>>2349
>Sauce?
I had seen a video interview with the commander of one of the USN DDGs out there where the captain explicitly refers to the Houthis using hypersonic missiles. I did a bit of looking and I couldn't find the interview again, but I don't have the hours to do so, sorry.
Really, just google houthi hypersonic missiles, you'll find several reports of them having them sourcing 'Russian State Media', although the US officially denied it (of course they had to, they don't want to look like they're trailing behind a bunch of goat herders in the hypersonics race).
Though, I'll admit, part of this is the US being autistic about what a hypersonic missile really is.
>Satellites are doing the finding, not the missiles.
Bruh.
'Find', as in 'find home'. As in, you know, the ball finding the goal, the bullet found its target, the pigeon poop always seems to find my head when I'm in a city forcing me to wear a hat all the time. That kind of thing.
It's not literal.
Also, satellites provide detection data, not targeting data.
China's only actual (but military definition) hypersonic missile is the DF-17, which is equipped with a Hypersonic Maneuvering Glide Vehicle (meaning it is hypersonic most of the way down), which is why I mentioned it.
The DF-17 is a land-attack missile, it does not have terminal guidance and instead engages a grid coordinate on the map and whatever happens to be there at the time.
This means that even in the best case scenario for the missile whatever information the satellite provided is 6-8 minutes old by the time the missile impacts, and by that time a regular CVN would be 3-4 miles/5-7km away from there.
Thus, you're trying to shoot at a particular fish in a very big area.
Surprisingly, this is still the best Anti-Carrier option (in terms of pure missiles) the PRC has, because despite the fact the USN knows the location of every satellite in orbit capable of getting that data and by protocol jukes at all of them, juking is at least a bit predictable. They actually have a one in 300,000 chance of hitting.
Yes, of course, the Chinese have an Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile, the DF-21D.
That's not actually a hypersonic missile, it's just a bog standard ballistic missile (which is to say it's still a missile that reaches hypersonic speeds) with a maneuverable reentry vehicle tip. Note that this isn't a Hypersonic Maneuvering Glide Vehicle, that's an important distinction.
The Chinese claim it reaches Mach 10 at its apogee, but they made the mistake of testing it where the US could see it, and as a result the US believes it's only a slightly-over Mach 5 (which is still hypersonic, mind you).
Either way, thanks to the fact its reentry vehicle is- by requirement of having to survive reentry- not even remotely aerodynamic, it loses a lot of speed on its way down and even more if it tries to maneuver. An extreme amount if it tries to perform either rapid or radical evasive maneuvers.
Which is a long way of saying that during its terminal phase when the targeted ship and its escorts are trying to engage it, it's bled off most of its speed and is traveling at speeds at absolute best in the extremely low hypersonic regime and doing so in a straight line. At worst, it's actually moving slower than other more conventional anti-ship missiles... like the subsonic RGM-84 Harpoon.
In either case a RIM-162 ESSM or RIM-116 RAM will eat it for lunch.
It gets worse, though.
The DF-21D is a decidedly unstealthy platform.
It's a two-stage missile that boosts all the way to low orbit (or very near it) and then coasts for a majority of the flight before diving to high atmosphere, gliding a distance, and then finally attempting to maneuver onto the target once within 50-60km (IIRC).
To begin with, this means it's broadcasting its launch and location to anything with a radar within its targeting range the moment it crosses the radar horizon. A boosting rocket going to orbit (however low) is very easy to see on radar (and, really, even with the naked eyeball) from such short ranges (relatively speaking). US early warning systems would also pretty much automatically tell the ships in the region about the launch as well, IIRC they automated that within a millennial's living memory.
Secondly, the missile is not a sea skimmer, it is by nature of being a ballistic missile in low orbit or high-upper atmosphere except at the two ends of its flight, and it's only maneuvering during the terminal phase. This means the ship can see the thing throughout most of its journey and they have minutes to get a shooting solution on something when they normally have about 19 seconds.
...and shooting down IRBMs like the ASBM DF-21D in their mid-course flight is exactly what the (Mach 15) RIM-161 SM-3 Block II/IIA are designed to do.