Lockheed-Martin and Raytheon were awarded $116 million contracts by the U.S. Navy to develop ship-sinking hypersonic missile prototypes.
This potential scramjet-powered weapon, referred to as Objective Anti-Surface Warfare Increment 2 (OASuW) in Navy documents, would be carried by carrier-based FA-18E/F Super Hornets, F-35 Lightning jet fighters, and potentially future successors. It’s expected to have a longer range and much higher speed than the current LRASM stealth cruise missile.
Navy’s Hypersonic Weapon Program
The focus on anti-ship capabilities is driven by concerns about a potential conflict with China in the western Pacific Ocean. Simulations of a battle over Taiwan indicate that the outcome would depend significantly on the effectiveness of long-range anti-ship missiles.
Hypersonic missiles can technically exceed five times the speed of sound, but in practice, the term refers to two modern concepts. The first involves missiles that release hypersonic gliders, which skim the Earth’s atmosphere.
The Navy’s current hypersonic weapon program is the Conventional Prompt Strike, a hypersonic glide vehicle designed primarily for hitting stationary surface targets. These large weapons will be deployed on U.S. Virginia-class submarines and Zumwalt-class stealth destroyers.
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Current Anti-Ship Missiles in the U.S. Navy’s Arsenal
In contrast, the High-Speed Anti-Ship Missile (HALO) is a lower-flying conventional cruise missile that uses ramjet or scramjet propulsion. These engines are highly efficient at sustaining high speeds because they utilize supersonic airflow for compression. However, they typically require separate boosters to achieve high speeds initially.
The U.S. Navy currently possesses two premium anti-ship missiles, the stealthy AGM-158C LRASM and the longer-range Maritime Strike Tomahawk. Moreover, Harpoon and Naval Strike Missiles with a shorter range are used.
All these weapons are subsonic, meaning they fly below the speed of sound. There are other guided weapons, such as the HARM anti-radar missiles, SM-6 air defense missiles, and JSOW glide bombs, which have some capability against moving naval targets. However, these last two weapons are supersonic, not hypersonic.
Russia has frequently boasted about its scramjet-powered 3M22 Zircon anti-ship cruise missile, while China has showcased its DF-21D and DF-26B ballistic missiles, as well as a ship-based variant of the former known as the YJ-21.
The LRASM, considered Increment 1 of the OASuW program, incorporates stealth geometry and self-defense systems to make it difficult to detect. It benefits from radar and infrared seekers for target discrimination and jam-resistant GPS for navigation.
However, due to its subsonic speed, it may be susceptible to detection by optical/infrared sensors at close range and vulnerable to interception by close-range defenses.
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