I've learnt more about hypersonics and in general, aerospace engineering stuff from your channel than any professor, book or research paper! Keep it up sir, may God bless u 🔥
The Ukraine claim that they shot down a hypersonic missile has been debunked. The purported video of the claim shows an FAB500, not a hypersonic. The clue is in the shape of the nose.
@@72marshflower15 then, the Pentagon confirmed it after the supposed debunking, so I am skeptical of what really happened. I think the possibility should not be ruled out.
@@HTV-2_Hypersonic_Glide_Vehicle ~ surely it shouldn’t be discounted, yet the US lies so much that it’s earned itself the name “Empire of Lies”.. That and every claim that Ukraine has made against Russia has been false so far.. They were all false claims that were trying to get other countries involved or to hype up support.
Excellent presentation and explanation for a layman like myself. Also, very interesting to learn some math and physics behind the concept of hypersonic technology. Thank you.
This is the best explanation of the whys, hows, whats of hypersonic weapons that I have seen, and I have seen a lot. As for defence, the US could always dust off the Sprint missile and upgrade it into a hit-to-kill system. Zero to Mach 10 in 5 seconds, and that was back in 1975.
Brilliant! 99% of all the military focused RUclips channels ignore the Physics. I wish one day that you had enough funding to create your own simulations. I loved the ellipses based upon velocity. But now imagine iterating they with the missiles target strength vs frequency! The ellipses would shrink :). And as the missiles plasma envelope changes ……. well you already know this 😊
This is the very first I've heard about possible Ku band communication. Another great, informative video Millennium 7*, now on to do some more research!
Nice video man. No irony, your drawing skills are very good. Very simple, but very easily understood and precise. I hope you are doing well health wise. Take care.
Physics was my childhood fascination and logic behind is very difficult to master. This presentation is pretty good. There is a wide gap between theory and practice.
Makes sense why russians invested into kinzhal. It is relatively cheap for them to make and like you said the advantage is with the attacker and they beat nafo to the punch. On top of that they have electronic warfare onboard and also the countermeasure droppers. Also russians dont just launch a single kinzhal for air defense to conveniently cherrypick they flood the air with a sea of cheap drones and cheap missiles and sneak in the kinzhals once air defense is both exposed and overwhelmed and kinzhal can maneuver around them or knows where to hit. Even if patriot can technically hit them which i seriously doubt they can outsmart it in other ways. So yes it is a game changer not because its a wunderwaffe even tho it kinda is, it's because it is a force multiplier
Very interesting. Thank you for explaining the area defense change. I will note that the oval is not going to be symmetrical. It will be shorter behind it than in front of it, if it can even shoot hyper-sonic that has passed it.
They can make turns, yes, they do not have radar detecting avoidance systems on them like Russia claims. The plasma wave they produce at the tip is very hot and detectable by simple IR radar systems from long distances, the goal to bring them down is early detection. They also slow down considerably (Mach 3 or 4) when approaching target, leaving them open to most air defence systems. They are not and end all kill all weapon.
@@braybilly"Lying or exaggerating as they always do". Hm so something along the lines of the ghost of Kiev or the grandma taking down a Russian drone with a can of beans eh?
@@Shrouded_reaper it's almost as if that's obvious, feel good propaganda to make the civil population feel good. It's like those two things are not the same.. madness I know.
Excellent video, very well presented and easy to understand. Obviously this is a massively simplified explanation, but how many of us are really going to need that depth of information...? Keep up the good work sir.
The economics are frightening: A very great increase in defensive installations is not only costly, but diverts resources away from other projects. While hypersonics are still very high tech, they are relatively cheap compared to the effort to defend against them. That means an adversary doesn't need very many hypersonics to elicit a disproportional response and they would be very effective against soft targets like radar stations. Take out the search radars and there is no facility to detect and analyze targets. Traditional fire control radar is higher frequency narrow beam short range equipment, while search radar is low frequency wide beam long range equipment. Phased arrays remove most of the physical limitations of scanning, but that mostly means the ability to lock on to multiple targets, not be effective in long range search. If you can blind the adversary, then the choice of engagement opens up significantly. If search radar is your eyes, is that what gets the point defense? In asymmetrical warfare, the big guy may not want to invade the little guy because it is like kicking a hornet's nest. The big guy will prevail, but not without significant pain for little gain.
Thanks for the overview; I was wondering about the defence. Strategically, we're still stuck with MAD. In the carrier-killer concept, the mobility, AEW and escorts with high-performance missiles should still make a carrier task group a tough nut to crack.
@@petesheppard1709 ...and that is why Russia has not invested in large ships anymore, instead deliberately choosing a fleet of small ships capable of carrying cruise and hypersonic missiles. It is a whole conceptual change (at least for Russia).
I got a lot from this video. Previously, I believed that that the sensing and communications blindfold caused by the plasma envelope would prevent hypersonics from being practical, especially against moving targets, but apparently I overestimated how big of an obstacle that is. Thank you!
Great overview of the issues associated with hypersonic missiles. One area you failed to address was the tremendous kinetic energy associated with HMs which would make them much more lethal than conventional cruise missiles.
I'm more interested in some form of a DEW functioning like a directed EMP than railgun but either do seem like the only options on the table other than some of the more theoretical ideas that are on a more distant horizon. I think a low orbit interceptor launcher could be something we see in the next century or so for example. Most of your videos are excellent but this was a particularly good one, packed with good info. Thank you for the effort you clearly go through to put it together
I just remembered something in the old Combat and Survival magazine describing attack helicopters: they are an economy of force unit. They are deployed only if it merits their relatively large cost compared to other assets. Hypersonice weapons seem to be also economy of force assets: when a very important target needs to be quickly dispatched without using nukes. Of course, if the price and manufacturing of hypersonic weapons get lower, this again may change.
You're content is, as always, amazing. Well thought, and well executed, your channel has been my favorite military tech channel ever since I first discovered you during the pandemic. Keep up the good work!
Faster weapons make the area defense bubble shrink and become more oblong. But have very little impact on point defense, _assuming_ there is good automation (ex: a system which uses 'man in the loop' at low speeds, but omits MITL for any approaching contacts going above mach 2 or 3). Stealth does "shrink the bubble" in a more spherical way. Although stealth aircraft have "hot axis", where large areas are 90 degrees to the detection system. So it's effect on shrinking 'bubbles' is fairly complex. A good way to intercept hypersonic weapons (assuming the range/speed/detection/ooda are ok), is to put shrapnel in the path of the weapon. A single, _stationary_ BB pelet would completely destroy a mach 7 missile or aircraft. So you don't need to hit them hard, just 'touch' them, and let their own kinetic energy do the rest. Personally I'm a fan of specialized warheads for hypersonic intercept, something like very distantly projected "heavy duty chaff" or perhaps a very large packet of dispersed aluminum maple seeds (which would also be incredibly effective as chaff, incidentally). But the main defense, is a hypersonic A2AD system. Just make the intercept missiles fast too. Not _all_ of them, just some of them, in a distributed system. This can be a benefit vs. slower targets like aircraft as well. Since it really tightens up the ooda for a pilot trying to penetrate air defense. Could get into fancy cat & mouse games, where you could "spoof" a hypersonic air defense missile launch, to force nearby enemy aircraft to throw out chaff (giving away their position), as they'll be reluctant to wait & make sure they've actually been fired upon, when their ooda is so short. Your best flight profile for a hypersonic antiship missile, would be high... then descending at a steady rate (straight line) to near sea level at aproximately 25km away. Keeping the whole flight profile neatly snug against the horizon visibility of the target vessel. With a final boost phase pushing hypersonic through that last 25km at sea level. It would melt all to heII, but making a projectile survive 25km at 6000 km/hr only requires about 15 seconds of durability (unless it hits an insect... then kaboom). The problem would be the size of the booster needed to push that fast at sea level for 15 seconds. Which compounds with the size of the booster needed to project such a large booster to it's 25km-from-target ignition. It would not be a small package, and could require a rather oversized launch platform (might end up being a 4000 lb missile or something). Mainly hypersonics are strong against less important targets. Ones which don't individually warrant point defense, or basing an A2AD directly at them (where it would benefit from point-defense kinematics, at least while defending that point). Russia has demonstrated this by using them to strike things like power grid components, railways, etc. where they are well suited to penetrate defenses. I seriously question their value vs sheer bulk numbers of far cheaper to make regular missiles. But if a limited number of them can force your opponent into spending big on countermeasures, then hypersonic weapons can be a big winner in the economic warfare of an arms race, without actually needing to be fired. But if all it does is force the enemy to field far better A2AD systems, it's not necessarily a win.
If im not wrong Russia used hypersonic weapons to hit high value targets like bunkers and protected ammo depots, not secondary but protected targets (supersonic ones used for them)... high penetration because of kinematics is also a factor also. Thus the low numbers of hypersonic weapons used (if my memory serves less than a dozen total so far) Counter naval hypersonic arms flight path should have an element of re orientation while at the blind spot of the their target... thus countering to a point any early (long range) detection and tracking. I think that the main problem for hypersonic AAA system is the calculations for tracking and targeting, faster computers needed to calculate where to send the projectiles.
@@leosam7097 Well "value" is relative. obviously one would want to target the highest value target they can ... _short_ of sending it directly at an air defense system (which would make the air defense system much more capable of shooting it down).
@@kathrynck"short of sending it directly at an air defense system" Nope. I'll tell you a little secret. Kinzhal is made for Carrier battle group. That is why they launched 6 Kinzhal at once few moths ago. To send a message. Price doesn't matter in that case.
