Compiled History by Ewa Historian John Bond
Coming Soon: Much harder to defend against Hyper Sonic Missiles Reportedly 17 Times Faster
A Hypersonic Missile War Could Be Over In 10-15 Minutes
There would be no time to take cover or put out a missile alert
https://interestingengineering.com/how-hypersonic-missiles-work-and-why-theyre-starting-a-global-arms-race
The world's superpowers are developing an array of hypersonic missiles that can travel across the world faster than Mach 5, or 3,800 miles per hour. These weapons could provide almost immediate weapons response capabilities for the countries that have them. So much so that developing new hypersonic tech is creating a new arms race around the world.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/16/politics/pentagon-hypersonic-missile/index.html#:~:text=Hypersonic%20missiles%20are%20traditionally%20defined,of%20operating%20at%20varying%20altitudes
Given their tremendous speed and ability to maneuver in the atmosphere, hypersonic missiles are seen as particularly hard to defend against using conventional missile defense systems, which are designed to counter and intercept traditional ballistic missile threats, the trajectory of which are much more predictable than their hypersonic counterparts.
"Trying to defend against a hypersonic vehicle, that uncertainty in trajectory, becomes very difficult to deal with and defenses become very difficult because you've coupled very high speed with uncertainty in flight trajectory," a senior US defense official told CNN.
Tremendous range
The boost glide system, which was the system tested in March, places a maneuverable glide vehicle atop a ballistic missile, giving the missile much enhanced maneuverability at hypersonic speed.
The weapon is seen as having tremendous range, 1,000 miles or greater, but is more expensive and larger than the cruise missile variant.
The other kind of hypersonic missile the US is working on is a hypersonic cruise missile and is much more like a traditional cruise missile such as the Tomahawk missile, a weapon long used by the military to strike enemy targets.
The hypersonic missiles would travel up to ten times faster than the Tomahawk missile currently in the military's arsenal.
