yes, and a strike on Washington DC would be trivial for Russia as well
the problem here is one of wildly unrealistic expectations about military defense. this cruise missile attack was probably planned for weeks by NATO and finalized using real time satellite data. that does not scale to being able to broadly attack military installations
the problem here is one of wildly unrealistic expectations about military defense. this cruise missile attack was probably planned for weeks by NATO and finalized using real time satellite data. that does not scale to being able to broadly attack military installations
Don't Russia and China both have functioning hypersonic missile systems and the u.s. is years behind that, if they even have the systems in place to catchup? I honestly don't really know but these people won't stop bragging american military capabilities.
@blaaablaaaa I don't know about China but Russia definitely does
US equipment has stagnated since the 80s, but propaganda about how great it all is has been everywhere since at least Desert Storm so people believe it
US equipment has stagnated since the 80s, but propaganda about how great it all is has been everywhere since at least Desert Storm so people believe it
@deprecated_ii @blaaablaaaa The nature of American disadvantage is being too greedy for "overmatch" capability. U.S. spent a couple of decades trying to develop a global reach hypersonic missile, powered by a supersonic combustion ramjet ("scramjet"). It was a bridge too far, and the effort didn't yield a practical, reliable weapon.
Meanwhile Russia (and China) developed and fielded what amounts to an overgrown conventional missile. It is powered by a well-understood rocket engine throughout the flight, which makes it hypersonic. The downside of such hyspersonic weapon is its limited range of about than 1,000 km. But, it carries the remaining advantages of a hypersonic strike: it is very quick in coming, leaving little time to react, and it's essentially impossible to shoot down, even if you detect its approach.
Once it became obvious that Russians have a weapon for which we didn't have a counter, a domestic effort to produce a realistic Russian-style hypersonic missile was initiated. Note that it started before Russians used one of these hypersonic missiles to destroy a huclear-resistant underground warehouse (it was built by USSR in Carpatian mountains to house nuclear warheads, then repurposed by Ukrainians for a general arms depot), which was the public debut of their missile.
By now, the American low-tech hypersonic missile is in final development, and its tests were announced (notice that it's not a research prototype, but a test article for a production intended missile):
https://www.foxnews.com/us/air-force-successfully-launches-first-operational-hypersonic-missile-prototype
Meanwhile Russia (and China) developed and fielded what amounts to an overgrown conventional missile. It is powered by a well-understood rocket engine throughout the flight, which makes it hypersonic. The downside of such hyspersonic weapon is its limited range of about than 1,000 km. But, it carries the remaining advantages of a hypersonic strike: it is very quick in coming, leaving little time to react, and it's essentially impossible to shoot down, even if you detect its approach.
Once it became obvious that Russians have a weapon for which we didn't have a counter, a domestic effort to produce a realistic Russian-style hypersonic missile was initiated. Note that it started before Russians used one of these hypersonic missiles to destroy a huclear-resistant underground warehouse (it was built by USSR in Carpatian mountains to house nuclear warheads, then repurposed by Ukrainians for a general arms depot), which was the public debut of their missile.
By now, the American low-tech hypersonic missile is in final development, and its tests were announced (notice that it's not a research prototype, but a test article for a production intended missile):
https://www.foxnews.com/us/air-force-successfully-launches-first-operational-hypersonic-missile-prototype
@Eiregoat an air base 400-500 miles away from moscow got hit by a drone or cruise missile out of ukraine
the exact details are unclear, russia is saying they shot down a drone that happened to land on several servicemen and kill them
the exact details are unclear, russia is saying they shot down a drone that happened to land on several servicemen and kill them
@deprecated_ii @Eiregoat Yeah, in effect, it wasn't really "shot down," since it got above and close enough that 3 servicemen were killed, and drones are effectively kamikaze units anyway. I'm concerned it wasn't really Ukraine-Ukraine, but US/NATO acting from Kazakhstan, based on the location. I suspect they're ramping up the proxy war, but the upside is that they're making it more explicit that the Ukraine conflict isn't Eeevul Putler genociding muh Ukrainians, but actually US/NATO's ongoing attack on Russia.
@AidanTTIerian @Eiregoat @deprecated_ii Russian propaganda efforts are as pitiful as ever in this case. The first attack killed 3 soldiers too, and Russian MoD also reported that the drone was shot down, and its wreckage landed right into a bomber parking space. Ridiculous! The only reason Ukies didn't blow up an airplane was that it went on a mission right at the time of the attack and the drone landed into an empty parking spot. The blast killed 3 ground crew members. Shot down, my pizza!
@deprecated_ii @blaaablaaaa I seriously goofed in this post a year ago. AGM-183A was produced by the ARRW program, which USAF canceled for lack of system reliability after a few successful tests. Our media made up a picture of successful tests on the cusp of adoption. But they were complete ringers for PR. The result is that USAF and U.S. Army have no peer weapon for Russian and Chinese hypersonics in 2024 and a promise to maybe acquire them by 2027, according to this article:
https://thediplomat.com/2024/01/hurdles-in-the-hypersonic-race-the-united-states-failed-arrw-program/
https://thediplomat.com/2024/01/hurdles-in-the-hypersonic-race-the-united-states-failed-arrw-program/
@union @blaaablaaaa @deprecated_ii Is it terminal hypersonic, or only hypersonic when it's high up? For the former, I don't think even Russia has that yet. For the latter, US has a ton of them already, they're just really big. As for ARRW, I think it was cancelled in favor of the Mako.
@union @blaaablaaaa @deprecated_ii (Though, I think the Mako is just getting promoted to that because if the Kinzhal qualifies, then the Mako certainly does as well. Prior to that, we wouldn't have considered it hypersonic.)
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