@@kathrynck Yes it is relative and thus the observation i made, also the cost and availability of those weapons... + Current SAM systems they dont have the capability to intercept hyprtsonics yet (as far as we know) so high priority / value targets that are protected are the logically the prime targets for such weapons.
@@leosam7097 It may also be that systems sent to Ukraine are older-block backup hardware. And are not well suited to targeting a hypersonic missile. Although the kinzhal is just an air launched ballistic missile really. So older systems which have dual AA & ABM should work. Even vintage desert storm era patriot missiles, and similarly aged SM missiles in the navy. I'm sure newer versions work 'better' though. Hitting a bullet with a bullet is tricky even when all the math is right ;) Ballistic glide vehicle type missiles are probably the biggest issue. They come from overhead at mach 25~ish. And it takes more missile (booster) to go up than to go horizontally. So there's a small intercept range (barring enormous A2AD missiles), and a very small intercept time window. If it maneuvers at all, it becomes somewhat more tricky to shoot down, even if you have an A2AD system which is technically capable. Compact, non-recombinant 100, 200, and 300 KW lasers are just about ready for prime time though. That will change some things. Arguably change more things than HS missiles.
That protruding antenna or magnetic field will produce plasma itself. There is no way around it. The physics in that velocities is so complicated, that even a supercomputer can not compute the easiest maneuverability of the object in the plasma inferno
I was in Lance missile guarding the Fulda Gap at the end of the cold war, and I was with Patriot in Desert Storm. I was a field artillery surveyor/forward observer in the US Army so I also worked with guns, MLRS, and HAWK missile. I've been out of the loop for a long time. I've heard the Patriot of today only shares the name with my missiles and that these actually hit the target rather than exploding in the targets path. If that's true, that alone seems like it would make the accuracy needed astronomical. In my day the Patriot was more about it's radars capabilities than the missiles, and without radar the missiles aren't doing much. This really is a different era in warfare and I don't think I like it. It might be time to go back to cheap AAA guns and cover the skies with shrapnel and hope for the hyper missile to fly through it. Surely hitting even a BB at M5 would bad, wouldn't it?
the current radar system in the modern patriot is the game changer since desert storm,it has been discussed extensively by former military analysts about its current radar capability,again you’re right,radar system is the improvement since Iraqi war.
@@georgesikimeti2184 Mmmh - I like to learn, do you have a tip or link to relevant, serious "technical literature, so that I can read it myself ? In any case, I strongly doubt the current suitability of the system; after all, there are recordings in which more than 20 Patriots are fired at obviously irrelevant targets within a short period of time and shortly thereafter something detonates in the system's location. It seems that the Achilles heel of the system has been found - or are we talking past each other now? Which then is probably my fault...^^
Hope counter-measures like “Glide-Breaker” for glide Hypersonic missiles can be discussed. From another you tuber, hypersonic missiles are a game changer though their high cost (fighter-jet level cost for what is a munition) means they will be deployed when a critical target needs to be serviced immediately.
I’m thankful for your clear explanation that also does not attempt to make it seem simple (or overly complex). Maneuvering hypersonic weapons are challenging, yes, but not impossible. For now, it seems the uses are mostly offensive in nature, until we can improve the technological readiness to have highly maneuverable bodies.
But they are saying the Patriot system is shooting down the Kinzal missiles and they are not maneuvering,, just a parabolic arc. They are saying that the designers of Russia's hyper sonic missiles have been arrested, and implying that these designers nay be blackmailed to reveal designs due to their families being in the West and potentially targeted.
They are saying that all the Kinzals are being shot down - but there is video footage of 2 of them hitting Patriot launchers...and 'they' are hunting down the folk responsible for the video. Suggests the Kinzal are effective to me. I like the smell of propaganda in the morning...
You really wouldn't use a proximity fuze anyway on something that is even supersonic. What you do is calculated a cone of shrapnel and simply detonate it a head of time. This is so common nowdays even something simple like a Bofors AA gun do it that way.
@@matsv201 The fact is exactly the opposite. Most missile only have limited computation power due to size and weight. The little bit extra conventional targets hit rate of realtime projectiles cone trajectory calculation over proxy fuze detonation simply doesn't worth occupying such significant portion of on board computation power comparing to improving detection, anti jamming and flight trajectory (range) optimization. Besides, shrapnel cone is always straight extended along the "instant" missile movement direction. If you draw a missile turning trajectory and the straight extended cone along the path, you will see the cone interception curve line lag outward and behind the missile turning path. It means the missile must turn harder to put the cone interception line on a maneuvering target and it is less effective to catch maneuvering targets than direct hit/proxy fuze method. Only unguided weapon system with a lot of fire contol power like 35mm AA AHEAD is suitable to use shrapnel cone method because the interception speed, altitude and distance of the projectile are easily calculated on the vehicle before firing. If target maneuver, it simply misses and fire again.
@@joelau2383 That might have been true 50 years ago in the 70s when they needed a extra rack for FPU calculation. To day this compute power is literally in the relm of nano grams. "missile turning path. It means the missile must turn harder to put the cone interception" The turn rate to time is lower on a hypersonic missile than a supesonic or subsonic one. So even if its faster, its actually easier to hit. Intelligent targeting tips have been a thing for over 40 years. You have to catch up to nowdays
@@matsv201 You clearly are not familiar with military technology and history. Weapon processor performance is decades behind civilian mobile product processor, because they are designed to be stable and reliable under extreme condition like heavy radiation and overload during decades long service life, not chasing performance. Most missile on board processor in 70s cannot even guide itself to intercept the target alone, it was a 90s missile feature. And flight trajectory optimisation was 2000s era feature. New anti jamming and stealth detection enhancement are even more recent technology. Cone of shrapnel method is still never an efficient way to spend the limit computation power for most of the missile. For example, 21th century missiles like SM-6, PAC-3 MSE, Aim-132 use annular/spherical blast frag warhead instead of shrapnel or pellet cone spread warhead. Your concept of interception is wrong. If your missile is as fast as the target, you only need the same max turn rate as the maneuvering target to maintain interception. If your missile is slower than the target, you need a higher turn rate than maneuvering target to maintain interception. This is why it is easy to intercept a slow target with fast missile, but difficult to intercept a fast target with slow missile.
Another point to add is that a regular ballistic missile on a depressed trajectory ( lower ) can deliver the warhead with an equal or maybe even shorter flight time than a hypersonic over the same range ! ( sub launches )
@@steveb890 Apparently you failed basic geometry. Perhaps you should do the math of how much further a distance a non-hypersonic missile must travel in its "lower" ballistic missile trajectory vs. a cruise missile on a flat trajectory. For simplicity sake - I will use a half circle vs. a straight line - 2xradius (hypersonic) vs. 1/2*pi*radius squared. Taking into account the relative speed of ballistic (top end) vs. Mach 10 - the equation boils down to 1/2*pi*radius squared/1.33 = 2*radius/1. Or in other words, unless the radius in question is 2.3 km - the hypersonic missile will be faster reaching its target. If we posit the hypersonic missile is "only" going Mach 5 - the "break even" radius expands to 2.36 km. Yes, the ballistic trajectory is closer to a half ellipse - but that doesn't significantly change the "break even" radius. An ellipse with 1/2 the height vs. width - the circumference is 2*pi*(3*r1+r2squared+squareroot of r1*r2) = 2*pi(6r2+r2squared+squareroot(2*r2)... the result is break even points under 3 km for both the (ballistic speed = 1.33x hypersonic i.e. Mach 10) and (ballistic speed = 1.4x hypersonic i.e. Mach 5 - and using maximum ballistic missile speed of 10000 kmph). Or in other words - unless the ballistic trajectory is basically almost literally flat - your assertion is flat out wrong.
@@c1ue1 Apparently you failed basic Physics .... no atmosphere entered into your equation ? 🤡 No mention at Mach 5 a missile at altitude will lose energy 125 times faster than at Mach 1, and at Mach 20 it will lose energy 8,000 times faster! cant account for drag .... but clearly you know more than rocket scientists. 🤣
Your content is now top notch and I love the work you put into it..The content and effort gives me the sense I can trust the information. Something not easily achieved today.
@@amazin7006 whatever u say idiot clown . Patriot is such a shitty system it can be targeted for it's radar signatrue, because US thought they would always use it vs small countries
Perhaps directed energy weapons can help but they are also very weather dependent on performance side... so until we get to invent those kinetic energy barriers, we are in for a lot of hurt...
Another fantastic video showing what is and is not possible for the weaponry and defence against it that we have today, as well as a few hints about the future. I'd be fascinated to see your take on lasers as a possible defence against hypersonic missiles, also to hear whether you think that laser technology of this sort is feasible at the moment, and when and if you believe it WILL become feasible- if at all- in the future. The United States seems to be gambling most of its chips on being able to develop this type of technology rather than going the 'Hypersonic' route. Is this a wise move in your opinion? Many thanks for the content and for reading this, Jim (from across the pond!!)
What to me is an important parameter that was not covered was the energy required to turn. It has to be nearly all thrust as "banking" like a winged aircraft does nearly nothing, thus turns would require the energy equal to the sin of the angle turned, a 30º angle turn at Mach 5, regardless of the turning radius would require the same energy as to accelerate the missile from 0 to mach 2.5, which for a "sustaining" scram-jet engine is a lot of time, distance, fuel.
Most turning is done by air pressure. That energy has already been provided by the thrust and relative velocity of the airflow over fins. That's been a well understood mechanics from the beginning of bird flight.
All Ballistic Missile reentry bodies are in fact High Hypersonic. Mack 10 to 25 but most have a predictable trajectory. Hypersonic cruise missiles are Mach 5+ and a different beast.
