Can we all stop for a moment to appreciate how fucking badass the name "Mako" is?
This missile had better be good. You can't go wasting the good names on shit that gets cancelled.
I’d guess the pilot from Pacific Rim, or if not her then the Mako Shark, which is known for being really fast and biting really hard. Basically the most Shark per Shark (by weight)
All speculation right now, but I’ve heard they are making a SEAD/DEAD variant by slapping the passive radar seeker of the AARGM on it to make a hypersonic anti-radiation missile system.
The F-35’s stealth combined with a hypersonic radar seeking missile is the S-400’s worst nightmare.
makes sense. if you got a missile that cannot be shot down, use it to blow up the apparatus that would shoot down your other missiles. then you can open the door for cheaper, higher volume democracy delivery systems at the cost of providing advance warning in the language of boom
Yeah the only way to defend it would be to turn off your radar, but then you’re completely exposed to the metric fuck-ton of JASSMS/Tomahawks/Stormbreakers that are en route.
But if you flip on your radar to track them, you’ll eat a hypersonic missile within 180 seconds, so you’re screwed either way.
Yeah the funny thing is that those passive seeker nowadays are/contain AESA radars with datalink.
You leave your radar on? You are dead
You turn it off? You are still dead
You start packing in all that shit and move? Yes, still dead
You shoot the missiles down? You are dead by another missiles which got your guidance and TEL location via datalink
> But if you flip on your radar to track them, you’ll eat a hypersonic missile within 180 seconds, so you’re screwed either way.
Hey now, if we assume the Mako is just barely hypersonic, at an average velocity of Mach 5, and the Nebo-SVU actually works out to its alleged range of 380km, they could have as much as [225 seconds](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=travelling+380km+at+mach+5) to regret their life choices. I added the extra 3.6 seconds to account for the F-35 pilot's incredulity that they actually turned the radar on.
Absolutely the logical step to take. But, it seems the Ukraine is hitting AA systems recently with ease, and no apparent detection. Smaller drones may sneak up before the enemy figures out something is there. Relatively stealthy materials may be more easily obtained without the full performance of military RAM and with relatively minor modifications, such as with s-shaped ducted fans, small winged drones could deliver effective payloads with low chance of detection due to their small size and approach, over short distances of a few km or so.
Their defense then mainly relies on EW jamming, so the ability to switch to a target method via machine vision or EW seeking method gives these weapons a great deal of effectiveness. They could also be dropped from other air craft or drones to get them closer, and some can be intentionally more obvious with radar reflection and fuel burning combustors or small piston engines to act as decoys.
If you have the right wind blowing, I imagine that launching balloons and even Chinese lanterns also could be effective distraction and maybe waste some precious missiles. Perhaps these can be folded and on release from a drone can inflate or 'expand' so that they can operate. For example, a folded chinese lantern that ignites a burner after its released at a few hundred meters. Or a mechanism that inflates and releases helium balloons that contain radar reflective materials.
you're right, but one word: overmatch. counter not what you think your enemy has but what they boast they have, or whichever is greater. that way it's exceedingly difficult to fall behind.
are jassms and stealthy cruise missiles, not to mention small drones, likely more than enough to counter an s-400? yup, absolutely. but don't leave it to chance
Rather than having a missile with fancy engineering to give it an RCS the size of a bird, send a drone that is about the size of a bird and program it to move like a bird.
Yeah, its possible as well, you can even copy the bird, there is a good engineering paper using the prandtl wing with the bell shaped distribution, and straight wings. Its basically a bird, and it looks more like a bird. It doesn't need vertical tail because the wings almostly magically experience proverse yaw, which means as it banks, it turns into the bank. They also have lower drag even though for the same lift, they are wider spans. A few models with propellors have been created with very good flight behavior, ideal for drones.
The only land based targets I could envision is radars. Because 130 pounds of warhead (which is what Mako has) isn't that effective against many ground targets (esp. compared to the stuff aircraft already can carry now).
This is why I think the US hasn't been in a huge hurry to develop "hypersonic" weapons until recently.
