In the first half of the year, there was a lot of heavy news in the field of United States weapons and equipment. Among them, the most noteworthy is United States breakthroughs in a number of hypersonic missile projects, which increases the threat to China. At the same time, the United States is also vigorously improving its ability to intercept hypersonic missiles.
But at the same time, United States has suffered heavy losses in the next generation of fighters, United States F-35 fighter problems continue, and United States' future air superiority may be difficult to maintain.
In addition, the United States Navy's ships under construction have been delayed across the board, and the cost of building new ships has risen sharply. The serious shortage of production capacity in the United States shipbuilding industry is further exacerbated, which will seriously affect the future combat power of the United States Navy.
United States recently successfully tested a variety of hypersonic missiles, and on June 23, according to the United States Navy News Network, the United States Army successfully used two ballistic missiles (PrSM) to hit a moving target at sea, the first time during the U.S. military's "Brave Shield 24" exercise.
On June 28, 2024, the United States Department of Defense announced that the Dark Eagle successfully conducted its first full-flight test in a full combat configuration at the Bakinsa Pacific Missile Range off the west coast of Kauai, Hawaii, on May 23.
The maximum range of the "Dark Eagle" is more than 2775 km. The cruising speed is Mach 5, the maximum attack speed at the end can reach Mach 17, and it has extremely high strike accuracy. In the future, the range of the "Dark Eagle" will be rapidly increased to more than 4,500 kilometers.
This means that the United States has made a landmark breakthrough in the field of hypersonic missiles, realizing the leap of hypersonic missiles from scratch.
At the same time, United States is also developing hypersonic missiles such as Mako and HALO, among which Mako can be carried by stealth fighters such as F-35 in large quantities, and can be built into the internal bomb bay of stealth fighters to maintain the stealth state of fighters.
Although, for a long time, in the field of hypersonic missiles, both in terms of performance and quantity, China will still have a clear advantage, and it will be difficult for United States and Japan to catch up.
But at the same time, it is undeniable that after all, United States has successfully developed a hypersonic missile, achieved a breakthrough from 0 to 1, and the anti-ship capability and long-range ground attack capability will be greatly improved. We should attach great importance to this.
United States' sixth-generation aircraft program continues to take a major hit, and on July 20, United States Air Force Secretary Kendall said that the United States Air Force had suspended the NGAD program and re-examined it to ensure it could meet "the serious challenges of the PLA."
Earlier, the United States Navy's sixth-generation fighter F/A-XX project research and development funding was significantly reduced, and in fiscal 2025, the United States Navy's sixth-generation fighter research and development expenses were significantly reduced from $450 million in fiscal 2024 to $53.828 million, a decrease of nearly 97% compared with the $1.53 billion required by the US Navy in fiscal 2023.
At the same time, United States' next-generation stealth bomber B-21 has also begun to encounter challenges, and the US Air Force Chief of Staff has recently resolutely refused to buy more B21 bombers, which also shows that the US Air Force is not so satisfied with the B-21 to a certain extent.
According to United States "Defense News" reported on June 18, the draft National Defense Authorization Act proposed by the United States House of Representatives for fiscal year 2025 plans to reduce the purchase of F-35 aircraft from 68 to 58 aircraft. At the same time, since July 2023, the United States military has refused to accept the latest production F-35 fighters. In addition, the F-35 series fighters also have many problems and failures, and the availability rate is less than 30%.
The above series of information shows that the US military's future air power has suffered heavy losses, and the US military fighters have begun to enter a period of large-scale retirement, United States future air power superiority may be difficult to maintain.
At present, most of the United States fighters, early warning planes, tankers, and other military aircraft have been in service for a long time, are seriously aging, and their combat effectiveness has declined, and they have begun to enter a period of large-scale retirement.
For example, in 2025 alone, the US Air Force will retire more than 200 old aircraft, including 56 A-10C attack aircraft, 91 F-15 fighters, 11 F-16C/D fighters, etc.
China's air power is expected to surpass that of United States in the coming years. In response, Aquilino, commander of the United States Indo-Pacific Command, publicly declared in Congress in March that "China is about to have the world's largest air force."
In terms of the navy, due to the serious shortage of production capacity in the United States shipbuilding industry, it has not only led to a comprehensive delay in the construction of ships in United States, but also the maintenance and repair of United States naval ships cannot meet the demand, and the combat effectiveness has seriously declined.
This has also led to a continuous surge in the manufacturing cost of United States Navy ships, taking United States' new medium-sized landing ships as an example, each with a unit price of up to $429 million, more than 13 times that of similar Chinese weapons.
The United States shipbuilding industry is facing a series of problems such as backward production base facilities and serious lack of production capacity, imperfect supply chain support, and serious shortage of experienced engineers, while the United States has been slow to take effective countermeasures to join the improvement, which will seriously affect the future development and combat effectiveness of the United States Navy.
At the same time, the US military will also have a large number of major warships to be decommissioned in the future. Among them, the Ticonderoga-class cruisers have already begun to be decommissioned intensively, and the last one will be decommissioned in 2027. Some Arleigh Burke-class destroyers and Nimitz-class aircraft carriers will face the same problem in the future.
In recent years, China has surpassed United States in the number and tonnage of warships, and the gap with United States will continue to narrow in the future.
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