This is why the Reagan Star Wars concept scared the hell out of Russia. Killing Ballistic Missiles in the mid course trajectory from space with a laser or a small nuclear interceptor had its advantages destroying the Warhead equipment section before it ejected the Reentry vehicles.
Great video, as always. Now, here are my thoughts on this topic. As of today, in my opinion, there is no hypersonic weapon that can maintain its speed throughout the entire flight profile, except for ballistic missiles, which are not the subject of this discussion. Therefore, the compromise could be to have hypersonic capability in either the first or final (attack) stage. In both cases, an interception solution could be developed. Regarding the recent case of the "Khinzal" missile intercepted over Ukraine, I believe that this missile is hypersonic only in the first stage of flight. Given the known fact that the Russians are firing from inside their borders, it could be arriving at its objective at a much lower speed, following a quasi-ballistic flight path (assuming it can maneuver to defeat an anti-ballistic fire solution). Regards!
The kinzal is just an air launched balistic missile following a balistic flight path. At hypersonic speeds ofcourse, like all balistics do. That is why it was intercepted recently as it doesn't manouvre in flight.
@Antonio Hagopian just like when Russia says they have the best tanks, that haven't done shit against Ukraine? Even China doesn't want to buy anything, in fact the rest of the world doesn't want to buy any Russian made because of how much of a failure it is in the Ukraine theater? Laughable statement coming from you.
One thing worth pointing out is that much of the cost is getting a working design. They travel fast enough that rockets end up efficient, and rockets are cheap, far cheaper than a regular cruise missile engine. The flight times are lower which makes inertial navigation more accurate as long as you can get good initial conditions*, and that is quite easy close to the launcher. A manoeuvring hypersonic ground attack missile does not need sophisticated sensors**, or penetration aids. Control can be achieved with some lumps of tungsten on rails. A tank of liquid nitrogen can keep the stuff cool that needs it, while also using some of the skin heat to produce high pressure gas for power and actuation. Other than that it is mostly just a lump of tungsten on a big dumb booster. They are not inherently expensive. To make matters worse, it is a lump of tungsten. Even if you get an interceptor close to it, shrapnel isn't going to kill it reliably. I think of them as more similar to large versions of the starstreak missile. It is closer to a guided bullet than a conventional missile. Scramjets are a dead end I think. They only really make any sense with hydrogen, but then you end up with a vehicle that is mostly fuel tank, so low density. When it hits the lower atmosphere it will slow down too fast to be useful. It is far more practical just to add more booster and ablator. * If your IMU can place you within 5m of a target after 5 minutes, it doesn't matter whether that means from 30km away traveling 100m/s or 600km away traveling at 2000m/s. ** Defence contractors will obviously load them with sensors, to add a few zeros to the price, but they really don't need them. It cannot reasonably aim relative to the target, so needs to use absolute position techniques anyway. Likewise the closing speed relative to any interceptor will make detecting those in reasonable time to deliberately evade unreasonable too.
@@hphp31416 Not quite. It dumps it's energy into the surroundings and has comparable energy to it's mass in explosives. It doesn't need to be quite as precise as you might think. Also, precise guidance does not mean able to detect the target. It just means that it has a very precise idea of where it is (within 1m), and control of it's acceleration to within a few tenths of one g. Basically it needs to be reasonably aerodynamically stable and have a GPS on it. IMUs are good enough that it wouldn't even need to use the GPS within a few hundred km of the target to still hit the bullseye.
@@johnsmith1953x The problem with rail guns is the gun, not the concept of a hypersonic lump of tungsten. Getting a tungsten dart to hypersonic speeds isn't hard, you can just use a booster rocket. The point of a rail gun was to make it so cheap that you wouldn't even consider putting guidance on it. When you are spending the money on a booster anyway you might as well make it guided.
I appreciate your balanced commentary, noting both the strengths and weaknesses of the technology. Too many of your peers take sides without regard for logic or reality (glares at Task & Purpose).
1:05 While yes Mach 5 in particular is arbitrarily chosen, it's not *because* current weapons don't exceed those speeds, it's because required control systems and the chemical composition of air changes significantly at and beyond that flight regime
@@mastermariner490 there's always going to be more heat the faster you go, but counter intuitively it's colder than you'd expect with conventional supersonic physics because some of the heat energy is soaked up by the air molecules as they begin to break down and dissociate. For one thing, it changes the adiabatic index or specific heat ratio of the gas, which has consequences on how the gas behaves when flowing around the missiles body or into a scramjet
I say you are one of the most knowledgeable person i know, can i join your team in any way: im a 4.0 grad 4x IT engineer who formerly coded parallel processing libraries for a living, who loves aviation, astro physics and ethical hacking
This makes complete sense, after all it is just extrapolating the priniciples of air defense against supersonics to account for the interception speed differential when encountering hypersonics. To you final question - the only cost-effective counters are likely to be either lasers or superfast projectiles like railguns shooting exactly what you say - shotgun/flak style interception spread. Impacting the target at a differential speed of higher than mach 5 it is hard to imagine that any explosive material is at all needed to destroy the incoming weapon. Great video
I think you know what your talking about. Some of these so called experts raise my blood pressure with nonsense they post. Thank you for another great video.
But doesn't it mean that Hypersonic aren't as much of a threat as others make out to be? I mean important installation are protected by Launchers that will act as point defence and the rest of the area doesn't require that much defence as HM are very costly. No body is going to rain BM on another so if you can defend Important installation it severely limits the threat posed by them. Also thanks for teaching us important stuff in such a easy to learn way.
The mention of Laser defences reminds me of a posting about US Navy laser systems tested after installation on destroyers since 2014. They are apparently in the 60kw power range and very useful against drones. Also CHEAP, at $1 to $10 per shot, as opposed to $1 Million to $10 Million per shot with ship-based SAMs. They are talking about needing to boost power levels up to at least 1Mw if killing hypersonic antiship missiles is required. Still a lot cheaper per shot than missiles that would be up to the job, and with Gerald Ford-class carriers roughly 300mw of nuclear powerplant to keep the electricity supply up, workable. Of course, this ignores the detail of rain. The cliche is that missiles - say hypersonic anti-ship ones - can fly through rain, but lasers won't fire through it. So either some way of overcoming this problem or avoiding it has to be used. Say, put the laser in a high-altitude aircraft. Lasers apparently work much better at 30,000 or 60,000 feet. Hopefully, they could engage before the missiles drop to near sea level for the final run-up to the target. Keeping laser battle stations like this permanently orbiting anything needing defending would not be easy, and add one, two, or perhaps three zeros to any given nation's defence budget. Or of course satellite battle stations, you would need a lot of them because any given one would not be overhead long or REALLY powerful ones in geosynchronous orbit, and this is more Death Star pointed at Earth material which would trigger would wide protest movements, questions about "What are these people smoking and where can I get some of it?" and cost rather a lot of money. I enjoyed your latest posting and appreciate the work put into it. Maybe I read too much Robert Heinlein in my youth.
rain is i guess least of your problems as hypersonics are made to withstand extreme heat. laser cause extreme heat... so yeah. also loose power with distance a lot so heat on target will be really short.
@Millennium7HistoryTech This is a really interesting topic. There is another consideration about it. Don't underestimate the role of integrated command and control systems. Your analysis is based on a radar only sensoring system and single point detection. But what if the defenders are using a system, which could deploy a 3D coverage detection system including satellite sensing capabilities and interconnect detection data of the entire sensoring systems of all radars and satellite detection data in real time? You would no more rely on single detection of localized sensorics, but combine all SIGINT capabilities available for the designated area in need of protection. This would give you a vastly better real time detection and analysis of the entire trajectory of the incoming missile(s). We know at least since Stanislav Petrov saved the world by not throwing the entire Soviet atomic arsenal at the world, that every missile launch on earth can be detected by satellites and integrated detection systems. And now we are half a century apart. So the sensoring capabilities should enable the defence forces to follow and track every projectile on its route towards the designated target. There is another thing. The velocity and directional profiling of the projectile. This ability would allow the attacker to obfuscate the trajectory and the end target at least to a certain extent. And even more important: if the cruising speed of the missile remains below the speed of building up plasma around the vehicle disabling all guidance communications and all onboard sensor systems, and additionally getting propgrammed with an "intelligent" non-linear flight path, it could fly around all known or recently detected defense countermeasure systems making it much harder to be intercepted.
@The8thSpirit There are many problems with what you say but some of it is possible and true. I know for example that Sweden has integrated a lot of it's systems to share date and use data fusion to increase the detection capabilities and combat awareness. (I am sure many other nations also have this to varying degrees). However, Satellites can't detect well in bad weather. The reason they can detect intercontinental ballistic missiles better is because they are launched from fixed positions that is pre-known. Aka, easy to keep track of. They are also very big. Most other missile launchers move around and is more difficult to track. The missiles are smaller etc. I am sure you could detect some of them using your idea and I think they are more and more moving towards solutions like this. It's a complex issue.
Radar is always been the only the missing link to a perfected a defensive system and it’s still a work in progress phenomenon until it can pickup every electronic pulse in the killing zone,integrated radars to include satellites(360 degrees coverage)and electronic sensors are all pointing toward that perfection goal,it’s difficult but not impossible,a good analysis though.
