re: Hypersonic missiles - you buying the US doesn’t have them or a defense for them?

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Their kids have not spent the last several decades spending half their school learning about fuzzy wuzzy liberal policies. Why is it hard to believe their scientists are at the very least as capable as US scientists when it comes to weapons development? They are actually raising kids that know how to do productive shite.

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When we talk about smart Asians it’s not the Chinese.

All the years of reverse engineering and stealing plans and their quality still sucks.

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The US Air Force also recently stated it designed, built, and successfully test flew a new 6th generation fighter - all within one year.

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No. It flew a prototype with some of the tech that they want to incorporate into the new 6th generation fighter.

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I’m starting to doubt China’s ability to even take Taiwan. That requires invasion ships, aircraft, and a logistical supply network that I don’t see them successfully employing.

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It’s nearly impossible allegedly

First, I have no idea where the idea we don't have hypersonic missiles comes from. They have been an open line item in the DOD budget for many years and the AGM-183 ARRW is a Google away and has been tested successfully.

There are 3 basic types of missiles:

Cruise missiles which run slow and low and can change direction in flight

Ballistic missiles which follow a predetermined ballistic trajectory and the glide portion of the weapon can reach speeds of near Mach 20 in the glide phase. They are technically hypersonic missiles since they reach speeds well over Mach 5 which is considered the "hypersonic".

"Hypersonic missile" as we seem to be using the term today have glide vehicle speeds over Mach 5 AND are guidable in flight. This is what makes them much harder to defeat than cruise missiles or ballistic missiles. They are fast AND tricky.

The Chinese have the DF-17 and it differs significantly from the AGM-183 ARRW. The DF-17 just reaches the Mach 5 criteria while the ARRW reaches close to Mach 20* like a ballistic missile. While China is trying to field the Volkswagen Beatle of hypersonic missiles the US is working on the Koenigsegg Agera RS version.

The US also has the design criteria for the ARRW to be used as a high-precision conventional munition and this requires a guidance system that functions flawlessly at the extreme heat and other conditions resulting from hypersonic speeds. Based on Chinese testing they are not near this level of accuracy but close enough for nuclear weapons. The main reason the US is behind is its higher design standards. This is exacerbated by a lack of capable wind tunnels and reduced budgets for the project (ongoing for 70+ years now) after the end of the Cold War. So depending on how one looks it it we are behind and also likely in front of the Chinese. I discount Russia since they can't even produce their T-14 MBT in any fieldable numbers.

The Chinese are going for a ground-fired weapon and the US are going for air fired from bombers.

The defense against hypersonics is easy and hard at the same time. Preventing them from hitting a specific target requiring high precision is "easy". The hypersonic flow field is easy to disrupt and the guidance systems will likely be easy to confuse. However, it doesn't generally matter if nuclear warheads miss a target by 10 miles. An air to air shootdown ("bullet on bullet") is MUCH harder and may take decades to crack. It took us quite a while to get a decent kill percentage on ballistic missiles when you know where they are you can calculate where they are going to be at any given time after that. With hypersonic missiles, they can guide themselves away from the ballistic arc so knowing where they are now is only useful for that tiny moment in time. We may be entering a new period when MAD is the main defense. That and the fact that nuking the US strips China of their main demand portion of their economic engine. As much as I hate and avoid Chinese products as much as possible (practical) our economic symbiosis is also a major deterrent to war, something we never had with Russia.

The bottom line is we are a little behind on fielding hypersonics but ours do indeed exist and are known in the public domain but we are building a better mousetrap compared to the DF-17.




* note the public released info only pegs the AGM-183 at Mach 5 but there is plenty of information that clues one into this is just press release fodder

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Ever wonder why UFOs are almost 90 percent spotted over US territory? And more so in the western skies, Alaska and the Pacific? When were the last sightings over equatorial Africa, the Mideast, Russia or even the Far East?

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They're not. There spotted everywhere including Russia and the Far East. There are multiple reports of Russia fighters engaging UFOs. I have no clue what they are, but it's not just a US thing.