Presently, Russia and China lead the US in the technology of hyper missiles or hyper glide vehicles. These offensive weapons can travel from Mach 8 to Mach 12 hitting a target 1600 nautical miles away in just minutes. This leaves little time for reactive defensive procedures. So far the US Navy “Phalanx” program has been considered to be a last ditch ship defense effort using high speed high volume scatter cannons to release a swarm of munitions that would shred an incoming missile, but would that be enough? This would simply be used on US warships, but Taiwan does have surface installations.

Modern death ray

The US has now developed the most powerful laser energy directed systems in the world. Traveling at the speed of light would enable them to reach any missile no matter how fast that hyper missile could fly. The US Navy’s ONID program would use lower intensity laser beams to burn off wings and control surfaces to disable the ability of a missile or aircraft to fly to a target, foul sensors to destroy navigation capability, or even remotely detonate the payload! The concern has been that hyper missiles can handle up to a 1,000 degrees on the skin of the missile due to the high speed friction resistance of the atmosphere.

Advantages and setbacks

The US Navy Helios directed energy weapon would use more intense laser power to pierce the outer hull of an incoming hyper missile and disintegrate the enemy weapon. With the deployment of this type of defense weaponry conventional weapons that are heavy, bulky, and require huge munition storage would instead have a reusable fire system of less weight and dimension and much higher speed of engagement. However, there are drawbacks that have not yet been overcome so that we are not going to see the abandonment of conventional defense weapons any time soon. There is even a more powerful laser weapon that is being tested, more devastating than Helios.

Challenges to overcome

For instance, when a high intensity laser beam makes contact with a target heat buildup in the air around it the air surrounding the incoming threat as well as the air in the path of the beam on the way to the target also heats up. This will throw the beam off target just as a heated atmosphere will bend light and even cause mirages. Another problem is having clarity of the atmosphere to operate. If the air is full of battle smoke, fog, or the enemy uses smoke grenades, or smoke screens, once again the accuracy of the laser weapon will be reduced. However, in ideal conditions, the laser weapon is just about undefeatable. The Greeks had a method of directed energy centuries ago by using a focused mirror that a high intensity beam from the sun could be directed from a lens mirror to burn enemy ships. So the technology is not completely new.

Deployment from orbit

Another conceivable manner of using the energy directed laser is from satellites less vulnerable to atmospheric interference. From a satellite with the accuracy of spy cameras and geosynchronous location, no target could escape from this type of delivery platform. Thus, the numerical superiority of China and Russia could be easily neutralized with deadly efficiency. However, overcoming certain difficulties remains to be seen. Right now the US is still working on 12 different projects for the development of hyper manned jet fights with scram jet motors, drones with hyper speed capability, and hyper missile development. The problem is cost. A single hyper speed missile can cost 80 million dollars or more, and it’s only usable one time. It is interesting to note that stealth capability will be abandoned over sheer Mach speeds that would obviate the need.

Final thoughts

The US is currently developing the SR-72 hyper speed reconnaissance aircraft that would perform as its predecessor the SR-71 Blackbird, but with more speed, weapons capability and even weapon guidance shared with other devices and platforms. The cost of the old SR-71 in the 60’s was about 23 million per aircraft, that is nothing but a fond memory today compared to the costs of R&D, manufacture, and further testing. The federal government needs to prioritize its spending to that of the best interests of the people, cut out the Deep State deals with foreign powers, and focus on the survivability of Americans. It seems that through the decades the US has unintentionally built enemies as China through trade agreements that favored them as US corporations profited with a larger margin off the US consumer market at the cost of outsourcing American manufacturing capability and jobs.