@@SonnyKnutson Which "many" problems do you mean? Nearly everything I've said has already happened in Ukraine as of now. Please look for the Joint Multi Domain Integration system IBCS made by Northrop Grumman. The US has delivered 2 or 3 of them to Ukraine some months ago. Each sensor type has its own pros and cons. That's the reason for multi domain integration for combining the data of all available sensor systems to the best possible situational awareness. The technical difficulty is indeed to distinguish the electromagnetic signatures of a missile and weather induced discharges. Once again, if you combine infrared and radar data and apply trajectory interpolation, you could filter out the missile movement, right? Is there any weather phenomenon drawing a horizontal movement like a missile? The detection of a missile signature isn't only about the EM signal strength of the exhaust gases. 1980's are long over. It's also about the characteristical scheme of the signal trajectory.
It just occurred to me that in the age of hypersonics, an additional possibility opens up: the hypersonic decoy. Basically something like the Chinese WZ-8 drone optimized for decoy rather than recon. Look like a hypersonic missile on radar and flying on an easy to intercept trajectory against enemy AD. Once the enemy fires their interceptors you turn and fly back to base. The interceptors won't have the kinematics to intercept if fired at max range assuming the original interception trajectory. You can do this as many times as necessary to force the enemy to expend their interceptor missiles because your decoys are reusable so the attrition ratio will be in favor of offense. If the enemy is forced to wait until your hypersonic missiles enter the no-escape zone of their interceptors, their interception range will be negligible and their probability of intercept will take a huge hit against actual hypersonic missiles.
@Jeffery Zhang I think you don't fully understand the forces acting upon something hypersonic. They cover ~2000+ meters per second. 2km+ in a second. That isn't something you just "turn" and go back to base. Doing any movements that are more than slight adjustments will most likely tear the craft apart. Not to mention. If you turn to go back home. A 180 degree turn. Play with the idea that a hypersonic weapon could turn 5 degrees per second at those speeds. It would take 36 seconds to turn around fully. You have already flown by and passed the decoy target at that time. I think it's better to create decoys that is designed to be more maneuverable and just try to avoid the incoming interceptors for as long as it can while continuing into enemy territory. Sacrificing the decoy in the end. It would still most likely cause multiple interceptors to be launched. Especially if you send a few decoys at once.
Current technology (classified) can differentiate decoys from real via electronic pulses differences emitted via advanced radar sensors, somewhat like sonar in subsmarine,yeah wide span capability can discriminate,not a problem.
@@patrickkenyon23262016,Raytheon upgraded the radars to include much smaller wavelengths to pick up not only the heat but also the noise emission pulse,the patriot system of 2003 is daylight behind the current,most doubters used the older version to define the current capability,that’s idiot at its best.
Agree on the most part of the video but let's not forget that : A huge problem for most hypersonic programs is the cost of the ammunition that is so much more expensive than conventional missiles or low-cost UAV with an explosive charge that can be used in wave attacks to achieve a saturation effect on area defense. Given the cost of the hypersonic system, it has to be aimed at high-value target. These are limited in number and can be protected by dedicated point defenses systems integrated into the area surveillance system for long-range warning. I would say that the biggest benefit of hypersonic research program would be the ground-to-air defense systems themselves because by increasing significantly the speed of the missile (and being able to use a more direct trajectory instead of high energy trajectory) you can decrease the time to target of the missile which means a bigger no escape zone for the system...
I think it's not really a game changer. A force multiplier yes, but unless the hypersonics can somehow beat physics in the future I think the weight will shift more to the defender, not the attacker. Also why should an interceptor be required to fly fast? You don't intercept by chasing a missile, you intercept by flying to the same point. It obviously needs a sufficient accelleration and velocity for reaching said point after detection, but at the end of the day it's not a complicated process. Of course that doesn't make it easy. I don't think that the maneuverability of hypersonics is sufficient for "beating" an guided interceptor which is designed for stopping high velocity targets. Obviously only the future will tell, but right now we've only seen an air launched ballistic missile with limited maneuverability in practice. Wether we'll see hypersonic gliders anytime soon is something we don't know, so we can't really judge the capabilities yet.
The general rule for area defense SAMs is they need to have double the kinematics performance as the vehicle they are trying to kill in order to get very solid odds on destruction. I dont think you realize the kinds of g forces these hypersonic fires are pulling.
The solution to hypersonic weapons is a massive increase in the level of competency in western diplomacy , just look at Lavrov vs Blinken and the problem becomes obvious.
@@covidhoax7646Yeah you're just a troll. You called someone that supported Ukraine's sovereign right to exist a "Nazi boy". Edit: *"Who is [the] troll here?"* You are. I'm not trolling. I'm just exposing your comments. (response to the question made after my comment towards them because I am unable to further comment)
Someone who support Ukrainian sovereignty is and brainwashed and delusional. 1.It’s corrupt , fashist, blood firsty regime, that committed and keep committing so many agle crimes. 2. It doesn’t matter what kind of regime it is. It’s delusional to think that Russia will allow NATO be 400 miles from Moscow. Baltic states in NATO is already to much, and this will not end good. 2 missiles bases in Romania and Poland is too Much, and this will not end good for them, and on top of it, to plan a NATO in Krimea, biolabs . This is delusional, and not competent thinking. Ukrainians pay price. By they way also few thousands NATO personal and around 600 Americans. These numbers are not official, but from alternative USA sources, wich proved to be true in many other cases.
With current technology there is no hypersonic weapon that flies faster than c.Mach 2.5-3 at the moment of impact. There is yet no material known on this planet able to withstand higher temps. than c. Mach3 at sea level (or a few thousand feet above). What the missile does on its course at v. high altitude is another business. Still, the sheer impact of a heavy body flying Mach 2.3-3 is unpleasant and the impact itself, even without explosive, is best to be avoided.
Interesting information and perspective. TY. The solution to many problems is in taking a different approach. Thinking kinetic on kinetic may be the limfac here, and your details highlight this. Never thought I'd see a jet trying to down an aircraft by dumping fuel on it. Didn't work, but it was, at the very least, an adapted solution attempt.
Offensive missile technology always has the advantage because producing offensive missiles are less costly than building the network of defensive missiles. That is assuming the goal is to intercept a high percentage of all the attacking missiles.
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I've learnt more about hypersonics and in general, aerospace engineering stuff from your channel than any professor, book or research paper! Keep it up sir, may God bless u 🔥
Really? What exactly did you learn?
I thought this was clear and sufficiently simplified that I could get the main ideas. Very sensible stuff.
I love the no-nonsense infographics!
Hail the algorithm!
The Ukraine claim that they shot down a hypersonic missile has been debunked. The purported video of the claim shows an FAB500, not a hypersonic. The clue is in the shape of the nose.
@@72marshflower15 then, the Pentagon confirmed it after the supposed debunking, so I am skeptical of what really happened. I think the possibility should not be ruled out.
@@HTV-2_Hypersonic_Glide_Vehicle ~ surely it shouldn’t be discounted, yet the US lies so much that it’s earned itself the name “Empire of Lies”.. That and every claim that Ukraine has made against Russia has been false so far..
They were all false claims that were trying to get other countries involved or to hype up support.
@@72marshflower15 It is not a FAB-500 steel bomb, but a BETAB-500 SHP concrete piercing bomb.
This is a brilliant description of the true advantages of hypersonics.
I rarely stumble on RUclipsrs with such intellectual depth, Kudos to you man
That says a lot about you.
Good to get something on the subject other than clickbait. Thank you.
This was so enlightening! I have a much, much better understanding of hypersonics than before. Thank you!
Looking for something like this for a some time. Thank you on presenting the facts.
Excellent presentation and explanation for a layman like myself. Also, very interesting to learn some math and physics behind the concept of hypersonic technology. Thank you.
That zooming in effect from time to time gives your video presentation a nuanced variation which is effective for keeping your audience engaged.
This is the best explanation of the whys, hows, whats of hypersonic weapons that I have seen, and I have seen a lot.
As for defence, the US could always dust off the Sprint missile and upgrade it into a hit-to-kill system. Zero to Mach 10 in 5 seconds, and that was back in 1975.
You are really on top of your self this time! Best videos "More concerned pushing a narrative than under standing.." so true!
Keep em coming
Brilliant! 99% of all the military focused RUclips channels ignore the Physics. I wish one day that you had enough funding to create your own simulations. I loved the ellipses based upon velocity. But now imagine iterating they with the missiles target strength vs frequency! The ellipses would shrink :). And as the missiles plasma envelope changes ……. well you already know this 😊
They are only ellipses if the attacks are coming from all directions. Narrow cones pointing towards the attacking missile would be more like it.
This is the very first I've heard about possible Ku band communication. Another great, informative video Millennium 7*, now on to do some more research!
Nice video man. No irony, your drawing skills are very good. Very simple, but very easily understood and precise. I hope you are doing well health wise. Take care.
This channel is the best information on aerodynamics and modern technology and design. Great work 👏
I am glad I found you. Nice video and GREAT explanation.
This is one the best explanation of Hypersonic weapons I have seen. And yes, most youtubers are parrots.
Physics was my childhood fascination and logic behind is very difficult to master.
This presentation is pretty good.
There is a wide gap between theory and practice.
Thank you for explaining how area defence actually work.
I really like the return of the pen and paper slides!
They are more than adequate.
Makes sense why russians invested into kinzhal. It is relatively cheap for them to make and like you said the advantage is with the attacker and they beat nafo to the punch. On top of that they have electronic warfare onboard and also the countermeasure droppers. Also russians dont just launch a single kinzhal for air defense to conveniently cherrypick they flood the air with a sea of cheap drones and cheap missiles and sneak in the kinzhals once air defense is both exposed and overwhelmed and kinzhal can maneuver around them or knows where to hit. Even if patriot can technically hit them which i seriously doubt they can outsmart it in other ways. So yes it is a game changer not because its a wunderwaffe even tho it kinda is, it's because it is a force multiplier
Very interesting. Thank you for explaining the area defense change. I will note that the oval is not going to be symmetrical. It will be shorter behind it than in front of it, if it can even shoot hyper-sonic that has passed it.
