Hypersonic arms race
Samples of hypersonic systems weaponsthat reach speeds of 6-8 Mach, should appear before the end of 2020 of the year. This was recently announced by Boris Obnosov, Director General of Tactical Missile Weapons Corporation.
- These are new outrageous speeds. Hypersound begins with 4,5 Mach. One Max is 300 m / s, or 1 is a thousand km / h. To create such weapon systems that are gaining speed in the atmosphere, exceeding Mach 4,5 is a huge scientific and technical challenge. Moreover, we are talking about quite a long flight in the atmosphere. On ballistic missiles, this hypersonic speed is short-term, said Obnosov, adding that manned hypersonic flights are a matter that will be decided between 2030 and 2040 for years.
And here the question of the race in the field of high-speed non-nuclear weapons immediately arises. So, November 21 in the annex to the “Nezavisimaya Gazeta” - “NVO” - published the article “New high-speed arms race” by the co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program and senior researcher at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, James Acton. The expert believes that recently there are clear signs of the maturing of a new long-range ultra-high-speed arms race, which can be very dangerous. So, in August, the USA and China experienced rocket-planning weapons with an interval of 18 days. As for Russia, the military-political leadership has also repeatedly made statements about the development of hypersonic weapons.
- The most serious threat is the use of rocket-planning weapons in non-nuclear equipment during the conflict. This is fraught with a new risk of its escalation up to its development into a nuclear one, ”Acton writes.
Note that the work on the creation of hypersonic cruise missiles, aircraft and guided warheads in the world has been going on for a very long time, but has not yet emerged from the category of experimental designs. Russian C-300 and C-400 anti-aircraft missiles fly at hypersound, but not for long, as well as ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) warheads at the time of entry into the dense layers of the atmosphere.
The United States is working simultaneously on several promising “hypersonic” projects: the planning bomb AHW (Advanced Hypersonic Weapon) (developed under the auspices of the US Army), unmanned hypersonic devices Falcon HTV-2 (since 2003 has been developed by the United States Department of Defense Agency for Advanced Defense research development (DARPA) and X-43 (built by NASA Hyper-X program), Boeing X-51 winged hypersonic missile (developed by a consortium comprising the USAF, Boeing, DARPA, etc.) and a number of other programs .
The most promising of them is the Boeing X-51 rocket (it is claimed that it will go into service with the 2017). So, in May 2013, it was launched from the aircraft B-52 at an altitude of 15200 meters and then using an accelerator rose to an altitude of 18200 meters. During the flight, which lasted for six minutes, the X-51A rocket developed speed in 5,1 Mach and, flying the distance in 426 kilometers, self-destructed.
Active in the "hypersonic" sphere and China. In addition to the unsuccessful tests of the hypersonic planning device WU-14 (apparently, partially copied from the experimental hypersonic unmanned aerial vehicle X-43), the Middle Kingdom is developing a reactive hypersonic cruise missile.
As for Russia, in August 2011, Boris Obnosov reported that his concern was starting to develop a rocket capable of speeds up to 12-13 Mach. There is reason to believe that they were talking about an anti-ship missile, which "lit up" in the press under the name "Zircon". However, given the successful testing of the American X-51A, in the future Russian developers need to present not one complex, but a whole line of hypersonic shock systems.
Moreover, in the Soviet Union a good start was made. So, since the end of the 50-ies, the AN Tupolev Design Bureau has been working on creating a hypersonic aircraft, launched by a launch vehicle, the Tu-130. It was assumed that it will fly at a speed of Mach 8-10 to a distance of four thousand kilometers. But in 1960, all the work, despite the obvious success, was curtailed. Interestingly, the American HGB - a prototype of the American hypersonic system AHW, looks very similar to the Soviet Tu-130. As for domestic developments in the field of hypersonic rockets, they were actively pursued in the USSR, starting with the 1970s, but in the 1990s they practically disappeared. In particular, NPO Mashinostroeniya created the Meteorit rocket, and later began work on the device with the cipher 4202; MKB "Rainbow" in 1980-x the beginning of the project X-90 / GEL; in the 1970-ies on the basis of the C-200 missile complex the Kholod rocket was created.
