It is, of course, sloppy terminology to use “hypersonic missile” to denote a missile which maneuvers within the atmosphere, as any ballistic missile that goes faster than Mach 5 is, by definition, a hypersonic weapon. But that’s the terminology we’re stuck with, and that’s what the pundits are calling weapons such as the Russian Avangard and Chinese DF-ZF glide vehicles.
The animation shows intercepts of both a missile and an HGV.
This appears to be very unrealistic. (Non-hypersonic) missile interception … e.g. Patriot/Iron Dome, etc, seems to have a low hit rate to begin with.
So what one would have to believe with the sky sonic interceptor is that it can somehow take he “hit a bullet with a bullet” approach and turn it up to 11… Mach 11 that is, with meandering bullets? Yeah, no.
Officials indicated that the kill vehicle is designed for a kinetic kill but will also be effective close to its target. Sky Sonic will be able to deal with hypersonic threats flying at Mach 10 and above, either hypersonic glide vehicles (the near-term threats) or hypersonic cruise missiles expected in the future. Rafael’s Sky Sonic introduction comes a week after Iran announced its first hypersonic missile – FATTAH, which Iran claims is a hypersonic reentry vehicle with a range of 1400 km.
This reads more like calling out Iran’s bluff with their hypersonic missile.
Canceled: