Standard Missile for Hypersonic Strike

[bobbymike]

Interesting concept of operations (from Aviation Week) - http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=defense&id=news/asd/2010/02/04/02.xml&headline=Darpa Eyes SM-3 For Hypersonic Strike

 

[Ian33]

Is this some internal Pentagon joke at our expense?

First the Next generation Bomber, then UAVs, now this missile? what happend to RATTLRS? what happend to all the HiFLY / LOFlyte work? who killed the X-51? what the hell is going on? projects are vanishing faster than they can be made...

FALCON? Blackswift? X-51? RATTLRS? Northrop NGB? ..... this is just not cricket at all.

 

[sferrin]

I guess they didn't learn the first time around with SM-4. Why am I not surprised given the degree of incompetence we've been seeing lately.

 

[Madurai]

I guess they didn't learn the first time around with SM-4. Why am I not surprised given the degree of incompetence we've been seeing lately.

Or perhaps they finally did learn something--SM-4's lack of a bunker-penetrating capability wasn't quite as important as they thought it was.

 

[Ian33]

YJ102R engines any one? RATTLRS effort? sled test and a 2007 flight test date? Lockheed Martin doing the airframe and Rolls Royce the engines? mach 4 cruise high speed long range strike?

Where did it vanish to? where the hell have all the other projects gone? the same memory hole?

 

[quellish]

YJ102R engines any one? RATTLRS effort? sled test and a 2007 flight test date? Lockheed Martin doing the airframe and Rolls Royce the engines? mach 4 cruise high speed long range strike?

Where did it vanish to? where the hell have all the other projects gone? the same memory hole?

X-51, FALCON (HTV-2), RATTLRS are all quite alive. "Northrop NGB" never existed as a program.

 

[Abraham Gubler]

Besides this is a DARPA activity so its not an actual procurement or development program it is technology development and exploration. And if that wasn't enough they just want the rocket stack of a SM-3 Block II (full width 2nd stage) for a booster. A very high power, should be off the shelf two stage booster in order to get a test vehicle into a hypersonic attitude. But never let a fact get in the way of a good rant.

 

[bobbymike]

2000 nautical miles with a 200 lbs payload? 2 observations 1) does this not run afoul of the INF Treaty for ship/surface launched IRBMs and 2) with a warhead that size you are talking about having pinpoint accuracy to be effective.

I was a fan of ATKs Submarine Launched Global Strike Missile a surface to surface intermediate range missile based on the KEI. It is still on ATKs website although have not seen any news stories lately. There was also a couple of stories about an Army global strike missile that has not been in the news lately.

 

[sferrin]

Besides this is a DARPA activity so its not an actual procurement or development program it is technology development and exploration. And if that wasn't enough they just want the rocket stack of a SM-3 Block II (full width 2nd stage) for a booster. A very high power, should be off the shelf two stage booster in order to get a test vehicle into a hypersonic attitude. But never let a fact get in the way of a good rant.

Yeah, Block II is a different kettle of fish. The title sounded like they were just going to (effectively) slap an SM-3 booster on an SM-4 and call it "revolutionary" and use it as justification to cancel the various hypersonic efforts. Unfortunately I've come to expect this kind of crap these days. This idea DARPA is proposing though sounds like such a good idea that it will surely go nowhere fast.

 

[TomS]

2000 nautical miles with a 200 lbs payload? 2 observations 1) does this not run afoul of the INF Treaty for ship/surface launched IRBMs and 2) with a warhead that size you are talking about having pinpoint accuracy to be effective.

INF applies only to ground-based missiles. Ship-launched weapons are excluded from its provisions because "intermediate-range missiles" are defined in the treaty to be only ground-launched cruise missiles and ground-launched ballistics missiles.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Isn't INF effectively defunct?

 

[Sea Skimmer]

Isn't INF effectively defunct?

Its still fully in effect. Russia was talking about withdrawing from it at several points, but this is unlikely now that the US has scaled back its European based missile defense plans to use SM-3 interceptors. SM-3 could shoot down IRBMs, but not ICBMs so it no longer makes sense for Russian to field a new MRBM or IRBM design as a countermeasure.