2019 has come to its end.
We wish all the viewers, a very happy upcoming
New year 2020.
In this year, we have published 242 videos
and tried to provide as much information and
analysis we could.
Rest assured we will continue to do the same
going forward.
We have got a lot of support from you and
very thankful for this.
This is the last video of this year and hence
it is apt that we focus on things that could
be important in the coming days.
In this video Defense Updates lists 5 weapons
technology that will shape the future of warfare
from 2020 onwards.
Let’s get started
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Space is a new domain and there are many possibilities
including having weapons that can hit earth
from space.
But in the immediate future, Space warfare
is most likely to revolve around satellites.
Satellites are one of the most important assets
for a nation.
They play a vital role in civilian and military
communications.
Military satellites are used for gathering
intelligence as well as they can monitor and
provide early-warning against missile launches
by a rival nation.
Military satellites also provide guidance
to missiles, aircraft, warship to name a few.
So, if an adversary can somehow knock off
the satellites then it can handicap the military.
At present, the main Space warfare capability
is the ability to disable or destroy an adversary’s
satellites from the ground using ASAT or Anti-satellite
weapons
The US carried out its first ASAT test in
1959.
The anti-satellite weapon had a range of 1100
mi or 1770 km.
A mock test was carried out in which a dummy
attack on the Explorer 6 which was at an altitude
of 156 mi or 251 km was successfully executed.
The Soviet Union after conducting a series
of 7 tests from 1963-1971 declared its system
operational in 1973.
In January 2007, China successfully destroyed
a defunct Chinese weather satellite.
On 27 March 2019, India’s successfully knocked
out a satellite.
So, as of now, this kind of tech is available
to these 4 countries.
Another aspect of space warfare is using a
satellite to destroy another satellite but
this kind of capability is still immature.
It is interesting to note that the U.S Space
Force was signed into law Dec. 20, 2019 as
part of the 2020 National Defense Authorization
Act.
Modern militaries around the world depend
on computers and networks.
Cyberwarfare involves the actions by a nation-state
or international organization to attack and
attempt to damage another nation's computers
or information networks.
This could be done in multiple ways like injecting
computer viruses or triggering DDoS or distributed
denial-of-service attacks.
Cyberwarfare at least in limited form is already
in use now.
In August of 2012, the Saudi Arabian firm
Saudi Aramco, one of the world’s largest
oil producers, was hit with a piece of malware
known as Shamoon that deleted data from 35,000
of the company’s computers.
This attack allegedly triggered by Iran paralyzed
the operation of the company.
Iranian hackers even hit almost all major
US banks, making their websites unresponsive
with sustained DDoS attacks.
In 2015, Russian hackers carried out an unprecedented
act of sabotage which gives us an idea of
what can Cyberwarfare so.
They attacked three Ukrainian regional energy
utilities and this resulted in a loss of electricity
for about 225,000 civilians.
In the future, it will be one of the most
important domains of the military as this
bring in asymmetric capabilities.
For example, suppose a military base is near
a dam and the dam’s computers are taken
over the water is released to flood the base.
The technology of swarming is in which drones
are deployed in squadrons, able to think independently
and operate as a pack using Artificial Intelligence
(AI).
This kind of capability will be disruptive
as it will be hard to defend against.
For example, even the most potent air defense
will hard to track a single drone from a huge
number of potential targets and it will also
run out of ammunition.
This technology is in its infancy, but militaries
around the world are putting in a lot of resources
on this.
A relatively simpler form of this has already
been used.
In January 2018 Russian forces faced a drone
swarm launched against Khmeimim Air Base,
in Syria.
The Russian were able to neutralize most of
these.
Though the attack was not able to inflict
major damage, it indicated that the threat
of the drone swarm has arrived.
A recent example is the attack on Saudi Arabia.
On September 14, facilities of Saudi Arabia's
oil company Aramco located in the east of
the country came under attack.
As per reports, 18 drones and 7 missiles were
used for the coordinated attack.
The damage was significant & this caused a
spike in global oil prices.
Lasers are concentrated beams of light that
transmit large amounts of electromagnetic
radiation against their targets.
The power of a laser is generally stated in
kilowatts.
The general idea of laser-beam weaponry is
to hit a target with a train of brief pulses
of light.
The rapid evaporation and expansion of the
surface cause shockwaves that damage the target.
When a laser beam strikes a target, it can
cause the external surface to heat up rapidly.
This can cause a drone to burst in the sky
as its battery pack or fuel tank to ignite.
Even if this doesn’t happen, the laser could
fry the electric sensors & communication modules
of the drones which will make them lose contact
with its operate and deplete its ability to
navigate, ultimately disabling them.
Lasers have some very important advantages.
The speed of light enables them to hit their
targets almost instantaneously.
Laser weapons also don’t need to carry ammunition
like traditional systems and hence they will
be able to take out a much larger number of
threats constrained only by the power supply
limit of the platform.
They are also so much cheaper and could cost
as less as $1 per shot.
This is much more cost-effective than deploying
traditional weapons.
The U.S is in the lead and is deploying several
lasers of different types.
An object is said to be hypersonic once they
exceed speeds of Mach 5 that is 5 times the
speed of sound.
This is about 1,715 m/sec or 3,836 mph or
6,174 km/h.
There are currently 3 methods being applied
to make hypersonic weapons.
The first is using Hypersonic Glide Vehicle
(HGV).
In this method, the system is launched to
extremely high altitudes using Ballistic Missile
or an aircraft where it skips across the Earth’s
upper atmosphere.
The vehicle then separates from the carrier
and glides back to the earth towards its intended
target attaining hypersonic speed.
The second is using a Scramjet engine.
The scramjet is an innovation on the Ramjet.
Ramjet engine can power flight to supersonic
speeds but scramjet can enable the missiles
to reach hypersonic speeds.
These engines have no moving parts, like the
compressors and turbines used in the turbofan
engines found on conventional jet planes.
They rely on the huge pressures created by
fast airflow into the engine to ignite the
fuel and generate thrust.
In this method, a rocket booster is used to
accelerate the missile to hypersonic speed,
then the scramjet engine kicks in and enables
the missile to fly at sustained hypersonic
speed.
The third is through the use of Air-Launched
Ballistic missile (ALBM).
As the name suggests, this kind of missile
is ballistic in nature but is launched from
air, unlike traditional ballistic missiles
which are launched from land or sea-based
platforms.
It must be noted that traditional ballistic
missile like American Minuteman III, Russian
Satan or Indian Agni ballistic missile all
travel at hypersonic speeds, but they follow
a predictable ballistic trajectory and can’t
maneuver mid-course.
Current air defense will fail to intercept
these weapons because of their capability
maneuver at such high speeds.
Russia is at the forefront of hypersonic technology
and has reportedly deployed this Avangard
which is an HGV and Kinzhal which is an ALBM.