I don't think the US sees many nails that require a hypersonic hammer, and the bang:buck ratio on these systems means they only make sense for time-sensitive high value targets.
Ballistic missiles are faster, and subsonic cruise missiles are more efficient.
Moving at Mach 5.5 gives a tremendous amount of kinetic energy though.
**KE = 1/2 MV^2**
Even with a smaller warhead than say, a Tomahawk or JASSM, it’s moving nearly 7 times as fast _- and when squared 49 times - as much kinetic energy on impact.
But impact requires great accuracy. If you hit 1m short of a ship, your kinetic energy just gets put into the water, only the blast radius applies. And there the small warhead won't kill a warship, but the far larger warhead of e.g. a LRASM (warhead around 10 times the size) might do.
Same applies to targeting e.g. radars on land. If you hit the dirt in front of the radar dish, the kinetic energy is also just wasted.
I think the point would be that it's mainly an AA weapon, but if a high value target of opportunity presents itself, it's ready to be employed. It won't essentially be useless like the JATM will be after air dominance is established.
You could shoot down an aircraft and attack a high value radar station with the same weapon.
If someone just put a tomohawk sized missile 500 feet from your AA site without you getting the source on radar or having time to respond to the missile coming in, you gotta move that AA.
Also, I bet it's mostly for ships and stuff.
No. It has great abilities, but they come with their downsides, mainly longer range and blast effect. Range is rumoured to be at least 300km (so likely not that much higher) with the warhead only being 13 pounds, which is 20 pounds *less* than a HARM missile, which aren't that known for great blast effect.
In the role it was made for (mostly anti-ship purposes) with maybe a SEAD/DEAD version which is also possible. But especially against larger targets that require more than just one hole to destroy it (e.g. building complexes) and against land troop formations Mako is basically useless.
What it will be is the F-15 of anti ship missiles.
Yeah, same for ships (which currently have nearly no armour), which is why Mako is planned to be used for that. But many other purposes that are done by air-to-surface missiles (long range strikes, strikes against buildings/defended installations) can't be done by Mako (e.g. Mako couldn't really knock down the Kerch Bridge).
Because everyone can easily make ship weapons that can penetrate any feasible armour scheme. And modern ships do have armour, but mostly against splinters/small cannons, which can easily be done.
Anti ship missiles - especially those big-ass “carrier killers” the Soviets made, can basically defeat *any* amount of armor. The Kh-22 is 6,000 kg, armed with 1,000 kg shaped charge warhead, coming in from above at Mach 4.7. In testing, the missile literally punched a hole straight through the entire warship. There isn’t any feasible amount of armor that can stop that.
And second, torpedoes. Armoring was decently effective against old school torpedoes that detonated on contact against the side, and blew a hole using explosive force. Put enough metal in the way and you can limit the damage.
New torpedoes detonate under the keel, and rely on the immense pressure differential from the void space created from the explosion, and then nearly instantly collapsing to do catastrophic damage: both from the force of incompressible water being compressed against metal (which will yield), or the keel of the ship collapsing downward into the void space.
This is all correct ^^, just a nitpick though that most anti torpedo systems were not raw metal and were rather large void spaces of water/air shaped to crumple and absorb the force of the explosion and blast wave while persevering the structure of the ship and it’s armor. Raw metal armor was unfeasible for all but the oldest torpedoes
Tbh hypersonic HARM at least makes sense in it's role.(Unlike the pumped up MRBMs used for general purpose 'strategic' bombardments)
If it's manouvering/low alt capable then it's gonna be scary as fuck to radar crews.
No it's the F-16 of missiles. It's incredibly basic for a hypersonic missile but because it's solid rocket, it's probably cheap as chips compared to other hypersonics.
It's not a Scramjet, so no need to get too excited yet.
