US Hypersonics - Prompt Global Strike Capability

Forest Green said:
GARGEAN said:
Why so? V-2 had ballistic alt at around 90km and speed way in excess of M5 for that alt.
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Mach 4.

V-2

V-2
www.astronautix.com www.astronautix.com

Ballistic missiles with a range of only 300km don't reach Mach 5.
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Huh. Info I've got says it reached speed of around 1.5km/s at momend of engine halt, which with far ballistic trajectory happened at 25km alt. At at that alt this is above M5.
 
GARGEAN said:
Huh. Info I've got says it reached speed of around 1.5km/s at momend of engine halt, which with far ballistic trajectory happened at 25km alt. At at that alt this is above M5.
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Think of ballistic missiles with similar range. Does ATACMS reach Mach 5? Nope. The Scud used during The Gulf War only made 1.5km/s and that had a 400 mile (640km) range.
en.wikipedia.org

al-Husayn (missile) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
greenmartian2017 said:
The examples that you quote weren't failures. You're acting like in a test program that there can be no failures, or tests that don't reach objectives for a program to continue to be viable. There has never been an experimental flight test regime that didn't have problems/issues. And sometimes, programs fall to political intrigues.
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This isn't news, nor what I'm talking about.

greenmartian2017 said:
RATTLRS was cancelled. AFAIK, it never got to prototype stage, just mock-up. A lot of design work took place before cancellation, though. That is always applied to another subsequent venture. Corporate memory is important.
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Apparently there were flights. Nothing successful enough to warrant producing a weapon though.

greenmartian2017 said:
HyFly actually went to flight test of the launch vehicle and full scale engine. But prior to the two full scale powered tests that didn't fully meet flight objectives (the problems not sourced to the engine),
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The less said about HyFly the better.

greenmartian2017 said:
there was a successful subscale test of the entire thing under FASST
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HyFly and FASST are two completely different entities.

greenmartian2017 said:
X-51 successfully flew, and flew at Mach 5.1 for over 200 seconds on its fourth flight test. That is a white world record for scramjet duration.
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It was supposed to reach Mach 6 and barely got net acceleration after the ATACMs booster burned out at Mach 4.8 Even ASALM, in the early 80s smoked it, flying at Mach 5.4. AND it didn't require a huge booster to do most of the work to get it there.

greenmartian2017 said:
Had the X-24C continued in its white world development, it was scheduled to fly at Mach 6 for 30 seconds, if my memory serves.
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"Plans" don't count.

greenmartian2017 said:
So sferrin's claim that the USA's hypersonic program has had a trend of continual failures (and thereby, by inference, is just a FUBARed enterprise overall) is not supported by publicly available facts.
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All you've produced is a bunch of hand-wavey assumption, most of it in the nature of, "well we landed on the moon in the 70s so we can right now". Reality is a bit different. The only REAL projects that have demonstrated any kind of success were the Army's test vehicle (sort of) and a USN test. X-51 can charitably be said to be not a complete failure but it didn't achieve what they set out to do. HTV-2 also was a failure.
 
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GARGEAN said:
So first glider re-entry vehicle, not first hypersonic weapon. Cuz technically first hypersonic weapon would be V-2 rocket.
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We're not talking about ballistic missiles. I thought that was obvious.
 
Well, I think that such loud words should be clear enough. Otherwise we will reach the point where "soviets basically invented tanks" or "germans basically invented machineguns".
 
edwest said:
The Scud is a modified V-2.
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Only the first model, over half a century ago. Everything after that was a new design.

"The first use of the term Scud was in the NATO name SS-1b Scud-A, applied to the R-11 Zemlya ballistic missile. The earlier R-1 missile had carried the NATO name SS-1 Scunner, but was of a very different design, almost directly a copy of the German V-2 rocket. The R-11 used technology gained from the V-2 as well, but was a new design, smaller and differently shaped than the V-2 and R-1 weapons. The R-11 was developed by the Korolyev OKB[1] and entered service in 1957. The most revolutionary innovation in the R-11 was the engine, designed by A. M. Isaev. Far simpler than the V-2's multi-chamber design, and employing an anti-oscillation baffle to prevent chugging, it was a forerunner to the larger engines used in Soviet launch vehicles. "


 
GARGEAN said:
Well, Korolev and Gaidukov work says otherwise... Have any info about that?
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It's wrong. Mach 5 gives a range well over 300km. There's no Mach 5 ballistic missile with a range less than 500km.

This mentions Mach 4 too.
hackaday.com

Operation Backfire: Witness To The Rocket Age

As the prospects for Germany during the Second World War began to look increasingly grim, the Nazi war machine largely pinned their hopes on a number of high-tech “superweapons” they ha…
hackaday.com hackaday.com
 
Forest Green said:
GARGEAN said:
Well, Korolev and Gaidukov work says otherwise... Have any info about that?
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It's wrong. Mach 5 gives a range well over 300km. There's no Mach 5 ballistic missile with a range less than 500km.

