The US Army’s design of its hypersonic glide vehicle. Click to see full-size image.
The US Army’s top brass approved a detailed plan to acquire high-powered microwave and laser weapons, as well as to advance rapidly for its own hypersonic arms, Lieutenant General Neil Thurgood, Director Army Hypersonics, Directed Energy, Space and Rapid Acquisition, Army Space and Missile Defense Command said.
He warned the AUSA conference that directed energy is “not the panacea of all things.”
“Clearly, we can accelerate directed energy into our formations,” said Thurgood, he is the head of the reorganized and improved Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office (RCCTO). He manages the US army’s most high-tech, high-priority programs: directed energy, space, and hypersonics.
Reportedly, the service is specifically interested in taking out incoming rockets, artillery, mortar rounds and small drones which are cheap, but could cause a lot of damage.
Click to see full-size image
It is questionable how lasers and microwave weapons would work against those, however, because they could be launched in swarms.
”You want to kill a swarm of things — whatever that thing is — lasers are not really a swarm-killing tool. They can kill things fast but they can’t kill a swarm of things fast enough.”
He continued with a chuckle, “if you’re in my world, I’m always thinking about Private Thurgood. Killing one thing is better than killing nothing.”
As of October 2018, the US army plans to test a roughly 50-kilowatt laser on an 8×8 Stryker armored vehicle by 2021, followed by a 100-kW one on a heavy HEMTT truck.
Thurgood provided no details on directed energy weapons, apart from simply saying that the army was working hard on developing them.
Separately, he spoke about the hypersonic program. According to him, the US army would supply the hypersonic glide vehicle, produced by Sandia National Laboratory, to the Navy and Air Force, not only to the Army, which led the program.
Click to see full-size image
Reportedly, it was successfully tested in 2012, the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon (AHW) concept for Army Space and Missile Defense Command was launched from the Kauai Test Facility in Kauai, Hawaii, using a three-stage booster system developed at Sandia.
The aim currently is to bring the glide vehicle to commercial production.
Starting in 2021, the Army will test-fire glide bodies every six months. Before that, a fully assembled canister for launching the glide vehicle will be delivered to the first rocket artillery unit so they can train to load and reload the 400-inch long canister on the Transporter Erector Launcher.
“They’ll be able to do everything they need to do except launch,” Thurgood said.
The Navy is also working on a similar system, but the Navy one may also be launched from submarines, in addition to surface ships.
The Air Force’s “Hacksaw” (HCSW, Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon) program, for which Lockheed Martin is building a prototype for up to $928 million, does not require a launcher since the missile will be carried by an airplane.
Essentially, the US armed forces have three programs focused on hypersonics, with a OSD having a sort of board of directors overseeing all three – the Army’s, the Navy’s and the Air Force’s.
Altogether, the US military is pursuing roughly half-a-dozen hypersonic projects, including one by DARPA.
Thurgood further addressed a “sensitive issue.”
“This weapons platform is not long-range artillery. It is a strategic weapon for leaders to use at the strategic level,” he noted. “Just so we’re clear, when I gave the brief to the board of directors, I said gentlemen, let me make sure I understand what you’re asking me to do. You’re going to ask me to build a spaceship that we’re going to allow a captain in a battery to launch. That right? I’m all in!”
Thurgood clarified that all the highly complex mission planning and the final decision to launch would be in the hands of senior leaders.
But that would be a project for the future, since according to him, the Army was still struggling in the organization and operation of its long-range missile warfare, part of the Multi-Domain operations program.
The Army’s first and foremost modernization priority is an array of Long-Range Precision Firepower weapons, from rocket-propelled, precision-guided howitzer shells to hypersonics firing over 1,000 miles.
Essentially, the army would need to be supplied with capability to provide its own fire support, even in the presence of advanced anti-air systems. Then, the Army would use its surface-to-surface missiles to destroy those anti-aircraft defenses, opening the way for the Air Force.
This is a sort of reversal of the traditional relationship, in which the Air Force clears the way for the Army to follow up.
“It also opens up new opportunities for escalation, accidental and otherwise, in a world where the INF Treaty banning long-range land-based missiles has gone away.”
It should also be reminded that Russian designs of its various hypersonic weapons and its glide vehicle were mocked and called “cartoons.” Some “experts” even claimed that these things cannot exist, and now the US army released a drawing that looks as if it was drawn in the 70s and is “hard at work” trying to catch up to the Chinese and Russian armed forces.
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