Chinese Hypersonic Developments (HGVs/HCMs)
- Thread starter A.Man
- Start date
I believe it is more subtle. Reading carefully, they state that it is unlikely to be for military purposes because an orbital system will reduce the payload due to requiring more deltaV to get to orbit and then to deorbit.
I believe while the fact is correct (requires more deltaV) the conclusion (it is non-military in purpose) is incorrect. It may be concluded that sacrificing payload for trajectory flexibility is required to overcome or negate a certain potential adversary's defensive capabilities.
Nuclear capable is for now when the CEP is so large. When accuracy become better and better, at some point a conventional warhead will also be mounted. That would signify a US-style Prompt Global Strike capability for China.
Of course that would open a can of warms for an arms race, but thats a topic for another thread.
Of course that would open a can of warms for an arms race, but thats a topic for another thread.
A costly tool. Atleast 50 million per Rocket+ warhead.
Since it is that costly, expect it to be armed with nuclear warheads. I wholeheartedly welcome this breakthrough by the Chinese as I wished for FOBS or a modern iteration of it.
@Overbom CEP is that large due to difficulties in proper guidance and Navigation while under the high temperature plasma envelope during hypersonic flight. Either a huge warhead or further technological improvement can overcome this minor flaw. Cost, as I mentioned, would be the major flaw. I don't want it to be a novelty weapon with a handful few missiles.
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As I said before.
The best way to carry out nuclear strike is the south pole !!
"The maneuvering hypersonic glide vehicle, descending from high-altitude at extreme speed, could travel thousands of miles to its target, which can be totally offset from a normal ballistic track. Complicating things more, these systems can attack from the south pole, not just the north where most of America's ballistic missile early warning, tracking, and defensive apparatus is focused. Intercepting such a system would also be very challenging, especially are focused on traditional ballistic missile flight profiles, which fly more of a parabolic trajectory and have generally known ranges of each stage of flight. "
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As I said before.
The best way to carry out nuclear strike is the south pole !!
"The maneuvering hypersonic glide vehicle, descending from high-altitude at extreme speed, could travel thousands of miles to its target, which can be totally offset from a normal ballistic track. Complicating things more, these systems can attack from the south pole, not just the north where most of America's ballistic missile early warning, tracking, and defensive apparatus is focused. Intercepting such a system would also be very challenging, especially are focused on traditional ballistic missile flight profiles, which fly more of a parabolic trajectory and have generally known ranges of each stage of flight. "
plawolf
Lieutenant General
This whole stressing about how much it is supposed to have missed its ‘target’ is both highly dubious and misleading.
Firstly, how would the west know what the target was? Assuming there even was a target? It would have almost certainly been set to touch down in one of China’s many missile ranges, but just because there was a target on the range doesn’t mean it’s the target this thing was meant to hit. Most likely this was just meant to hit the missile range, and I seriously doubt they would have reasonably expected better accuracy than that.
Secondly, which reinforces the above point, who the hell puts terminal guidance on a first test proof-of-concept flight? That’s like suggesting the US put terminal guidance equipment on the first X47 ever launched. No one does that.
As such, even if it did indeed miss a target area by a couple dozen miles, that would have been done with no terminal guidance. Which would be about right in terms of ballpark expectations.
Once the design is further refined and they slap terminal guidance on it, it should have vastly improved accuracy.
I think the key question is going to be whether that refined accuracy is going to be good enough for conventional precision strike, or merely nuclear delivery. But I think that’s a question even the Chinese scientists who developed this beastie doesn’t yet know, and will need to be proved via tests. That’s still probably years down the line, and it’s only then that we might have an actual answer.
Note that they claim 24 mile miss, not factual 24 mile miss.
How would they know where the target was?
Also, a pre programmed trajectory with orbital course update solves this problem.
True. The report can be Factually incorrect.
But the premise must be kept in mind. Very difficult to have a maneuvering craft to have very small CEP especially when it is in hypersonic flight for most of the flight regime. Very small changes in control surfaces can create drastic alterations to the final CEP. Since the weapon is said to have travelled round the globe and that too in hypersonic flight it is a remarkable achievement.
Absolutely badass, hands down.
Wasn't it a LM rocket that launched it. If that's the case then the SBIRS Satellites can easily ( and do easily) pick up. Almost every rocket launch is tracked by the NRO and the possible splash locations be monitored throughout.
The missing of target, however, as you said is upto debate. Unless they have identified a clear marked target location, that is. But also likely is this being a classic western journalistic wizardry. But those that were supposed to get the message got it. So all is well.
Good points by all of you. I will stress that for a 1st test, this must be very satisfactory for the R&D team. They managed to launch it, go around the globe, descend and then "just" having a (supposed) miss of 24 miles.
For a test, this is a total success in my opinion. The engineers must have gotten tons of flight, vibration, heat etc. data for how the missile behaves in various stages of flight.
Now, time to go back to the factory and refine it more, redo the test, gather more data etc repeat the cycle until the development team is satisfied with the performance.
For a test, this is a total success in my opinion. The engineers must have gotten tons of flight, vibration, heat etc. data for how the missile behaves in various stages of flight.
Now, time to go back to the factory and refine it more, redo the test, gather more data etc repeat the cycle until the development team is satisfied with the performance.