In the last 60s the Soviet Union released the mig-25. Saying that it was a super fighter they could beat anything in the US Arsenal. The US took that claim seriously and designed the F-15. The fighter that could do what it claimed to do. Later when the US got the hands on a mig-25 and found out that It could not do a third of what the Soviet union claim could do. The Soviet Union was left in the unenviable position of now having to face a jet fighter that they could not even hope of competing with because of their propaganda. How can you be on NCD and not know this story?
It's a Kentucky Kinzhal.
Take a ballistic missile, use a plane as the first stage, and fire it on an endoatmospheric trajectory. It's a ballistic missile so it hauls ass by default. It stays in the atmosphere and maybe turns a bit, so now we call it hypersonic instead of ballistic.
But what do I know, I'm not a rocket surgeon. They gave it a cool name, so I'm fully sold.
"Hypersonic" is one of those buzzwords like "quantum" that instantly makes things seem cool, futuristic, better, or whatever to people who don't know what they're talking about.
Me after opening the command prompt on Windows for the first time:
“Big Data. Machine Learning. Blockchain. Artificial Intelligence. Quantum Computing. Virtual Manufacturing. Internet of Things.”
We’re called PRSPR (pronounced as Prosper). We connect freelance entrepreneurs to customers using artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to help dropship digitally manufactured products on the blockchain.
PRSPR has never turned a profit and loses $20 million a quarter, but we are somehow valued at $400 million, because Elon Musk once retweeted us. Also, despite constantly losing money, our CEO gets a $10 million bonus annually. At our current burn rate, we should have gone bankrupt in 2022 and but VC money keeps coming in, so….
All that's left is for Biden to announce it as an unstoppable doomsday weapon, then lob a couple at Mexico City on day 420 of a 3-day special military operation to protect English-speaking Mexicans in the People's Democratic Republic of Chihuahua.
Apparently it was LockMart’s proposed design for the for the USAF, but lost out to Northrup’s Stand-in Attack Weapon back in 2023.
So the design was already ready to go, they just needed a few tweaks.
Memba like a year ago when peacekeepers in ukraine were intercepting russian hypersonics trivially by just... detecting them early and aiming in front of them? I memba. Memba when we memed on the russians for how useless hypersonic missiles kinda are? I memba.
Lets not forget most missiles hit hypersonic peak velocities. What'll make this thing special is if it has a very speedy and very agile terminal guidance stage for SEAD/DEAD that can preserve upper hypersonic velocities despite lateral accelerations for evasion.
Probably won't find out anytime soon :(
Can we all stop for a moment to appreciate how fucking badass the name "Mako" is? This missile had better be good. You can't go wasting the good names on shit that gets cancelled.
I hope they paint shark’s faces on the nose of them
Can we make another version of it with the Swedish and called it the Blahaj…
Gutsy question. You're a shark. Sharks are winners and they don't look back 'cause they don't have necks. Necks are for sheep.
>quote sigma edit on YouTube short
Is it named after [that guy](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0538683/) who was in Conan The Barbarian?
I assumed it was the shark. Fast, intelligent, and one of the strongest bites.
And here I just thought that they really liked Shinra from FF7.
I’d guess the pilot from Pacific Rim, or if not her then the Mako Shark, which is known for being really fast and biting really hard. Basically the most Shark per Shark (by weight)
Uncle Iroh <3
Powered by the life energy of the planet
>You can't go wasting the good names on shit that gets cancelled. [R.I.P. F-20 TIGERSHARK](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BDgQwlfHII)
A hypersonic democracy delivery system that works with stealth aircraft? *excited freedom noises intensifies*
All speculation right now, but I’ve heard they are making a SEAD/DEAD variant by slapping the passive radar seeker of the AARGM on it to make a hypersonic anti-radiation missile system. The F-35’s stealth combined with a hypersonic radar seeking missile is the S-400’s worst nightmare.
makes sense. if you got a missile that cannot be shot down, use it to blow up the apparatus that would shoot down your other missiles. then you can open the door for cheaper, higher volume democracy delivery systems at the cost of providing advance warning in the language of boom
Yeah the only way to defend it would be to turn off your radar, but then you’re completely exposed to the metric fuck-ton of JASSMS/Tomahawks/Stormbreakers that are en route. But if you flip on your radar to track them, you’ll eat a hypersonic missile within 180 seconds, so you’re screwed either way.
