New technology has been showing up particularly one in which America’s rivals, Russia and China are ahead of America in this technology to build and put in the field super-fast or hypersonic weapons and vehicles. Both Russia and China have recently bragged about their progress in developing hypersonic vehicles, which will fly faster than the speed of sound, which is 767 mph.
What is a hypersonic missile? Hypersonic missiles are rocket-boosted to high altitude, and It can be launched from land, sea or air. The missile can fly faster than any other weapons still created more than 3,000 mph and potentially up to 10,000 mph which makes them difficult to identify, avoid or shoot down.
Russia’s ultra plan to build a tremendous hypersonic weapon that can travel at a speed of more than 20 times than that of sound and that will evade US missile defenses, has predictably rattled the world. Last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin bragged that its Avangard weapons system would be ready by this fall but some obstacles lie ahead that could impact production, CNBC reported.
Now, reports suggest that Russia will produce only a few units of hypersonic weapons which President Putin had already bragged in serial production. As per reports, Russia’s current supply of carbon fiber material is unable to withstand the extreme temperatures of hypersonic flight. Russia is looking for an alternative source of carbon fiber, but so far has had no better luck.
It’s expected that they will make no more than 60 of these hypersonic weapons because it’s just proving to be too expensive to develop
China and Russia have become increasingly interested and intrigued in hypersonic weapons in recent years. China has published many research papers at a key hypersonics conference than any other country or international group since 2005. The Chinese have invested in several new and impressive hypersonic test facilities. And, China has also conducted more hypersonic flight tests recently than the U.S.
Russian President Vladimir Putin recently claimed that his country’s military would begin deploying a hypersonic weapon called the Avangard sometime in 2019.
However, it’s yet not clear when these countries will even be able to deploy hypersonic weapons in any significant numbers the reason the U.S. has seized upon this moment to step up its efforts. The current presidential funding requests for weapons development signal efforts to figure out how to deploy hypersonic weapons from air, sea, and land.
As it stands, the current plan is to reach the initial operational capability of the Avangard by 2020, according to Russian news reports. The current goal is to build 12 weapons by 2027, so it will be a long time until Russia can reach 60 arms. Meanwhile, the US Army plans to field a battery of its hypersonic missiles by 2023.