True, it is not exactly an oval ether.
Yet another clear and comprehensive explainer. A welcome change compared to all the clickbait online.
Fascinating subject and told in such an understandable yet interesting way. Thanks, great job.
They can make turns, yes, they do not have radar detecting avoidance systems on them like Russia claims. The plasma wave they produce at the tip is very hot and detectable by simple IR radar systems from long distances, the goal to bring them down is early detection. They also slow down considerably (Mach 3 or 4) when approaching target, leaving them open to most air defence systems. They are not and end all kill all weapon.
They can reach Mach 15 when approaching the target vertically.
IR detectors very short ranged due to the small wavelength. Radars have much bigger wavelength
@@justrandomguy5010 not via satellite
@@braybilly"Lying or exaggerating as they always do". Hm so something along the lines of the ghost of Kiev or the grandma taking down a Russian drone with a can of beans eh?
@@Shrouded_reaper it's almost as if that's obvious, feel good propaganda to make the civil population feel good.
It's like those two things are not the same.. madness I know.
Great explanation, thanks.
This is one of the very best channels. For info
Excellent video, very well presented and easy to understand. Obviously this is a massively simplified explanation, but how many of us are really going to need that depth of information...? Keep up the good work sir.
Very well explained, i watched your previous videos about this topic and this one was easy to understand, the graphic design is also improving well.
The economics are frightening: A very great increase in defensive installations is not only costly, but diverts resources away from other projects. While hypersonics are still very high tech, they are relatively cheap compared to the effort to defend against them. That means an adversary doesn't need very many hypersonics to elicit a disproportional response and they would be very effective against soft targets like radar stations. Take out the search radars and there is no facility to detect and analyze targets. Traditional fire control radar is higher frequency narrow beam short range equipment, while search radar is low frequency wide beam long range equipment. Phased arrays remove most of the physical limitations of scanning, but that mostly means the ability to lock on to multiple targets, not be effective in long range search. If you can blind the adversary, then the choice of engagement opens up significantly. If search radar is your eyes, is that what gets the point defense? In asymmetrical warfare, the big guy may not want to invade the little guy because it is like kicking a hornet's nest. The big guy will prevail, but not without significant pain for little gain.
I absolutely love your analysis!!!
Thanks for the overview; I was wondering about the defence.
Strategically, we're still stuck with MAD. In the carrier-killer concept, the mobility, AEW and escorts with high-performance missiles should still make a carrier task group a tough nut to crack.
Hypersonics are kinda meant to be anti-carrier. That is one of the main reasons for Russia's interest in them.
@@CloneDAnon And the USN is taking them seriously.
@@petesheppard1709 ...and that is why Russia has not invested in large ships anymore, instead deliberately choosing a fleet of small ships capable of carrying cruise and hypersonic missiles. It is a whole conceptual change (at least for Russia).
Amazing video, finally someone to dive into the true detail of those weapons.
I got a lot from this video. Previously, I believed that that the sensing and communications blindfold caused by the plasma envelope would prevent hypersonics from being practical, especially against moving targets, but apparently I overestimated how big of an obstacle that is. Thank you!
Great overview of the issues associated with hypersonic missiles. One area you failed to address was the tremendous kinetic energy associated with HMs which would make them much more lethal than conventional cruise missiles.
I'm more interested in some form of a DEW functioning like a directed EMP than railgun but either do seem like the only options on the table other than some of the more theoretical ideas that are on a more distant horizon. I think a low orbit interceptor launcher could be something we see in the next century or so for example. Most of your videos are excellent but this was a particularly good one, packed with good info. Thank you for the effort you clearly go through to put it together
I just remembered something in the old Combat and Survival magazine describing attack helicopters: they are an economy of force unit. They are deployed only if it merits their relatively large cost compared to other assets. Hypersonice weapons seem to be also economy of force assets: when a very important target needs to be quickly dispatched without using nukes. Of course, if the price and manufacturing of hypersonic weapons get lower, this again may change.
You're content is, as always, amazing.
Well thought, and well executed, your channel has been my favorite military tech channel ever since I first discovered you during the pandemic.
Keep up the good work!
You are so cool. Thank you for this. Another example of why I always wait to hear what *you* have to say about things like this.
Faster weapons make the area defense bubble shrink and become more oblong. But have very little impact on point defense, _assuming_ there is good automation (ex: a system which uses 'man in the loop' at low speeds, but omits MITL for any approaching contacts going above mach 2 or 3).
Stealth does "shrink the bubble" in a more spherical way. Although stealth aircraft have "hot axis", where large areas are 90 degrees to the detection system. So it's effect on shrinking 'bubbles' is fairly complex.
A good way to intercept hypersonic weapons (assuming the range/speed/detection/ooda are ok), is to put shrapnel in the path of the weapon. A single, _stationary_ BB pelet would completely destroy a mach 7 missile or aircraft. So you don't need to hit them hard, just 'touch' them, and let their own kinetic energy do the rest. Personally I'm a fan of specialized warheads for hypersonic intercept, something like very distantly projected "heavy duty chaff" or perhaps a very large packet of dispersed aluminum maple seeds (which would also be incredibly effective as chaff, incidentally).
But the main defense, is a hypersonic A2AD system. Just make the intercept missiles fast too. Not _all_ of them, just some of them, in a distributed system. This can be a benefit vs. slower targets like aircraft as well. Since it really tightens up the ooda for a pilot trying to penetrate air defense. Could get into fancy cat & mouse games, where you could "spoof" a hypersonic air defense missile launch, to force nearby enemy aircraft to throw out chaff (giving away their position), as they'll be reluctant to wait & make sure they've actually been fired upon, when their ooda is so short.
Your best flight profile for a hypersonic antiship missile, would be high... then descending at a steady rate (straight line) to near sea level at aproximately 25km away. Keeping the whole flight profile neatly snug against the horizon visibility of the target vessel. With a final boost phase pushing hypersonic through that last 25km at sea level. It would melt all to heII, but making a projectile survive 25km at 6000 km/hr only requires about 15 seconds of durability (unless it hits an insect... then kaboom). The problem would be the size of the booster needed to push that fast at sea level for 15 seconds. Which compounds with the size of the booster needed to project such a large booster to it's 25km-from-target ignition. It would not be a small package, and could require a rather oversized launch platform (might end up being a 4000 lb missile or something).
Mainly hypersonics are strong against less important targets. Ones which don't individually warrant point defense, or basing an A2AD directly at them (where it would benefit from point-defense kinematics, at least while defending that point). Russia has demonstrated this by using them to strike things like power grid components, railways, etc. where they are well suited to penetrate defenses.
I seriously question their value vs sheer bulk numbers of far cheaper to make regular missiles. But if a limited number of them can force your opponent into spending big on countermeasures, then hypersonic weapons can be a big winner in the economic warfare of an arms race, without actually needing to be fired. But if all it does is force the enemy to field far better A2AD systems, it's not necessarily a win.
If im not wrong Russia used hypersonic weapons to hit high value targets like bunkers and protected ammo depots, not secondary but protected targets (supersonic ones used for them)... high penetration because of kinematics is also a factor also. Thus the low numbers of hypersonic weapons used (if my memory serves less than a dozen total so far)
Counter naval hypersonic arms flight path should have an element of re orientation while at the blind spot of the their target... thus countering to a point any early (long range) detection and tracking.
I think that the main problem for hypersonic AAA system is the calculations for tracking and targeting, faster computers needed to calculate where to send the projectiles.
@@leosam7097 Well "value" is relative. obviously one would want to target the highest value target they can ... _short_ of sending it directly at an air defense system (which would make the air defense system much more capable of shooting it down).
@@kathrynck"short of sending it directly at an air defense system" Nope.
I'll tell you a little secret. Kinzhal is made for Carrier battle group. That is why they launched 6 Kinzhal at once few moths ago. To send a message. Price doesn't matter in that case.
@@kathrynck Yes it is relative and thus the observation i made, also the cost and availability of those weapons... + Current SAM systems they dont have the capability to intercept hyprtsonics yet (as far as we know) so high priority / value targets that are protected are the logically the prime targets for such weapons.
@@leosam7097 It may also be that systems sent to Ukraine are older-block backup hardware. And are not well suited to targeting a hypersonic missile. Although the kinzhal is just an air launched ballistic missile really. So older systems which have dual AA & ABM should work. Even vintage desert storm era patriot missiles, and similarly aged SM missiles in the navy. I'm sure newer versions work 'better' though. Hitting a bullet with a bullet is tricky even when all the math is right ;)
Ballistic glide vehicle type missiles are probably the biggest issue. They come from overhead at mach 25~ish. And it takes more missile (booster) to go up than to go horizontally. So there's a small intercept range (barring enormous A2AD missiles), and a very small intercept time window. If it maneuvers at all, it becomes somewhat more tricky to shoot down, even if you have an A2AD system which is technically capable.
Compact, non-recombinant 100, 200, and 300 KW lasers are just about ready for prime time though. That will change some things. Arguably change more things than HS missiles.
You are absolutely the best at explaining this technology. I have had many science teachers and you are the top. THANK YOU
Another EXCELLENT (unrivaled) analysis by Gus. Thank you
*Reminds me of 60s tech: The SPRINT missile (100G acceleration & mach 10 in ~15sec!)*
A useful contribution to the hypersonics discussion on RUclips. Thanks for the video
I love the way you present your content! Thx - quite enlightening!!
