CAN USS GERALD R FORD DEFEND ITSELF AGAINST RUSSIAN ZIRCON MISSILE ? 🎥 Research Technology | Channify

INTRODUCTION Nimitz has been symbol of United State’s military might, and has been used to project power far from its coastlines. Ford class super-carriers are being built to replace some of the United States Navy's existing Nimitz-class carriers from 2017. The first ship of this class is Gerald R. Ford is commission ‎on 22 July this year. It has many key improvements over Nimitz class like Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System and much more onboard power. Russia’s 3M22 Zircon hypersonic cruise missile is expected to enter into production in 2018. The new weapon is capable of speeds of more than Mach 6 is currently in final stage of testing. The missile is specifically designed to take out high value targets like aircraft carriers and destroyers. In this video, Defense Updates checks out if USS GERALD R FORD IS CAPABLE OF DEFENDING ITSELF AGAINST ZIRCON MISSILE. Lets get started. Zircon missile Zircon missile weights 5 tons. It is equipped with a scramjet engine type, which compresses air before it enters the combustion chamber. The scramjet is an innovation on the ramjet, in which the combustion chamber is specially designed to operate with supersonic airflow. Ramjet engine powers the Indo Russian Brahmos supersonic cruise missile that can travel at speeds of 2.8 to 3 Mach. Scramjet is simply an acronym for 'supersonic combustion' ramjet. Scramjet powered Zircon has a speed of Mach 6.2 (6,500 km/h) at a cruising altitude of 30 km. The kinetic energy alone will rip a ship apart like a tin can. The range is around 400km (250 miles), though some sources say it could be up to 1000 km (620 miles). FORD CLASS Ford class carriers like Nimitz class have a layered anti missile defense system. 1. The RIM-162 Evolved SeaSparrow Missile (ESSM) is a development of the RIM-7 Sea Sparrow missile used to protect ships from attacking missiles and aircraft. 2. The RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile is a small, lightweight, infrared homing surface-to-air missile It is used primarily as a point-defense weapon against ant ship cruise missiles. 3. The Phalanx CIWS is a close-in weapon system for defense against anti-ship missiles. CONFRONTATION As per most analysts, a swarm attack with of 5 to 6 highly maneuvering supersonic Brahmos missile is expected to saturate the defenses and 1-2 is likely to score a hit. In case of Zircon, the chances of penetrating the defenses are much higher owing to the massive speed. Even if the missile is broken up or detonated by close-in weapons, the debris will have so much kinetic energy that the ship may still be badly damaged. There has not been any specific comment from American military about Zircon missile but sources in Britain have ringed the alarm bell. In March this year, one senior British Naval source said: “Hypersonic missiles are virtually unstoppable”. The Royal Navy’s Sea Ceptor missile defense installed on the latest Queen Elizabeth class carrier like the US counterpart is designed to shoot down missiles travelling at supersonic speeds not hypersonic speed. FUTURE SCENARIO As discussed, the current defense system will be found wanting against Zircon. But US military has already stepped up the game. The LaWS, an acronym for Laser Weapons System is currently in testing phase and it is expected that in future its variants will be installed in US navy ships. Laser weapons begin with an advantage no other weapon ever invented comes even close to matching. It moves, by definition, at the speed of light. For comparison, that is more than 50,000 times the speed of an incoming missile like Zircon. LASER weapons will be the apt answer for defending against Zircon missile. CONCLUSION In current state, the Zircon missile is a mighty adversary to US Navy carrier groups and will potentially make the US carriers stay out of its range. In future, laser weapons will be able to level the playing field. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has recently published its report on military spending of 2016. US still dominate the space and on a grand scale, the report showed. Total US military expenditure of $611 billion is over one-third of world military expenditure. This is nearly 3 times the level of China’s spending, which is ranked second, and 9 times the spending of Russia which is ranked 4th. It is clear that Russia cannot match the US, platform to platform in military hardware, for example it cannot build so many aircraft carriers to equal the US carrier fleet. Hence, it is focusing on developing asymmetric warfare capabilities and Zircon is designed keeping that in mind. As of today, Zircon missile costing few million dollars is technically capable of taking out a newly build 13 billion dollar carrier.