Paper analyzing a Patriot PAC-2 ‘s probability of intercepting a Kh-47 M2 Kinzhal missile

[Airbus A340]

Never forget that the defense industry is a business. Self driving cars, then NFTs then crypto, now AI to extract money from customers in the civilian sector. The authors seem to think that hypersonics are hype in the military sector.

What are the advantages of hypersonics? They travel in air instead of space. So, the exo atmospheric ABMs cannot intercept them during the glide phase. Some sources say that AA missiles cannot either because the hypersonics are too fast or fly in air too thin for the AA missiles.

In the paper, the authors cite 4 benefits claimed for hypersonics.
1. Quick strikes from long range.
2. High accuracy through terminal maneuvering.
3. Retarget over a large area during flight.
4. Evade or destroy defenses.

1. Can be done by MaRVs and ballistic RVs.
2. Supersonic cruise missiles can do this, so can MaRVs.
3. MaRVs and Supersonic CMs can do this. Can hypersonics do this in response to new data or does it have to be prepogrammed before flight. Can hypersonics communicate through the plasma generated by their passage through the air?
4. MaRVs and Supersonic CMs can do this.

Hypersonics are expensive and seem to be more suited for China and Russia. Maybe the US could use them for DEAD.

 

[Josh_TN]

There are limitations to hypersonics boost gliders, but they do occupy a particularly hard to engage envelope.* That said their cost likely will prevent the US from ever having them in large numbers.

Hypersonic scramjets on the other hand need not be that expensive. The HAWC demonstrator uses a 3D printed combustor and if the X-51 is any guide, the amount of exotic thermally resistant materials needed is quite minimal and limited to the nose and control surfaces (and some titanium as well). I do not see any reason the future HACM need be much more than several million dollars.

*ETA: in particular, gliders cruise in a region of the atmosphere that seems challenging for existing ABM systems (too low) and SAMs (too high). They are still vulnerable in their terminal phase when they dive to lower altitude and lose speed in thicker air. Glidebreaker intends to tailor a missile to engage in this glide phase to push engagement ranges further out.

 

[AndersJ]

All good points Archibald, Airbus & Josh. In addition, I would like to add that missiles like the PAC-3 with lateral thruster control work well in terms of making rapid maneuvers for end-game interception and any hypersonic glide vehicle be it supersonic combustion powered or not will probably not be able to maneuver fast enough to avoid interception if faced with such defensive systems.

Going off on a tangent, this is something they always get wrong in the movies and what many lay people seem to think based on CGI animations in which jets try to shake a missiles that have locked on to them, basically going around in circles when the reality is that a conventional missile or glide vehicle is more of an adjustable cannon shot than a Sopwith Camel.

So if even a PAC-2 missile with aerodynamic control can down a Kinzahl, I don't think we need to worry much about Putin's slideware (the Zircon) just as long as a NATO state-of-the-art missile defense system equipped with lateral thrust missiles is stationed sufficiently close to what you are trying to protect. And that is probably the key to the defense against these things: You need a lot of defensive systems. OTOH, this bodes well for ship protection since then your defensive system is sitting right where you want it.

 

[TMA1]

...there are many things that you could easily criticize about Russia and their defense industries but calling the zircon slideware is delusional. Also what a⁹unsettles me is that I have seen similar wacky comments made by top brass here and from the UK.

We have high ranking generals discussing preemptive strikes, saying things like how we could take out most or all of the Russian nuclear triad and still have hundreds of nuclear warheads and ICBMs left to maintain dominance(!!!)

I have been seeing articles actively downplaying the dangers of nuclear exchanges. I even read one a few months back where the author discussed using tactical nuclear missiles in such a way as to avoid full on nuclear war...

 

[AndersJ]

...there are many things that you could easily criticize about Russia and their defense industries but calling the zircon slideware is delusional. Also what a⁹unsettles me is that I have seen similar wacky comments made by top brass here and from the UK.

We have high ranking generals discussing preemptive strikes, saying things like how we could take out most or all of the Russian nuclear triad and still have hundreds of nuclear warheads and ICBMs left to maintain dominance(!!!)

I have been seeing articles actively downplaying the dangers of nuclear exchanges. I even read one a few months back where the author discussed using tactical nuclear missiles in such a way as to avoid full on nuclear war...

Those generals you mention must be a very small group if they exist at all. A first strike by NATO is a ludicrous proposition and something that I've only seen Russian trolls or apologetics peddling in social media while at the same jumping up and down when Russian state television shows Britain being covered with a nuclear generated tsunami. The TV presenter who hosted that show talked about teaching the Brits a lesson, but the hilarious thing is that Ireland disappears as well and the resulting wave animation shows it washing up over Holland and the beaches of Normandy. But hey, what's a little collateral damage? The important thing is that those pesky Brits are taught a lesson!

