How Russia and China Gained a Strategic Advantage in Hypersonic Technology

(Strategic Culture Foundation)

 

A hot topic in military prognostications regarding China, Russia and the United States revolves around the development and use of hypersonic technology for missiles or UAVs as an invulnerable means of attack. As we will see, not all three countries are dealing successfully with this task.

The United States, China and Russia have in recent years increased their efforts to equip their armed forces with such highly destructive missiles and vehicles seen in the previous article. Putin’s recent speech in Moscow reflects this course of direction by presenting a series of weapons with hypersonic characteristics, as seen with the Avangard and the Dagger.

Start your engines … is China getting ready to mass-produce hypersonic vehicles?

A screen capture from a video of a hypersonic vehicle using the combined cycle engine under development at China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. Source: CCTV

 

Plans are on the drawing board in China for an engine plant that could power low-cost planes or spacecraft capable of travelling five times faster than the speed of sound

China is drawing up plans for an aerospace engine plant that would pave the way for the mass production of “hypersonic” planes or spacecraft capable of travelling at more than five times the speed of sound, boosting the country’s competitiveness in defence, space, business and other sectors, according to scientists familiar with the project.

The plant that would be built in Hefei, in China’s eastern Anhui province, could give the country an edge over the United States and Russia in the race to achieve large-scale applications of hypersonic technology, the scientists said.

Hefei deputy mayor Wang Wensong led a delegation to the Institute of Mechanics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing last month to discuss the project’s roll-out, according to a statement on the institute’s website. 

Inside the Ring: James Syring, missile defense chief, seeks laser funding to counter China, Russia

The gutting of the U.S. military by the Obama administration has allowed for Russia and China to out-gun America. We’re in the phase right now where America is losing its supremacy. Budget cuts have seriously degraded any chance of modernization and the little funding that is allowed goes towards programs such as this are not sufficient. You can’t make mistakes like this, that are so grave to the national security of America, by accident.

 

The U.S. is moving to counter Chinese and Russian hypersonic strike vehicles using lasers, the director of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency revealed last week.

But Vice Adm. James Syring told a House Armed Services subcommittee on strategic forces hearing that he lacks the funding to counter hypersonic missile threats, but that money has been requested in the defense authorization bill to deal with the threat.

“I’ve asked for $23 million to begin a low-power laser demonstrator this year to demonstrate the feasibility by 2021,” the three-star admiral said.

Critics say the Missile Defense Agency has been remiss by not beginning work earlier in countering future Chinese and Russia high-speed maneuvering strike vehicles. The relatively low funding and long lead time for a demonstration of a laser against a hypersonic strike vehicle are not likely to address the growing threat of hypersonic missiles.