New Weapons On The Horizon
Submarines are becoming even stealthier and they represent an incredible threat to the carrier forces of the United States. The United States is now in a position where a $200 million submarine can sink a $13 billion aircraft carrier. This has been demonstrated several times in the past two years during war games in which a Swedish submarine of the Gotland class was able to get to the carrier undetected no matter how many times the United States tried to find it. The secret to the submarine is not only the stealth coatings, but also the super quiet diesel electric engine and the ability of the sub to stay submerged for up to two weeks. It can also travel at low speeds for weeks at a time or put on a burst of speed of up to about 23 knots. One would think the United States would get some of these diesel powered submarines, but no they would rather build nuclear submarines which cost many billions of dollars each. I’m not saying we should do away with nuclear submarines since they do have some advantages even though they are not as quiet. They can stay submerged for many months and travel much faster than the diesel subs, but for certain jobs diesel subs would be just fine. Speaking about submarines, China is going to face resistance in the South China Sea. Recently China has been expanding its domain there by building artificial islands and claiming more and more territory. This has made its neighbors not only nervous, but angry. One of those neighbors, Vietnam has ordered six new diesel submarines from Russia and is assumed they will place them in the South China Sea as a warning to China. These new stealthy submarines cause quite a threat even in the amounts ordered. We all know Vietnam is a very determined country and has never backed away from a face-off with any perceived enemy. I am sure China knows this also and is thinking the submarine order is a true threat. Maybe there is a little more to this and that is the fact the submarines are coming from a country China sees as an ally, mainly Russia. Will this hurt Chinese Russian relations in the future? Drones are becoming quite a threat worldwide. The United States knows a swarm of cheap drones could penetrate a defense, because it would almost be impossible to take them all out with today’s technology. The U.S. Army has been studying this problem. Usually it is DARPA who develops weapons for the military, but this time things may be different. An answer to this problem has been developed by the Army Air Defense branch. It is a weapon many are calling a phaser. Basically it is a 4 foot dish which sweeps around putting out a pulse which will knock complete swarms of drones out of the sky. This is known as a directed energy weapon. The weapon itself puts out high-powered microwave radiation and is connected to different radars. It is powered by a diesel generator. The energy it puts out is said to fry the control systems of the drones, stopping their motors. It is said this is far superior to a laser which would have to shoot down drones individually. It seems next-generation vehicles in the military will be trading in their conventional weapons for lasers and directed energy weapons. Along with these weapons will be new types of systems to protect these vehicles. The US military is claiming these new vehicles will be out by 2035. It is believed lasers mounted on vehicles will be able to give them 360° protection. Some of these lasers are already being tested. Another area being looked into is composite materials. The military is always on the lookout for more resistant materials which would be better able to take a hit from a weapon. China is also making progress in this area. It is only a matter of time before most of our vehicles, both ground and air will become drones. When we developed the F-22 it was said to be the most advanced military aircraft in the world and also the stealthiest. We stopped making it because it costs so much, but recently the military wants to start producing it again, because they believe it is far superior to anything in the sky and probably anything on the drawing board right now. Several years ago Australia announced they could detect some of our stealth aircraft. This should have been a clue to us that as advanced radar systems are developed the stealth of our aircraft was in jeopardy. Now China is claiming it has new radar which can easily detect the F-22. There is no way to know if this is true at the moment, but they claim the radar that have is capable of doing this and it has been shown to the public at the Zhuhai Air Show. There is a very good chance this is true and this would mean the billions of dollars we have spent on developing stealth will have been thrown out the window. It looks like we did a have warning this was coming, so one has to wonder what we have done about it. There are a lot of secret projects we know nothing about, perhaps some of them have to do with this topic. Russia has been testing a unique type of weapon which is a very high precision directed energy beam. It is said that even though other directed energy weapons exist, this weapon is a completely new type and is unequaled anywhere in the world. This type of weapon needs no ammunition and it has been described as having an indirect physical impact on airborne equipment of planes and UAVs and neutralizes high precision weapons. One thing which seems to be missing in the description is the range of the weapon. If it is a short range weapon it would be more defensive than offensive. There are so many advanced weapons on drawing boards around the world it is almost impossible to think they can all be defended against completely. The next war could come down to attrition if it is not nuclear. What I mean by that is whoever has the most weapons and soldiers may have the most left at the end. |
