where the NATO-coalition had better aircrafts, a huge numerical superiority, but the terrain favoured the weaker party, while the weaker party was also competent. There the weaker party was not defeated, even after 2&1/2 mouths of bombings.

 

Or the Ukraine war, where Russia have more and more modern aircrafts, and still doesn't have aerial superiority over the frontline, after more than 500 days.

[Josh]

Technical superiority doesn't always win a war but it certainly has lost a few.

I think the threat of boost-glide hypersonics is somewhat overblown and the costs/benefit favors rather bespoke targets. However I think in the near future we will see scramjets become nearly cost competitive with conventional cruise missiles, and that this will heavily change the offense/defense dynamic.

[TrustMe]

6 hours ago, seahawk said:

Where they? The numbers gave them better chances in a fight with Taiwan than the technology they had available at the time. Numbers matter - look at the Ukraine.

In a possible Taiwan war with 1991 era technology the J7's have a very limited range. China would have to build airforce bases right at the coast line to get to Taiwan with enough fuel to do anything worthwhile. These J7's would be neutralised simply from lack of fuel and be of no value in combat. Where as Taiwan's F16's and F5's could operate all over China's coast.

The best equiped J7's (not all of them) were equiped with Israeli made Python 3 IR missiles which were as good as the AIM-9L that Tiawan had, but are certainly outmatched by the BVR AIM7's employed by Taiwans F16's. Tiawans air combat kill ratio would be like cricket score's.

Then you have to factor in the human element. After a unit takes around 50% losses it's pilots would start to avoid combat to the point of cowardice unless you point a gun at the Chinese pilots to get them into the air. 

I'm not saying that numbers are not important, they are. But a certain numbers to technology ratio has to be maintained.

Edited July 18 by TrustMe

[urbanoid]

True, there are areas where you need numbers more, but the aviation usually isn't one of them. The one area where numbers trump high-tech specifically in Ukraine would be AD - Hawks and Nevas do the job and it's important for the Ukrainians to have as many launchers and missiles as possible. OTOH it may be a Ukraine-specific thing, as RuAF doesn't really operate over Ukraine except CAS - just like the UAF, the Ukrainian AD's main mission is to shoot down cruise missiles.

 

[TrustMe]

5 hours ago, Olof Larsson said:

Well, it didn't hurt that the coalition had a numerical superiority in the air of 3 to 1, a huge advantage in competence and that the flat and open terrain made things even harder for the weaker part.

 

Compare that to Yugoslavia, where the NATO-coalition had better aircrafts, a huge numerical superiority, but the terrain favoured the weaker party, while the weaker party was also competent. There the weaker party was not defeated, even after 2&1/2 mouths of bombings.

 

Or the Ukraine war, where Russia have more and more modern aircrafts, and still doesn't have aerial superiority over the frontline, after more than 500 days.

You could describe the 1999 Allied Force operation as an example on how not to fight an air campaign.

1. Lack on target intel.

2. Lack of post target recon battle damage estimate.

3. Lack on bases to fly from

4. No change in flight plans that allowed the enemy to positon SAM systems over ingress and egress routes

5. Polictical lack of decision on targets to be hit

6. A slow increase of tempo of attacks susposedly to force a Serbian political decision to surrender and when that didn't happen anytime soon the operation lost focus. This is just what the US did in Vietnam.

7. The submarine threat forcing (at least for the british and french carriers) to fly from a distance were the said aifcraft were ineffective.

The list goes on.

 

As one US commander said after Allied Force "we fight in deserts, we don't fight in mountains". Airpower isn't always effective in some terrain types.

As for Ukraine. I have no idea what the Russian Aerospace forces are doing, they are certainly not fighting like a western airforce.

Edited July 18 by TrustMe