Military expert Viktor Myasnikov remarks: a hypersonic rocket is necessary for an instant pre-emptive and disarming strike, so that the enemy is unable to react to the attack.
- A rocket flying at a speed of 10-15 Mach will be able to reach any point of the planet in a few tens of minutes, and no one will be able to capture and intercept it properly. At the same time, it is possible to do without the “nuclear stuffing”, since missiles with a conventional explosive are already guaranteed to disable the communications and control centers of the enemy. Therefore, the Americans are bringing huge amounts of money into their AHW, Falcon HTV-2 and X-51A projects, hurrying to complete them quickly to control the whole world and dictate their will to it.
But at the moment we can talk about the technology race, but not about the race of hypersonic weapons, because such weapons do not exist yet. In order for it to appear, the leading powers will have to solve a lot of problems, in particular, how to “teach” a rocket or vehicle to fly in an atmosphere where there are still insurmountable factors - medium resistance and heat. Yes, today missiles that are already being put into service reach the speed of the 3-5 Mach, but at a fairly short distance. And this is not the hypersound that they mean when they talk about hypersonic weapons.
In principle, the technological path of development of high-speed weapons in all countries is the same, because physics, as we know, does not depend on geography and social order. Here the key point is who will quickly overcome technological and scientific difficulties, who will create new resistant materials, high-energy fuel, etc., that is, much depends on the talent and originality of the developers' ideas.
So, this is a systemic issue, since the creation of such weapons requires the development of scientific, technical and technological sectors, which is quite expensive. And the longer this process goes, the more it will cost the budget. And in our research institutes they are accustomed to work without haste: there are topics that the scientist is ready to develop for years, whereas operational solutions are required for the army and industry. Abroad, in this regard, everything is moving much faster, because there is competition: whoever has time to patent the development, he made a profit. But the question of profit is not the key one, since money is already allocated from the budget ...
Whether Russia will succeed in creating a hypersonic weapon with our well-known problems in the defense industry after the 90s is a big question. In the USSR, the development of hypersonic rockets was carried out, but after the collapse of the Union, further development of such weapons took place at the level of development of individual systems.
We have been living for a long time in the use of hypersonic warheads of intercontinental ballistic missiles: their nuclear units in the passive sector are moving at 7-8 speeds Makhov, said Viktor Murakhovsky, editor-in-chief of Arsenal of Fatherland magazine, member of the Expert Council. .
- So, the next decade of fundamentally new, we will not see anything. We will see only new technical solutions that will allow to withdraw funds not related to ballistic missiles at a hypersound. And for missile defense systems that are developed or promising in some countries, in fact, there are no differences as to whether the target is hypersonic — a warhead or an aircraft.
"SP": - ZRK C-400 "Triumph" is able to work on hypersonic targets ...
- And even the C-300BM "Antey-2500", however, for short-range and medium-range missiles. And C-400 and C-500 are generally considered to be theater missile defense systems (theater of operations - SP), as is the American Aegis system.
The United States, of course, does not care about the topic of hypersonic weapons in the sense of improving nuclear weapons - they are not going to develop their strategic forces too seriously, but in terms of implementing the concept of a fast global strike. And here it is unprofitable to use ICBMs in non-nuclear equipment, since the enemy’s missile defense will equate missiles with nuclear missiles, which is why the States rely on aerodynamic systems.
There are prototypes, tests are underway, but I would not risk saying that a hypersonic cruise missile or a hypersonic aircraft will appear in service with the major powers in 5-10 years. So, talk about electrochemical and electromagnetic guns have been going on for about 15 years, but so far - all the way.
As for the race of high-speed armaments, but, in my opinion, it’s not that it started, it didn’t stop. Yes, the United States and Russia concluded the Treaty on the Elimination of Medium and Short Range Missiles (1987 to 500 km - “SP”) in 5500, but I do not think that hypersonic missiles and aerodynamic apparatuses will be equipped with nuclear warheads, because the ICBM technology has been developed decades, and it shows high reliability at control starts.
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