US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
- Thread starter tphuang
- Start date
From the great work that Naval News is doing the latest info about the U.S. Navy new FFG-62 frigate class.
The U.S. Is Losing the Hypersonic Arms Race to China—But Its New High-Powered Lasers are Changing the Game
Ford and ships like it have a battery of antimissile defenses, but none are capable of protecting it in a prolonged battle against China’s latest weapons. To maintain dominance in the Pacific—to just keep its ships afloat—the Navy is going all in on a new technology that has remained out of reach for decades: the laser. The benefits are tantalizing. Powered by a large fuel source—Ford’s hulking nuclear reactors fit the bill—lasers fire at the speed of light, negating the speed of hypersonic weapons; they can reload quickly to fend off swarms of drones; and they don’t require stores of ammunition, giving ships nearly unlimited firing opportunities.
That is the Navy’s hope, at least. Defense contractors have recently tested lower-powered lasers—one even shot down a drone earlier this year—but a reliable laser with enough power to stymie hypersonic missiles is years away. Nevertheless, the Pentagon has confidence in the emerging technology—so much so that this year, it canceled research into two other promising weapons, rail guns and special gun-launched guided projectiles (GLGPs), that it had hoped could defend its fleet against modern weapons. With those projects shelved, the question is: Can the Navy develop this technology quickly enough to thwart a threat before it’s too late?
To thwart cruise missiles, the Navy estimates that it needs at least a 300-kilowatt laser. In addition to the size and speed of those missiles, their nose cones are made out of such materials as pyrolytic graphite or Pyroceram ceramics designed to withstand the high heat inherent to supersonic flight, which can top 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Lasers will have to fire with enough intensity to rapidly burn through those heat-resistant substances. They also need enough power to overcome the effect of atmospheric turbulence on the laser. Finally, they require quick identification of the precise target point on an inbound missile traveling at 1 mile per second to take it out.
That weapon appears to be on the way. The Navy plans to begin testing a 300-kilowatt weapon as early as next year and calls the experimental weapon HELCAP, for High Energy Laser Counter ASCM Program. (ASCM stands for anti-ship cruise missile.) A 2020 photo taken of a wallboard behind Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael Gildan appears to show that the HELCAP test bed will be based on the Navy’s existing AN/SEQ-4 Optical Dazzler Interdictor (or ODIN) system, which is already being fielded on some destroyers. If successful, the platform will be the Navy’s first laser capable of shooting down incoming anti-ship cruise missiles.
Even HELCAP won’t be enough to stop hypersonic missiles flying at speeds up to Mach 10. Those weapons are manufactured to withstand temperatures of 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit or hotter. The Pentagon believes it may take a 1-megawatt laser, more than three times the power of HELCAP, to stop them. But megawatt-class lasers may not be too far off either. The Navy awarded a contract to Northrop Grumman to develop such a laser, and in July 2022, the company completed a preliminary design of a high-energy laser that combines several laser beams into one powerful ray. Northrop said it will initially develop a prototype with up to 300 kilowatts of power, but that the technology may allow it to scale up the power to 1 megawatt.
Ford and ships like it have a battery of antimissile defenses, but none are capable of protecting it in a prolonged battle against China’s latest weapons. To maintain dominance in the Pacific—to just keep its ships afloat—the Navy is going all in on a new technology that has remained out of reach for decades: the laser. The benefits are tantalizing. Powered by a large fuel source—Ford’s hulking nuclear reactors fit the bill—lasers fire at the speed of light, negating the speed of hypersonic weapons; they can reload quickly to fend off swarms of drones; and they don’t require stores of ammunition, giving ships nearly unlimited firing opportunities.
That is the Navy’s hope, at least. Defense contractors have recently tested lower-powered lasers—one even shot down a drone earlier this year—but a reliable laser with enough power to stymie hypersonic missiles is years away. Nevertheless, the Pentagon has confidence in the emerging technology—so much so that this year, it canceled research into two other promising weapons, rail guns and special gun-launched guided projectiles (GLGPs), that it had hoped could defend its fleet against modern weapons. With those projects shelved, the question is: Can the Navy develop this technology quickly enough to thwart a threat before it’s too late?
