supercat
Major
This sounds like whistling past the graveyard to me. Click on the PDF link to read the report if you don't mind to waste your time. I feel I wasted my time by just reading the summary.
Chinese Hypersonic Developments (HGVs/HCMs)
- Thread starter A.Man
- Start date
There are around 20 hypersonic missile programs in the US, although a small part of this research and development framework is in different stages of implementation, the US still lags behind Russia and China, this is a fact.
If the FOBS + HGV concept is really confirmed or the HGV has the global reach as they are saying, it would just be further proof that the Americans are behind the Chinese.
I said "significantly more advanced".
It is very plausible that a few Chinese hypersonic programs are further ahead than equivalent US programs, however at this stage I do not think we have the evidence to argue that there is an industry/strategic scale advantage that China holds in terms of hypersonic technology.
Also, I do not think the demonstrated test was a FOBS system, but rather it was a test of a long range and very high speed hypersonic system that required an orbital deployment of the test vehicle to allow telemetry to be collected within Chinese airspace without flying the vehicle in international airspace or waters.
In a way I am a little confused about this FOBS weapon ,according to my library's "Soviet Military Power" circa 1986-1989 the Soviet FOBS is a gigantic 10MT + warhead sent into orbit by the then super heavy ICBM SS9"Scarp" and merely orbiting earth with a live warhead(!!)-until Moscow sends a signal to deorbit this weapon onto a US (or Chinese) target-most likely a large city. As an aside trvia tidbit the original Star Trek series has an episode,"Assignment:Earth" where Kirk and Spock help Gary Seven detonate and "scare" the Earth's superpowers from using FOBS.China's recent global circumnavigating controllable,hypersonic ,maneuverable vehicle seems a great deal more advanced then a simple warhead device in a simple orbit/deorbit paradigm.
I think we do actually have enough evidence to say China is generally more advanced in terms of hypersonic technology.
China has advanced hypersonic wind tunnels that don't exist anywhere else in the world.
China also publishes more highly-cited materials research papers than the US, as per the Battelle reports
And there are enough supercomputers for hypersonic vehicle modelling in China
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
Easy to judge US has tested 7 or 8 Hypersonic missiles 4 of them end up in failure only 3 are successful that give them success rate of less than 50%
On the other hand China tested 8 or 9 Hypersonic missile all of them except once are successful test that give them 80 or 90% success rate.
Even has operational HGV system. But some people here are fixated of US supremacy why:? Even the CEO of Lougheed concede China lead
plawolf
Lieutenant General
I think the whole FOBS angle was mostly spin to be frank, and not in the usual way you might expect.
By putting FOBS front and centre of their coverage, that has automatically become the primary focus of most MSM commentators and general public. The goal is to downplay the significance of the test since FOBS is 30 year old Cold War tech (that China itself tested decades ago).
Because the average American will be alarmed but not really all that concerned that China achieved global strike capability with 30 year old Cold War tech. But they will be a hell of a lot more concerned and worried if you told them instead that China had a hypersonic missile that can circumnavigate the globe and hit any place on earth. Especially as it will be concrete proof that the US is falling significantly behind in critical next gen tech.
You need to remember that the overwhelming majority of the American public still think of China as backwards and genetically handicapped at innovation and advancement and can only progress by stealing and copying from the white man.
To have a ‘Sputnik moment’ where China is shown to be unequivocally more advanced is going to be a massive psychological blow to most ordinary Americans, far bigger than what was actually experienced with even Sputnik. The Russians may be commies, but they were still white.
This needs to be avoided because the American public is going to demand answers as to how this could happen, and with the western MSM having effectively painted the establishment into a corner with their thinly veiled racism against China and Chinese people, the only acceptable answer is that the people in charge in the west have been sleeping at the wheel to allow the clearly genetically inferior Chineseto get ahead.
This is why almost all western MSM coverage on the test has been so muddled and self contradictory. Not because the entirely western MSM couldn’t find a single subject matter expert to give an understandable explanation, but rather because the western MSM has been given the impossible task of hyping up the China-threat agenda while also downplaying Chinese technological superiority.
An article on the amount of Chinese and American hypersonic tests: slowly/?
You know, some people think hypersonic missiles are just a different shape than other missile systems have done for decades, which I think is complete insanity.
Routinely, when I talk to some other military enthusiasts, they always make this observation about hypersonic missiles, especially when it comes to Russian and Chinese hypersonic missiles that, for some of these enthusiasts, are aiming for nuclear attack, as opposed to the American hypersonic program, aiming quite the conventional scenario, saying that hypersonic missiles are bound to be more accurate than Russian and Chinese, the CPS/LRHW terminal seeker confirms this but will only be implemented in the next Increment program.
The fact is, missiles like Russia's Avangard are making the Americans reshape an entire offensive and defensive apparatus, changing their doctrinal stance that has been in use since the time when the Soviet Union was at its height of military might. The American ABM network is unable to protect the CONUS from missiles like Avangard, the THAAD may have some limited capability against this type of missile, but nothing to conclude that the success rate would be acceptable, and the range would have to be extensively increased to create a credible defense capability. The fact is that even missiles that are in theory less accurate than the Americans are doing are reshaping an entire doctrinal concept that has been in use for many decades.
Moving away from this general perspective of the matter, missiles that are operational like the Avangard and the DF-17, both HGVs, sounded the alert for the Pentagon, although the Americans have been testing hypersonic technology for a long time, probably longer than the Russians and Chinese, Americans lagged behind when it comes to hypersonic missiles, several statements by the US Military High Command report they are in a state of disappointment because the DoD does not yet have any hypersonic missiles operational in the armed forces, while China and Russia are already operational , that from a military point of view, suggests that there are some strategic advantages.
As for the issue of global reach FOBS or HGV, if it is really confirmed, it would be just one more proof that Americans are behind the Chinese in this race. I honestly don't believe in very long range HGV, I would expect the Chinese to implement it in ever-increasing range scale until reaching the point where range would no longer be a priority, the leap in range of the DF-17 (2,500 km ) for a global range HGV (+15,000 km) from my point of view would be unattainable in the short/medium term. The most realistic concept in my opinion would be FOBS + HGV, with HGV being released near Mexico, still far enough away to avoid tracking by ABM radars, it would be a more workable concept, again, from my point of view.
I wonder how the West will react when China has the first moonbase with inhabitants-mining He3 etc-and even a Mars base and the first Chinese couple having a Chinese baby in space.I have never badmouth the Americans/West in general-respecting their historic/scientific/military accomplishments ...but now when they sound off and trash talk Chinese like Indians(!!)-it's very distasteful.