by tts-admin | Feb 11, 2021

Begun under the Trump administration, the US military is equipping a new type of high-tech missile that’s too fast to shoot out of the sky, a service official has revealed.

The Army hopes to deliver the hypersonic weapon, which travels at over 3,800mph, before the end of the year.

Speaking to DefenseNews, Lt. Gen. L. Neil Thurgood said that an Army unit is already being sent equipment to train soldiers to use the missile.

Generals hope to have the unit ready for testing within the next 200 days, Thurgood, who is director of the Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office (RCCTO), explained.

“By the end of this fiscal year, which is in September, all of the equipment that the unit needs plus training will be delivered to the unit,” he said.

Hypersonic missiles are a new type of weapon that travel so quickly that modern missile defence systems cannot intercept them.

They are described as being hypersonic because they travel at least five times the speed of sound, or roughly a mile per second.

The weapons can be modified to carry nuclear warheads.

Russia and China have also confirmed they’re working on the high-speed systems, which are expected to proliferate over the next decade.

Analysts fear they will make war more likely by putting rival nations on “hair-trigger” states of readiness.

According to DefenceNews, the US Army is focussing its current efforts on a ground-launched hypersonic weapon battery.

Working with Lockheed Martin, it’s producing the launchers, trucks, trailers, and battle operation centre needed to put together such a system.

Thurgood declined to name the unit that the first missile would be sent to.

Training will begin in October, he said, with potential tests scheduled for late 2022 and early 2023.

It’s not clear what missile the Army will be testing. In October 2020, the military released footage of a test of its Common-Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB) missile, which can travel at up to Mach 17, or 3.6 miles per second.

The weapon is said to have hit within six inches of its intended target.