Analysts Question Uniqueness of Hypersonic Weapons Capabilities.

• Author: Roaten, Meredith

As the U.S. armed forces plow forward with their multifaceted campaign to develop hypersonic weapons, national security analysts are raising questions about how the new capabilities will impact great power competition.

Hypersonics are a top research-and-development priority for the Pentagon. The weapons are being pursued by the Air Force, Army and Navy.

The Defense Department is pumping billions of dollars into the technology. (For more on hypersonics funding see story on page 13)

Military officials hope to begin fielding the new capabilities in fiscal year 2023.

Proponents say the weapons' ability to travel at speeds greater than Mach 5 combined with high maneuverability will make it difficult for adversaries to defeat them. Officials have also expressed enthusiasm for their depressed flight paths, which could delay detection from enemy defenses. They have been touted as game-changing capabilities and the Defense Department officially announced a strategy for accelerating their development and fielding earlier this year.

However, some analysts say the weapons are being overhyped.

Based on findings from the use of computational modeling, a recent study published in the Science and Global Security Journal said hypersonic missiles do not outperform other types of missiles in speed or in evading defense systems.

"Misperceptions of hypersonic weapon performance have arisen from social processes by which the organizations developing these weapons construct erroneous technical facts favoring continued investment," said the report, "Modeling the Performance of Hypersonic Boost-Glide Missiles," by Cameron Tracy, a fellow at the Union of Concerned Scientists' global security program and David Wright, the former co-director of the program.

There are faster ballistic missiles that already exist that could be used in a regional conflict instead of hypersonic weapons, said Tracy during a recent event hosted by the Aerospace Corp.

"When we are thinking about deploying a new weapon technology, it's useful to compare that not just to what you're already using, but any other new technology you could deploy in that same space," he said.

Tests of a maneuverable reentry vehicle mounted on a Trident missile in the mid-2000s showed that ballistic missiles have already achieved high levels of accuracy, he said. Ballistic missiles also do not face the challenges of degradation to the external shell of the weapon that hypersonics systems have to contend with, he...