Under the Autumn Sun in Beij rocket DF-17. Eleven meters long, fifteen tones weight, sharp profile: The China It had just presented a weapon system capable of changing the way the wars were fought.
Since then, the supersonic rocket race has been accelerated, notes in detail BBC reportage. China and Russia are dominant, while the United States is trying to cover the lost territory and the United Kingdom as soon as it begins to develop its own originals.
The ultrasonic rockets move at a speed above Mach 5, that is, five times the speed of sound. This extreme speed, coupled with the ability to maneuver in flight, makes them almost impossible to identify and intercept. “They are an essential element of the new geopolitical confrontation, the most intense of the Cold War,” summarizes William Frys of the Think Tank Council on Geostrategy, speaking to the BBC.
China today has the largest arsenal of ultrasound in the world, followed by Russia. The US presented its own system, Dark Eagle, but experts estimate that the West has been paying the two decades in which it has focused on terrorism and asymmetric wars. At the same time, Beijing and Moscow invested in this technology.
Weapons unpredictable and devastating
There are two main categories: Boost-Glide rockets, which are launched with a rocket before they sink to their target by making unpredictable maneuvers, and the Cruz ultrasonic rockets, which have a scramjet engine that allows them to move low.
Their head may be conventional or nuclear. More than their power is the unpredictable orbit that scares military analysts. “The difficulty lies in identifying and monitoring them,” says Patritzia Bazilsik of the Washington Strategic Studies Center in Washington in the BBC. Most of their terrestrial radar only detects at the final stage, when the defense has little time to react.