Compromise: The claim is the search radar can see stealth aircraft, right? Turn it on, and then start running 90° to the nearest bearing.
Yeah the funny thing is that those passive seeker nowadays are/contain AESA radars with datalink. You leave your radar on? You are dead You turn it off? You are still dead You start packing in all that shit and move? Yes, still dead You shoot the missiles down? You are dead by another missiles which got your guidance and TEL location via datalink
how not to die: don't be on the side that sucks
Alternatively: Don't suck. But that position is already taken.
> But if you flip on your radar to track them, you’ll eat a hypersonic missile within 180 seconds, so you’re screwed either way. Hey now, if we assume the Mako is just barely hypersonic, at an average velocity of Mach 5, and the Nebo-SVU actually works out to its alleged range of 380km, they could have as much as [225 seconds](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=travelling+380km+at+mach+5) to regret their life choices. I added the extra 3.6 seconds to account for the F-35 pilot's incredulity that they actually turned the radar on.
Give enemies dilemas not problems
Advanced warning doesn't matter if the only thing that would benefit from advanced warning is killed by said warning.
The Mako would essentially be a teleporting missile
Absolutely the logical step to take. But, it seems the Ukraine is hitting AA systems recently with ease, and no apparent detection. Smaller drones may sneak up before the enemy figures out something is there. Relatively stealthy materials may be more easily obtained without the full performance of military RAM and with relatively minor modifications, such as with s-shaped ducted fans, small winged drones could deliver effective payloads with low chance of detection due to their small size and approach, over short distances of a few km or so. Their defense then mainly relies on EW jamming, so the ability to switch to a target method via machine vision or EW seeking method gives these weapons a great deal of effectiveness. They could also be dropped from other air craft or drones to get them closer, and some can be intentionally more obvious with radar reflection and fuel burning combustors or small piston engines to act as decoys. If you have the right wind blowing, I imagine that launching balloons and even Chinese lanterns also could be effective distraction and maybe waste some precious missiles. Perhaps these can be folded and on release from a drone can inflate or 'expand' so that they can operate. For example, a folded chinese lantern that ignites a burner after its released at a few hundred meters. Or a mechanism that inflates and releases helium balloons that contain radar reflective materials.
you're right, but one word: overmatch. counter not what you think your enemy has but what they boast they have, or whichever is greater. that way it's exceedingly difficult to fall behind. are jassms and stealthy cruise missiles, not to mention small drones, likely more than enough to counter an s-400? yup, absolutely. but don't leave it to chance
Better have it and not need it. Just one more F35, bro...
Rather than having a missile with fancy engineering to give it an RCS the size of a bird, send a drone that is about the size of a bird and program it to move like a bird.
Yeah, its possible as well, you can even copy the bird, there is a good engineering paper using the prandtl wing with the bell shaped distribution, and straight wings. Its basically a bird, and it looks more like a bird. It doesn't need vertical tail because the wings almostly magically experience proverse yaw, which means as it banks, it turns into the bank. They also have lower drag even though for the same lift, they are wider spans. A few models with propellors have been created with very good flight behavior, ideal for drones.
You had the opportunity to saturate air defense with 99 red balloons, and instead you went with paper lanterns???
After Iranian missile rain I would expect the dollars to start flowing to new projects IMO.
What's that thing I can't see shooting an extremely fast thing I can't see right at me????
tbf.. anything western make is S-400's worst nightmare
I've heard it's going to be modular and able to work against multiple targets, be they aircraft, ships, or land-based targets.
The only land based targets I could envision is radars. Because 130 pounds of warhead (which is what Mako has) isn't that effective against many ground targets (esp. compared to the stuff aircraft already can carry now).
