MOSCOW, Apr 1 — RIA Novosti, David Narmania. In the USA, they reported on the tests of a hypersonic missile. The flight was unsuccessful. Americans have not been able to create their own "new generation weapons" for more than two decades. About the main difficulties — in the material of RIA Novosti.
Catch up with Russia and China
The launches of the prototype AGM-183A ARRW (the so-called rocket) took place on March 13. "The tests were not successful. We have not received the data we need," said US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall.
Before that, the AGM-183A was tested in December and, according to the Pentagon, quite successfully. The prototype was dropped from a B-52H bomber, after which the solid-fuel engine turned on and accelerated the rocket to a speed five times higher than the sound. At the final part of the trajectory, the prototype was blown up in the air.
In general, last year was a success for the United States in the hypersonic program: flights in May and July also went without problems.
Tests of the AGM-183A Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) Hypersonic cruise Missile Image Source: © Photo : Air Force / Giancarlo Casem
But the current fiasco reverses the situation a year and a half ago — in 2021, all three launches turned into a failure. Because of this, Congress even cut funding almost threefold - from $308 million to $115 million.
Washington has been chasing hypersound for a long time — they started talking about it back in the early noughties. We created the DARPA Falcon HTV-2 project, started developing the X-51A Waverider cruise missile. But both programs were closed.
Now, in addition to ARRW, they are engaged in several more variants of hypersonic weapons. But none of the samples have yet appeared in the army.
"We didn't have a locomotive for this technology before. <...> There was no need. Now everything is different. We urgently need to catch up: Moscow and Beijing are ahead of us," American Vice Admiral Johnny Wolf said in November.
American B-52H Stratofortress Bomber with AGM-183A Hypersonic Cruise missile Image Source: © Photo : Air Force / Matt Williams
But you'll have to fork out. The Pentagon has requested $4.7 billion. According to the Congressional Budget Office, three hundred hypersonic missiles in the next 20 years will cost about 18 billion — a third more expensive than the same number of medium-range ballistic missiles. And this is without taking into account the costs of development and testing.
Special technology
Hypersonic weapons, as it is easy to guess, differ from conventional weapons primarily in speed.
However, the same "Topol-M", which was put into service back in 1997, accelerates to several Mach numbers. But according to the ballistic trajectory, which means that it can be calculated and shot down by air defense means.
MiG-31 multi-purpose fighter with a hypersonic Dagger missile Image source: © RIA Novosti / Grigory Sysoev
Hypersonic missiles are a much more complex target. They don't just fly at a speed of more than five Mach numbers — they maneuver. Nothing will stop them.
In addition, this area is not limited to any international agreements. Although missiles can be equipped with nuclear warheads.
Race Leaders
Russia is still the only country officially armed with hypersound. There's a kind of triad here.
Earlier than others, "Daggers" entered the service — in 2017. They are launched from airplanes. The carrier is usually a MiG-31K. There is an option with the Tu-22M3M.
In combat, these missiles were first used in Syria on February 19 last year. Then in Ukraine: on March 22, an underground arsenal of Soviet times was destroyed in the mountains of the Ivano-Frankivsk region. Strikes on the Ukrainian military infrastructure continue.
In December 2019, the Avangard was put on combat duty, capable of accelerating to Mach 27. It has an intercontinental range. The controlled unit is launched using a ballistic missile — the Sarmat ICBMs are designed for this.
Intercontinental ballistic missile of the strategic missile complex "Avangard" Image source: © Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation
According to the American portal Popular Mechanics, Avangard takes warheads of two megatons — twice as large as the only American Minuteman III ICBM and 130 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
In August 2022, the Zircon, the world's first hypersonic anti-ship missile, was put into service. In January, the Admiral Gorshkov frigate equipped with such weapons entered combat service.
"The main thing is that even this one ship has significantly changed the balance of forces at sea, in the Northern Fleet, in our favor," emphasizes Konstantin Sivkov, Doctor of Military Sciences.
Such a frigate, according to him, can single-handedly disable an aircraft carrier or several ships. Therefore, Americans have something to worry about.
DF-17 medium-range ballistic missiles at a military parade dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, in Beijing Image source: © RIA Novosti / Anna Ratkoglo
Adds headaches and China. The PLA does not officially have hypersound yet, but ICBMs for such weapons entered the troops back in 2019. In particular, DF-17.
And the tests of the Chinese are much more successful. In 2021, a hypersonic glider glider separated from the launch vehicle, flew around the globe and hit a conditional target with an accuracy of several tens of kilometers.
The chairman of the American Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, compared this to the launch of a satellite by the Soviet Union in 1957. For the first time in the XXI century, we are talking about the technological lag of the United States in the field of security. Only the USSR could have caused such troubles before. Recently, two countries have already been able to do this.
