HYPERSONICS BY 2023
I
t’s 2023, and a battery in a strategic fires battalion, part of the U.S. Army’s Multi-Domain Task Force, is newly equipped with an unprecedented asset: the Army’s first hypersonic weapon.
Tis land-based, truck-launched system is armed with hypersonic missiles that can travel well over 3,800 miles per hour. Tey can reach the top of the Earth’s atmosphere and remain just beyond the range of air and missile defense systems until they are ready to strike, and by then it’s too late to react. Extremely accurate, ultrafast, maneuverable and survivable, hypersonics can strike anywhere in the world within minutes. For the battery, the task force and the U.S. Army, they provide a critical strategic weapon and a powerful deterrent against adversary capabilities.
Around since the early 2000s, hypersonic technology itself is not new, yet it is newly important. Today the United States is battling to outpace similar efforts from our adversaries.
To address those threats, the Army is accelerating the fielding of its own long-range hypersonic weapon to deliver, by fiscal year 2023, an experimental prototype with residual combat capability—meaning Soldiers have it and can use it in combat if needed—to a unit of action. In this case, the unit is a battery in a strategic fires battalion.
Te Army is using the same approach—accelerating a prototype to provide residual combat capability—with directed energy, another leap-ahead technology. Te Army’s first meaningful laser weapon system for tactical use will be fielded by fiscal year 2022. Tese 50-kilowatt (kW)-class lasers, heading to a platoon of Strykers, will improve Soldiers’ defense against rocket, artil- lery and mortar threats, and an increasing number of unmanned aerial systems.
Te Army’s path for fast-tracking both hypersonics and directed- energy systems began in late 2018, when it renamed and refocused the efforts of the Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office (RCCTO). As part of the overall Army modernization strategy, Army leaders asked RCCTO to lead the hypersonic and directed-energy efforts as they transition from the science and technology (S&T) community into the hands of opera- tional units.
Immediately, RCCTO moved out with the two missions and in turn set a new course of delivering experimental prototypes with residual combat capability.
PUSHING FORWARD Developing hypersonic weapons for a national mission set requires constant cross-service coordination. Collaborating across services, agencies and with the Office of the Secretary of Defense through a joint service memorandum of agreement on design, develop- ment, testing and production, the Army, Navy, Air Force and the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) are all accelerating initiatives to field hypersonic weapon systems using a Common Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB). Te Navy leads design of the C-HGB, while the Army will lead production and build a commercial industrial base. Tis cooperation enables the services to leverage one another’s technologies as much as possible, while tailor- ing them to meet specific design and requirements for air, land and sea.
RCCTO is charged with one mission when it comes to hyper- sonics: Field a prototype long-range hypersonic weapon to the strategic fires battalion by fiscal year 2023. Tis includes hyper- sonic missiles with the C-HGB, existing trucks and modified trailers with new launchers, and an existing Army command-and- control system. (See Figure 1, Page 116.) To do this, RCCTO’s Army Hypersonic Project Office issued contract awards in August, following program approval in March, to produce key hardware items for the long-range hypersonic weapon.
Starting in 2020, the Army will participate in a series of joint tests with the Navy, Air Force and MDA, focusing on range, environ- mental extremes and contested environments. Te tests will be complemented by training events so Soldiers can learn to employ the new technology.
Te Army’s directed-energy efforts, which include both lasers and high-powered microwaves, are moving forward in a similar rapid prototyping effort. In April, the secretary of the Army signed a memo designating RCCTO responsible for oversight and execu- tion of all Army directed-energy efforts. Shortly thereafter, Army leadership approved a new directed-energy strategy for RCCTO, developed in partnership with the U.S. Army Futures Command.
Quickly, RCCTO began accelerating the fielding of the 50kW-class high-energy laser for a platoon of Stryker vehicles by fiscal year 2022. High-energy lasers use the light generated by the laser to “heat up” a threat and neutralize it. Tis prototype laser weapon at the platoon level is part of the Army’s Maneuver Short Range Air Defense (M-SHORAD) in support of a brigade combat team.
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Army AL&T Magazine
Fall 2019
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