An assessment of the hypervelocity weapon system in an extended air defense environment

An effective air defense environment (ADE) requires the complementing capabilities of more than one weapon system to enhance the probability of destroying enemy threats. This environment forces the enemy to encounter an ever-increasing spectrum of air defense (AD) weapons, which complicates his/her ability to accomplish a mission. The deployment of one such prototype system, a Hypervelocity Weapon System (HVWS), was examined to determine the effects of this system as a complementary AD system. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of employing a HVWS in a standard AD architecture. A model of the HVWS was developed and implemented in an existing discrete event AD simulation model. A comparison of this system to an existing AD system was performed. Modifications to improve the representations of the systems were incorporated into the AD model. An evaluation of the simulation results showed evidence that the HVWS system can provide significant benefits to the AD environment.