Initial deployment will be shipboard but it will be a natural space weapon and it is no mystery why they are not talking about that.

Rail Gun

I hear you, and certainly, nobody who lived through the constant threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union, ever wants to return to those days.

A good indication of that, is seen in the most recent Bush administration’s decision to cancel a Prompt Global Strike (PGS) weapon, that used the 1st and 2nd stage SRB’s from an ICBM.

They did this purely out of concerns, such a PGS launch could be mistaken for a Strategic Nuclear Strike.

That was the right thing to do, it listened to, and addressed the protests of the Russians, and should remind both of us, things really are very different than they were during the Cold War.

{Yep, I know the Obamma administration is reconsidering the ICBM/PGS, but it’s just Pentagon pork, and will not see the light of day}

It’s important to keep in mind, PGS is intended as a tactical weapon. It’s targets will be pretty much the same as bunker busters, JDAMS, and Tomahawks.

Unfortunately, I believe we will continue to have need of such weapons, for quite a while.

Ten years from now, when we want to take out a terrorist group, a small panel truck (parked months ago on a back street in a dusty foreign town) will open and disgorge about a hundred tiny little death drones that will search out the enemies and sting them to death.

I see the Russians are already hip to the hypersonic threat, and busily working on a counter to it. But we are ahead! Its a replay of the whole MIRV thing.

Only the defense industries on both sides can really look forward to this. Jobs, careers, power, funding…Dr Strangelove all over again…my precious bodily fluids…my Life Essence…

A conventional rocket like Patriot would probably work better, although that is more a point defense weapon.

No I don’t see this as any sinister conspiracy, its just a plain ordinary military industrial complex boondoggle. Now if the Chinese had a few of these solid-fuel boosted hypersonic cruise missiles set up along their coast line, it could make it difficult for US carrier forces maneuvering to support operations in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the Phillipines, Singapore and even Viet Nam, all potential areas the Chinese feel are in their sphere of influence, and which we may feel compelled to intervene in. An aircraft carrier, unlike a boosting IRBM, can’t move that far in an hour.

There are already rumors the Chinese are developing an anti-carrier rocket-boosted subsonic cruise missile: sort of a rocket-assisted Exocet. With those striking at carriers at wavetop level, and hypersonics raining down from the stratosphere, the carriers would have their hands full, and be effectively neutralized by two separate threats unless they stayed well offshore where they posed no threat to the East Asian Littoral. We have no defense against this kind of weapon at all, and the subsonic cruise has no counter except Phalanx, and we must remember, Phalanx has yet to prove itself in real combat.

I would suggest it would serve US strategic interests better, and use our defense R&D $ more effectively, to develop more anti-missile missiles capable of taking on these weapons, and deploying at least a few on every destroyer or cruiser escorting our carrier battle groups and amphibious task forces. We could also develop an airborne variant that could be flown off the carriers, also. It might make sense to upgrade our radar and C&C technology to help manage this kind of battle.

Again, we are the nation that relies heavily on the task force/battle group concept with a carrier or LPH at its core. Without it, we are pretty much reduced to conducting a set of tactical ship-to-ship duels of no strategic consequence.

But yeah, even some liberals miss the Soviet Union – the more hawkish of us.

Therefore one can be pretty sure it’s illegal or immoral or both. Otherwise they’d be bragging.

A lot of money has been spent to inhibit an Iranian second strike missile response. That’s what the radar nuclear shield is about, not preventing Iranian first strikes. They aren’t nuts. That shield is to protect from Iranian retaliation.

As could the X51 if stationed close. Easy to detect, hard to disguise, the boost phase of a missiles life is it’s most vulnerable.