[AR] Re: Hypersonics have finally arrived
- From: Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Arocket List <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2020 00:22:26 -0400 (EDT)
On Wed, 14 Oct 2020, Troy Prideaux wrote:
Decades (more than half a century) of hype, potential and promise has
finally materialised into actual multi nation deployment of hypersonic
technology. It’s pretty clear now that hypersonic tech has finally
matured enough to at least provide some military utility.
More precisely, to provide enough of a semblance of military utility that
soldiers and politicians anxious to have something to show/fear are
willing to seize on it. How that relates to real military utility is a
very different question.
Don't forget that the first hypersonic weapon was tested in 1942, and
several thousand were made and fired in 1944-45. Ignorant politicians
(one in particular) were talked into funding a horrendously costly effort
which attracted a lot of attention and hype but had no military value
whatsoever. (For the sponsoring nation, that is -- it had considerable
value to their enemies, since it pulled desperately-scarce resources away
from things that *did* have real military value.) The recent hypersonics
hype smells much the same to me...
Henry
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