Hypersonic weapons Russia and the US: Equal odds

Military experts say Washington and Moscow are on par with each other in terms of developing hypersonic weapons.

Hypersonic weapons are missiles and flying devices that travel at speeds five times faster than the speed of sound (Mach 5, equivalent to 1,700 m/s) or more, designed to carry out lightning attacks before the enemy's defense system can react.

With the ability to create a weapons revolution, changing the balance of military power in the world, hypersonic weapons are being prioritized by all military powers, including Russia and the United States, to develop in order to gain an advantage over their opponents, according to Sputnik.

Model of the US X-51A missile. Photo: Military

According to international military experts, the US is ahead of Russia in the number of hypersonic weapons development projects. According to a report from the Congressional Research Service, the Pentagon has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on hypersonic weapons projects, although details about them have not been disclosed.

The most effective US hypersonic weapon project to date is believed to be the X-51A missile. In a test in May 2013 over the Pacific Ocean, the X-51A missile was launched from a B-52H aircraft at an altitude of 15,240 m to a target 426 km away. The missile initially had a speed of Mach 4.8 (1,633 m/s), then reached a hypersonic speed of Mach 5.1 (1,735 m/s).

This is the longest distance the X-51A rocket has ever traveled in a test. The US Air Force assessed the test as a complete success.

In addition, the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon (AHW) project is a US preemptive strike weapon system under the "Prompt Global Strike" program, which can strike any target in the world within 60 minutes with a target deviation radius of only 10 meters, and is also being actively deployed by the Pentagon.

AHW was first successfully tested on November 17, 2011 in the Pacific Ocean when the missile was able to travel 3,700 km in 30 minutes before hitting the target.The second time the US tested AHW was in August 2014 at a test site in Alaska, however this weapon exploded 4 seconds after leaving the launch pad.

In addition, the US Air Force is also promoting the Falcon HTV 2 hypersonic aircraft project with a maximum speed of Mach 20 (20 times the speed of sound, equivalent to 6,800 m/s).

In the first test in 2010, the Falcon HTV-2 rocket was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, made a 7,600 km flight in 30 minutes and landed in the Kwajalein Atoll area, reaching a speed of approximately Mach 13 (4,300 m/s).

The US Department of Defense is also planning to develop a new generation of unmanned reconnaissance aircraft SR-72 that can reach speeds of Mach 6. The first prototype of the SR-72 could be tested in 2018 and put into service in 2020.

A Russian missile launch exercise. Illustration photo:Sputnik

Russian tradition and quality advantages

While the US has the advantage in terms of quantity and variety, Russian military experts say Moscow also has a big advantage in terms of tradition and quality of these weapons.Accordingly, since the 1970s, Soviet scientists have made efforts to develop many types of hypersonic missiles with speeds approaching hypersonic levels such as the X-80 Meteorit missile (Kh-80 or AS-X-19, NATO calls it SS-N-24 Scorpion) with speeds up to Mach 2.5 (850 m/s).

At the same time, the Raduga Machine Building Design Bureau successfully developed the X-90 GELA (Kh-90) hypersonic missile with a speed of Mach 3 (1,020 m/s). In 1991, the Soviet Union also successfully tested the Kholod missile with a speed of Mach 5 (1,700 m/s), but this project was canceled after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Building on past achievements, on March 17, 2016, the Russian military successfully tested the Zircon hypersonic cruise missile with a speed 6 times the speed of sound. This event marked a major step forward for Russia in the race to develop hypersonic weapons with its direct rival, the United States.

According to Russian Deputy Defense Minister Dmitry Bulgakov, the special fuel formula allows Zircon to fly at a speed of more than 6,125 km/h, making it almost impossible to intercept.

The Zircon's range is at least 400 km, and can reach up to 1,000 km. With such a range, the Zircon will not allow enemy warships to escape, overcoming the common problem of conventional anti-ship cruise missiles.

In addition, Moscow is developing a secret hypersonic warhead under Project 4202, to equip the new RS-28 ballistic missile system, nicknamed Sarmat, which is expected to conduct its first tests in late 2016.

"Despite being smaller in number, Russia's hypersonic weapons systems are considered more stable and have a higher probability of success than similar US systems," said a Russian military expert.

According to VNE