This mentions Mach 4 too.
hackaday.com

Operation Backfire: Witness To The Rocket Age

As the prospects for Germany during the Second World War began to look increasingly grim, the Nazi war machine largely pinned their hopes on a number of high-tech “superweapons” they ha…
hackaday.com hackaday.com
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That one is not exactly scientific... And I would prefer m/s at given alt and not just vague M number. Too often seen it being used and interpreted wrongly.
 
GARGEAN said:
That one is not exactly scientific... And I would prefer m/s at given alt and not just vague M number. Too often seen it being used and interpreted wrongly.
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Well I've shown you that missiles achieving only Mach 3+ make the same range as the V-2 and I've shown you that missiles making 1.5km/s or Mach 5 make 600+km or even 700km for the Scud-D. I've also shown two links saying Mach 4 for the V-2, so my job is done here.
 
Job... I see. But still no sources showing real speed at alt of V-2, only unspecified "M4".
 
Yeah-yeah.
www.thoughtco.com

The V-2 Rocket: the World's First Long-Range Guided Ballistic Missile

The V-2 rocket was designed by the Germans during World War II and was the world's first guided ballistic missile.
www.thoughtco.com www.thoughtco.com
Meanwhile two random sources that specify speed put speed into quite narrow window of 1500m/s to 1600m/s for moment of engine halt. Considering it happens at around 25km alt, thus in tropopause, this gives is Mach number of 5 to 5.4. And NO LESS THAT 4.4 even with typical mistake of taking SoS on sea level.
So I am really, REALLY failing to see where that "M4" might have come from.
 
GARGEAN said:
Yeah-yeah.
www.thoughtco.com

The V-2 Rocket: the World's First Long-Range Guided Ballistic Missile

The V-2 rocket was designed by the Germans during World War II and was the world's first guided ballistic missile.
www.thoughtco.com www.thoughtco.com
Meanwhile two random sources that specify speed put speed into quite narrow window of 1500m/s to 1600m/s for moment of engine halt. Considering it happens at around 25km alt, thus in tropopause, this gives is Mach number of 5 to 5.4. And NO LESS THAT 4.4 even with typical mistake of taking SoS on sea level.
So I am really, REALLY failing to see where that "M4" might have come from.
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Yes, because no ballistic missile with a 300km range hits Mach 5.

And I think they're using the term 'guided' very loosely. Your second source also contradicts its stated specification in the text.

This system generated about 55,000 lbs (24,947 kg) of thrust at the start, which increased to 160,000 lbs (72,574 kg) when the maximum speed was reached. The motor typically burned for 60 seconds, pushing the rocket to around 4,400 ft/second (1,341 m/sec).
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This is a very specific figure and corresponds to about Mach 4.47 at 25km. Now, if we plug in 4.47 x 1,224km/h (mach 1 at ground level) we get 5,471km/h, which is very close to the 5,400km/h stated in the specification and 343 x 4.47 gives the 1.5+km/s. So I think that clears it up really.
 
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After decades of false starts, America’s leading scramjet engine developers say scramjet-powered hypersonic flight is now within reach. That’s partly thanks to the coming of new 3D printing technology.
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www.flightglobal.com

ANALYSIS: 3D printing brings scramjet engines closer to reality

After decades of false starts, America's leading scramjet engine developers say scramjet-powered hypersonic flight is now within reach. That's partly thanks to the coming of new 3D printing technology.
www.flightglobal.com www.flightglobal.com
 
This transfer is evident in the Navy’s budget request for FY2020, with the Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) Program funded through the broader Precision Strike Weapons Development Program. The funding projections for the CPS program element far exceed those expected in the DOD budget request in FY2019. The Navy has requested $593.1 million for this program in FY2020 and expects to request $1,061 million in FY2021, $1,303 million in FY2022, $1,387 million in FY2023, and $899 million in FY2024, for a total of $5.2 billion over the five-year period. This funding profile demonstrates that DOD has raised the profile and priority placed on this program.
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The budget documents indicate that the increase from FY2019 to FY2020 is “largely associated with the design, development, and experimentation of hypersonic subsystems including boosters, conventional warheads, thermal protection systems, guidance systems, payload modules, launch systems, fire control systems, support equipment, underwater launch facility updates, and hypersonic glide bodies.” The documents also note that the Navy plans to conduct a second flight experiment in FY2020 and “to begin missile procurement to support prototyping activities and hypersonic glide bodies.”
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So looks like DoD wants a full-system sub launch test sooner rather than later for CPSW
 
Forest Green said:
What never ceases to amaze me is how far ahead the US were and how they then let themselves get behind.
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I would argue that in the early 60’s the US could have chosen to completely overwhelm the USSR in the arms race (10,000 Minuteman missiles for example) and force meaningful disarmament but McNamara got scared by the Cuban missile crisis believing US seeking strategic superiority caused USSR to take risks that almost resulted in nuclear war.