To thwart cruise missiles, the Navy estimates that it needs at least a 300-kilowatt laser. In addition to the size and speed of those missiles, their nose cones are made out of such materials as pyrolytic graphite or Pyroceram ceramics designed to withstand the high heat inherent to supersonic flight, which can top 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Lasers will have to fire with enough intensity to rapidly burn through those heat-resistant substances. They also need enough power to overcome the effect of atmospheric turbulence on the laser. Finally, they require quick identification of the precise target point on an inbound missile traveling at 1 mile per second to take it out.
That weapon appears to be on the way. The Navy plans to begin testing a 300-kilowatt weapon as early as next year and calls the experimental weapon HELCAP, for High Energy Laser Counter ASCM Program. (ASCM stands for anti-ship cruise missile.) A 2020 photo taken of a wallboard behind Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael Gildan appears to show that the HELCAP test bed will be based on the Navy’s existing AN/SEQ-4 Optical Dazzler Interdictor (or ODIN) system, which is already being fielded on some destroyers. If successful, the platform will be the Navy’s first laser capable of shooting down incoming anti-ship cruise missiles.
Even HELCAP won’t be enough to stop hypersonic missiles flying at speeds up to Mach 10. Those weapons are manufactured to withstand temperatures of 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit or hotter. The Pentagon believes it may take a 1-megawatt laser, more than three times the power of HELCAP, to stop them. But megawatt-class lasers may not be too far off either. The Navy awarded a contract to Northrop Grumman to develop such a laser, and in July 2022, the company completed a preliminary design of a high-energy laser that combines several laser beams into one powerful ray. Northrop said it will initially develop a prototype with up to 300 kilowatts of power, but that the technology may allow it to scale up the power to 1 megawatt.
Lethe
Captain
Increase in funds can be achieved either through greater deficit spending, or by raising taxes, or a combination of both. The example of Japan suggests that the limits of deficit spending are some ways off. Politically this can be achieved simply by beating the anti-China drum louder and louder and louder. Indeed, reorienting (or rather, further orienting) American political culture to focus on an alleged external threat is a plausible means of managing America's own domestic political tensions. Even today, with the Biden administration effectively continuing and expanding upon the Trump administration's hostility toward China, the only political pressure is coming from Republicans who claim that Biden is soft on China or, among the more unhinged crowd, that Biden is actually a CCP agent. The Overton window is shifting almost month by month toward greater hostility toward China, and there is little reason to think that trajectory will change anytime soon.
A detailed interview regarding the new light-tank MPF.
It's funny how you use establishment propaganda to justify the F-22's shortcomings, disregard any obvious counterpoint like the US could keep the F-16, F-15 lines running which were much older than the F-22 production. Yet at the end you reach the same conclusion as me.
The F-22 was a casualty of the early adopter problem.
As I've said before, I said the same thing about the Su-75. The Russians made a mock up of a plane, and are already talking optimistic about mass production and service induction dates. You yourself presumably can see the problems with that, and the counterrance wouldn't be that I or you are a B-21 or H-20 fanboy.
The F-35 death spiral problem wasn't ever addressed. The MIC forcing the military to purchase F-35s in numbers sufficient to make the project viable again didn't address the fundamental problems the platform had that caused the forces to be wary of them.
Good luck trying to increase deficit spending or raising taxes in the current climate.
More likely, the answer to American problems will be another European war. Before WW1 America was considered a colonial backwater, and was largely irrelevant to European dominated world politics. Then WW1 turned America from a debtor state to a creditor state, and an influential power. WW2 turned America as a superpower, again largely at the expense of Europe which lost its colonial possessions.
A third European war will be another transfer of wealth from Europe to America, except there's not much left to squeeze out of that stone.
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
Your spinning a narrative. A clear time line of it can be seen. With a number of late Cold War programs. Sea wolf class, Zumwalt class curtailed orders. It was viewed as a relic of the Cold War. The West curtailed and downsized the MIC significantly in the later half of the 1990s and early new millennium.
The US Congress and US DOD curtailed the F22 production to less than 200 units arguing that the type was unnecessary and that the new F35 would be better suited to the needs of the coming decades with Russian and Chinese F22 equivalents not expected until the 2030s.
As that happened the price point shot sky high. Congress imposed a limitation on F22 not found on previous fighter aircraft of the United States. That they couldn’t be sold for foreign military sale. This meant that only the USAF or other US DOD could buy it. F16 production continued for a significant period but a set date the USAF stopped buying them and new F16 models were foreign sales only. This allowed Lockheed Martin and the US government to maintain the F16 line in Texas until 2017 when the last one rolled off the line. However Lockheed Martin has built a new plant in South Carolina to continue building F16 because FMS are ongoing for F16.
