Originally appeared at ZeroHedge
The US Army has dramatically ramped up efforts to develop the next hypersonic weapon in a race with Russia and China. The goal is to have the new missile system deployed on the modern battlefield by 2023.
Defense Blog reports that the Army Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office (RCCTO) disclosed new details of a ground-launched hypersonic missile system during last week’s 22nd Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama.
Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) is a new weapon system that is being developed by PEO Missiles and Space and the Long Range Precision Fires Cross-Functional Team.
The LRHW fires a new class of ultrafast, maneuverable, long-range missiles that travel at Mach 5 or greater.
According to Defense Blog, LRHW fires “a universal solid-propellant medium-range All-Up Round ballistic missile,” equipped with a hypersonic warhead of the Common Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB) that makes the flight trajectory to a target unpredictable.
LRHW is being developed by the Sandia National Laboratory of the US Department of Energy and the US Missile Defense Agency. The hypersonic warhead will be used by all US armed forces (Army, Air Force, and Navy).
“The AUR missile has a case diameter of 34.5 inches (887 mm). The missile will be launched from a transport and launch container with a length of about 10 m from a ground-based towed two-container mobile launcher with an Oshkosh M983A4 tractor unit (8×8). The launcher semi-trailer is a modified M870 semi-trailer of the Patriot SAM launcher. The missile system will use the standard American fire control system for missile forces and artillery AFATDS in version 7.0. The battery of the LRHW system will include four dual-container launchers and one Battery Operation Center,” Defense Blog wrote.
RCCTO officials told the military blog that one experimental LRHW prototype would be ready by 2023 for testing.
Pentagon officials warn that Russia and China are outpacing the US in hypersonic missile technology.
While Russia has already deployed hypersonic missiles into its arsenal and China continues to test the weapons, it seems the US is clearly behind in hypersonic weaponry development.
oops
War will happen, (when? Idk, that’s left to God to decide)… dancing Israeli cannot just sit and wait, seeing US is doing nothing to Iran, and poke the Bear & Dragon, don’t forget that.
The U.S. can poke the Whole World…peoples are getting Fed up with them…They will Reap what they Sow
“that’s left to God to decide” huh?
On how many projects the US has worked. This is US record that till this time they have never succeeded in any project.
Yes, we could labeled them as “Failed” products, but it still posses imminent danger to Russia & China, and the whole world. And pretty obvious when it comes to nuke missiles.
“The US Army has dramatically ramped up efforts to develop the next hypersonic weapon in a race with Russia and China.”
Wow dude. This is awesome. We’ll have a missile in a container. And then we’ll mount the container on a truck. And then we’ll hardwire the trucks to the radar.. And L.M. will build it And….. lmao
If things go similar to F-35 programm than world has little to worry about for a decade or so.
if recent military projects like F-35 are anything to go by, this will follow the same fate probably hahahah
The German engineers are dead now.
Russia have them in the arsenal, China is testing them to include them in the arsenal, and US is planning to have the first experimental unit available in 2023? This does not sound like a success story.