Zhang Ziyang, Zhou Yang, Zhou Xuyang, Zhang Jiaqi
According to the U.S. Air Force's budget for fiscal year 2025, it plans to earmark $517 million to continue the development of air-launched missiles, and the ARRW (Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon) and HACM (Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept) programs have attracted much attention. But it's worth noting that the budget isn't intended to fund Lockheed Martin's ARRW program, which perhaps means some kind of trade-off between specific needs for the U.S. military.
The driving force of innovation and the promotion of a new "revolution"
In the new era, in order to adapt to the rapid development of the world's military science and technology and the revolution in new equipment, the United States, in order to ensure its cross-generational superiority over the equipment of late-developing countries, has put forward a series of "next-generation" and "advanced" conceptual equipment tenders after 2010, covering all major branches of the US military. All military equipment innovations are aimed at enabling the US military to jump out of the tasks of combating terrorism and regional containment, and to continue to promote equipment reform by aiming at the "competitors" in the US defense white papers over the years and the new tasks arising from them.
According to a report by U.S. intelligence services to Congress, the U.S. is eager to develop and equip hypersonic weapons. The excellent penetration capability of hypersonic weapons leads to the inability of existing air defense and anti-missile systems to effectively intercept and is a sharp "spear". Relevant people in the United States have noticed the advantages of hypersonic weapons and the importance and rapid development of hypersonic weapons in other countries in the world, and have begun to plan for the development and equipment iteration of hypersonic weapons in China.
When these policies fall to the Air Force, they include the development of air-launched missiles. The existing air-to-surface missiles (AGM-158) in the United States are a product of the beginning of this century and are no longer well adapted to the situation of rapid change in the current situation of rapid development. As a result, the US Air Force launched two projects at the same time - Raytheon's HACM project and Lockheed Martin's ARRW project.
Under the twists and turns, the difficult road is difficult to walk
The Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) is one of the U.S. Air Force's hypersonic weapons programs, launched in 2018 and scheduled for completion in 2022. The AGM-183A Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (AARW) is a hypersonic strike weapon developed by the U.S. Air Force in 2018 to counter the latest generation of weapons developed by China and Russia. AGM-183A missiles may be deployed by B-1B and B-52 bombers.
In August 2018, the U.S. Air Force awarded Lockheed Martin a $480 million contract to develop air-launched hypersonic weapons. The resulting missile, AGM-183A (Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), was first tested on a U.S. Air Force B-52 in June 2019.
In February 2020, the US Air Force announced that it had decided to proceed with the purchase of the AGM-183A. In March 2020, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Research and Engineering Michael J. Michael D. Griffin said that the United States is ready to put hypersonic boost-glide weapons into service.
However, the AGM-183A repeatedly failed to test launch during flight tests due to low-level technical problems such as "the missile did not leave the pylon".
On April 5, 2021, the U.S. Air Force conducted its first flight test of the AGM-183A booster, in which the missile failed to successfully separate from the carrier aircraft after launch.
On July 28, 2021, the U.S. Air Force conducted a second flight test of the AGM-183A booster, but the booster failed to ignite after the missile was released.
On December 15, 2021, the US Air Force conducted the third test launch of the AGM-183A, but during the test launch, the missile failed to detach from the carrier aircraft, and the test ended in failure.
According to the previous plan of the U.S. Air Force, it would have spent $160 million to purchase 12 AGM-183A hypersonic missiles in fiscal year 2022, but due to the failure of the previous three booster flight tests of the AGM-183A hypersonic missile, the U.S. Air Force canceled the plan to purchase the missile in fiscal year 2022, and reused half of the procurement funds for the follow-up research and development of the AGM-183A hypersonic missile.
It was not until December 9, 2022, that the 86th Test Wing of the US Air Force conducted its first successful test. The U.S. Air and Space Forces Magazine website said that the U.S. military conducted a second full-speed flight test of the AGM-183A air-launched hypersonic missile on March 13, but "it was not completely successful."
On March 13, 2024, after a full year, Lieutenant General Dale White, deputy director of procurement programs of the US Air Force, said in a briefing on the current progress of hypersonic weapons promoted by the US Air Force that the AGM-183A "Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon" manufactured by Lockheed Martin will soon complete testing, and there are no plans to advance follow-up production, and at the same time said that the hypersonic cruise missile (HACM) responsible for Raytheon will be flight tested next year.
