On September 7, India successfully tested an indigenously developed Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator Vehicle (HSTDV) powered by a scramjet engine. The test put India in the league of nations that are vigorously pursuing hypersonic technologies to maintain a decisive edge in their standoff weapons capabilities. The scramjet engine will serve as the most important critical building block around which the hypersonic vehicle will be designed. Among all of the next generation weapons technologies, hypersonic weapons represent one of the highest sense of urgency. The reason hypersonic weapons are feared so much is that they are very hard to defend against and have the ability to penetrate modern air defenses that are seemingly hard to do with existing conventional capabilities.
In the Indian context the hypersonic tests are supposed to put China’s S-400 based air defence and its much vaunted Anti Area Access Denial (A2/AD) strategy on notice. According to international security scholars Stephen Biddle and Ivan Oelrich, China’s A2/AD uses “a series of interrelated missile, sensor, guidance, and other technologies designed to deny freedom of movement to keep any potential adversaries, including the United States, from intervening in a conflict off China’s coast or from attacking the Chinese mainland.”
Hypersonic weapons are unique primarily because of the speed at which they travel, Mach 5 and beyond or in laymen terms, twice the speed of a bullet. A naval asset such as a frigate or an aircraft carrier will have very little time to manoeuvre and avoid taking a hit after it has detected a hypersonic weapon coming its way. Despite their game changing potential as offensive weapons, one has to remember that there is indeed a lot of hype behind hypersonic weapons.
As of today hypersonic weapons make for a better propaganda tool than in actual or real firepower and neither US, neither Russia nor China can claim deployment of a hypersonic weapon system in its entirety. The reasons for their non deployment are mainly due to the technological challenges that are yet to be dealt with. Firstly it is not easy control a weapon that is moving at 5 times the speed of sound and just because one has the ability to propel a weapon at Mach 5, it does not mean that there is also the capability to control, manoeuvre and hit the desired target. There are important variables such as environmental conditions to consider during the course of a hypersonic flight.
It is very hard to communicate with a weapon that is travelling at such high speeds. At Mach 5 there is tremendous amount of heat, shock and vibrations generated around the weapon. It is akin to a fiery space shuttle or a ballistic missile reentering the earth’s atmosphere, when for a considerable time it loses contact with ground control. Similarly a hypersonic glide vehicle while travelling at Mach 5 will be engulfed in a ball of fire during its flight. Its guidance systems, sensors, sensor processing, communications, and other electronics also must be able to survive the heat, as well as the anticipated shock and vibration of hypersonic flight.
Additionally, because hypersonic weapons are so fast, they struggle with manoeuvres in the final seconds against small fast-moving targets. This is due to manoeuvrability limitations at high speeds. Hypersonic weapons, therefore, are most effective for large and slow-moving or stationary targets, such as an aircraft carrier.
Alongside the development of a hypersonic weapons system India should also put equal efforts into detecting and countering hypersonic weapons? Effective defence against hypersonic weapons is likely to involve detection at extremely long ranges and technologies able to destroy incoming weapons including their platforms carrying hypersonic weapons at long ranges. As fast as hypersonic weapons are, the fact is that they cannot be deployed instantly. Detection at boost phase is the time when such weapons are at their most vulnerable phase. India should be able to detect and destroy enemy launch of such missiles at boost phase and for that it will have to invest in space based sensors or sensors based in stratospheric unmanned platforms such as the one based on High Altitude Airships for which India had signed a dual use technology agreement with a US based company in 2005. This would be the time to revive what was then way ahead of its time.
Hypersonic weapons when fired against moving targets beyond certain distances will lose their effectiveness as the target’s speed increases and its radar cross-section decreases and this requires the weapons on board guidance consisting of electronic circuits to do computations and make the required guidance adjustments. These circuits are highly susceptible to high-power microwave damage which act like chaffs and flares to deflect the path of the incoming hypersonic missile from the target. For this reason, when talking about defending against hypersonic weapons, high-power microwaves are an area where the DRDO and Indian industry can join hands to develop effective countermeasures.
Lasers or directed energy weapons travel faster than hypersonic weapons, although they are limited by line of sight, for short distances lasers can be used to counter hypersonic weapons. India has had a head start in lasers and has done significant amount of research work in this field. Frontline Indian Naval Assets consisting of Frigates and Carriers should have high power microwave and directed energy capability against the emerging threat of hypersonic weapons in the coming future. As China takes note of India’s evolving hypersonic weapons capabilities, it may already be putting in place plans to outfit its A2/AD infrastructure with high- powered microwave and laser countermeasures.
Do leading nations in this race have enabling technologies yet to protect the hypersonic weapon, its electronics, and weapons payload during torturous high-Mach flight? The answers are vague but apart from technological capabilities the development and deployment of hypersonic weapons should be doctrine based. Does more speed and manoeuvrability win battles and can it win a war? The recent experience of the United States in Afghanistan doesn’t seem to indicate so. Developing hypersonic weapons may end up costing the exchequer a pretty penny to say the least and in the end one may or may not get the desired bang for the buck.
Nevertheless keeping the fast changing geo political scenario in mind, hypersonic missile will play a critical role in cruise missile diplomacy and DRDO should pursue the hypersonic missile technology in all earnestness, in the end it is not just the missile technology itself but several other technologies that will end up getting developed as a spillover effect. As India conducts more tests and validates increasing number of hypersonic technologies, there will come a time nearing operationalisation, when there will be a rebalancing of military power and this will certainly help countries fear China less. The recent hypersonic test of the scramjet engine makes India’s intentions clear with regards to the acquisition of this technology. In the long run this will help stabilise tensions in the region, as balance of power at the moment is definitely skewed in favour of China. This new arms race promises to up end strategic calculations and India cannot be left behind.
-The writer is Chief Business officer of the Andhra Pradesh Aerospace and Defence Electronics Park, a mentor at the Atal Incubation Centre and Strategic Advisor to Kadet Defence Systems. He has worked on proprietary issues related to High Altitude Airship Technology and is one of the leading expert conversant in this technological capability. He is passionate about the UAV sector and is involved with the government and the private sector on UAV policy formulation and the benefits of UAV technologies. The views expressed are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda
