Pentagon's new hypervelocity gun technology emerging as key missile defense capability
September 16, 2016
After much deliberation, both public and private, the Pentagon, which has shifted emphasis away from the electromagnetic rail gun as a next-generation missile defense platform, sees a new hypervelocity powder gun technology as the key to demonstrating to potential adversaries like China and Russia that U.S. military units on land and sea can neutralize large missile salvos in future conflicts.
Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work, who spoke to national security advisers and think tankers at the Center for a New American Security in Washington on Thursday, said he is pushing hard to lay the groundwork for the next presidential administration to conduct a military exercise called "Raid Breaker" that would demonstrate the capabilities of the Hypervelocity Gun Weapon System program. The program allows U.S. artillery already in the inventory to be modified to fire the same smart projectiles intended for the Navy's developmental electromagnetic rail gun.
"If you do that, you change every 155 [mm] howitzer in the U.S. Army in every NATO country into a cruise missile and tactical ballistic missile defender and, oh by the way, you extend their offensive range," Work said.
The HGWS technology would also work for the Navy's 5-inch ship guns, thus potentially turning them into missile defenders as well and upending conventional thought about U.S. limitations in an anti-access/area-denial scenario.
Work said modeling shows that U.S. forces using the modified powder guns as part of a sophisticated battlefield network would be able to neutralize the vast majority of a 100-missile salvo. But running an actual demonstration -- with HGWS technology in a starring role -- would be far more effective in deterring potential adversaries. Work said the Assault Breaker demonstration executed 40 years ago showed the Soviet Union the power of conventional guided munitions and strengthened conventional deterrence.
"I would argue that if we did a Raid Breaker exercise at White Sands [Missile Range, NM,] using . . . ballistic [and] cruise missiles and were able to convince [potential adversaries] that we're able to knock down 95 to 98 of them, then that would have an enormous impact on the competition in the Pacific, on the competition in Europe and would [clearly] improve conventional deterrence," he said. "Our modeling shows that if we can close the fire support with a controlled solution on these, what we call 'powder guns,' we will be able to" shoot down most of a 100-missile raid.
Work first announced his desire to see a Raid Breaker demonstration in March 2015 and first discussed the Pentagon's shift toward the HGWS technology program in May 2016, making it clear that the technology would be positioned as an investment priority for the next administration.
"So, we're going to say, 'Look, we believe this is the place where you've got to put your money,'" he said in May. "But we're going to have enough money for electromagnetic rail gun if the next administration says, 'That is really the way we want to go.' Knock yourself out. We've set you up for success."
The Pentagon is seeking $246 million for the HGWS in fiscal year 2017, building on $364 million appropriated for the project in FY-15 and FY-16. Rail gun prototypes have been built by General Atomics and BAE Systems. Meanwhile, the Navy has requested $3 billion for FY-17 to invest in the railgun, hypervelocity projectiles and solid-state lasers, according to the Congressional Research Service. The Obama administration is still crafting its FY-18 budget.
The new HGWS technology was first matured by the Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities Office, which was established in 2012 by Defense Secretary Ash Carter when he was deputy defense secretary. The office is tasked with identifying existing weapon systems that can be affordably modified to provide an upgrade in capability.
Pentagon officials have been more public recently about the SCO and its successes such as HGWS and a newly modified SM-6 missile with anti-ship capability, choosing to reveal some new military capabilities to deter potential adversaries and conceal others to, if necessary, defeat them.
Will Roper, chief of the SCO, said in July at the Center for Strategic and International Studies that the Pentagon was convinced it could do "pretty revolutionary things" with the HGWS program.
"We shifted emphasis to that, not because we're not interested in the rail gun -- we are," Roper said. "But when you look at the delta between fielding in quantity, we've got over 1,000 powder guns; we have very few rail guns."