At this point, the AGM-183A has completed research and development, but it is not purchased, and it has been converted into a technical reserve. In a sense, it can be said that AGM-183A is a practical weapon model, although it is not actually said, but even overseas military media believe that the project has actually been launched, and its current positioning is more of a test bomb.
The Hypersonic Air-Aspirated Weapon Concept (HAWC) is a joint project between the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the US Air Force to develop a hypersonic cruise missile with a range of more than 1,000 kilometers and a flight speed of more than Mach 6. Due to the technical difficulty, the project progressed slowly, and the project completed its first flight test of HAWC on September 28, 2021, behind the ARRW of the same period. As a concept test product of HACM, HAWC is available in two versions, one jointly developed by Lockheed Martin and Aerojet Rocketdyne, and the other by Raytheon and Northrop Grumman. Raytheon's three trials were declared successful, while Lockheed Martin succeeded only once of the two.
In September 2022, the U.S. Air Force signed a contract with subsidiaries Raytheon (now known as RTX) and Northrop Grumman to develop HACM, the HACM model code AGM-182A.
On March 28, 2023, U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said that the U.S. Air Force will be "more committed" to other hypersonic programs, namely the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM) program developed by Raytheon, in light of the latest ARRW test results. So far, he said, the HACM project has been "quite successful" and that "we see a clear role for HACM, which is compatible with more of our aircraft and will provide us with more overall combat capabilities." ”
Andrew Hunter, the Air Force's assistant secretary for procurement, said at the McAleese conference that while the AGM-182A HACM remains a so-called "medium-range procurement program" designed to rapidly develop prototypes, he stressed to industry officials that "the Air Force intends to one day achieve these capabilities — and the industry needs to act in the same way that the government has a production plan." "Our goal is to develop a field capability that we will put into production in the shortest possible time, and we can develop and implement intelligently," Hunter said. He later told reporters that the date of flight tests of the AGM-182A HACM had not yet been set.
Invest in clear trade-offs, new "combat power" in the future
"This Lockheed Martin HAWC flight test successfully demonstrated the second design that will allow our fighter to competitively select the right capabilities to dominate the battlefield. said Andrew Nodler, project manager of the HAWC of the DARPA Tactical Technology Office. The general program of the Pentagon in the context of hypersonic weapons in the Air Force, which, as it turned out, plans to curtail the development program of the ARRW aeroballistic missile due to the lack of noticeable results. Most of the released funds will be spent on HACM cruise missiles. The HACM missile is designed to be used on several carrier-based aircraft at the same time, and both long-range and tactical aviation will carry the missile. The lightest carrier of hypersonic products will be the modernized F-15E / EX fighter. Apparently, it is only capable of carrying a few missiles. In addition, HACM will be included in the ammunition of the B-1B and B-52H strategic bombers.
Such a program for the deployment of hypersonic cruise missiles showed extremely high prospects for application and satisfied the desired results of the US Air Force. The F-15 fighter will carry more HACM products, resulting in more flexible combat readiness tactics. In the case of the B-1B, carrying hypersonic missiles allows to extend the service life of these bombers, while maintaining and increasing combat capabilities.
Judging by the partially shown model, the HACM missile is a two-stage missile. It includes an acceleration stage in a cylindrical casing with stabilizers / rudders. To achieve the required speed and altitude, a solid-propellant engine must be used. Once depleted, the stage is reset.
The engagement stage of the HACM must be a self-contained vehicle that will be equipped with a hypersonic ramjet engine. The HACM product is positioned as a hypersonic weapon. In flight, it will reach a speed of at least Mach 5-6. If it is planned to equip the aircraft carrier with it as a strategic missile, its flight range will be hundreds or thousands of kilometers. In terms of precision guidance, HACM can use both satellite and inertial navigation. We cannot exclude the possibility of using a full-fledged seeker, which will significantly increase the accuracy indicators. Warhead unknown. But it is likely that a conventional warhead will be used, and the power of the missile as a whole will increase significantly due to the powerful kinetic energy effect.
Due to the failure of the ARRW project, the priorities of the HACM program have changed. Now the AGM-182A is considered the most promising hypersonic weapon for the US Air Force.
The Pentagon is optimistic about the HACM project and hopes that it will be successfully completed on time. These estimates and expectations may be based on some information about the current progress of the project, which will not be published. However, it cannot be ruled out that these are only wishes and hopes, which are facilitated by the lack of time and the practically absence of alternative developments.