F15E was the same story. After the USAF ended its buys Boeing kept the line alive because ROK, Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar and Singapore bought them. F15EX is a significantly improved F15E because it was built and paid for and manufactured in the intervening years by Boeing on their own dime and sold for profit via FMS to allied states.
Had F22 been offered to export a number of nations showed interest including Japan, Australia and Israel that likely would have kept the line warm well the USAF came back to it.
The problem was that the original 700+ F22 became 300+ F22 became 189 F22. That froze F22 technical development. You can only improve it so much as significant improvements aren’t possible without a huge cost due to trying to rebuild the aircraft itself. Modifications have to be inside the existing structure. The recent announcement of the F35 APG 35 radar is a perfect example. They can make that change because it’s still in production. They can modify older models to take it as they have the parts production up to a set point behind that point like with F22 the cost of the modification is extreme. You basically start building a new aircraft out of an old one.
The Russians never operated their aviation fighter industry in any manor that was reflective of the the US. They farther have significantly worse economic and political conditions combined with rampant corruption and a weaker industrial base for essential systems.
That said T50 isn’t a mock-up it’s a series of prototypes. Closer to the US YF22, X35, or very early J20 flying demonstrators built from preexisting components lacking much if not all the critical mission components or trailing more primitive versions. The failure of the SU57 is that even the so called production models we have seen wouldn’t match what they are supposed to be going against due to stunted development and failures of the Russian MIC at every level. This is why many don’t call it a 5th Gen but rather use 4.5 or 4.75 or 4++++.
SU75 is a mock-up a 1:1 scale model that will never fly. The Russians claim to have a demonstrator under construction. But they also have a track record of making a lot of claims with little to show for it.
However almost none of this would be relevant to a comparison to emerging B21. A mock-up is a dummy. It’s the military equivalent to a concept car. The US military does build mockups all the time but they don’t roll them out at official ceremony they show them at arms shows. It’s an attention getter. Similar mockups are seen at the Zhuhai show in pavilions not hangers. Very rarely do you get mock ups the size of a bomber in the military as it’s very expensive.
You see here is the contradiction.
The F35 isn’t on a death spiral because it’s being order and procured in significant quantities.
Second because of how far along it is the “fundamental problems” have been solved. Much of the early on claims have been debunked or the most vocal critics whom were echoed have gone silent. The claims of its failure in a “dog fight” was debunked as it was operating with significantly less advanced FBW coding. The issue of its “slow speed” debunked as most fighter don’t use afterburners for very long anyway. The rest of the claims were either false due to early blocks that have since been updated unlocking more capabilities or were flagrantly false being pushed into the News cycle paid for by the likes of RT.
In fact this is actually reflective of the F22 and it’s issues. As many of the same characterizations were made of F22 in the early to mid 2000s. But where F35 is at the edge of 900 the F22 has a significantly smaller number of combat coded airframes. Which means that although F22 can be updated to use newer missiles, replace older systems, add new features the price per unit to do so is much higher. Which is why replacement is the new objective.
I mostly agree with all this, but come back to the point when you said the F-22's architecture was obsolete. What did you mean by that?
How was it obsolete in contrast to the F-16 or F-15? Avionics, radar, control systems can be updated as we saw with both 4th gen fighters.
It doesn't have to be a literal mock up for my point to be valid. A non flying prototype would be as much a mock up as one made out of timber. My point being as the B-21 project progresses, it will inevitably encounter problems that need to be overcome. That's not even a hypothetical, we've seen that with both the JSF project, the F-22 and countless other American military projects.
It's also ironic that you're accusing the Russians of corruption yet completely blind to the rampant corruption that exists in the American MIC.
The MIC saying the fundamental problems have been solved doesn't make it true. I think the F-35 was designed crippled from birth by shoehorning in the SVTOL concept into the multirole fighter platform.
To put some perspective into what I'm saying; do I think the F-35 is a bad plane? No, but it could have been much better. America hasn't been punished for the mistakes because up until now it has been the only nation capable of producing 5th gen fighters at scale.
As time progresses that will no longer be the case and I expect to see the Americans "forgetting" how to make the F-35 just like they did the F-22.