That protruding antenna or magnetic field will produce plasma itself. There is no way around it. The physics in that velocities is so complicated, that even a supercomputer can not compute the easiest maneuverability of the object in the plasma inferno
Interesting and informative.
The only thing I highly anticipate is the sudden elephant on screen. Now, I can re-watch the video with sound 😅
That elephant is terrifying 😯😂
Thank you for bringing an HONEST enlightment of facts
Another fine video, sir. I've been thinking about railgun tech a great deal lately, and their use in hypersonic threat defense. Please explore!
I was in Lance missile guarding the Fulda Gap at the end of the cold war, and I was with Patriot in Desert Storm. I was a field artillery surveyor/forward observer in the US Army so I also worked with guns, MLRS, and HAWK missile. I've been out of the loop for a long time. I've heard the Patriot of today only shares the name with my missiles and that these actually hit the target rather than exploding in the targets path. If that's true, that alone seems like it would make the accuracy needed astronomical. In my day the Patriot was more about it's radars capabilities than the missiles, and without radar the missiles aren't doing much. This really is a different era in warfare and I don't think I like it. It might be time to go back to cheap AAA guns and cover the skies with shrapnel and hope for the hyper missile to fly through it. Surely hitting even a BB at M5 would bad, wouldn't it?
the current radar system in the modern patriot is the game changer since desert storm,it has been discussed extensively by former military analysts about its current radar capability,again you’re right,radar system is the improvement since Iraqi war.
ballistic aa guns are effective but costly, they run through ammo so fast.
@@georgesikimeti2184 Oh, come on, man! 😄
@@sacco_vanzettiwell 100 percent is certainly an improvement over 40 percent back in Hussein days,I think so!you?
@@georgesikimeti2184 Mmmh - I like to learn, do you have a tip or link to relevant, serious "technical literature, so that I can read it myself ?
In any case, I strongly doubt the current suitability of the system; after all, there are recordings in which more than 20 Patriots are fired at obviously irrelevant targets within a short period of time and shortly thereafter something detonates in the system's location. It seems that the Achilles heel of the system has been found - or are we talking past each other now? Which then is probably my fault...^^
Hope counter-measures like “Glide-Breaker” for glide Hypersonic missiles can be discussed. From another you tuber, hypersonic missiles are a game changer though their high cost (fighter-jet level cost for what is a munition) means they will be deployed when a critical target needs to be serviced immediately.
Kinzhal still much cheaper than fighter jets
I’m thankful for your clear explanation that also does not attempt to make it seem simple (or overly complex). Maneuvering hypersonic weapons are challenging, yes, but not impossible. For now, it seems the uses are mostly offensive in nature, until we can improve the technological readiness to have highly maneuverable bodies.
Beautifull, intelligent, understandandable explanation great!
But they are saying the Patriot system is shooting down the Kinzal missiles and they are not maneuvering,, just a parabolic arc. They are saying that the designers of Russia's hyper sonic missiles have been arrested, and implying that these designers nay be blackmailed to reveal designs due to their families being in the West and potentially targeted.
They are saying that all the Kinzals are being shot down - but there is video footage of 2 of them hitting Patriot launchers...and 'they' are hunting down the folk responsible for the video. Suggests the Kinzal are effective to me. I like the smell of propaganda in the morning...
Nothing but Ukrainian Lies.
@@markir9Yep...
@@markir9 there is no such video
@@Alex-no1rb I ve seen it though :D
let me correct you: There s no such video that is available to you
I am a little bit disappointed he still doesn't mention that hypersonic speed is faster than explosion speed thus proxy fuse weapons are useless.
That's why PAC-3 Missles are hit to kill missles.
You really wouldn't use a proximity fuze anyway on something that is even supersonic. What you do is calculated a cone of shrapnel and simply detonate it a head of time. This is so common nowdays even something simple like a Bofors AA gun do it that way.
@@matsv201 The fact is exactly the opposite. Most missile only have limited computation power due to size and weight. The little bit extra conventional targets hit rate of realtime projectiles cone trajectory calculation over proxy fuze detonation simply doesn't worth occupying such significant portion of on board computation power comparing to improving detection, anti jamming and flight trajectory (range) optimization.
Besides, shrapnel cone is always straight extended along the "instant" missile movement direction. If you draw a missile turning trajectory and the straight extended cone along the path, you will see the cone interception curve line lag outward and behind the missile turning path. It means the missile must turn harder to put the cone interception line on a maneuvering target and it is less effective to catch maneuvering targets than direct hit/proxy fuze method.
Only unguided weapon system with a lot of fire contol power like 35mm AA AHEAD is suitable to use shrapnel cone method because the interception speed, altitude and distance of the projectile are easily calculated on the vehicle before firing. If target maneuver, it simply misses and fire again.
@@joelau2383 That might have been true 50 years ago in the 70s when they needed a extra rack for FPU calculation. To day this compute power is literally in the relm of nano grams.
"missile turning path. It means the missile must turn harder to put the cone interception"
The turn rate to time is lower on a hypersonic missile than a supesonic or subsonic one. So even if its faster, its actually easier to hit.
Intelligent targeting tips have been a thing for over 40 years. You have to catch up to nowdays
@@matsv201 You clearly are not familiar with military technology and history. Weapon processor performance is decades behind civilian mobile product processor, because they are designed to be stable and reliable under extreme condition like heavy radiation and overload during decades long service life, not chasing performance. Most missile on board processor in 70s cannot even guide itself to intercept the target alone, it was a 90s missile feature. And flight trajectory optimisation was 2000s era feature. New anti jamming and stealth detection enhancement are even more recent technology. Cone of shrapnel method is still never an efficient way to spend the limit computation power for most of the missile.
For example, 21th century missiles like SM-6, PAC-3 MSE, Aim-132 use annular/spherical blast frag warhead instead of shrapnel or pellet cone spread warhead.
Your concept of interception is wrong. If your missile is as fast as the target, you only need the same max turn rate as the maneuvering target to maintain interception. If your missile is slower than the target, you need a higher turn rate than maneuvering target to maintain interception. This is why it is easy to intercept a slow target with fast missile, but difficult to intercept a fast target with slow missile.
Another point to add is that a regular ballistic missile on a depressed trajectory ( lower ) can deliver the warhead with an equal or maybe even shorter flight time than a hypersonic over the same range ! ( sub launches )
This is a completely nonsensical statement. A ballistic missile, by definition, is not low trajectory.
@@c1ue1 I said "lower" not low ! ... read before you try to contradict.
Look up " depressed trajectory "
@@steveb890 Apparently you failed basic geometry.
Perhaps you should do the math of how much further a distance a non-hypersonic missile must travel in its "lower" ballistic missile trajectory vs. a cruise missile on a flat trajectory. For simplicity sake - I will use a half circle vs. a straight line - 2xradius (hypersonic) vs. 1/2*pi*radius squared. Taking into account the relative speed of ballistic (top end) vs. Mach 10 - the equation boils down to 1/2*pi*radius squared/1.33 = 2*radius/1.
Or in other words, unless the radius in question is 2.3 km - the hypersonic missile will be faster reaching its target.
If we posit the hypersonic missile is "only" going Mach 5 - the "break even" radius expands to 2.36 km.
Yes, the ballistic trajectory is closer to a half ellipse - but that doesn't significantly change the "break even" radius. An ellipse with 1/2 the height vs. width - the circumference is 2*pi*(3*r1+r2squared+squareroot of r1*r2) = 2*pi(6r2+r2squared+squareroot(2*r2)... the result is break even points under 3 km for both the (ballistic speed = 1.33x hypersonic i.e. Mach 10) and (ballistic speed = 1.4x hypersonic i.e. Mach 5 - and using maximum ballistic missile speed of 10000 kmph).
Or in other words - unless the ballistic trajectory is basically almost literally flat - your assertion is flat out wrong.
@@steveb890 Do the math. Come back afterwards and comment.
@@c1ue1 Apparently you failed basic Physics .... no atmosphere entered into your equation ? 🤡
No mention at Mach 5 a missile at altitude will lose energy 125 times faster than at Mach 1, and at Mach 20 it will lose energy 8,000 times faster!
cant account for drag .... but clearly you know more than rocket scientists. 🤣
Well done. Thank you for taking the time to do this explanation with great illustrations.
Your content is now top notch and I love the work you put into it..The content and effort gives me the sense I can trust the information. Something not easily achieved today.
Thanks for the video. Its too bad about all the bot spam in the comments.
Well explained. The Patriot in Kiev fired ~30 interceptors in a couple of minutes and still got hit by the Kinzhal.
there were multiple kinzhals fired at it,not just one.
@@montecristo7203 actually there were 6 and another tens of cruise missiles and the Patriot radar was not hit, only one interceptor
Patriot was never hit by a Kinzhal
@@amazin7006 whatever u say idiot clown . Patriot is such a shitty system it can be targeted for it's radar signatrue, because US thought they would always use it vs small countries
@amazin
I think it indeed was.
Perhaps directed energy weapons can help but they are also very weather dependent on performance side... so until we get to invent those kinetic energy barriers, we are in for a lot of hurt...
Excellent analysis, best on youtube.
Another fantastic video showing what is and is not possible for the weaponry and defence against it that we have today, as well as a few hints about the future. I'd be fascinated to see your take on lasers as a possible defence against hypersonic missiles, also to hear whether you think that laser technology of this sort is feasible at the moment, and when and if you believe it WILL become feasible- if at all- in the future. The United States seems to be gambling most of its chips on being able to develop this type of technology rather than going the 'Hypersonic' route. Is this a wise move in your opinion? Many thanks for the content and for reading this, Jim (from across the pond!!)
