> The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has insisted that the new weapon be designed and built entirely in Britain and is understood to have set a deadline of 2030 for it to enter service.
Why does it have to be British only? Why couldn’t it be done as part of the FC/ASW program, within which we reportedly killed the idea of a hypersonic in favour of stealthy subsonic options. Or AUKUS, which I think has a pillar for hypersonic research anyway. And 2030 for in service just sounds like a fantasy given recent experience of procurement. The answer may be later on in the article:
> A government defence source said: “Cutting-edge projects like this are only possible because of the massive new investment the Government has made this week in defence innovation.
>.
> “With Labour refusing to match our investment, continuing this project would be impossible under Keir Starmer – the military would be forced to cut the hypersonic programme, in a move that would make Putin’s dreams come true.”.
Sheer bollocks, and frankly the assertion makes me suspect this is just political bullshit rather than a genuine intention to develop a weapon
On the other hand; weapons like this are clearly necessary. State of the art air defences in Ukraine and the Red Sea are proving capable of handling cruise and ballistic missiles, so if we want to be able to threaten adversaries with strikes in the long term we need to start upgrading
LieutenantEntangle on
That’s useful, considering our adversaries have them now and big wars are kicking off.
I also love how we will have researched, developed, prototyped and refined hypersonic missiles before HS2 completes.
Apparently designing cutting edge missiles that eat up every ounce of physics and engineering know-how is easy than slapping down steel beams.
Educational_Ask_1647 on
From the artwork delivered by a home-grown B52 knock off, presumably made by British Leyland with cardboard motors and a 13v battery.
3 Comments
I confess I find much of this odd.
> The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has insisted that the new weapon be designed and built entirely in Britain and is understood to have set a deadline of 2030 for it to enter service.
Why does it have to be British only? Why couldn’t it be done as part of the FC/ASW program, within which we reportedly killed the idea of a hypersonic in favour of stealthy subsonic options. Or AUKUS, which I think has a pillar for hypersonic research anyway. And 2030 for in service just sounds like a fantasy given recent experience of procurement. The answer may be later on in the article:
> A government defence source said: “Cutting-edge projects like this are only possible because of the massive new investment the Government has made this week in defence innovation.
>.
> “With Labour refusing to match our investment, continuing this project would be impossible under Keir Starmer – the military would be forced to cut the hypersonic programme, in a move that would make Putin’s dreams come true.”.
Sheer bollocks, and frankly the assertion makes me suspect this is just political bullshit rather than a genuine intention to develop a weapon
On the other hand; weapons like this are clearly necessary. State of the art air defences in Ukraine and the Red Sea are proving capable of handling cruise and ballistic missiles, so if we want to be able to threaten adversaries with strikes in the long term we need to start upgrading
That’s useful, considering our adversaries have them now and big wars are kicking off.
I also love how we will have researched, developed, prototyped and refined hypersonic missiles before HS2 completes.
Apparently designing cutting edge missiles that eat up every ounce of physics and engineering know-how is easy than slapping down steel beams.
From the artwork delivered by a home-grown B52 knock off, presumably made by British Leyland with cardboard motors and a 13v battery.