Originally appeared at ZeroHedge
The U.S. Air Force used a hyper velocity projectile (HVP), capable of traveling Mach 7.3, or about 5,600 mph, fired from an Army M109 howitzer tank, to shoot down a fast-moving cruise missile over a missile range in New Mexico.
“Tanks shooting down cruise missiles is awesome,” Dr. Will Roper, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology, and logistics, told reporters, who was quoted by Asia Times. “Video game, sci-fi awesome.
“You’re not supposed to be able to shoot down a cruise missile with a tank. But, yes, you can, if the bullet is smart enough, and the bullet we use for that system is exceptionally smart,” Roper said.
Main battle tanks, nevertheless a self-propelled 155 mm howitzer, are not designed to destroy fast-moving cruise missiles, suggests the HVP “smart bullet” is ground-breaking technology that could revolutionize the modern battlefield.
The successful firing of the HVP was conducted at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, destroyed a “surrogate” Russian cruise missile target using the Air Force’s Advanced Battle Management System that’s designed to detect incoming missiles.
HVP was initially developed in 2013 to fire out of the electromagnetic railgun. However, the Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities Office has shifted to firing the HVP out of more conventional guns, such as common artillery pieces found on the battlefield.
The advantage of the HVP over conventional missile defenses is a dramatic decline in cost-per-kill. Each HVP costs around $85,000, opposed to $1.5 million Tomahawk missiles, $155,000 Hellfire rockets, and or $147,000 Javelin shoulder-rocket.
So what does this mean? Well, the Pentagon can shoot a lot more of these smart bullets and not feel bad they’re robbing taxpayers. There’s also a strategic component to HVP, that is, precision-guided short-range defense at hypersonic speeds to take out enemy missiles.
This is not guided, so not hypersonic. 85 thousand dollars for artillery shell = still robbing taxpayers. Railgun development was unsuccessful, but developers want to saw more money. Even shrapnel shell can’t intercept a missile with high guarantee, because missiles are maneuverable, and artillery shells not. I doubt that the MoD will buy this stuff for real use.
LOL!!! Actually it’s a missile and is guided.
Hypersonic has to do with speed, Anton. Your first sentence makes no sense.
All space rockets are flying at hyper velocity, but thaey are not hypersonic objects. All ballistic objects (bullets, shells, rockets) are not hypersonic even if they have 5M speed, but not guided. That’s why the article (i.e. Pentagon) says about hyper velocity, but not about hypersonic. Small cheating from Pentagon.
It is both guided and not guided. Both stealth visible and non visible. The United States won the battle again. We won!