Not so critical
Back in 2021, the Navy said that adding hypersonic missiles to its weapons mix was urgent at critical:
The service previously described it as a critical capability that needed to be fielded before 2030.
Four years later….apparently it isn’t really.
The U.S. Navy has halted plans to acquire an air-launched, air-breathing hypersonic anti-ship cruise missile, citing cost and industrial base factors. The service says it is now taking a second look at its requirements with a new focus on affordability.
Kind of an ultra-fast turnaround given that less than three months ago the Navy announced plans to test hypersonic missiles on the USS Zumwalt amd USS Lyndon B. Johnson and has already made modifications for them. Interesting Engineering
Or is it that hypersonic missiles aren’t feasible? Kind of hard to believe that, given that the list of countries who have announced either having them or being close to installing them include China, Russia, India, and Japan.
Speaking of whom, another initiative the Navy deep-sixed (how appropriately phrased!) the railgun, is alive and well elsewhere, like in Japan.
Under the name “Research on Electromagnetic Acceleration Systems,” the research was conducted from FY 2016 through FY 2022. The target in this research was a muzzle velocity of 2000 meters per second and a barrel life of 120 rounds.
Having transitioned into the development of a full-fledged “gun system,” railguns are now poised for broader operational studies and steady technological maturation as a future defense asset Naval News
120 rounds? Man, those are hard on barrels. Even ultra-high speed varmint rounds (usually small caliber boolits pushed by lots and lots of powder for laser-like trajectories) typically take a coupla thousand rounds to wear out a barrel*. But the main fact: we’re dropping it, they re testing it.
Not just that, I see where even the President is taking note:
President Donald Trump on April 9 signed an executive order aimed at revitalizing an American shipbuilding industry that has fallen well behind production levels of its rivals from the People’s Republic of China.
The Navy wants a 381 ship fleet. We are currently completing about one – 1! – ship a year. We currently have less than 300 mission capable ships. I figure we should be about right in somewhere near the year 2100…unless a few ships age out between now and then. They do do that. (And in contrast China is building 50% of the world’s ships, about 700 annually.)
“Simply put, we need more ships delivered on time and on budget, and we are challenged in both of these arenas,” Dr. Brett Seidle, acting assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last month. Fox News
Think Trump is doing well acknowledging the problem. Now we need facilities, skilled labor, and raw materials.
*My favorite was an extreme 4600 fps gem from P.O. Ackley, a .22 based on a .375 Weatherby Magnum called the .22 Eargesplitten Loudenboomer.
Category: Navy, None, Science and Technology
