A hypersonic missile is among the high-tech weapons systems that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed to introduce to cope with what he called deepening U.S. hostility.
North Korea successfully tested a solid-fuel engine for its new-type intermediate-range hypersonic missile, state media reported Wednesday, claiming progress in efforts to develop a more powerful, agile missile designed to strike faraway U.S. targets in the region.
A hypersonic missile is among an array of high-tech weapons systems that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un publicly vowed to introduce in 2021 to cope with what he called deepening U.S. hostility. Outside experts say Kim wants a modernized weapons arsenal to wrest U.S. concessions like sanctions relief when diplomacy resumes.
On Tuesday, Kim guided the ground jet test of the multi-stage solid-fuel engine for the hypersonic missile at the North’s northwestern rocket launch facility, the official Korean Central News Agency reported.
I recall hearing how Russia had dozens of them, and the ROI of a 40 million dollar missile taking out a 400 million ship was great. And then Ukraine got worse and nothing happened, with zero of them ever found or used.
And North Korea thinks it can even attempt that. I guess we need a “new” geopolitical boogieman to pander for increasing military budgets, since Russia is losing and China does it usual “we will take over Taiwan, unlike last year!” every year.
So Russia did use their hypersonics.
Problem is, their hypersonics turned out to be all hype and little sonic.
Patriot missile batteries shot them down
Source: https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2023/09/what-ukraines-shoot-down-hypersonic-missile-patriot-says-about-future-weapons/390498/
Not only that, Russia arrested the scientists responsible for the Kinzal program after the missiles were shot down. From what I’ve read, hypersonics move so fast that they’re not easily maneuverable so it’s quite easy to predict where the missile will be to point an air defense missile to intercept it. Either way, it was funny watching their wunderwaffe go down like a wet fart
That’s probably because someone found out that putting a ground launched ballistic missile from 2006 on an aircraft, that Patriots were designed to defend against, does not make it a scramjet.
Interesting, thank you. No one in the circles I’m in who were hyping up Russian hypersonic missiles as the next ICBM mentioned this.
Hypersonics are a bit of a meme-ey thing anyway. They’re helpful if you want to penetrate the missile defense of a mobile target like a fleet or something. But if your goal is hitting a stationary land target, then ICBMs, the likes of which we’ve had for half a century now, are still the best way.
Why go hypersonic through the atmosphere when you can just fly up into space, go around, and then come down at re-entry speeds, which are naturally hypersonic? This way, instead of staying low where you can be intercepted all through your travel, you fly higher than most interceptors can reach for most of your flight path.
IBCMs can be easily launched in saturation attacks, where say, a missile defense can stop around 50 maybe, so you just launch 80. MAD is still the only thing that truly prevents their usage.
I can see why China and Russia wanted hypersonics, as a counter to US Carriers. But what, is N Korea going to take one on?