Traveling at 5-times the speed of sound, skipping off the boundary of the upper atmosphere and descending upon enemy targets with targeted force, emerging hypersonic weapons promise to massively reshape offensive combat tactics.
Recognizing this, Pentagon and industry developers are now testing a new series of hypersonic weapons prototypes as part of a large-scale effort to fast-track the weapons to service. The US acceleration of the weapons, which includes air flights, ground-firing, wind-tunnels, simulation and various kinds of prototyping, is widely discussed as much needed response to Russian and Chinese progress in the area of hypersonics.
“In the last year, China has tested more hypersonic weapons than we have in a decade. We’ve got to fix that,” said Michael Griffin, the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, according to an Air Force report from February of this year.
No kidding, dude. To read more, click here.