Source: World Wide Web
According to the US Air Force Magazine reported on January 19, US Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall warned against overemphasizing hypersonic weapons just because China is ahead of the curve in this field. Kendall said hypersonic missiles are better suited to China's strategy, and the Air Force has yet to determine the future combination of weapons.
It is worth noting that Kendall's public statement in the first 2022 is the usafel's three consecutive AGM-183A hypersonic missile tests in 2021, all of which have failed.
Screenshot of the US Air Force Magazine report
According to the report, Kendall participated in the new U.S. security event on the 19th, saying that hypersonic weapons do a good job of solving China's "fears and the goals that the United States has shown." These targets tend to be major air bases and naval formations in the Pacific. He believes that the United States must be careful to "mirror imagine" potential threats.
Kendall said there was a "rush" to develop hypersonic weapons during the Trump administration, but they may not be the Air Force's most "cost-effective tool." "We have to think about what is most cost-effective for the United States ... Compared to conventional weapons, (hypersonic systems) are very expensive. So we have to look at this very carefully and decide where we need to weigh it. I don't think enough has been done in that regard. ”
The U.S. B-52 bomber test-fired the AGM-183A hypersonic missile image. The U.S. Air Force conducted three consecutive such tests in 2021, all of which failed. This scene is still an imaginary image to this day
Kendall did not elaborate on what the most attractive targets for the U.S. Air Force would be, or whether they would be solved, for example, by slower stealth cruise missiles, aspirator-type hypersonic cruise missiles that are cheaper than booster gliders, or direct attack weapons.
Kendall said the right combination of weapons "remains an open question for me." He also acknowledged that hypersonic missiles have the advantage of being fast and unpredictable and "can be valuable assets," but that the Air Force needs to better plan the path of future munitions (missile weapons). "Hypersonic weapons play a role in this combination," and "I think the United States should continue to develop and deploy appropriate hypersonic" systems."
The Global Network Military noted that this is the first time that US Air Force Secretary Kendall has publicly expressed his position on the development of hypersonic weapons in 2022. Previously, in April, July and December 2021, the U.S. Air Force conducted three test firings of the AGM-183A hypersonic missile, including the first flight, which ended in three consecutive failures, the cause of which is still under investigation. The U.S. Air Force has earlier said that the missile is expected to form an earlier combat capability in fiscal year 2022, and now after a series of failures, the follow-up progress is full of uncertainty. Judging from Kendall's statement, the US military is not dead set on the development of hypersonic weapons, and it wants to throw the pot to the previous Trump administration for the failure it has encountered, and at the same time wants to go out of its own way, but helplessly, there is no better idea now.
In addition, Kendall mentioned in his speech that China's hypersonic weapons have solved the problem of dealing with U.S. air bases in the Pacific, naval ship formations and other targets. This is most likely his real thought. This is not the time when the U.S. Congress considered the FY22 military budget earlier. At that time, the US military hyped up and exaggerated the "China threat", and one of the main purposes was to try to win as much funding as possible. Kendall now may prefer to tell the truth.