On August 4, the annual “Space and Missile Defense Symposium” (SMD) was held in the USA, but this year as an online and video conference due to Covid-19. At this event, US Army Lieutenant General L. Neil Thurgood presented the so-called “Common Hypersonic Glide Body” (C-HGB). “Common” or “joint” because the US Army and Navy are sharing the development and the hypersonic glide warhead is to be used on (at the tip of) land- and sea-based launchers.
Lieutenant General Thurgood (exact job title: “Director for Hypersonics, Directed Energy, Space and Rapid Acquisition within the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology”) showed a video of a launch of C-HGB on a missile on March 19, 2020, from the so-called “Pacific Missile Range Facility” in Kauai, Hawaii, along with models. This could already be found on the web, for example on WarZone or at Aviation Week – see video below. It has now been added that this successful test was based on a previously undisclosed test firing from an Ohio-class submarine, which is said to have taken place on October 1, 2017. The video now presented also shows the impact of the warhead, which is very precise for the intended distance, “but it was not a very long flight”, according to Lieutenant General Thurgood. There was also no comment on whether the impact was that of an active warhead with explosives or “only” the kinetic effect of the glider itself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdbHFU9ognc&feature=emb_title There was also no precise information on the actual speed achieved; when asked, Thurgood said that “such weapons can precisely hit targets hundreds and thousands of kilometers away and reach speeds of up to Mach 17.” In June, US President Donald Trump addressed China and Russia’s lead in hypersonic weapons, which is also sometimes described in the USA, when he mentioned “our super-duper missile” in a speech at West Point, which “hits within 14 inches of the target”. However, according to available information, the USA does not yet have such a system in operation, and the US Army is due to begin testing a land-based version in 2023. In Russia, on the other hand, Avangard and in China DF-17 are probably already in the inventory of the respective “space forces” (VKS) and the missile forces of the People’s Liberation Army.
See also an older analysis by the Jamestown Foundation.
