By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization
The Army’s new soon to arrive Long Range Hypersonic Weapon is highly expeditionary as it can travel on a C-17, attack at ranges up to 1,725 miles and close in on targets at more than five times the speed of sound.
The Army’s top acquisition executive says the critical and fast-tracked weapon is slated to arrive “this year.”
“LRHW in particular.. is an equivalent of a major defense acquisition program. It is extremely complicated. It’s an entirely new missile, new launcher, new fire control. So, if we stay on our revised testing plan and I think the Army has stated that our goal is now the end of the calendar year to get a fielded system with a test to validate it,” Mr. Douglas Bush, Assistant Secretary of the Army, Acquisition, Logistics & Technology, told reporters recently according to an Army provided transcript.
It seems it would be extremely well-advised, if not urgent, for the Army to fast-track the arriving LRHW to the Pacific theater. The weapon could realistically be placed in Guam if not vital allied territories throughout the region to include Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and Australia to challenge, counterbalance or deter China’s increasingly threatening arsenal of hypersonic weapons.
The anticipated arrival of the weapon is highly prioritized by Army leaders and not-a-moment-too-soon given that the Pentagon has been publicly saying that hypersonic weapons are being massively fast-tracked to close any potential “deficit” or “gap” when it comes to Chinese and Russian hypersonic weapons.
As the Chinese threat to Taiwan in the Pacific seems to only be intensifying, why not immediately send deployable LRHWs to the Pacific? Such a move might help deter Chinese leaders from thinking they have a short-lived window through which to exploit or leverage an advantage in hypersonics to quickly annex Tawain and deny access or entry for any forces wishing to defend Taiwan using the attack speed and threat of hypersonics. This risk is compounded by the fact that China appears to already be test-firing both air and ship-launched hypersonic missiles
A People’s Liberation Army – Navy video cited in several publications show the test-firing of the YJ-21 “hypersonic missile” from the PLA’s emerging, quasi-stealthy Type 055 Destroyers. The Navy’s destroyer launched hypersonic Conventional Prompt Strike is slated to Army the Zumwalt-class destroyers several years from now, a fast-tracked and highly prioritized effort, given that China reports to now operate a ship-fired hypersonic missile.The scope, scale or full functionality of this YJ-21, which has also now been launched from the air from a PLA Air Force’s H6K bomber, may not be known. Also, the size of any potential PLA ship and air launched hypersonic weapons arsenal may not be significant, yet it is safe to assume the Pentagon is taking the threat seriously.
“The H-6K bomber is capable of carrying a wide variety of munitions including the KD-20 land attack missile, the YJ-12 supersonic anti-ship missile and the YJ-21 hypersonic missile,” the Chinese government-backed Global Times reported earlier this year.
What all of this amounts to in a clear and simple sense is … the Pentagon needs hypersonic weapons in sufficient numbers in the Pacific … immediately.
What Would The LRHW Mean in Asia?
Hitting massive, hypersonic speeds of 3,800 miles per hour and reaching impactful, breakthrough ranges of 1,725 miles, the now deployed LRHW could prove decisive in the Pacific. An analysis of a map showing distances from Japan and Guam to Tawian, it appears the LRHW’s reach would enable it to defend Taiwan and certainly hold mainland China at risk of hypersonic attack. Central Japan is listed at 2,163km from the island of Taiwan, a distance just over 1,000 miles and Guam is slated to be a 1,709 miles from Taiwan, just at the boundary of LRHW’s range. The LRHW is mobile and deployable as well, given that it can travel on a C-17 to quickly get to forward defensive locations
Throughout the development of the LRHW, Army weapons developers have been clear to sustain a focus on yet another generation of hypersonic weapons able to expand beyond the attack capabilities of the initial LRHW missiles. Service weapons developers have been working on a “tech insertion” upgrade for the LRHW to enable it to maneuver in flight, change course in response to changing target specifics and succeed in destroying “moving” targets.
In an interview with the Center for Military Modernization last year, Mr. Bush explained this critical, yet complex Army developmental strategy for the LRHW and hypersonic weapons. Essentially, the Army is engineering the LRHW to ensure it continues to breakthrough as new technologies emerge.
“We have plans to roll in additional technologies once we get the first baseline capability fielded. I think the Army is committed to doing that. Because it is moving very quickly. and you’d expect the counter technologies will also move quickly. So you have to be in a constant kind of innovation pace there to keep up with the threat,” Bush told Warrior in a previous interview. “I think hypersonics overall fits into precision at range, and mass precision at range. I think that’s the trend of where technology is going. Happy to see the Army already has a program to try to continue to do that over time.”
Given this, it makes sense that the U.S. Army’s approach to hypersonics is multi-pronged, meaning the service focuses on both near-term delivery and long-term hypersonic weapons development. Firing weapons at five times the speed of sound to shorten attack time changes the paradigm for current concepts of operation. Yet, further enhancements are expected to involve the use of new, more heat-resistant materials or breakthrough guidance systems. Mr. Bush and his weapons development team work in partnership with the Army Research Laboratory. The Army Research Laboratory, where teams of engineers and scientists are experimenting with mixtures of ceramic, metal, polymer, or composite materials at the microscopic level to uncover better “performing” materials with which to engineer future weapons, is exploring these questions through cutting-edge research. While the work could yield near-term applications in the event of breakthrough testing, much of the exploration aims to uncover “disruptive” paradigm-changing scientific breakthroughs.
Specific materials built into weapons systems bring distinct properties such as being lighter weight, more resistance to penetration, or perhaps better equipped to maneuver and manage accurate flight at previously unimaginable temperatures.
Send Hypersonic Weapons to Pacific
The deployment and operational readiness of the LRHW is extremely significant as it would enable the US to hold Chinese forces on or near Taiwan at risk of hypersonic attack or retaliation. Should the “tech insertion” come to fruition in the near future, then the LRHW could hold a moving Chinese amphibious assault at risk from Guam or Japan. Such a possibility would present a serious deterrent, should China be contemplating a surprise or unexpected amphibious attack.
Some Pentagon reports and expert observers have speculated that perhaps China might make a move on Taiwan earlier than expected to exploit what the PLA sees as a hypersonic weapons advantage. The intent would
be to create a protective, hypersonic weapon -enabled bubble around the Island of Taiwan to enable an annexation by preventing “access” to Western and allied forces hoping to defend the island. With LRHW, however, US force could potentially counter this anti-access/area-denial strategy and mitigate or remove any Chinese advantage in the realm of hypersonic weapons.
This ability, coupled with the weapon’s range and speed, could potentially remove what many saw as a US hypersonic weapons “deficit” compared with the People’s Liberation Army.
The LRHW is engineered with a Common Glide Body used for both Army and Navy hypersonic weapons, a warhead referred to as an “all-up-round” 34-inch booster common between the Army and Navy. The all-up-round is also arming the Conventional Prompt Strike weapon, a hypersonic projectile now being integrated onto the USS Zumwalt
It is not known if, or how soon, the LRHW could deploy to Guam or Japan, yet the possibility does seem quite sensible and intelligent given the severity of the Chinese threat.
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