Good report.
If you intercept a hypersonic missile close to your position the threat isn't over because now you have to deal with super sonic shrapnel...
air resistance is ablative in this case.
That’s exactly what happened when all the missiles were nullified,what else could have been responsible.
What to me is an important parameter that was not covered was the energy required to turn. It has to be nearly all thrust as "banking" like a winged aircraft does nearly nothing, thus turns would require the energy equal to the sin of the angle turned, a 30º angle turn at Mach 5, regardless of the turning radius would require the same energy as to accelerate the missile from 0 to mach 2.5, which for a "sustaining" scram-jet engine is a lot of time, distance, fuel.
Most turning is done by air pressure. That energy has already been provided by the thrust and relative velocity of the airflow over fins. That's been a well understood mechanics from the beginning of bird flight.
Highly interesting.
Really appreciate your explanations. Keep up the good work
Great Channel!
All Ballistic Missile reentry bodies are in fact High Hypersonic. Mack 10 to 25 but most have a predictable trajectory. Hypersonic cruise missiles are Mach 5+ and a different beast.
This is why the Reagan Star Wars concept scared the hell out of Russia. Killing Ballistic Missiles in the mid course trajectory from space with a laser or a small nuclear interceptor had its advantages destroying the Warhead equipment section before it ejected the Reentry vehicles.
Diffirence being actual hypersonic kinzhal doesnt need a nuke warhead to be effective because it is a precision weapon with
Great video, as always. Now, here are my thoughts on this topic. As of today, in my opinion, there is no hypersonic weapon that can maintain its speed throughout the entire flight profile, except for ballistic missiles, which are not the subject of this discussion. Therefore, the compromise could be to have hypersonic capability in either the first or final (attack) stage. In both cases, an interception solution could be developed.
Regarding the recent case of the "Khinzal" missile intercepted over Ukraine, I believe that this missile is hypersonic only in the first stage of flight. Given the known fact that the Russians are firing from inside their borders, it could be arriving at its objective at a much lower speed, following a quasi-ballistic flight path (assuming it can maneuver to defeat an anti-ballistic fire solution).
Regards!
you know that story Got disproven right?
@@Svevid hahah....if he knew that....he wouldn't be talking about it as if it was truth.
The kinzal is just an air launched balistic missile following a balistic flight path.
At hypersonic speeds ofcourse, like all balistics do.
That is why it was intercepted recently as it doesn't manouvre in flight.
What intercept? The one that is a lie just like everything that ukiland and nato says?
@Antonio Hagopian just like when Russia says they have the best tanks, that haven't done shit against Ukraine? Even China doesn't want to buy anything, in fact the rest of the world doesn't want to buy any Russian made because of how much of a failure it is in the Ukraine theater? Laughable statement coming from you.
One thing worth pointing out is that much of the cost is getting a working design. They travel fast enough that rockets end up efficient, and rockets are cheap, far cheaper than a regular cruise missile engine. The flight times are lower which makes inertial navigation more accurate as long as you can get good initial conditions*, and that is quite easy close to the launcher. A manoeuvring hypersonic ground attack missile does not need sophisticated sensors**, or penetration aids. Control can be achieved with some lumps of tungsten on rails. A tank of liquid nitrogen can keep the stuff cool that needs it, while also using some of the skin heat to produce high pressure gas for power and actuation. Other than that it is mostly just a lump of tungsten on a big dumb booster. They are not inherently expensive.
To make matters worse, it is a lump of tungsten. Even if you get an interceptor close to it, shrapnel isn't going to kill it reliably.
I think of them as more similar to large versions of the starstreak missile. It is closer to a guided bullet than a conventional missile.
Scramjets are a dead end I think. They only really make any sense with hydrogen, but then you end up with a vehicle that is mostly fuel tank, so low density. When it hits the lower atmosphere it will slow down too fast to be useful. It is far more practical just to add more booster and ablator.
* If your IMU can place you within 5m of a target after 5 minutes, it doesn't matter whether that means from 30km away traveling 100m/s or 600km away traveling at 2000m/s.
** Defence contractors will obviously load them with sensors, to add a few zeros to the price, but they really don't need them. It cannot reasonably aim relative to the target, so needs to use absolute position techniques anyway. Likewise the closing speed relative to any interceptor will make detecting those in reasonable time to deliberately evade unreasonable too.
Thank you that was very complementary to the video and my understanding of this topic 🙏
piece of tungsten hitting 10m away from armoured vecchicle would just bury itself into ground with no results, it needs precise terminal guidance
@@hphp31416 Not quite. It dumps it's energy into the surroundings and has comparable energy to it's mass in explosives. It doesn't need to be quite as precise as you might think. Also, precise guidance does not mean able to detect the target. It just means that it has a very precise idea of where it is (within 1m), and control of it's acceleration to within a few tenths of one g. Basically it needs to be reasonably aerodynamically stable and have a GPS on it. IMUs are good enough that it wouldn't even need to use the GPS within a few hundred km of the target to still hit the bullseye.
@@johnsmith1953x The problem with rail guns is the gun, not the concept of a hypersonic lump of tungsten. Getting a tungsten dart to hypersonic speeds isn't hard, you can just use a booster rocket. The point of a rail gun was to make it so cheap that you wouldn't even consider putting guidance on it. When you are spending the money on a booster anyway you might as well make it guided.
I appreciate your balanced commentary, noting both the strengths and weaknesses of the technology. Too many of your peers take sides without regard for logic or reality (glares at Task & Purpose).
Thank you comrade.
Giving you reddit gold for this BANGER of a post.
1:05 While yes Mach 5 in particular is arbitrarily chosen, it's not *because* current weapons don't exceed those speeds, it's because required control systems and the chemical composition of air changes significantly at and beyond that flight regime
Makes sense,since the aerodynamic friction will probably be higher and more heat created causing problems for electronics and seeekers in the missile.
@@mastermariner490 there's always going to be more heat the faster you go, but counter intuitively it's colder than you'd expect with conventional supersonic physics because some of the heat energy is soaked up by the air molecules as they begin to break down and dissociate. For one thing, it changes the adiabatic index or specific heat ratio of the gas, which has consequences on how the gas behaves when flowing around the missiles body or into a scramjet
@@yaseen157 You mean plasma forms and blocks radio signals.
I say you are one of the most knowledgeable person i know, can i join your team in any way: im a 4.0 grad 4x IT engineer who formerly coded parallel processing libraries for a living, who loves aviation, astro physics and ethical hacking
Feel free to send me an e-mail in private. The address is in the about section of the channel
Between MALD and a starting point from the goal keepers software I can Illuminate more spread
This makes complete sense, after all it is just extrapolating the priniciples of air defense against supersonics to account for the interception speed differential when encountering hypersonics.
To you final question - the only cost-effective counters are likely to be either lasers or superfast projectiles like railguns shooting exactly what you say - shotgun/flak style interception spread. Impacting the target at a differential speed of higher than mach 5 it is hard to imagine that any explosive material is at all needed to destroy the incoming weapon. Great video
Beautiful hand drawings!
Excellent.
I think you know what your talking about. Some of these so called experts raise my blood pressure with nonsense they post. Thank you for another great video.
But doesn't it mean that Hypersonic aren't as much of a threat as others make out to be?
I mean important installation are protected by Launchers that will act as point defence and the rest of the area doesn't require that much defence as HM are very costly.
No body is going to rain BM on another so if you can defend Important installation it severely limits the threat posed by them.
Also thanks for teaching us important stuff in such a easy to learn way.
The point is that you can't get away with area defence, you need a point defence wherever there is a target.
You make complex things very intuitive!
I think you are a very good teacher. I love your videos
The mention of Laser defences reminds me of a posting about US Navy laser systems tested after installation on destroyers since 2014. They are apparently in the 60kw power range and very useful against drones. Also CHEAP, at $1 to $10 per shot, as opposed to $1 Million to $10 Million per shot with ship-based SAMs. They are talking about needing to boost power levels up to at least 1Mw if killing hypersonic antiship missiles is required. Still a lot cheaper per shot than missiles that would be up to the job, and with Gerald Ford-class carriers roughly 300mw of nuclear powerplant to keep the electricity supply up, workable.
Of course, this ignores the detail of rain. The cliche is that missiles - say hypersonic anti-ship ones - can fly through rain, but lasers won't fire through it. So either some way of overcoming this problem or avoiding it has to be used. Say, put the laser in a high-altitude aircraft. Lasers apparently work much better at 30,000 or 60,000 feet. Hopefully, they could engage before the missiles drop to near sea level for the final run-up to the target. Keeping laser battle stations like this permanently orbiting anything needing defending would not be easy, and add one, two, or perhaps three zeros to any given nation's defence budget.
Or of course satellite battle stations, you would need a lot of them because any given one would not be overhead long or REALLY powerful ones in geosynchronous orbit, and this is more Death Star pointed at Earth material which would trigger would wide protest movements, questions about "What are these people smoking and where can I get some of it?" and cost rather a lot of money. I enjoyed your latest posting and appreciate the work put into it. Maybe I read too much Robert Heinlein in my youth.
rain is i guess least of your problems as hypersonics are made to withstand extreme heat. laser cause extreme heat... so yeah. also loose power with distance a lot so heat on target will be really short.
@@jebise1126 The heat caused by a 1MW laser is a hell of a lot hotter than the heat caused by air resistance.
I need a coffee too. Not that the video isn't hugely interesting.
