Hypersonics: Your Joint All-Domain Transformational Distributed Expeditionary Offset for your Directed Energy Railguns for Victory in the Gray Zone.

JADC2 will outline its utility in ODTAAC

Be skeptical. Ask hard questions. Don’t bet the farm on something PPT thick.

We’ve seen this before. Look for new tools, but be suspicious of the salesman and the overly caffeinated.

Remember when cannons were going to make fixed defenses obsolete? Remember when the machine gun was going to make offensives impossible? Remember when aircraft would bring the end to surface ships? Remember when submarines would bring the end to surface ships? Remember when strategic bombing could end all wars? Remember how nuclear weapons made large scale conventional war in Europe impossible? Remember how anti-ship cruise missiles made surface ships undefendable? Remember how acoustic ASW made the oceans transparent? Remember how radar would prevent any surprise attacks? Remember how the aircraft carrier was obsolete in 1949, 1979, 2019? Remember how we didn’t need FFG because LCS was going to cure the heartbreak of psoriasis? We need to divest of all the Spruance destroyers even if they had a decade of life left, because we needed to invest in the wunderwaffe that DDG-1000 would become?

Remember?

Maybe. Instead, remember that there are no magic beans. No one will save you because you have clever ideas and a good PAO. No matter how much you wish it, don’t think everything is the next Manhattan Project.

Always be careful when the breathlessly excited try to sell you an easy tomorrow so you can avoid hard work today.

And so it is with the latest thing that excited so many over the last year, hypersonics.

Yes, there is promise … but to what degree and at what opportunity cost - that is unknown. A lot of people got way over their skis in thinking about hypersonics as it seemed to solve so many problems for them from antiseptic global strike to another reasons to not spend money on aircraft carriers.

Remember the pattern outlined above in light of the time and place we find ourselves in halfway through 2023.

I will keep repeating thing for those in the back: if we need to be ready to fight in 2027-2030, we need more of what we have at full operational capability now.

Development is good. Evolutionary is best. Revolutionary a rarity - and a luxury. Invest in R&D, but wishes do not make shadows on the ramp, displace water, or put ordnance downrange in any significant numbers.

Another lesson;

The U.S. Air Force isn’t going to buy the hypersonic AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon after the prototyping phase ends, following problems during testing, the service’s acquisition chief told lawmakers Wednesday.

But the service will still finish the ARRW program’s last two all-up round test flights to collect data to help with future hypersonic programs, Andrew Hunter told the House Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee in written testimony.

…

Kendall told the House Appropriations Committee’s defense panel on Tuesday that the March 13 ARRW test was “not a success” and that the program has “struggled a little bit in its testing process.”

…

Hypersonic weapons can travel at speeds greater than Mach 5 and are highly maneuverable, which makes them difficult to track and shoot down. China and Russia have invested considerable resources in developing these weapons for their militaries, and several U.S. lawmakers have expressed concern that the country is not doing enough to field its own hypersonic capabilities.

How are those Russian hypersonics doing right now in Ukraine?

Exactly.

I am asking everyone on bended knee, if someone is promising you something that solves so many of your problems … step back. Be humble. Hedge. Be demanding.