The United States has suffered a series of failures in the field of hypersonic weapons after the suspension of the US air force’s AGM-183A“Air Force rapid response weapon”(ARRW) program, the US Navy’s hypersonic air-launched offensive anti-ship weapons (Halo) programme was also cancelled. The Pentagon’s hypersonic weapons program is either stalled or severely delayed, according to a recent report to Congress, the website of the U.S. Naval Academy warns. As for why the United States in the“Representative of the future” hypersonic field has been slow to make a breakthrough, the U. S. Media cited various reasons.
Hypersonic ‘Carrier Killer’ project cancelled
U. S. “Navy News” website first revealed the U. S. Navy hypersonic weapons program was canceled news. In a statement, Rear Admiral Stephen Tedford, head of the U.S. Navy’s unmanned aerial and strike weapons program, said that due to budget constraints, the U. S. Navy has cancelled a tender for the development phase of a hypersonic air-launched offensive anti-ship weapon. He also revealed that“Due to budget constraints, it was not possible to deploy the new functionality within the planned delivery time”, “The U.S. Navy is committed to investing in long-range firepower to achieve defense objectives and will prioritize the upgrading of AGM-158C ‘Long Range Anti-Ship Missile’ on U.S. Navy ‘Super Hornet’ fighters and Air Force B-1b strategic bomber,” it said. U. S. Defense Giant Northrop Grumman later confirmed, “’hypersonic air-launched offensive anti-ship weapons’ program has been suspended.”.
Concept map of“Hypersonic air-launched offensive anti-ship weapon” of US Navy
The US Navy’s hypersonic air-launched offensive anti-ship weapons program was disclosed for the first time in its fiscal year 2022 budget, according to the US“Power” website“War Zone” channel, at the time it was known as“Offensive Surface Warfare Weapon Increment 2”. The Navy later renamed it a hypersonic air-launched offensive anti-ship weapon in a budget request for fiscal year 2023. The U. S. Navy has been using the old harpoon subsonic anti-ship missiles for years because the Pentagon had underfunded them. In response to future great power conflicts, the U. S. Navy is eager to obtain a new generation of anti-ship weapons, and the AGM-158C stealth anti-ship cruise missile with relatively low technical difficulty has become the so-called“Offensive anti-surface warfare weapon increment 1”. But this kind of missile uses the subsonic speed flight, the penetration method is limited, therefore the US Navy requests to develop the hypersonic anti-ship missile which has stronger penetration ability.
Navy News said the project was aimed at rapidly developing a long-range Supercruise missile that could be carried by carrier-based aircraft to meet the US military’s“Top priority” of weaponising air-breathing hypersonic technology. The missile can be launched from a variety of platforms, including the active Super Hornet, the F-35C carrier-based fighter and the developing naval version of the sixth-generation fighter, according to theatre, u.S. Air Force B-1b and B-21 bombers, as well as the MK41 vertical launch system on U.S. Navy ships and the vertical launch module on nuclear submarines. At the same time, it inherits the intelligent route planning and target search ability of AGM-158C missile, and can select the weak area of opponent defense to penetrate, and accurately identify the target from the decoy. The Navy has not released specific performance specifications for a hypersonic air-launched offensive anti-ship weapon, but in March, the U.S. Navy 2023 Raytheon and Lockheed Martin to carry out the first phase of the missile’s development, the two companies are also developing hypersonic attack cruise missiles (hacms) for the U.S. Air Force, leading to speculation that the two hypersonic weapons may use similar propulsion system designs and similar capabilities. HACM has a cruising speed of 6 Mach and a range of about 1,000 km, according to air force plans.
According to the Navy’s original plan, the hypersonic air-launched offensive anti-ship weapon would have 2026 flight tests, with early operational capability in fiscal year 2029 and initial operational capability in fiscal year 2031. The U.S. media had previously repeatedly touted the missile as a“Key weapon against the threat of the Chinese navy,” believing that it could use hypersonic flight and maneuvers to break through the defenses of adversaries, it also has enough kinetic energy to destroy large ships such as aircraft carriers. According to the Eurasia times, the cancellation of the US Navy’s“Hypersonic air-launched offensive anti-ship weapons” program not only affects the future planning of the US Navy, it also suggests that the United States has suffered a serious setback with hypersonic weapons.
