By Dr. Ann Griffiths, 2 December 2021
Both Russia and China have been hard at work developing and now testing hypersonic weapons. They both claim success in their recent tests. Russia in particular is deep into the game, and already mounting hypersonic missiles on its navy ships. According to the Russian Defence Ministry, in November the Russian frigate Admiral Gorshkov launched a Zircon hypersonic cruise missile in the White Sea, the latest in a series of tests of the Zircon, which is supposed to enter service in 2022. When the NORAD commander visited Canada recently, he noted that a US missile defence review is looking at the technology, and the United States is developing systems to detect, track and destroy hypersonic missiles. Canada is not conducting a similar review and hasn’t laid out a position on what it would do to defend Canada from hypersonic weapons. See “NORAD commander warns Canadian officials about the threat posed by hypersonic missiles”
4 thoughts on “Is Canada Doing Anything about Hypersonic Weapons?”
Hi Dr. Griffiths, The only thing I can see so far is the installation of the SPY-7 radar on the CSC that should make them one of the best naval platform in the world to track hypersonic missiles. But they cannot cover the entire Canadian landmass and we are far from having an interception solution so does the USA.
Yes, SPY 7 for the CSC Frigate will help but a much bigger counter to the Hypersonic question is a complete overhaul and update of NORAD, and very soon!
Hello,
From open sources I understand that there are a few types of hypersonic missiles: 1.Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles with unpowered MIRVs, 2. Air-launchef ballistic missiles with manoeuverable warheads like the Russian Kinzhal. 3. Glide bodies launched on an initial ballistic trajectory before continuing on an unpowered manoeuvering glide, like the Russian Avangard and the US proposed LRHW. 4. Hypersonic cruise missiles like Zirkon.
ICBM are hypersonic strategic missiles that follow a ballistic trajectory that can be tracked, more or less and intercepted, more or less. NORAD and ground based interceptors travelling at speeds of up to mach 7 are meant to intercept the ICBM midcourse or so. Sea-based interceptors like SM-3 reach speeds of mach 10-18 and long ranges.
Avangard is a strategic missile that reaches speeds of mach 20-mach 27; the glide phase follows an erratic quasi ballistic flight path. US is having a hard time launching LRHV test vehicles and won’t field one for a few years yet. Can NORAD systems track glide bodies beyond ballistic launch? Can anti-ballistic missile interceptors travelling at speeds of mach 7 or mach 10 – mach 18 for the SM-3 intercept them?
Zirkon is an anti-ship and land attack weapon that reaches speeds of mach 8-mach 9 at ranges of 500-1,000 km or more.
Can SPY7 detect and track these missiles over the horizon and can the RIM missiles travelling at mach 4 intercept them at short range?
Is the above generally correct?
Interesting that a recent Naval Postgraduate School systems engineering capstone report (linked below) noted that salvos of up to 16 TLAMs are required against a target with good air defenses. At the same time, a single zirkon, or a kinzhal, let alone a salvo, may penetrate current air defenses.
For comparison, an Arleigh Burke destroyer ($2 billion?) with 96 TLAMS could launch 6 such salvos. A CSC ($3-4 billion?) would carry 32 cruise missiles for 2 salvos. A Russian Admiral Gorshkov frigate, (~$500 million) carries 32 Zirkon missiles, each with strike effect roughly equivalent to the TLAM salvos.
So aside from NORAD, which is seemingly meant to intercept ICBMs, we are investing in some very expensive systems and surface platforms that do not appear to respond well to the changes brought on by these manoeuverable hypersonic systems. Does the cost of a (low probability) successful intercept compare favourably to the cost of the intercepted missile launch? 12 CSC or 15, 4 Arleigh Burkes or 8, is continued escalation the answer to the correct question?
See https://calhoun.nps.edu/bitstream/handle/10945/68295/21Sep_Banuchi%20et%20al.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
Dear Pm
We must spend the money on new modern weapons to protect our country. We are way behind on efficient deterrent weapons that would lead us to be a respected member of NATO