I guess I need to write a disclaimer about Perun: He's a smug liberal commentator from Australia (the ideology, I don't know what party he votes for in elections), though his gaming channel is pretty comfy. He has a degree of western bias, and has been invited to high profile international weapon conferences. He does attempt to cover conflicts neutrally however.
Some big points I notice:
- The US continues to make staggering investments in assets against China, which will be ready in the early 30s.
- This increase by itself is greater than the entire Russian defense budget for 2025 while in active warfar- Special Military Operations
- "Golden Dome" will provide some protetion against Chinese retaliation on the US homeland which China can threaten with Type 93B Cruise Missile Submarines.
- Golden Dome may also provide good enough insurance against ICBMs for confronting China's relatively small stockpile of warheads.
- Large Investments in US nuclear forces, including a "classified nuclear deterrent", and a small yield ship launched nuclear missile which congress has funded despite navy not wanting.
- 4.5 Billion investment to "accelerate" acquisition of B21 Stealth Bombers,
- Massive increase to US capabilities in naval mining, including autonomous torpedoes and underwater drones, which the PLAN has limited countermeasures prepared
- Combine that with new missiles and the US leaving its missile treaties, it seems like the US may be positioning itself to take an asymmetric stance against China, which sounds unique since it's typically the side close to home that chooses to adopt asymmetric tactics.
I wouldn't say so. I'd say it's more giving up on hypersonic glide vehicles like the AGM-183 ARRW, and giving up on barely hypersonic/high supersonic cruise missiles like HALO. I'd actually expect an increased push for hypersonic cruise missiles that can hit velocities well above Mach 5 from the USA, on projects like the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM), which is a Mach 8 cruise missile set to be the NATO/western analogue to the Russian Zircon, and I'd expect this is where hypersonic weapons development will be put towards in future.
The reason HALO was cancelled was because it was barely hypersonic, if hypersonic at all, with even the manufacturer saying that it was only high supersonic (Mach 4.5) . This does not represent a big enough capability increase over the air launched SM-6 missile, which hits speeds of Mach 3.5+ and has a range of over 500km against ground targets. It does not justify an entire new weapons program and the money spent on it.
ARRW was cancelled as it's a air launched hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV), with a lot of the limitations HGVs have. Sure it offers advantages over an air launched or ground launched MaRV equipped ballistic missiles, but are they worth it, when those advantages have tradeoffs themselves?
China for instance uses air launched MaRV equipped ballistic missiles (and shorter range unibody missiles) and not air launched HGVs for a potential anti ship role. China's ground launched DF-ZF HGV can glide for 1400km for 11 minutes at an altitude of 60km, for an average velocity of around 6.15 Mach. A medium range ballistic missile would cover that distance in half the time or less, important for trying to hit time sensitive moving targets such as ships. The increased maneuverability of an HGV at lower altitudes comes at a huge cost to energy due to aerodynamic drag, which would make the HGV even slower, potentially dropping below hypersonic speeds.
I have a soft spot for those little kinetic AT missiles downstream of LOSAT