But that (the nuclear threat and new Wunderwaffen) is about all that remains now that the Emperor has lost his clothes in Ukraine. And this is probably why we are hearing so much saber rattling with these new Wunderwaffen like the Armata, Su-57 and Zirkon. Empty barrels rattle the most, and the day I see a working Russian washing machine and something else than a Lada with a new paint job, that will be the day I start worrying about the Zirkon. Not before then.

 

[Airbus A340]

The lateral thruster issue is not dealt with in the paper. That is a glaring omission IMO. I'd be interested in seeing how much effect lateral thrusters have on how well interceptor missiles can engage a maneuvering target.

 

[Scott Kenny]

...there are many things that you could easily criticize about Russia and their defense industries but calling the zircon slideware is delusional. Also what a⁹unsettles me is that I have seen similar wacky comments made by top brass here and from the UK.

We have high ranking generals discussing preemptive strikes, saying things like how we could take out most or all of the Russian nuclear triad and still have hundreds of nuclear warheads and ICBMs left to maintain dominance(!!!)

I have been seeing articles actively downplaying the dangers of nuclear exchanges. I even read one a few months back where the author discussed using tactical nuclear missiles in such a way as to avoid full on nuclear war...

NUTs exist. (Polisci/International Relations term for "Nuclear Utilization Theorists") Acronym is deliberate.


===================

Hypersonics do end up with a very small defended footprint, the defensive missiles need to be based very close to the target of the attacking hypersonics.

This is tight enough that individual ships need to each be equipped with anti-hypersonic missiles. It's on the order of 7-10km separation from the target, that's too close for modern ship formations.

This small footprint makes hypersonics ideal for land attack, because even a small country like Switzerland would need hundreds of missile sites to cover all the possible targets. The US would need millions of such. Or a way to engage the missiles during boost phase.

 

[AndersJ]

The lateral thruster issue is not dealt with in the paper. That is a glaring omission IMO. I'd be interested in seeing how much effect lateral thrusters have on how well interceptor missiles can engage a maneuvering target.

Yes, that would have been interesting indeed.

On a tangent: I wonder if they do a combination of aerodynamic and thruster control in these new systems? Would of course be good if they could, but the Magnus effect would probably make that difficult since I'm assuming that the missile spins quite fast in order to allow many thrusters to fire in short order for hard maneuvering.

NUTs exist. (Polisci/International Relations term for "Nuclear Utilization Theorists") Acronym is deliberate.


===================

Hypersonics do end up with a very small defended footprint, the defensive missiles need to be based very close to the target of the attacking hypersonics.

This is tight enough that individual ships need to each be equipped with anti-hypersonic missiles. It's on the order of 7-10km separation from the target, that's too close for modern ship formations.

This small footprint makes hypersonics ideal for land attack, because even a small country like Switzerland would need hundreds of missile sites to cover all the possible targets. The US would need millions of such. Or a way to engage the missiles during boost phase.

Yeah, NUTS sounds about right.

Interesting info about ship protection and formations. Didn't know that modern ship formations had such loose groupings. But makes sense in a missile world I suppose where engagement distances are measured in tens of miles instead of feet. Long time since flag signals with "England expects that every man will do his duty" and loading up with grapeshot was the way to go.

Then about the footprint to counter these new threats: You have a good point there. That is probably why they may be a good idea: You force your opponent into procuring a lot of horribly expensive AA systems to protect your vitals while you yourself just need a few of these system to keep your opponent guessing which targets you are going to hit.

 

[Josh_TN]

Anti hypersonic defenses aboard ships might require most every ship to have its own interceptors, but the USN is pretty close to that being the case for all surface combatants. Not every Burke is an ABM platform, but certainly every one for them is a an SM-2 platform at the minimum. For other ship types, a close escort would be necessary, though my understanding is that CVs typically keep their SAM boss within 3000 yards for just such reasons, in addition to functioning as the plane guard.

 

[Josh_TN]

Defending a country against hypersonics is basically impossible; decisions would have to be made concerning which areas actually are high enough value. This true for any air defense against any threat, but is even more extreme for hypersonic weapons. Ultimately deterrence is probably the best strategy for most civilian infrastructure - establishing a capability, hypersonic or otherwise, that could cause equal or greater damage to an opponent.

