According to senior US weapons developers, the urgency of the Pentagon’s need to accelerate and deploy hypersonic weapons is severe, expressing extreme concern about Russian and Chinese weapons.
At a Space and Missile Defense Symposium in the US, Robert Strider, the deputy director of the Army Hypersonic Project Office, told an audience, “We are number three in this race. We have to catch up.”
Strider referred to fast-emerging Russian and Chinese progress with hypersonic missiles, which is a concern often discussed by Pentagon leaders.
Read More: Russia hypersonic weapons still ahead of the game?
This concern is likely a primary inspiration for the Army’s current success in developing an emerging weapon called “Dark Eagle.” The new missile, known as the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW), will reportedly be used in war by 2023.
“Our all up round is a thirty-four-inch booster which will be common between the Army and the Navy,” Strider said. “We will shoot exactly the same thing the Navy shoots out of a sub or ship.”
Russia has quietly become one of the world's foremost developers of hypersonic weapon technology. https://t.co/lNpVu453Tp
— National Interest (@TheNatlInterest) August 15, 2021
By this time, Strider explained, the new LRHW will be able to travel aboard an Air Force C-17 Globemaster III to a hostile forward location, set up for a launch, and destroy enemy targets at hypersonic speeds before returning to home base.
Read More: Is Pakistan building biological weapons with China? FO says no!
This level of independent warfare ability with hypersonic missiles, expected by 2023, will be preceded by a series of what Strider called Joint Flight Campaigns involving tests, assessments, and technological refinements of the weapon.
“We took existing trailers and modified them with hydraulics and electronics and everything associated with being a launcher,” Strider explained. “We know what these systems are capable of.”
Most significantly of all, having a mobile, expeditionary hypersonic attack capability in this fashion would surely make launch locations much more difficult to locate and destroy. An enemy might not have the ability to find that launch point due to the LRHW.