How the Navy Could Fire 5,600 MPH ‘Hyper Velocity Projectiles

[Zachary Keck](http://nationalinterest.org/profile/zachary-keck “Zachary Keck”) [2]

The Pentagon is pursuing an innovation missile-defense system that could address some of the shortcomings of the existing systems it deploys.

There are a number of major (somewhat interrelated) obstacles to defending against a missile attack. The first is simply the sheer technological challenge of using a missile to destroy another fast-moving missile. This is sometimes compared to trying to shoot a bullet with another bullet. The other is the cost equation: because of the technological challenges involved, missile-defense interceptors are inherently more expensive than the offensive missiles they are trying to destroy. Furthermore, because of the extreme difficulty of shooting down a missile, numerous interceptors are usually used against a single missile. All of this means that an adversary can merely use more offensive missiles to overcome defensive systems, especially when they know how many interceptors they are up against. This is easy to do when the interceptors cost so much compared to the missiles they are trying to destroy.

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Enter the Hyper Velocity Projectile. Developed by the Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO), the program aims to use the U.S. Army’s existing 155-millimeter howitzers to fire the new Hyper Velocity Projectile (HVP). These projectiles will have speeds of 5,600 miles per hour and only cost $86,000, compared to about $3 million for the interceptors of existing high-level missile defense systems like the Patriot.

Vincent Sabio, the program manager of the Hyper Velocity Gun Weapon System (HGWS) at SCO, discussed the project at an event on January 25 at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington, DC think tank. “That projectile has been independently costed—not by me, I wouldn’t expect to you believe my costing — but . . . by Navy IWS [Integrated Warfare Systems] at about $85,000 a round,” Sabio said, [according to a report by****Breaking Defense****](https://breakingdefense.com/2018/01/86000-5600-mph-hyper-velocity-missile-defense/ “<span> </span>according to a report by<span> </span><em>Breaking Defense</em>”) [6]. “You can shoot a lot of those things and not feel badly about it.”