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Associated Press

The US Navy is transforming a costly flub into a potent weapon with the first shipborne hypersonic weapon, which is being retrofitted aboard the first of its three stealthy destroyers.
The USS Zumwalt is at a Mississippi shipyard where workers have installed missile tubes that replace twin turrets from a gun system that was never activated because it was too expensive.
Once the system is complete, the Zumwalt will provide a platform for conducting fast, precision strikes from greater distances, adding to the usefulness of the warship.
“It was a costly blunder. But the Navy could take victory from the jaws of defeat here, and get some utility out of them by making them into a hypersonic platform,” said Bryan Clark, a defence analyst at the Hudson Institute.
The US has had several types of hypersonic weapons in development for the past two decades, but recent tests by both Russia and China have added pressure to the US military to hasten their production.
Hypersonic weapons travel beyond Mach 5, five times the speed of sound, with added manoeuvrability making them harder to shoot down.

Last year, The Washington Post reported that among the documents leaked by former Massachusetts Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira was a defence department briefing that confirmed China had recently tested an intermediate-range hypersonic weapon called the DF-27.
While the Pentagon had previously acknowledged the weapon’s development, it had not recognised its testing.
One of the US programmes in development and planned for the Zumwalt is the “Conventional Prompt Strike”. It would launch like a ballistic missile and then release a hypersonic glide vehicle that would travel at speeds seven to eight times faster than the speed of sound before hitting the target.
The weapon system is being developed jointly by the Navy and Army. Each of the Zumwalt-class destroyers would be equipped with four missile tubes, each with three of the missiles for a total of 12 hypersonic weapons per ship.
In choosing the Zumwalt, the Navy is attempting to add to the usefulness of a US$7.5 billion warship that is considered by critics to be an expensive mistake despite serving as a test platform for multiple innovations.
The Zumwalt was envisioned as providing land-attack capability with an Advanced Gun System with rocket-assisted projectiles to open the way for Marines to charge ashore.
But the system featuring 155mm guns hidden in stealthy turrets was cancelled because each of the rocket-assisted projectiles cost between US$800,000 and US$1 million.


Despite the stain on its reputation, the three Zumwalt-class destroyers remain the Navy’s most advanced surface warship in terms of new technologies.
Those innovations include electric propulsion, an angular shape to minimise radar signature, an unconventional wave-piercing hull, automated fire and damage control and a composite deckhouse that hides radar and other sensors.
The Zumwalt arrived at the Huntington Ingalls Industries shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi, in August 2023 and was removed from the water for the complex work of integrating the new weapon system.
It is due to be undocked this week in preparation for the next round of tests and its return to the fleet, shipyard spokeswoman Kimberly Aguillard said.
A US hypersonic weapon was successfully tested over the summer and development of the missiles is continuing. The Navy wants to begin testing the system aboard the Zumwalt in 2027 or 2028, according to the Navy.
The US weapon system will come at a steep price. It would cost nearly US$18 billion to buy 300 of the weapons and maintain them over 20 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Critics say there is too little bang for the buck.
“This particular missile costs more than a dozen tanks. All it gets you is a precise non-nuclear explosion, some place far, far away. Is it really worth the money? The answer is most of the time the missile costs much more than any target you can destroy with it,” said Loren Thompson, a long-time military analyst in Washington.

But they provide the capability for Navy vessels to strike an enemy from a distance of thousands of kilometres – outside the range of most enemy weapons – and there is no effective defence against them, said retired Navy rear admiral Ray Spicer, CEO of the US Naval Institute, an independent forum focusing on national security issues, and former commander of an aircraft carrier strike force.
Conventional missiles that cost less aren’t much of a bargain if they are unable to reach their targets, Spicer said, adding the US military really has no choice but to pursue them.
“The adversary has them. We never want to be outdone,” he said.
The US is accelerating development because hypersonics have been identified as vital to US national security with “survivable and lethal capabilities”, said James Weber, principal director for hypersonics in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defence for Critical Technologies.
“Fielding new capabilities that are based on hypersonic technologies is a priority for the defence department to sustain and strengthen our integrated deterrence, and to build enduring advantages,” he said.


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United States

Stealth destroyer USS Zumwalt to be home for 1st hypersonic weapon on a US warship

The USS Zumwalt is seen at the Huntington Ingalls shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi, on November 21. Photo: AP

A US Navy servicewoman stands in front of the deckhouse of the future USS Zumwalt in Baltimore in October 2016. Photo: AP

Putin says will test more Oreshnik missiles in combat after firing one at Ukraine

Footage released on Thursday shows flashes over the Ukrainian city of Dnipro during a Russian missile attack. Photo: Ukrainian charity Come Back Alive via AFP

Russian President Vladimir Putin gives a televised speech in Moscow on Thursday. Photo: EPA-EFE

Chinese scientists propose ram-rotor detonation engine for hypersonic flight

The Chinese Journal of Aeronautics shows how the Tsinghua University team’s RRDE works. Photo: CJA journal

Typical structures of RRDE. Credit: Wang Bing

China’s hypersonic missiles can be made from steel, scientists say

China is in a hypersonic arms race with the United States and Russia. Photo: Weibo

Chinese team thinks ‘outside the box’ to find a cool solution to hypersonic heat

The launch of a DF-17 hypersonic glide missile. China is in a race with the US and Russia to develop hypersonic capabilities. Photo: CCTV

The DF-17 hypersonic missile was unveiled in 2019. Photo: Weibo

China’s new hypersonic glider can power-jump to the other side of the Earth: scientists

Chin DF-17 uses the Qian Xuesen trajectory but scientists are now working on hypersonic gliders that would use a trajectory that acts more like a skipping stone to increase range. Photo: AP

The skipping stone trajectory sees the hypersonic glider go in and out of the atmosphere, which increases its range. Image: China Aerodynamics Research and Development Centre

The design the team is looking at reached a top speed approaching Mach 20 in computer simulations. Image: China Aerodynamics Research and Development Centre

News

World

United States & Canada

Recent tests of the advanced weapons by both Russia and China have increased pressure on the US military to hasten their production


Recent tests of the advanced weapons by both Russia and China have increased pressure on the US military to hasten their production.


Hypersonic missiles and weapons

Defence

Russia

China's military weapons