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[EviLore]

Protests ongoing despite the massacre. Brave kids.

 

[LordPezix]

The notion that hypersonic missiles can easily nullify the US military's major assets is mostly Russian and Chinese propaganda/delusion.

Not here to debate, but as an active duty military member the leaders of our forces have a different opinion about this.

Alot gets thrown around in briefings but the one subject that comes up alot is hypersonic missiles.

Just reporting what I have seen and heard.

USN if anyone was curious.

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

The notion that hypersonic missiles can easily nullify the US military's major assets is mostly Russian and Chinese propaganda/delusion. We should have more aircraft carriers though and more tech development. The legacy defense manufacturers are bloated and slow. We need more Andurils to secure the future.

Drones have already changed ground war drastically in Russia-Ukraine and will need to be accounted for in major conflicts going forward. But the US is not participating in low tech meat grinder wars between guys with rusty AKs.

Iran will be a spectacle.

There is always that "super-missile" that will destroy USA. It has been this way since the Cold War era.

 

[Forsete]

There is always that "super-missile" that will destroy USA. It has been this way since the Cold War era.

The latest is Putins oreshnik. He promises NATO has nothing like it and can't counter it.

They have shot two against Ukraine. Both seems to have missed their targets.

 

[EviLore]

Not here to debate, but as an active duty military member the leaders of our forces have a different opinion about this.

Alot gets thrown around in briefings but the one subject that comes up alot is hypersonic missiles.

Just reporting what I have seen and heard.

USN if anyone was curious.

For sure, but the responsibility within the USN is to take external threats as seriously as possible so that you're fully prepared. The latest gen hypersonic missiles are difficult to intercept and can do a lot of damage, hypothetically. But they're not good at hitting targets accurately, especially moving targets, and are also reliant on accurate intelligence for targeting.

They're hyped up by the other team to ridiculous levels, as usual, but not proven. Things can play out a bit differently in the real world, as we saw with the S-400s not shooting down a single US aircraft in the Venezuela raid.

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

The latest is Putins oreshnik. He promises NATO has nothing like it and can't counter it.

They have shot two against Ukraine. Both seems to have missed their targets.

There is even a term for that

Wunderwaffe - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[MisterFalcon]

The threats are not completely idle. Israel had the most formidable missile defenses in human history and in the final days of the conflict the missile interception rate had dropped to 75% from more than 90% at the start. If this is Iran using better missiles or Israel rationing defenses is unclear but those kind of numbers are troublesome.
Ukraine also has an extensive air defence network, maybe the second best in the world, and it also cannot stop everything.

Ships at sea are pretty safe until proven otherwise. They are too far, too fast and too well defended for sea drones and hypersonic anti ship missiles are still mostly theoretical. In the reporting on Houthi attacks on shipping the terms 'ballistic' and 'hypersonic' kept being used on regular old anti ship missiles and drones which can hit slow tankers just fine but would not do much against a CVN group.

Biggest risk I see is an Operation Spiderweb like attack on planes parked at a base. Lots of places all around Europe and the Middle East are now full of very expensive planes, places close to big cities and busy roads.

 

[winjer]

The threats are not completely idle. Israel had the most formidable missile defenses in human history and in the final days of the conflict the missile interception rate had dropped to 75% from more than 90% at the start. If this is Iran using better missiles or Israel rationing defenses is unclear but those kind of numbers are troublesome.
Ukraine also has an extensive air defence network, maybe the second best in the world, and it also cannot stop everything.

Ships at sea are pretty safe until proven otherwise. They are too far, too fast and too well defended for sea drones and hypersonic anti ship missiles are still mostly theoretical. In the reporting on Houthi attacks on shipping the terms 'ballistic' and 'hypersonic' kept being used on regular old anti ship missiles and drones which can hit slow tankers just fine but would not do much against a CVN group.

Biggest risk I see is an Operation Spiderweb like attack on planes parked at a base. Lots of places all around Europe and the Middle East are now full of very expensive planes, places close to big cities and busy roads.

But his is not because Iran got better tech. It's because Israel's system defense was saturated. There is only so many interception missiles that a country can build in a given time and get operational.
This is why Israel, UK, USA, EU are all working to get laser systems operational. Unlike missile defense systems, these will have almost limitless interception rates, while being much cheaper to use.
But most important, it will enable the shift in cost, because sending a thousand dumb missiles, targeting large cities, is much cheaper than sending thousands of highly accurate missiles to take them down.

 

[Tams]

Not here to debate, but as an active duty military member the leaders of our forces have a different opinion about this.