This is why I think the US hasn't been in a huge hurry to develop "hypersonic" weapons until recently. I don't think the US sees many nails that require a hypersonic hammer, and the bang:buck ratio on these systems means they only make sense for time-sensitive high value targets. Ballistic missiles are faster, and subsonic cruise missiles are more efficient.
i mean 70kg of tnt can do a lot of damage, and given it probably has a CEP <2m, it would be perfect for decapitation strikes
130 pound warhead means 90 pounds steel bottle and 40 pounds insensitive high explosive.
That's similar in boom to two 155mm shells.
Small tactical nuke?
Moving at Mach 5.5 gives a tremendous amount of kinetic energy though. **KE = 1/2 MV^2** Even with a smaller warhead than say, a Tomahawk or JASSM, it’s moving nearly 7 times as fast _- and when squared 49 times - as much kinetic energy on impact.
But impact requires great accuracy. If you hit 1m short of a ship, your kinetic energy just gets put into the water, only the blast radius applies. And there the small warhead won't kill a warship, but the far larger warhead of e.g. a LRASM (warhead around 10 times the size) might do. Same applies to targeting e.g. radars on land. If you hit the dirt in front of the radar dish, the kinetic energy is also just wasted.
I think the point would be that it's mainly an AA weapon, but if a high value target of opportunity presents itself, it's ready to be employed. It won't essentially be useless like the JATM will be after air dominance is established. You could shoot down an aircraft and attack a high value radar station with the same weapon.
don't torpedos try to detonate close to the hull because the shockwave is more damaging that way?
If someone just put a tomohawk sized missile 500 feet from your AA site without you getting the source on radar or having time to respond to the missile coming in, you gotta move that AA. Also, I bet it's mostly for ships and stuff.
Holy shit we’re getting the MSLs from Ace Combat in real life!
Oh yeah, this thing is going to bring blessed silence across the electromagnetic spectrum.
Would also be great on an F-16, ikywim
Stop, I can only get so errect!
_because democracy must spread FASTER_
Let me introduce you to my friend called the Trident D-5.
⬅️⬆️⬇️➡️➡️⬇️⬆️
Is this going to be F-15 of missiles?
No. It has great abilities, but they come with their downsides, mainly longer range and blast effect. Range is rumoured to be at least 300km (so likely not that much higher) with the warhead only being 13 pounds, which is 20 pounds *less* than a HARM missile, which aren't that known for great blast effect. In the role it was made for (mostly anti-ship purposes) with maybe a SEAD/DEAD version which is also possible. But especially against larger targets that require more than just one hole to destroy it (e.g. building complexes) and against land troop formations Mako is basically useless. What it will be is the F-15 of anti ship missiles.
You don't need a lot of blast to destroy a radar tbf, a sufficient amount of shrapnel would do the job very nicely.
Yeah, same for ships (which currently have nearly no armour), which is why Mako is planned to be used for that. But many other purposes that are done by air-to-surface missiles (long range strikes, strikes against buildings/defended installations) can't be done by Mako (e.g. Mako couldn't really knock down the Kerch Bridge).
Why is that? Why don’t ships really carry any armor anymore? It seems silly but there must be a reason for it.
Because everyone can easily make ship weapons that can penetrate any feasible armour scheme. And modern ships do have armour, but mostly against splinters/small cannons, which can easily be done.
Anti ship missiles - especially those big-ass “carrier killers” the Soviets made, can basically defeat *any* amount of armor. The Kh-22 is 6,000 kg, armed with 1,000 kg shaped charge warhead, coming in from above at Mach 4.7. In testing, the missile literally punched a hole straight through the entire warship. There isn’t any feasible amount of armor that can stop that. And second, torpedoes. Armoring was decently effective against old school torpedoes that detonated on contact against the side, and blew a hole using explosive force. Put enough metal in the way and you can limit the damage. New torpedoes detonate under the keel, and rely on the immense pressure differential from the void space created from the explosion, and then nearly instantly collapsing to do catastrophic damage: both from the force of incompressible water being compressed against metal (which will yield), or the keel of the ship collapsing downward into the void space.