“The military does not have any sophisticated weapons in service.”
The US Naval Academy website says the current state of hypersonic weapons in the US was detailed in a special report to Congress on April 10. The report acknowledges that“The United States has fallen significantly behind China and Russia in hypersonic weapons.”.
The hypersonic weapon is a new concept weapon with a speed of more than Mach 5, flying mainly in the atmosphere, and a mobile orbital transfer strike capability, the report said, there are boost-glide hypersonic missiles and air-breathing Supercruise missiles. The boost-glide vehicle first reaches hypersonic speed by booster rocket, or after deorbiting from low-earth orbit and re-entering the atmosphere, the Waverider or double-cone aerodynamic configuration is used to generate lift, long-range gliding flight through the atmosphere. Air-breathing Supercruise missiles are usually powered by a scramjet ramjet to cruise at high speeds through the atmosphere. General John Heiten, a former vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and United States Strategic Command Commander, described it as, “Hypersonic weapons offer a rapid response, long-range strike option against long-range, defensive, or time-sensitive threats, such as road-mobile missiles, when other forces are unavailable, inaccessible, or undesirable.”
The United States started research on hypersonic weapons as early as the beginning of the 21 st century. As a part of the“Conventional rapid global strike plan”, now all major U.S. services have put forward their own hypersonic weapon plans. The AGM-183A Air Force Rapid Response Weapon -ARRWARRW) and hypersonic attack cruise missiHACMHACM) are dominated by USeAir Forceorce. Among them, the AGM-183A belongs to the boost-glide class of hypersonic missiles. It was developed and produced by Lockheed Martin. It uses a more advanced waverider warhead to glide through the atmosphere with a maximum range of about 1,600 kilometers, average speeds range from Mach 6.5 to Mach 8. The U.S. Air Force had used the B-52 strategic bomber repeatedly to launch the AGM-183A from the air in previous failed tests. After three failed tests, the missile did not complete its first successful test until May 2022, but another string of failures has followed. The missile was 2024 for its final test in March, and the Air Force declined to disclose the results. Now the Air Force has not applied for funding for fiscal year 2025, and the program is considered“Substantially closed.”. The Air Force’s other hypersonic weapon, the HACM, is an air-breathing Supercruise missile, which is smaller but more difficult to develop, and was launched in fiscal 2022. HACM had been scheduled to conduct 13 test launches between October and March, when the 20242027 goes into service, but that has been delayed.
US Air Force B-52 bomber with AGM-183A hypersonic missile
The U. S. Navy also has two hypersonic missile programs. In addition to the cancelled hypersonic air-launched offensive anti-ship weapons, the US Navy is also advancing conventional fast strike (CPS-RRB- missiles. The project is actually a joint development of the u.s.navy and army. It is a boost-glide hypersonic missile with a bipyramidal warhead designed to be launched by a two-stage booster rocket at a predetermined altitude, carry out a precision strike on a distant target. According to U.S. Navy plans, the missile will be armed with a Zumwalt-class destroyer and a virginia-class nuclear attack submarine, but actual testing has also been delayed. The 2024’s assessment showed that, the available data do not confirm whether the missile has achieved basic phase I capability. Using the same technology, the U.S. Army developed the long-range hypersonic weapon (LRHW) program, codenamed Darkhawk, with a top speed of Mach 17 and a maximum range of 2,775 kilometers, the planned 2023 is now scheduled for the end of fiscal year 2025 after delays caused by cancelled launches. The U. S. Congressional report acknowledges that, to date, the U. S. military has not deployed any hypersonic weapons.
