I must admit, I feel a tad dorky being able to quote from Star Wars that readily... http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,988612,00.html US-based missiles to have global reach Allies to become less important as new generation of weapons enables America to strike anywhere from its own territory Julian Borger in Washington Tuesday July 1, 2003 The Guardian The Pentagon is planning a new generation of weapons, including huge hypersonic drones and bombs dropped from space, that will allow the US to strike its enemies at lightning speed from its own territory. Over the next 25 years, the new technology would free the US from dependence on forward bases and the cooperation of regional allies, part of the drive towards self-suffi ciency spurred by the difficulties of gaining international cooperation for the invasion of Iraq. The new weapons are being developed under a programme codenamed Falcon (Force Application and Launch from the Continental US). A US defence website has invited bids from contractors to develop the technology and the current edition of Jane's Defence Weekly reports that the first flight tests are scheduled to take place within three years. According to the website run by the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) the programme is aimed at fulfilling "the government's vision of an ultimate prompt global reach capability (circa 2025 and beyond)". The Falcon technology would "free the US military from reliance on forward basing to enable it to react promptly and decisively to destabilising or threatening actions by hostile countries and terrorist organisations", according to the Darpa invitation for bids. The ultimate goal would be a "reusable hypersonic cruise vehicle (HCV) ... capable of taking off from a conventional military runway and striking targets 9,000 nautical miles distant in less than two hours". The unmanned HCV would carry a payload of up to 12,000 lbs and could ultimately fly at speeds of up to 10 times the speed of sound, according to Daniel Goure, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute in Washington. Propelling a warhead of that size at those speeds poses serious technological challenges and Darpa estimates it will take more than 20 years to develop. Over the next seven years, meanwhile, the US air force and Darpa will develop a cheaper "global reach" weapons system relying on expendable rocket boosters, known as small launch vehicles (SLV) that would take a warhead into space and drop it over its target. In US defence jargon, the warhead is known as a Com mon Aero Vehicle (Cav), an unpowered bomb which would be guided on to its target as it plummeted to earth at high and accelerating velocity. The Cav could carry 1,000 lbs of explosives but at those speeds explosives may not be necessary. A simple titanium rod would be able to penetrate 70 feet of solid rock and the shock wave would have enormous destructive force. It could be used against deeply buried bunkers, the sort of target the air force is looking for new ways to attack. Jane's Defence Weekly reported that the first Cav flight demonstration is provisionally scheduled by mid-2006, and the first SLV flight exercise would take place the next year. A test of the two systems combined would be carried out by late 2007. A prototype demonstrating HCV technology would be tested in 2009. SLV rockets will also give the air force a cheap and flexible means to launch military satellites at short notice, within weeks, days or even hours of a crisis developing. The SLV-Cav combination, according to the Darpa document, "will provide a near-term (approximately 2010) operational capability for prompt global strike from Consus (the continental US) while also enabling future development of a reusable HCV for the far-term (approximately 2025)". The range of this weapon is unclear.
Can I tell you how excited I am to be less than two months away from being able to have lunch with MadMax any day I wanted to?!?! Oh yeah, this sounds pretty cool in a futuristic sorta way. Even though I was led to believe that stuff like this was supposed to start in like 2000 or something.
If I didn't feel like I owed Gardere a long notice, I'd be there in time for the Dave show. So sorry to derail this though...
With this technology we'll be able to win wars all by ourselves quicker and with less casualties than ever so we'll be able to rush in and lose the peace. edit - maybe I should have said, we should work much harder winning the peace, since that is the part of the equation we really suck at. Winning wars we won't have a problem with for a long time. It's just not very sexy, winning the peace.
Wow MMax 9 threads on the front page---don't you have some cases to prepare for against RM95's firm? Are they push-overs or something?
they weren't all posted today, underoverup...i think only 2 today. i'm actually taking a break from working on discovery in one of the cases i have against rm95's firm.
Also, this money would be better spent on human intel. We supposedly had spec ops in Baghdad targeting Saddam and all we got are a lot of corpses and no dead Saddam. Quicker corpses don't mean anything if they are not the right corpses.
woofer -- i'm thinking that technology that allows us to carry out missions without putting our own men and women in the heat of battle is every bit as important as improved intelligence.
No doubt, especially since it keeps nice young men (and women) from going home in body bags. Between this and that new laser technology the Air Farce is working on, the world is going to be a much safer place. Talk about true "Death from Above!!!" Semper Fi, Do or Die, United States Marine Corps Hoo-Rah!!!!!!
I would like to know how hard it would be for a laser guided bomb/missle to hit its target when the missile is being launched from a hypersonic jet.
But wouldn't the jet's speed throw off the missile? Wouldn't the missile be traveling just a fast as the jet?
Laser guided weapons aim is degraded if you have the correct "bad" weather conditions. Light spectrum radiation for guidance has this weakness.
All conventional air to air and air to ground missiles have a similar *challenge* as well and work. What we need is the mind reading power of the Force. That way one could kill individual terrorists instead of killing bystanders and injuring scores more like Israel. Or us in the case of our bad Saddam strikes.
I doubt the weapons dropped by these drones would use laser guidance. Laser guided bombs (invented by Texas Instruments, no less, in the great state of Texas) have been with us since the Linebacker I/II bombing campaigns that marked the end of America's involvement in Vietnam back in 1972-73. It is old technology and compared to the newest generation of JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition), which are guided by GPS, it has more operational hangups. For example, LGBs can't be used in conditions of zero or minimal visibility and certain atmospheric conditions can mess with the scattering of the laser striking the target that forms the "basket" that the bomb seeker locates and homes in upon. The JDAM on the other hand, just needs the GPS coordinates of the target. You hit the pickle, release and fly away, whereas a LGB you have to keep the laser on the target until the bomb strikes it, thus exposing yourself to the perils of Triple-A and SAMS, which these days folks are nasty things indeed. I would think these weapons launched from these hypersonic drones will use some sort of GPS guidance for all of these reasons.