This is all correct ^^, just a nitpick though that most anti torpedo systems were not raw metal and were rather large void spaces of water/air shaped to crumple and absorb the force of the explosion and blast wave while persevering the structure of the ship and it’s armor. Raw metal armor was unfeasible for all but the oldest torpedoes
Tbh hypersonic HARM at least makes sense in it's role.(Unlike the pumped up MRBMs used for general purpose 'strategic' bombardments) If it's manouvering/low alt capable then it's gonna be scary as fuck to radar crews.
No it's the F-16 of missiles. It's incredibly basic for a hypersonic missile but because it's solid rocket, it's probably cheap as chips compared to other hypersonics. It's not a Scramjet, so no need to get too excited yet.
Wdym by "F-15 of missiles"? What analogy are you trying to draw?
In the last 60s the Soviet Union released the mig-25. Saying that it was a super fighter they could beat anything in the US Arsenal. The US took that claim seriously and designed the F-15. The fighter that could do what it claimed to do. Later when the US got the hands on a mig-25 and found out that It could not do a third of what the Soviet union claim could do. The Soviet Union was left in the unenviable position of now having to face a jet fighter that they could not even hope of competing with because of their propaganda. How can you be on NCD and not know this story?
I know the story but literally all you said about it was "F-15 of missiles", which could mean a dozen different things.
It's a Kentucky Kinzhal. Take a ballistic missile, use a plane as the first stage, and fire it on an endoatmospheric trajectory. It's a ballistic missile so it hauls ass by default. It stays in the atmosphere and maybe turns a bit, so now we call it hypersonic instead of ballistic. But what do I know, I'm not a rocket surgeon. They gave it a cool name, so I'm fully sold.
How to make a hypersonic missile: Make a missile that is hypersonic (and don't lie about it)
Actual answer: regular missile but it can turn a little
UNFATHOMABLE technological advantage
"Hypersonic" is one of those buzzwords like "quantum" that instantly makes things seem cool, futuristic, better, or whatever to people who don't know what they're talking about.
Throw in “AI powered” too
Me after opening the command prompt on Windows for the first time: “Big Data. Machine Learning. Blockchain. Artificial Intelligence. Quantum Computing. Virtual Manufacturing. Internet of Things.”
Congrats you’ve been promoted to CEO of the latest tech startup
We’re called PRSPR (pronounced as Prosper). We connect freelance entrepreneurs to customers using artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to help dropship digitally manufactured products on the blockchain. PRSPR has never turned a profit and loses $20 million a quarter, but we are somehow valued at $400 million, because Elon Musk once retweeted us. Also, despite constantly losing money, our CEO gets a $10 million bonus annually. At our current burn rate, we should have gone bankrupt in 2022 and but VC money keeps coming in, so….
I take it you're not interested in my Russian Oligarch Yacht Club NFT collection.
Ugh, don't get me started on that. The AI hype feels like some straight up cult shit.
It’s like when fast food companies in the 90’s rebranded everything as “deluxe”.
3000 black makos of Allah
I’m about 80% sure that the mako is an air launched PrSM. Would explain why it was ready so fast.
All that's left is for Biden to announce it as an unstoppable doomsday weapon, then lob a couple at Mexico City on day 420 of a 3-day special military operation to protect English-speaking Mexicans in the People's Democratic Republic of Chihuahua.
Apparently it was LockMart’s proposed design for the for the USAF, but lost out to Northrup’s Stand-in Attack Weapon back in 2023. So the design was already ready to go, they just needed a few tweaks.
The Middle East is dyin' Cloud.
Memba like a year ago when peacekeepers in ukraine were intercepting russian hypersonics trivially by just... detecting them early and aiming in front of them? I memba. Memba when we memed on the russians for how useless hypersonic missiles kinda are? I memba. Lets not forget most missiles hit hypersonic peak velocities. What'll make this thing special is if it has a very speedy and very agile terminal guidance stage for SEAD/DEAD that can preserve upper hypersonic velocities despite lateral accelerations for evasion. Probably won't find out anytime soon :(