@Millennium7HistoryTech This is a really interesting topic. There is another consideration about it. Don't underestimate the role of integrated command and control systems. Your analysis is based on a radar only sensoring system and single point detection. But what if the defenders are using a system, which could deploy a 3D coverage detection system including satellite sensing capabilities and interconnect detection data of the entire sensoring systems of all radars and satellite detection data in real time? You would no more rely on single detection of localized sensorics, but combine all SIGINT capabilities available for the designated area in need of protection. This would give you a vastly better real time detection and analysis of the entire trajectory of the incoming missile(s). We know at least since Stanislav Petrov saved the world by not throwing the entire Soviet atomic arsenal at the world, that every missile launch on earth can be detected by satellites and integrated detection systems. And now we are half a century apart. So the sensoring capabilities should enable the defence forces to follow and track every projectile on its route towards the designated target.
There is another thing. The velocity and directional profiling of the projectile. This ability would allow the attacker to obfuscate the trajectory and the end target at least to a certain extent. And even more important: if the cruising speed of the missile remains below the speed of building up plasma around the vehicle disabling all guidance communications and all onboard sensor systems, and additionally getting propgrammed with an "intelligent" non-linear flight path, it could fly around all known or recently detected defense countermeasure systems making it much harder to be intercepted.
@The8thSpirit There are many problems with what you say but some of it is possible and true.
I know for example that Sweden has integrated a lot of it's systems to share date and use data fusion to increase the detection capabilities and combat awareness. (I am sure many other nations also have this to varying degrees).
However, Satellites can't detect well in bad weather. The reason they can detect intercontinental ballistic missiles better is because they are launched from fixed positions that is pre-known. Aka, easy to keep track of. They are also very big.
Most other missile launchers move around and is more difficult to track. The missiles are smaller etc.
I am sure you could detect some of them using your idea and I think they are more and more moving towards solutions like this. It's a complex issue.
Radar is always been the only the missing link to a perfected a defensive system and it’s still a work in progress phenomenon until it can pickup every electronic pulse in the killing zone,integrated radars to include satellites(360 degrees coverage)and electronic sensors are all pointing toward that perfection goal,it’s difficult but not impossible,a good analysis though.
@@SonnyKnutson Which "many" problems do you mean? Nearly everything I've said has already happened in Ukraine as of now. Please look for the Joint Multi Domain Integration system IBCS made by Northrop Grumman. The US has delivered 2 or 3 of them to Ukraine some months ago.
Each sensor type has its own pros and cons. That's the reason for multi domain integration for combining the data of all available sensor systems to the best possible situational awareness.
The technical difficulty is indeed to distinguish the electromagnetic signatures of a missile and weather induced discharges. Once again, if you combine infrared and radar data and apply trajectory interpolation, you could filter out the missile movement, right? Is there any weather phenomenon drawing a horizontal movement like a missile?
The detection of a missile signature isn't only about the EM signal strength of the exhaust gases. 1980's are long over. It's also about the characteristical scheme of the signal trajectory.
@@georgesikimeti2184 As I have read the latest Ramstein list, advanced radar systems are already on the way to the field.
Regular viewer of your videos!! Love from India Sir!
First time I viewed you. Thanks mate
It just occurred to me that in the age of hypersonics, an additional possibility opens up: the hypersonic decoy. Basically something like the Chinese WZ-8 drone optimized for decoy rather than recon. Look like a hypersonic missile on radar and flying on an easy to intercept trajectory against enemy AD. Once the enemy fires their interceptors you turn and fly back to base. The interceptors won't have the kinematics to intercept if fired at max range assuming the original interception trajectory.
You can do this as many times as necessary to force the enemy to expend their interceptor missiles because your decoys are reusable so the attrition ratio will be in favor of offense. If the enemy is forced to wait until your hypersonic missiles enter the no-escape zone of their interceptors, their interception range will be negligible and their probability of intercept will take a huge hit against actual hypersonic missiles.
@Jeffery Zhang I think you don't fully understand the forces acting upon something hypersonic. They cover ~2000+ meters per second. 2km+ in a second. That isn't something you just "turn" and go back to base. Doing any movements that are more than slight adjustments will most likely tear the craft apart. Not to mention. If you turn to go back home. A 180 degree turn. Play with the idea that a hypersonic weapon could turn 5 degrees per second at those speeds. It would take 36 seconds to turn around fully. You have already flown by and passed the decoy target at that time.
I think it's better to create decoys that is designed to be more maneuverable and just try to avoid the incoming interceptors for as long as it can while continuing into enemy territory. Sacrificing the decoy in the end. It would still most likely cause multiple interceptors to be launched. Especially if you send a few decoys at once.
Current technology (classified) can differentiate decoys from real via electronic pulses differences emitted via advanced radar sensors, somewhat like sonar in subsmarine,yeah wide span capability can discriminate,not a problem.
@@georgesikimeti2184 Picking up the active radar transmission?
Sure, that's easy.
Turning around will only take 200 kilometers...
@@patrickkenyon23262016,Raytheon upgraded the radars to include much smaller wavelengths to pick up not only the heat but also the noise emission pulse,the patriot system of 2003 is daylight behind the current,most doubters used the older version to define the current capability,that’s idiot at its best.
Great info. suggestion slow down some and you will be easier to follow👍
Can just watch the video on x1.75 speed instead of x2.0.
5:28 oh come on, we were expecting a real coffee. Next time please keep it real 😂 (the coffee part). Nice video as always.
Agree on the most part of the video but let's not forget that :
A huge problem for most hypersonic programs is the cost of the ammunition that is so much more expensive than conventional missiles or low-cost UAV with an explosive charge that can be used in wave attacks to achieve a saturation effect on area defense.
Given the cost of the hypersonic system, it has to be aimed at high-value target. These are limited in number and can be protected by dedicated point defenses systems integrated into the area surveillance system for long-range warning.
I would say that the biggest benefit of hypersonic research program would be the ground-to-air defense systems themselves because by increasing significantly the speed of the missile (and being able to use a more direct trajectory instead of high energy trajectory) you can decrease the time to target of the missile which means a bigger no escape zone for the system...
I think it's not really a game changer. A force multiplier yes, but unless the hypersonics can somehow beat physics in the future I think the weight will shift more to the defender, not the attacker.
Also why should an interceptor be required to fly fast? You don't intercept by chasing a missile, you intercept by flying to the same point. It obviously needs a sufficient accelleration and velocity for reaching said point after detection, but at the end of the day it's not a complicated process.
Of course that doesn't make it easy.
I don't think that the maneuverability of hypersonics is sufficient for "beating" an guided interceptor which is designed for stopping high velocity targets.
Obviously only the future will tell, but right now we've only seen an air launched ballistic missile with limited maneuverability in practice.
Wether we'll see hypersonic gliders anytime soon is something we don't know, so we can't really judge the capabilities yet.
The general rule for area defense SAMs is they need to have double the kinematics performance as the vehicle they are trying to kill in order to get very solid odds on destruction. I dont think you realize the kinds of g forces these hypersonic fires are pulling.
Russkies already have a avangard gliders on their stiletto ballistic missiles. Chicoms have them in pre production.
The solution to hypersonic weapons is a massive increase in the level of competency in western diplomacy , just look at Lavrov vs Blinken and the problem becomes obvious.
Lavrovs boss is a leader. Blinkers boss is a fraud. That’s why.
@@covidhoax7646Yeah you're just a troll. You called someone that supported Ukraine's sovereign right to exist a "Nazi boy".
Edit:
*"Who is [the] troll here?"*
You are. I'm not trolling. I'm just exposing your comments.
(response to the question made after my comment towards them because I am unable to further comment)
@@HTV-2_Hypersonic_Glide_Vehicle Ukraine hasn’t been sovereign since 2014. It’s now completely owned by the West. Who is troll here?
Someone who support Ukrainian sovereignty is and brainwashed and delusional. 1.It’s corrupt , fashist, blood firsty regime, that committed and keep committing so many agle crimes. 2. It doesn’t matter what kind of regime it is. It’s delusional to think that Russia will allow NATO be 400 miles from Moscow. Baltic states in NATO is already to much, and this will not end good. 2 missiles bases in Romania and Poland is too Much, and this will not end good for them, and on top of it, to plan a NATO in Krimea, biolabs . This is delusional, and not competent thinking.
Ukrainians pay price. By they way also few thousands NATO personal and around 600 Americans. These numbers are not official, but from alternative USA sources, wich proved to be true in many other cases.
With current technology there is no hypersonic weapon that flies faster than c.Mach 2.5-3 at the moment of impact. There is yet no material known on this planet able to withstand higher temps. than c. Mach3 at sea level (or a few thousand feet above). What the missile does on its course at v. high altitude is another business. Still, the sheer impact of a heavy body flying Mach 2.3-3 is unpleasant and the impact itself, even without explosive, is best to be avoided.
Correct. And they should try to avoid our railgun sabots, as well as our speed of light focused lasers.
Sounds very naive in research
@@turningnull2538 The bleeding edge of materials science is going to be under a veil of secrecy if they're doing their jobs right.
Interesting information and perspective. TY. The solution to many problems is in taking a different approach. Thinking kinetic on kinetic may be the limfac here, and your details highlight this. Never thought I'd see a jet trying to down an aircraft by dumping fuel on it. Didn't work, but it was, at the very least, an adapted solution attempt.
Offensive missile technology always has the advantage because producing offensive missiles are less costly than building the network of defensive missiles. That is assuming the goal is to intercept a high percentage of all the attacking missiles.
Shield generators that make a quantum barrier maybe.
Might as well go for DragonBallZ style Kamehameha waves.
I better put up my umbrella (channel Z)