Chinese Hypersonic Developments (HGVs/HCMs)
- Thread starter A.Man
- Start date
"The second stage of the hypersonic race goes beyond missiles and focuses on the development of long-range, reusable platforms that will have both military and , the Chinese scientists said.
To the military, these hypersonic aircraft can carry out reconnaissance missions, drop bombs, intercept stealth aircraft such as the F-22, or transport a small group of special ops to any location on the planet in an hour or two."
The Chinese version of GPS (Global Prompt Strike), much more advanced than the original US one.
I've always wanted to see a single stage to orbit space plane! Would be really cool if one gets developed in my lifetime.
The 8.5 meter long scramjet engine weighs 330kg. There is more than one literature on engines of this length. There are at least two more. This thing is much longer than the X51 ramjet engine (which seems to be less than 4 meters), and also larger. The thrust is uncertain. The thrust of x51 is approximately 500-1000 pounds
That actually sounds more like China's counterpart to the SR-72.
For a fact, China does have the MD-22, shown in the Zhuhai Expo last year.
10.8 meters long, 4.5 meters wide, takeoff weight of 4 tons, and capable of 8000 kilometers with a top speed of Mach 7. There's definitely much more that can come after this technological demonstrator drone.
escobar
Brigadier
It is interesting that according to this study, If a key role of HGVs is to evade or attack terminal defenses it need to be fly in ways that ensures it have high enough speed (about Mach 10) at the end of the glide phase. And YJ-21 is said to have terminal speed of Mach 10
Also SM-2 and SM-6 interceptors have speeds of about Mach 4 and are therefore less effective against BGVs than are Patriot systems.
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I don't think its really that likely that current HGV will have anything close to Mach 10 by the terminal stage assuming that it is maneuvering. The YJ-21 appears to be a ballistic missile, with a MARV not an HGV. Practical distinction mainly being that a ballistic trajectory is can be detected by radar earlier than most HGV trajectories. Practical hypersonic defense would probably be during the glide phase anyways, since the terminal phase has no margin for error and tiny response times.
It depends on who defines HGV. By US definition DF-21D and YJ-21 are HGVs in the same way as LRHW that was just deployed. The warhead is the same configuration as DF-21D and YJ-21. Essentially any warhead that can do terminal maneuvering beyond a certain range than a pure ballistic warhead is HGV according to US military, question is just how far it can glide.
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