Much as other countries do, the United States also has a secret weapons development program. We will never know everything that is being developed in this program until the weapons are used, but there are some leaks and discussions taking place on the Internet about what some of these weapons may be. We know there is a new weapon being developed by several countries which is a ramjet missile that will have the capability of reaching at least Mach 10, which is ten times the speed of sound. To make this missile even more dangerous the course can be changed in mid-flight. The United States is also developing one of these missiles and this is one weapon we can almost be completely sure will be out soon. It is important to note the U.S. Navy is said be able to shoot down incoming missiles as long as they are not traveling at more than Mach 5. This leads me to believe we must be doing research on a defensive system which will be capable of shooting down the faster missiles. The name of the United States missile project is said to be the U. S. Prompt Strike Program.

As with the Russian program, the United States is also developing a long-range advanced bomber. The name of this program is said to be the Long Range Strike Bomber Program also known as LRS-B. The bomber is being designed to fly an incredible amount of miles and right into enemy defenses and yet be able to appear over a target without being seen and then drop its bomb load. It is said the bomber is being designed so it can be flown with or without a crew and two aerospace giants are fighting for the contract. These companies are Northrop Grumman and Boeing. There is a problem with the way contracts for weapons are given out in this country. There are constant cost overruns which have become commonplace and are almost never completely questioned. Besides that the weapons usually never come out perfect and in some cases have many hundreds of defects. What the government has to do is not pay for weapons that are defective until the defects have been corrected. Also we should not routinely give more money for cost overruns.

The United States has a program which is meant to replace our most modern fighter planes since they are getting older. The replacement is for the U.S. Air Force fleet. The name of this program is F-X. Researchers are looking into threats we may face in the next couple of decades to decide what the capabilities of this new plane will be. It is thought it will replace the F-15 Eagle and even the F-22. This didn’t work out too well the last time, because the F-22 was supposed to replace the Eagle but the planes were so expensive we never received enough of them to do this. The military hopes the new plane will be available in 2030. The U.S. Navy has a program of its own which is known as F/A-XX. They want to replace the Super Hornet F/A-18. There is no doubt both services will be deciding if the next generation of planes should be able to be crew optional. It certainly doesn’t hurt to do this, but I am sure it will add a lot to the cost of each individual plane. Another option is having advanced drones travel with the new planes which will make each plane the commander of an air wing, making the planes far more dangerous.

While the Russians are upgrading their nuclear submarine force the United States is doing preparation work for the next generation of nuclear submarines. It is said the attack submarines are called SSN(X). The preparation was said to have started last year when the Navy announced it would begin an analysis of alternatives in 2024 for a new attack boat and construction would probably start in 2034. Look for these dates to be advanced. One of the things the U.S. Navy has been working on for a while now is replacement for its DDG-51 destroyers. The latest attempt hasn’t worked out. The DDG 1000 Zumwalt Class Destroyer, which was created at a cost of 22.5 billion dollars for the program, was supposed to give the U.S. Navy thirty-two of these advanced destroyers but 29 were canceled because the unit cost became 4.1 billion dollars for each one and the destroyer was only slightly more capable than the Arleigh Burke Class destroyer which costs 1.8 billion dollars. On top of this, the Zumwalt destroyer has problems and even broke down at sea. The new ships the Navy is working on will probably contain rail guns and lasers and could be powered by a number of different power sources.

One of the big questions is what are we developing in electronics? We constantly have programs which are aimed at developing electronics which can jam enemy installations, planes, ships and other things. Recently one of our ships was jammed by a Russian plane which sent Internet news readers into a frenzy. What many of them probably didn’t realize was we more than likely have at least a similar capability if not a superior one and this has been demonstrated in the past when some of our planes have jammed radar stations and communications. If we have an advanced device we certainly are not going to tip our hand right now. This is why I wouldn’t worry very much about our ship having its electronics jammed, because they may even have had a device on board which could have stopped this, but didn’t want to alert the Russians. Even if the ship didn’t have it we are surely working on one to counteract the Russian device. Our electronic jamming planes just keep becoming ever more powerful.

Secret projects for weapons development are somewhat dependent on what we believe the enemy has. The reason for this is we try and counteract their weapons. We develop missiles to shoot down missiles and we also employ other systems to do the same. We use advanced drones to kill enemy soldiers and enemy personnel on the ground and yes we are probably still developing biological weapons, as are other countries.