Future Cruise / Anti-Ship Weapon (FC/ASW)

Well Not against ships to my knowledge but only against Land Targets with the Land Attack Version

And that version is quite different -- it is a purely subsonic, unitary missile, unlike the Sizzler anti-ship version.
 
10nmi due to head-on LO shaping (and ONLY head-on, for cost)
This type of things would only work against unsupported ships.

In a Task Force you have to also consider that theres a radar at at 20k feet staring down like a particular angry Eye of Sauron who is in constant telepathic communications with all the fighting systems.

So you will need to make the top LO as well to avoid that.

Otherwise you get picked of at... say 100 miles from you target by a SM2 if you lucky while still cruising at 500 knots.
 
This type of things would only work against unsupported ships.

In a Task Force you have to also consider that theres a radar at at 20k feet staring down like a particular angry Eye of Sauron who is in constant telepathic communications with all the fighting systems.

So you will need to make the top LO as well to avoid that.

Otherwise you get picked of at... say 100 miles from you target by a SM2 if you lucky while still cruising at 500 knots.
Then you only worry about LO from the front and above, not all aspect broadband.
 
This type of things would only work against unsupported ships.

In a Task Force you have to also consider that theres a radar at at 20k feet staring down like a particular angry Eye of Sauron who is in constant telepathic communications with all the fighting systems.

The angry Eye of Sauron is a pretty obvious emitter, and putting it over the Task Force reveals the location of said Task Force. The US Navy tended to operate their E-2s passively for a reason, or deceptively when actively emitting, a long distance away from the task force.

Using anti-ship missiles requires minimising warning, and obtaining the tracks passively via systems like White Cloud, Classic Outboard or EP-3s, meant that the 1980s USN could launch TASMs without the Soviets receiving any warning until the missile seekers started radiating.

A stealthy SS-N-27 equivalent would do the same things, but enable the missile to close in even if the enemy is actively emitting, and enable it to sprint in the terminal phase when the missile gets too close for stealth to be effective.
 
Assuming it's the shipping container, there would be a canister inside it and then the missile inside that. Sounds like the idea would be to load directly from the transport canister into the VLS (hence the "hinged at one end" requirement).
 
Well the rumour had been that Britain wanted a stealthy subsonic FC/ASW variant to enter service around 2028 while France wanted a hypersonic variant to enter service a couple of years later. News today is Britain wants to rapidly develop its own Hypersonic weapon for 2030 (though they could be complementary). The interesting thing is the project is being led by The Central Staff rather than one of the service branches. There has been a lot of Hypersonics work going on in the UK behind the curtains (along with the HyShot program 20 years ago) and this news today is consistent with the report last year that Britain had set aside £1bn for funding three hypersonic projects; a joint hypersonic glide vehicle with AUKUS partners, the collaborative work with France and a homegrown project (also the separate hypersonic aircraft demonstrator).

 
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Well the rumour had been that Britain wanted a stealthy subsonic FC/ASW variant to enter service around 2028 while France wanted a hypersonic variant to enter service a couple of years later. News today is Britain wants to rapidly develop its own Hypersonic weapon for 2030 (though they could be complementary). The interesting thing is the project is being led by The Central Staff rather than one of the service branches. There has been a lot of Hypersonics work going on in the UK behind the curtains (along with the HyShot program 20 years ago) and this news today is consistent with the report last year that Britain had set aside £1bn for funding three hypersonic projects; a joint hypersonic glide vehicle with AUKUS partners, the collaborative work with France and a homegrown project (also the separate hypersonic aircraft demonstrator).

If the budget could be found (always a challenge with HMTreasury), you'd really want both. Hypersonic is obvious and fast, acceptable for an aircraft carried weapon. Subsonic and Stealthy is what I'd want for submarine launched AShMs.

And if you physically have enough launchers, you can arrange "Time on Target" launches with both subs and hypers to arrive at the same time. All launched by aircraft.
 
Maybe something for nuclear warheads?
That gets into questions that almost have to be answered with a live launch and air test.

Yes, we know that nukes can handle short term hypersonic heating just fine, they do that in standard RVs. The question is long term heat soak for HGVs.
 

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