China's Metal Storm Poised To Shred Hypersonics

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Gun-based defenses may also perform poorly when the instantaneous destruction of the target is required. Unlike an interceptor hit that can completely obliterate an incoming missile using hit-to-kill methods, there is a chance that a hypersonic missile still hits its target despite sustaining multiple bullet hits, with its high velocity ensuring heavy damage just by sheer kinetic energy.

Defending against hypersonic missiles presents significant technical and structural hurdles for existing and futuristic defense solutions that face cost, technical, and operational challenges.

Hypersonic weapons, which travel at speeds exceeding Mach 5, exhibit exceptional maneuverability and low-altitude flight, making them elusive for traditional radar and missile defense systems. These flight characteristics allow hypersonic missiles to exploit gaps between air and ballistic missile defenses.

Traditional missile defense strategies and technologies target ballistic missiles at different stages of their flight. When a ballistic missile's rocket motors are burning to push it into a high altitude, a boost phase intercept may provide the highest probability of interception. This approach requires positioning interceptor missiles close to the target. Ballistic missiles also have short boost phases, lasting only 3-5 minutes, providing a tiny time window for interception.

When a ballistic missile reaches its midcourse phase, it travels through space in a ballistic arc. This long phase gives more time for interception. However, within this time frame, it can deploy countermeasures, decoys, and penetration aids to defeat incoming interceptors.

Intercepting a ballistic missile during its terminal phase requires defending specific targets such as cities or military facilities when it re-enters the atmosphere and closes in. However, this phase has a very short time window for the interception, and the re-entering missile travels at hypersonic speed, making interception very challenging. Hitting a maneuvering target like a hypersonic missile would add even more difficulty to an already daunting task.

In February 2022, Asia Times noted that the SM-6 Dual is the only US interceptor missile with some degree of effectiveness against hypersonic threats, and even then, its capability may only be marginal.

Cognizant of the SM-6 Dual's shortcomings, a June 2024 US Congressional Research Service (CRS) report mentions that the US is developing interceptors such as the Glide Phase Interceptor (GPI) and Glide Breaker projects to defeat hypersonic threats.

However, these interceptors' high costs and long production times may make them unfeasible against a saturation hypersonic missile attack. Also, the limited magazine depth of US warships caps the number of interceptors they can carry.

While directed energy weapons such as lasers and microwave weapons have been touted as the future of missile defense, promising instantaneous hits with a practically unlimited ammunition supply at negligible cost, the technology has yet to deliver on its promise.

In January 2024, Asia Times noted that key limitations in the US laser weapons program include the need for substantial physical, weight, power, and cooling space, which current US surface combatants lack.