Alot gets thrown around in briefings but the one subject that comes up alot is hypersonic missiles.

Just reporting what I have seen and heard.

USN if anyone was curious.

It's their job to be aware of the threat, even if it's not likely.

It also helps to secure funding.

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

It also helps to secure funding.

This is also the big angle in it.

In a lot of autocracies, for example, a lot of generals and others tend to talk or show videos of some "amazing weapons" at their disposal, that every foreign adversary is afraid of because they want to please their "great leader". Something like "Sure, we have only 5-10 and by 2030 we will have 5m of those!". Even the parades are basically for the same thing - to demonstrate the shiny thing.

It is something similar - but kinda reverse - in countries like USA. "We need infinite money because we are underdogs, the enemy is constantly one step ahead of us, they can decimate us in 10 seconds, another 500b will help".

 

[jason10mm]

This is also the big angle in it.

In a lot of autocracies, for example, a lot of generals and others tend to talk or show videos of some "amazing weapons" at their disposal, that every foreign adversary is afraid of because they want to please their "great leader". Something like "Sure, we have only 5-10 and by 2030 we will have 5m of those!". Even the parades are basically for the same thing - to demonstrate the shiny thing.

It is something similar - but kinda reverse - in countries like USA. "We need infinite money because we are underdogs, the enemy is constantly one step ahead of us, they can decimate us in 10 seconds, another 500b will help".

This is how warfare progresses, and its what they teach in the development courses to middle rank officers (I had several books on military revolutions and wrote papers about them). The phrase "we always prepare for the last war" is apt because finding strategies and weapons to fight was we experienced before is a natural tactic. But a new tech can just completely upset the apple cart and render an entire existing military structure obsolete. It's been DECADES since near peers have really gone at it at sea, Falkland's really, as limited as that was, though there was some naval stuff in Ukraine, to see just how well modern defense systems protect against modern attack systems at scale.

Personally I think American will to intervene in Iran would collapse with just a single carrier hit, regardless of damage. Our whole psyche is based on those things and the aura of invincibility they have which has never really been challenged. They are 15+ BILLION dollar 'investments' with 5 thousand+ souls on board, so its a really high risk gamble to actually use them, though I do agree the risk against Iran is fairly low. But its a tight area in there, not the wide open ocean where a CBG can maneuver relatively undetected. Lots of cargo traffic there though, unless its all been diverted, which would undoubtedly make it more chaotic.

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

This is how warfare progresses, and its what they teach in the development courses to middle rank officers (I had several books on military revolutions and wrote papers about them). The phrase "we always prepare for the last war" is apt because finding strategies and weapons to fight was we experienced before is a natural tactic. But a new tech can just completely upset the apple cart and render an entire existing military structure obsolete. It's been DECADES since near peers have really gone at it at sea, Falkland's really, as limited as that was, though there was some naval stuff in Ukraine, to see just how well modern defense systems protect against modern attack systems at scale.

Warfare truly progresses only in a real war because adversaries truly believe that the other side has the advantage. Without rely war, the developments are pretty small. Like aircraft carriers haven't change much and attempts to go further - like Zumwalts and such - were failures. Same with F35 that took years to produce. Arguably even old drones were basically missiles. And older tech - like Patriots, etc. are just too expensive now.

But now we have much more rapid development in combat, with more urgency to develop anti-drone tech, lasers, swarms etc. as things like that are becoming increasingly more available for weak adversaries and do not cost as much.

 

[calico]

Personally I think American will to intervene in Iran would collapse with just a single carrier hit, regardless of damage.

I think a carrier being significantly hit would be so symbolic that it could only have the opposite effect, even with how riven America is.

 

[ADiTAR]

But his is not because Iran got better tech. It's because Israel's system defense was saturated. There is only so many interception missiles that a country can build in a given time and get operational.
This is why Israel, UK, USA, EU are all working to get laser systems operational. Unlike missile defense systems, these will have almost limitless interception rates, while being much cheaper to use.
But most important, it will enable the shift in cost, because sending a thousand dumb missiles, targeting large cities, is much cheaper than sending thousands of highly accurate missiles to take them down.

Israel has an operational laser system, it was tried out during the Iran war but not at full capacity. We'll see if it hold in this one.

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

Israel has an operational laser system, it was tried out during the Iran war but not at full capacity. We'll see if it hold in this one.

Yeah, lasers are the future - at least the near future. Missiles are just too expensive. But I would not be surprised if there was a lot of very interested data collected post 12 day war.