Getting weapons on target, at least getting a conventional weapon on target, has usually involved a delivery platform that includes an aircraft or a missile/rocket engine that is limited in speed, range, time of flight and/or payload and usually involves a somewhat lengthy planning process to execute the mission.
The Air Force (and the Navy in an unrelated program) are looking at speeding up that weapon delivery process by looking at a scramjet powered weapon that can achieve speeds up to Mach 6.5 or more than 4,000 miles per hour.
This sort of future capability could result in a significant change in the “time-critical strike” realm where a target of importance is identified and needs to be taken out in the shortest possible time. “Targets of opportunity” that intelligence assets find are becoming more and more prevalent in this 21st century battlespace, especially the ephemeral front that makes up the current war on terrorism
Having a capability to execute either a long range strike in minutes or to have this capability in theater rather than take the many hours it would take in the traditional strike-planning arena would be a change for the good. Further, having to maintain airborne strike platforms that many times include myriad support elements (tanking, airborne early warning, threats of enemy air defenses, etc) can be minimized with this ability to reach out and touch someone from afar in a relatively short time and adds a significant strike option to the Joint Force Commander’s tool kit.
“Faster is always better in air power,” says Brig. Gen. Jim Poss, the Air Force’s director of intelligence for its Air Combat Command at Langley Air Force Base, Va. “What we’ve found from combat experience is that people realize very quickly you have to move to survive on the modern battlefield. And the best way to counter that is to get there with the appropriate weapon in the appropriate size very quickly.”
From the Christian Science Monitor, read the whole article here.
–Pinch Paisley
It is sometimes the decision cycle timeline, not the time of flight, that determines whether a target can be successfully attacked using perishable intelligence to determine when to strike.
For example, the case that argues for this technology is historical-striking Bin Ladin’s camps from the Red and Arabian seas with SLCM’s back in the 90’s.Time of flight is greatly increased with subsonic munitions.Time to target with scramjet may be reduced by a factor of ten.However, in many cases it was the slow decision making process that also hindered these types of operations, not time of flight…senior level NSC discussions, presidential authorities, etc.
It could be hours before a strike was authorized and executed. Far too much latency to try and fix and kill a moving target like Bin Laden.
Armed UAV’s can be much better platforms, depending on the situation– ‘eyes’ on the target, ‘see and shoot’ decision cycle (with proper authorities), etc.
The real power of the speed of this weapon is it is hard to defend against and probably doesn’t even need a warhead in some cases because of the kinetic energy and mass involved…you have a much shorter reaction time to acquire, fix and kill incoming missiles.
Ships are sitting ducks.
A good recent example for the time to strike/decision cycle process was the B1 attack on the al-Sa’ah restaurant in Baghdad in an attempt to take out Saddam in April ’04.
It was reported that it took only 12 minutes for the B1 crew to launch the attack from the time they received the ‘go’ notification. We do not know how long it took the WH/CIA/DOD to make the decision for the go-ahead from the time the (bad)intel was received, but having the B1 on station greatly reduced the time to attack.
Better to be near the strike zone when you want to reach out and touch someone.
j house,
A small but possibly important detail, I
1. We already have the supercruise F-22 which can depart from a land base. And, unless you can launch this scramjet from an aircraft carrier, a cruise missile from a destroyer or an F-18 launched from a carrier to the destination is still going to be competitive with 4,000 miles an hour from the nearest land base.
If a carrier can get to within 1,000 miles, and the nearest land base is 4,000 miles, the benefits are pretty marginal.
2. How much of a per unit cost is worth 45 or less extra minutes? This looks at least as involved as an F-35A, will it cost a similar amount?
3. The fighter mafia always makes a big deal about Human 1.0 determining if a target is appropriate. Most of the time, I disagree with that proposition. But, time critical targets are targets where human judgment is particularly relevant. How do you abort this weapon if the target becomes a “no go” three-quarters of the way there?
4. A weapon like this seems to be conceived with a big payload from a long distance. But, most time-critical strikes are in inhabited places where you want a small payload to hit just the intended targets. This is behind the small diameter bomb concept.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to have many, much shorter range weapons much closer to time critical targets. Isn’t this what the armed Predator and the Excalibur ammunition round are supposed to do?