The US strategy became one of parity or actually letting the Soviets catch up.

In my humble opinion prolonged the Cold War by decades.
 
bobbymike said:
I would argue that in the early 60’s the US could have chosen to completely overwhelm the USSR in the arms race (10,000 Minuteman missiles for example) and force meaningful disarmament but McNamara got scared by the Cuban missile crisis believing US seeking strategic superiority caused USSR to take risks that almost resulted in nuclear war.

The US strategy became one of parity or actually letting the Soviets catch up.

In my humble opinion prolonged the Cold War by decades.
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So did they actually know the missile gap was in their favour back then? Because most articles seem to suggest they always stated the missile gap was the other way around, when of course it wasn't.
 
Forest Green said:
bobbymike said:
I would argue that in the early 60’s the US could have chosen to completely overwhelm the USSR in the arms race (10,000 Minuteman missiles for example) and force meaningful disarmament but McNamara got scared by the Cuban missile crisis believing US seeking strategic superiority caused USSR to take risks that almost resulted in nuclear war.

The US strategy became one of parity or actually letting the Soviets catch up.

In my humble opinion prolonged the Cold War by decades.
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So did they actually know the missile gap was in their favour back then? Because most articles seem to suggest they always stated the missile gap was the other way around, when of course it wasn't.
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There is evidence Kennedy et al, through briefings all POTUS candidates receive, were at the very least exaggerating the so-called missile gap.

It made it hard for Nixon to counter lest he appear weak on defense and/or implying US intelligence gathering capability.
 
From Inside Defense pay site

Air Force holds more tests, gears up for hypersonic weapon design reviews
The Air Force's armament directorate is planning more tests of the Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon and Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon and expects to conduct system-level critical design reviews of the two Lockheed Martin platforms during the first half of calendar year 2020.
(691 words)
 
This illustrate well, regarding the discussion just above, that the hard part when it comes to strategic weapons is absolute reliability.

When you press that red button, you first want all your magazines to empty with none jammed.
 
Forest Green said:
What never ceases to amaze me is how far ahead the US were and how they then let themselves get behind.
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The DoD wants you to believe whatever they want you to believe, China is following suit. There is a great deal of information that has remained classified for decades concerning America's development programs, its strengths and capabilities. And that'll continue because information warfare is another not-often talked about battlesphere.
 
IAD is correct in surmization. The USA has never been behind any other nation in the field of hypersonics, not at any time, and is not behind today. There was indeed a period during the 1960s when the Soviet Union and the USA were approximately at the same lead line of the technological testing envelope (through about 1967 or thereabouts), but the USA accelerated ahead--because we Americans can throw more money more quickly at things. And we had the extant infrastructure to do this, and this infrastructure was continued to be built upon/improved. While some of the infrastructure died/got pruned post-Kaiser Marquardt's demise, enough money has been pumped through black programs post 2000 (and some of this can be read in OSINT--Lockheed has their own publicly declared hypersonic wind tunnel, which went operational a few years ago now, and there is a webpage for it). There were even NASA-linked and X-plane linked hypersonic tests of vehicles in level flight using their own propulsion to achieve Mach 5 plus speeds (and some way greater than that--public record of Mach 9.6 sticks in my mind).

If you want to talk about absolute Mach speeds in semi-level flight, Mach 20 comes to mind during the test of HTV 2 which operated for three minutes in a stable configuration. And this was achieved over eight years ago already.

And I guarantee you that the absence of public evidence is not evidence of an absence of projects/programs being worked on.

Now Mike Griffin has consistently beat the drum for more moolah across the entire military development spectrum, and this op-ed recently published is no exception: https://www.defensenews.com/outlook...+DFN&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com.

But his claim that we are behind in hypersonics development--while completely ignoring corporate memory (and there is a humoungous cornucopia of corporate memory out of legacy aerospace companies that has now been absorbed by the likes of Lockheed-Martin, Northrop-Grumman, and Boeing, etc.), is disengenuous at best, and makes him a duplicitous "fake news" promulgator at worst. Russia and China have not yet matched even the X-43 achievements at this stage. And that too is getting to almost a decade into the past in age.

The problem is that a lot of America's still-hidden hypersonic achievements only come out in oral histories for the most part, and excellent sleuthing by amateur historians rummaging in the public source documents that most have forgotten about.

But our "near peer" rivals are throwing money at this topic, no doubt.
 

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