> Ballistic missiles are things like ICBMs, there it doesn't matter if you miss by a couple of miles. Hypersonic missiles are fast enough to make ship movement a negligible factor, ship are slow.

The hypersonic missiles are like ICBMs though. They operate similarly and enter the atmosphere before coming back down. They’re not nuclear weapons where you can be close enough, they have to be accurate. A miss by 3 feet jug as well be a miss by a mile.

As the missile enters the atmosphere it only has a few seconds to course correct to hit a moving ship. The ship can potentially move just out of harms way. Not the most likely scenario but definitely plausible.

> All other anti-ship missiles are guided. How bad that can end was shown in the Falkland war, the Royal Navy suffered quite a lot from Argentinian Exocets. Bought from France.

Different kinds of missiles. Can’t really compare them.

> A F-35 is what, 35 million dollar plus, excluding the pilot and training cost? Missiles are cheaper, by order of magnitude.

Not sure that these particular missiles are. I think it’s likely they’re closer to $20mm-$30mm in cost. Plus all of the ones China has are basically R&D missiles and not proven.

Having talked to former and active Navy guys, especially working on this stuff, I can tell you that ship don't dodge shit in a modern environment. They are simply to big and slow. If you can't get rid of the attack by counter-measures or shooting the missile down, the ship will be hit.

Which makes sense, but the hypersonic missiles are not like regular missiles and are more like ICBMs. There's a small chance that if a ship takes evasive maneuvers the missile will miss because it also has to adjust targeting at the last second.

I think everybody's clear this isn't WWII style evasive maneuvers with ships trying to evade torpedoes or bombers.

I guess what you're arguing for is that if friendly satellites or whatever reconnaissance assets detect a ballistic or hypersonic missile launch, the targeted ship (or realistically, all friendly ships in the area that could potentially be targets?) can change course, and in the 10 mins(?) it takes the missile to arrive the ship can be in quite another location than that estimated at missile launch time.

I would guess such missile systems would incorporate mid course guidance updates, but then again such comms could potentially be jammed.