Realistically, delivering munitions with little notice is not something that is diplomatically possible in 90% of the world at any given time, and is conceivably necessary in only a modest portion of the world where it would be diplomatically possible to make a strike. In two big portions of the strikable world (Iraq and Afganistan, and the immediate Iranian and Pakistani border regions), a short range, small payload approach would be comparable in desirability to a long range, large payload, high speed delivery from the nearest land base that can handle the issue.
Likewise, almost all of the plausible targets in Africa and the Arabian Penninsula (e.g. Somolia and Yemen) are close to shorelines where U.S. ships could be, and usually are stationed.
Before we invent some more extremely expensive superfast weapons, we should invent some fast but subsonic ways to move heavy divisions into place.
The Russians & the Chinese both have missiles that can go Mach 2.5 & the Russians & Indians are working together on a missile that can go Mach 3.These are mainly anti-ship missiles like the Sunburn missile & the Chinese C-801/802 missile.The Sunburn can be tipped with a nuclear warhead.Before people question how effective these missile are,if the U.S. Navy would have shot an “acquired” Sunburn missile at the U.S.S. America instead of blowing holes in its sides with TNT,maybe we would know how effective the Sunburn really is.Well we have seven more chances to find out what the Sunburn really can do(the Forrestal Carriers(4),the Constellation,the Kitty Hawk,& the JFK) or are we just going to blow holes in the sides of them with TNT also?
This is another one of those wonderful capabilities desperately in need of a requirement.
Yes, it would sure be nice to be able to reach out and touch someone quickly — but as we know from recent experience, we’re not there yet on figuring out WHO needs touching, let alone how to go about it. The anti-terrorist justification for this capability is sorely lacking. We have many other ways to get at terrorists; we need to get much better at finding them first.
I could, however, reasonably be pursuaded to consider this capability for use in missile defense — taking out threat weapons before they can launch. In this case, we DO tend to have actionable intelligence on when and where a SCUD or other weapon is being fueled and readied for launch. Ballistic missile locations tend to be known, especially static launch sites.
As it is, though, the technology is quite immature. I consider a hyper-velocity missile to be a truly “balanced” weapon: it is equally unaffordable in both guidance AND propulsion! As such, our spending on this needs to be commensurate with that fact — it’s going to take us a long time to make this a militarily useful capability.
i think he best way to find the terrorists is to tag em with the same gps locater you put in your dog then set em free. theyre gonna go straight to their buddies.…then…whammo. “what the hell just hit us?!?!?!!!”
Supersonic cruise missiles that can sink ships already.To deny their existence is like denying that the Soviet Union launched Sputnik. Our anti-ship missiles are SLOW.So are France’s & Britain’s. Taiwan is supposed to have a supersonic missile,but since we are trying to sell them out to China,I guess thats one more missile on the OTHER side.Lets see supersonic cruise/anti-ship missiles:Russia,check;China,check;India,check;
IRAN,check;USA,nope;Britain,nope;France,nope;
Taiwan,check-oh wait we’re giving her back to China.
Ummm, hold on a minute.
I am reasonably sure of the following
1) Hypersonic flight via scramjet propulsion can only occur at high altitude, not sea level (where ships can usually be found)
2) This would then make this platform practicable for long range targets only.
3) The terminal stages of the flight could not be hypersonic due to air density (heat/drag et al). So a warhead would still be needed to maximize delivery of energy.
2 cents worth, keep the change!
Just speculating on some numbers here…
The operational version of this critter might be mounted on a B-52 or fired from a cruiser at sea. Assume that the point of launch is 1500 miles from the target. That’s about 18 minutes flight time. Assume 2 minutes to altitude/speed sea launched, 1 minute air launched, so add a minute more or less. The thing will have to curve down and decelerate as it approaches the target, but not too much I think. The scramjet should be able to keep thrusting down to the 80-100K ft level. The muzzle velocity of Abrams sabot is low hypersonic now, so the warhead should be able to stay at Mach 3 or better to impact. Therefore the descent and final approach curve should add no more than 30 seconds.
So from the go to launch well out to sea over the Indian Ocean to impact somewhere near Tora Bora is about 20 minutes.
Even if picked up on radar, by the time one has a clue where the missile is going there isn’t much time to get the target warned and out of there.