 

[AndersJ]

Anti hypersonic defenses aboard ships might require most every ship to have its own interceptors, but the USN is pretty close to that being the case for all surface combatants. Not every Burke is an ABM platform, but certainly every one for them is a an SM-2 platform at the minimum. For other ship types, a close escort would be necessary, though my understanding is that CVs typically keep their SAM boss within 3000 yards for just such reasons, in addition to functioning as the plane guard.

Defending a country against hypersonics is basically impossible; decisions would have to be made concerning which areas actually are high enough value. This true for any air defense against any threat, but is even more extreme for hypersonic weapons. Ultimately deterrence is probably the best strategy for most civilian infrastructure - establishing a capability, hypersonic or otherwise, that could cause equal or greater damage to an opponent.

I'm sure that a US carrier group could successfully defend against a limited hypersonic missile attack. However, what happens in a saturation attack when you have to handle many in-coming missiles at the same time?

This is why when you want to take out a ship today you launch multiple RBS 15's that fly different paths and come in from all directions at the same time. If you have fired enough of them, enough will get through to do the job.

Now add the hypersonic component and a CVN as the target. The cost/benefit equation would allow you to shoot quite a lot of hypersonic missiles to do that. And as the IRA said to Mrs. Thatcher after the Brighton attack: ''Today we were unlucky; but remember, we only have to be lucky once. You have to be lucky always.”

To be honest, I think the carrier displaced the battleship as the premier naval weapon in WW2, but that the submarine has now displaced the carrier in the same way. And I fear that a fleet of hypersonic missile carrying submarines operated by a competent adversary would make short work of a CVN because they too would only have to be lucky once, while the CVN group needs to be lucky all the time.

 

[sferrin]

The lateral thruster issue is not dealt with in the paper. That is a glaring omission IMO. I'd be interested in seeing how much effect lateral thrusters have on how well interceptor missiles can engage a maneuvering target.

Fairly certain that will make them more maneuverable than the targets that don't have them.

 

[Airbus A340]

The Guadalcanal campaign is a good thing to study to know how carriers would be used in a China scenario. Well away from the battle area, ready to go in if enemy carriers move in. Later in the war, Japanese air power was much weaker, US defenses stronger, and most importantly, they had enough carriers to afford to lose them. Carriers were too vulnerable to risk before hypersonics. In the 1991 Iraq war, US carriers stood off 300nm until Iraq's air force was devastated. Then they moved to 200nm. The ordnance delivered was a pitiful proportion of the Desert Storm total. That's against Iraq in 1991. What would carriers do against China in 2025? 300nm standoff is not enough but what is the range of an F-35C + its longest range ordnance? How many of those munitions can a carrier carry? A bigger issue for the USN is that China can threaten the logistics ships. Iraq could not and Japan chose not to.

BTW, the most likely reason Patriot is being added to USN ships is that Standard is not good enough against a Chinese missile attack. The 4 trillion spent on the GWOT has left a massive window of opportunity for China.

 

[Jemiba]

This thread started about a year ago, and what was said here about this topic is as old, but now it 's drifting too far OT.
Please remember, how difficult it would be to find the discussion, how to defend against hypersonic missiles, in a year or more ...
Locked

 

[AndersJ]

Sorry, but that's a very narrow minded approach as to what is on topic: The topic in the OP is about defending against hypersonic missiles and the probability of intercept. And in this sense if a CVN carrier group can or cannot defend against such an attack is very much on topic.

 

[AndersJ]

The Guadalcanal campaign is a good thing to study to know how carriers would be used in a China scenario. Well away from the battle area, ready to go in if enemy carriers move in. Later in the war, Japanese air power was much weaker, US defenses stronger, and most importantly, they had enough carriers to afford to lose them. Carriers were too vulnerable to risk before hypersonics. In the 1991 Iraq war, US carriers stood off 300nm until Iraq's air force was devastated. Then they moved to 200nm. The ordnance delivered was a pitiful proportion of the Desert Storm total. That's against Iraq in 1991. What would carriers do against China in 2025? 300nm standoff is not enough but what is the range of an F-35C + its longest range ordnance? How many of those munitions can a carrier carry? A bigger issue for the USN is that China can threaten the logistics ships. Iraq could not and Japan chose not to.

BTW, the most likely reason Patriot is being added to USN ships is that Standard is not good enough against a Chinese missile attack. The 4 trillion spent on the GWOT has left a massive window of opportunity for China.

Yes, ships are vulnerable to missile attacks by systems that are sophisticated enough. Let's not forget Sheffield in the Falklands war and that during the Kosovo campaign in the 90's, the Serbs had a limited number of RBS 15 supplied by Sweden at hand. As legend has it, an American Admiral asked what is the maximum range of the RBS 15? And when supplied with the answer, drew a line down the Adriatic and said that no NATO ship goes east of this line!