By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization
Attacking hundreds of miles away faster than the speed of sound with a high-speed Hypersonic Glide Body warhead is the key function of the US Navy’s now emerging ship-launched hypersonic missile.
The US Navy is now taking large steps to arm its stealthy, high-tech Zumwalt-class destroyers with hypersonic weapons, a development expected to introduce new attack tactics, concepts of operation and high-speed attack.
The service will spend several years integrating the hypersonic Conventional Prompt Strike weapon onto the Zumwalts, a missile expected to travel at hypersonic speeds across dispersed, high-threat formations. The construction and integration is now already underway through a deal between the US Navy and HII aimed at integrating and activating the CPS onto ship. This is quite a technological process, as the high-tech ship likely needs to be adjusted with new launch and fire-control technology sufficient to support hypersonic attack. The weapons are expected to be operational on the Zumwalts by 2025.
It would make sense that the CPS would first integrate onto the Zumwalt destroyers, as they are powered by an Integrated Power System electrical drive capable of generating massive amounts of electrical power across the ship. The Zumwalts are also built with advanced technology called a “Total Computing Environment,” an elaborate, ship-wide computer processing infrastructure built with millions of lines of computer code. Having powerful and efficient sources of electrical power, combined with high-speed computing is likely to expedite and improve the integration of the CPS onto the ship by enabling improved power, propulsion and fire control.
The hypersonic weapons will be built in exchange for the Zumwalt’s existing Advanced Gun System by adding four 87-inch Advanced Payload Modules able to hold 12 missiles each, according to an interesting essay in NavalNews on the weapon.
Catching China’s Hypersonic Weapons?
It would not be surprising if the Navy and HII attempted to accelerate or fast-track the transition to CPS, given that the People’s Republic of China has already test-fired a ship-launched hypersonic weapon called the YJ-21. Added to the complexity of China’s ship-launched tests is a new development cited in the Chinese-government-backed Global Times newspaper that the People’s Liberation Army Air Force has now armed its H6K bomber with a new air-launched variant of the YJ-21.
Several essays published in Military Watch magazine and Naval News cite a Chinese PLA video showing a ship-launched testing firing of the YJ-21. A test launch, however, while seemingly impressive and “ahead-of-the-curve” does not necessarily indicate or prove the weapon is capable of “sustained” hypersonic flight or engineered with a new generation of guidance technologies sufficient to ensure precision. Therefore, it may be difficult to discern the effectiveness of the YJ-21 as a highly-effective, now-operational hypersonic weapon. Further, perhaps of greater significance, the US Navy and Army are both working on what’s called a “tech-insertion” designed to enable yet another generation of hypersonic weapons capable of hitting “moving targets.” There does not seem to be any indication as to whether China’s YJ-21 is being built with any kind of a comparable technology. Nonetheless, the test video does show that China may indeed be ahead of the US when it comes to ship-fired hypersonic weapons.
Clearly the existence of hypersonic weapons introduces new methods of high-speed, attack, new ranges and the potential ability to intercept and counter incoming hypersonic missile attacks. The weapon’s Hypersonic Glide Body is a common warhead also integrated into the Army’s Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW), and will also arm Navy submarines by 2028.
Kris Osborn is the President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University