US Army Darkhawk Hypersonic missile
Slow progress, who to blame
Why did the US, once a leader in hypersonic vehicles, get into such trouble in just 20 years? U. S. “Defense News” that this is the Pentagon for hypersonic weapons projects lack of unified planning, investment is too scattered. Reported that the Pentagon previously hypersonic weapons that the lack of clear mission requirements, the U. S. military combat capability to improve the limited, long-term lack of funding. In recent years, after the US was found to be lagging behind China and Russia in hypersonic weapons, the Pentagon has launched nearly 10 different hypersonic weapons projects at the same time, greatly dispersing the financial and human resources invested in the relevant projects. Even after multiple consolidations, the three branches of the U.S. military now have several hypersonic weapons programs in sync.
The U.S. Congressional report attributed the U.S. ‘s slow progress in hypersonic weapons to“Poor infrastructure,”“Unclear strategic positioning,” and“Fragmented management.”. According to the report, the development of hypersonic weapons is based on major breakthroughs in core areas such as aerodynamics and materials science in extreme environments, which are inherently technologically difficult. For example, in order to withstand the high temperatures generated by friction with the air during hypersonic flight, existing aircraft coatings and structures need to be redesigned for thermal protection systems and new materials (such as Ceramic matrix composite) that can withstand high temperatures, the U. S. technology is not yet mature. The Americans also failed to solve the problem of stable combustion of the scramjet ramjet necessary for air-breathing hypersonic missiles.
What’s more, the U. S. lacks a hypersonic-related test infrastructure. In 2013, the U.S. Defense Analyst Institute said there were 48 key test facilities in the U.S. involving hypersonic vehicles, the report said, including 10 dod hypersonic ground test facilities, 11 DOD open-air shooting ranges, 11 dod mobile test facilities, 9 NASA facilities, 2 DOE facilities, and 5 industrial or school facilities, however, none of the facilities can simulate the large-scale, long-time aero-thermal coupling environment at flight speeds above Mach 8. For example, most of the Department of Defense’s wind tunnels can only simulate low and medium speed conditions, and NASA’s wind tunnels, which can simulate extreme conditions up to 22 Mach, are too small. The test facilities are being retrofitted in the United States, but additional time and money are needed.
At the same time, U.S. spacecraft testing has previously mainly relied on local test sites, but hypersonic flight tests need to span vast distances, and are limited by geographical conditions and safety, these local test fields are difficult to carry out high-frequency and diversified tests. Only in recent years has the US begun to sift through the more than 1,600 potential long-range hypersonic test sites around the world before settling on three — in Australia, Alaska and White Sands Missile Range. The U.S. Department of Defense lacks an aerial surveillance platform capable of tracking hypersonic vehicles over long distances, Warzone reported, the Pentagon is converting the RQ-4 Global Hawk high-altitude long-endurance drone into a new platform for monitoring hypersonic tests. The U.S. hypersonic weapons have a fragmented industrial base, rely on multiple manufacturers for key components, and are costly to coordinate and prone to delays, the report said.
Interestingly, the report also attributed the slow pace of hypersonic weapons development in the United States to the Pentagon’s“High requirements.”. “Most of China’s and Russia’s hypersonic weapons need to undertake nuclear strike missions, and the requirement for hitting accuracy is relatively low,” while the US hypersonic weapons only undertake conventional strike missions, it is therefore more demanding in terms of technical difficulty.
U. S. “Defense No. 1” website that the Pentagon’s hypersonic missile program is not going well, because“The mentality is too impatient. The report describes how the Pentagon downplayed the difficulty of developing hypersonic weapons, thinking they could be quickly prototyped and tested, and then started producing and deploying them, “US defence contractors are as confident as the prospectors of the Gold Rush”. Reported that in the 1990s, the United States encountered a similar situation when developing an anti-missile system. Without careful planning and pre-testing, the Pentagon proposed a very aggressive timetable, as a result, frequent test failures result in delayed deployment. The report warns that the lesson is clear: if the Pentagon thinks hypersonic missiles are important, it should re-plan its development schedule to avoid a repeat of the antimissile system.