HAWC (Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept) and HACM (Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile)

Ronny said:
That clip is just the video version of common warzone article, it should be taken as speculation rather than fact.
Given that HAWC and future HALO are both light enough to be carried by F-18E/F, I highly skeptical if HACM is somehow significantly heavier. Especially when we consider that HACM is based on HAWC and HALO is based on HACM
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I thought the Navy missile was a separate program?
 
Scott Kenny said:
Same hypersonic section, IIRC. Different boosters for surface launch versus air launch.
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I do not think the two have any relationship whatsoever, but I’ll yield to better sources. HAWC/HACM is a glider with a fixed inlet and combustion chamber boosted to Mach 4-5. It is hard to imagine any USN weapon could achieve that with the 15 feet length limit and the weight limitations associated with catapult launch.

As to the weight of HACM - even the X-51 stack was only 4000 lbs dry, with 265lbs of fuel. I cannot imagine the new missile is much heavier than that now that the entire engine is 3D printed and half the weight. Minimally the F-15 is the threshold platform, so it can care at least one; I suspect 2-3.
 
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GTX said:
www.twz.com

Australian F/A-18F Super Hornets To Test Launch U.S. Air Force's Hypersonic Cruise Missiles

Expansive ranges needed to test hypersonic weapons are in limited supply and high demand in the U.S., and the Australian outback offers better security.
www.twz.com www.twz.com
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First image:

1718736370405.png

Josh_TN said:
What are the F-18s pylon limits? That would give us an upper bound on HACM launch weight.
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There are lots of charts showing which weapons can be loaded where but no actual weights.

I-4-4 (Not sure if this is the right thing.)

1718737159408.png
 
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350 lbs seems huge. I would have thought the actual filler would be rather minimal with the energy primarily being kinetic and the explosive just a bursting charge.
 
Scott Kenny said:
So, ~1400lbs propellant, assuming a non-explosive front end?
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That sounds about right if you count the booster. I think ATACMs has 648 kg of fuel. HACM is probably lighter and more efficient, but then there is still probably some actual warhead HE. The JP-7 of the cruiser might get scored as well in some manner, and there’s probably several hundred pounds of that.
 
Josh_TN said:
Seems like a counter intuitive way of measuring such, but perhaps the focus of this metric is hazzard/safety rather than lethality.
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Yes, it's a hazard measure and it's important to note that the explosive part is measured as TNT equivalent, so 100kg of AFX-777 would equate to ~196kg NEW and 100kg of PAX-28 would be 215kg NEW.

Explosives - Compounds

In general, high explosives are compositions and mixtures of ingredients capable of instantaneously releasing large amounts of energy and doing work of various kinds on objects and bodies surrounding them
premium.globalsecurity.org premium.globalsecurity.org
 
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Does the rocket motor get adjusted for energy density or is 25% just a catch all for that component of a weapon? In particular I wonder how the JP component of air breathing missiles is scored.

But that’s off topic; basically NEW does not tell us much about the weapon since it has both HE and fuel components.
 
Josh_TN said:
Seems like a counter intuitive way of measuring such, but perhaps the focus of this metric is hazzard/safety rather than lethality.
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Yes, it's a hazard measure about "what happens if a magazine of these goes off due to a fire" not a lethality measure at impact.


Josh_TN said:
That sounds about right if you count the booster. I think ATACMs has 648 kg of fuel. HACM is probably lighter and more efficient, but then there is still probably some actual warhead HE. The JP-7 of the cruiser might get scored as well in some manner, and there’s probably several hundred pounds of that.
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I'd expect the JP7 to get counted at 25% of fuel weight. Not that there's any explosion risk with JP7, but the regulations say "count 25% of fuel weight" so they count 25% of fuel weight.
 
Try this the other way...
Forest Green said:
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADP004886.pdf
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Looks like a pretty important table out of the back of that report, but I'm not sure if it was adopted?

Table 3 Suggested Revision to OP-5
Gun Propellants (5" diameter or less)0%*
Gun Propellants (>5" diameter)100%
Composite Rocket Propellants50%
Double Base Rocket Propellants100%
Composite/Double Base Rocket Propellants100%
High Energy Propellants125%
* 5-inch diameter charges are below the critical diameter for most charges; moreover it is extremely unlikely that a sufficient stimulus can be brought to bear on these rounds, as they are generally stored separately from their projectiles.
 
Josh_TN said:
Does the rocket motor get adjusted for energy density or is 25% just a catch all for that component of a weapon? In particular I wonder how the JP component of air breathing missiles is scored.

But that’s off topic; basically NEW does not tell us much about the weapon since it has both HE and fuel components.
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There are weightings for different fuels on p1389 and default weightings to be used if they propellant is not listed on p1390.

Scott Kenny said:
Try this the other way...

Looks like a pretty important table out of the back of that report, but I'm not sure if it was adopted?

Table 3 Suggested Revision to OP-5
Gun Propellants (5" diameter or less)0%*
Gun Propellants (>5" diameter)100%
Composite Rocket Propellants50%
Double Base Rocket Propellants100%
Composite/Double Base Rocket Propellants100%
High Energy Propellants125%
* 5-inch diameter charges are below the critical diameter for most charges; moreover it is extremely unlikely that a sufficient stimulus can be brought to bear on these rounds, as they are generally stored separately from their projectiles.
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The more important weightings are on p1389, that table shows default figures for when the propellant is unlisted, hence note under table:
p1390
1720549747549.png

p1389:
1720549681410.png
 
Forest Green said:
There are weightings for different fuels on p1389 and default weightings to be used if they propellant is not listed on p1390.


The more important weightings are on p1389, that table shows default figures for when the propellant is unlisted, hence note under table:
p1390
View attachment 734181

p1389:
View attachment 734180
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Sure, table 2 is more important to us if we're trying to reverse engineer warhead and fuel loads.
 
The Air Force Materiel Command and Air Force Research Laboratory asking for a more powerful booster presumably to add range to the $1.9 billion RTX/NG HACM scramjet program which said will be small enough to fit fighters than the all but cancelled AGM-183A which required bombers.

Air Force interested in advanced booster for hypersonic weapons | InsideDefense.com

The Air Force is surveying industry about its ability to create an "advanced booster" that can bring greater payload capacity to its weapon systems across different ranges and at hypersonic speeds, according to a sources-sought notice the service issued Friday.
insidedefense.com insidedefense.com
 

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