Re:The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons
by gozur88 on Wednesday October 12, 2016 @06:56PM
(#12697033)
>A hypersonic vehicle can travel much faster than that. We're talking about the ability to strike targets anywhere on the globe in minutes. That IS destabilizing.
Not really. Everything you can do offensively with a hypersonic cruise missile you can do more cheaply with ballistic missiles, which use a 70 year old technology. It takes about twenty five minutes to hit something on the other side of the world.
We've been in that global game of chicken since the early days of the cold war. Nothing has changed, in that respect. SLBMs have been within five minutes coastal land targets for more than fifty years.
To really upset the nuclear applecart you'd need something like a reliable submarine detection system that could be deployed on satellites.
Not really. Everything you can do offensively with a hypersonic cruise missile you can do more cheaply with ballistic missiles, which use a 70 year old technology. It takes about twenty five minutes to hit something on the other side of the world.
We've been in that global game of chicken since the early days of the cold war. Nothing has changed, in that respect. SLBMs have been within five minutes coastal land targets for more than fifty years.
To really upset the nuclear applecart you'd need something like a reliable submarine detection system that could be deployed on satellites.