This is blogspam based on a tweet of the company's promo video[1] in November and some speculation by a guy on Chinese state TV[2]. As far as I can find there's no evidence since then that these have entered production, mass or otherwise. It was doubted at the time they could hit these costs in production, and there hasn't been any news since.<p>[1] <a href="https://xcancel.com/CNSpaceflight/status/1993158707056984359" rel="nofollow">https://xcancel.com/CNSpaceflight/status/1993158707056984359</a><p>[2] <a href="https://archive.is/VLO7U" rel="nofollow">https://archive.is/VLO7U</a>
Real or not, this is probably the future. Lockheed execs want combat to be a distant exchange of multi-million dollar missiles. As shown in Ukraine, people actually fighting for their lives will wreck a $300million weapon with a slingshot.
Not hypersonic, but there are upstart defense companies building and selling these types of low-cost weapons. See, e.g., Anduril's $200,000 Barracuda: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barracuda-M" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barracuda-M</a><p>Big firms like Lockheed nominally have similar products in the pipeline. See, e.g., <a href="https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/news/features/2025/cmmt-putting-affordable-mass-on-target.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/news/features/2025/cmmt...</a> Though given how long they've been in development one wonders if they're slow walking these things until competition forces them to commit.<p>I don't really follow the defense industry, but I imagine building cheap missiles isn't that hard. Rather, the difficult and expensive aspect would likely be the systems integrations (targeting, tracking, C&C, etc), especially in a way that let's the military rapidly cycle in new weapons without having to upgrade everything else. OTOH, if and when that gets truly fleshed out, firms like Lockheed might start to lose their moat, so there's probably alot of incentive to drag their feet and limit integration flexibility, the same way social media companies abhor federated APIs and data mobility. And if integration is truly the difficult part, I'm not sure what to make of weapons like the YKJ-1000 or Barracuda. Without the integration are they really much better than $100 drones?
> wreck a $300million weapon with a slingshot.<p>I don't think "slingshot" is the right analogy here. There is a big change towards intelligent, small, and cheap drones. If it were just a slingshot, other countries could pick up what Ukraine is doing in no time, but they can't. Instead, there's an absolutely massive industry behind Ukraine's drone manufacturing, growing at 2x per year, which no other nation can currently match, including Russia.<p>The drone manufacturing has gone so exponential that they now have a shortage of drone operators. It's completely changed the war in the past few months, with Russia now losing ground, at basically zero additional Ukrainian casualties, and with Russia continuing to have massive ground casualties from sending poorly trained troops to die while hiding in a 30 mile wide kill zone ruled by drones.<p>The quantity of drones allows new tactics, reminiscent of rolling wave artillery. And deployment of a wide variety of types of drones has led to the depletion of Russian anti-air defense in both occupied Ukraine and in Russia itself, allowing the destruction of much of Russia's oil infrastructure. The recent Baltic port hit will be felt for a long long time, and nearly completely neutralizes the lifting of sanctions on Russia. All from novel weapons, which are decidedly more sophisticated than slingshots both in their construction and application. And the US is way behind, and too proud to let Ukraine share their knowledge and capabilities.
You're talking about the hardware. That is critical.<p>But what's evolving even faster is the software. And in real world use cases.<p>They arent paying for tank models and people to run around and try to chase to "test". They are very literally doing it live, with live fire testing day in and day out.<p>Furthermore they are rewarding results on both ends. Successful operators get to buy gear for kills in an amazon like store (talk about gamification). And there are paths for "innovation" to make its way to the front quickly: see <a href="https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/how-a-ukrainian-gamer-created-anti-drone-ammo-that-saves-soldiers-lives-11699" rel="nofollow">https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/how-a-ukrainian-gam...</a> for an example.
> I don't think "slingshot" is the right analogy here.<p>I think it's perfect - a very valid "David vs Goliath" reference.
Yeah, there's the Flamingo, Ukraine's cruise missile that uses old turbofan engines near the end of the service lives. But Ukrainians mentioned, that they're looking to mass produce low-cost engines using steel for their blades instead of exotic alloys, as used on most aircraft engines. Of course even advanced steel alloys cant survive the close to 1000C temps for long, but a cruise missile needs to fly for like 3-4 hours, not thousands. Probably a lot else can be simplified in the design, as turbofans are conceptually very simple, much simpler than ICE.
So, a return to cold-war style missile races, except there are actual slugfests from time to time because the nuclear threat no longer has gravity.
I think it's led to a huge advantage for defenders. Nuclear weapons favor attackers, or deterrence. But massive drone waves allow defense of large areas with a very small number of people. It's not a race to build bigger missiles that go longer distances and are harder to shoot down, it's largely a coordination, communication, logistics, and information management problem.
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I think you're misreading my comment and attacking a scarecrow. I've never defended Iran in any way nor did I say anything about Iran in my original comment.<p>I'm purely referring to that fact that the future of warfare is becoming asymmetric again because the US Military Industrial complex can only deliver extremely expensive weapons, which can easily be wrecked by stone age ones.<p>That is it.
Even in 2026, wars are won by the side that can shoots more bullets (or artillery rounds, or rockets, or missiles, or drones). They better be cheap.
> kill 30 000+ of their own<p>Hasbara or do you have credible facts?
Well, the IRGC folks actually fighting probably don't have a luxurious future in a reformed Iran, so they might not be far off fighting for their lives.
Take a few days away from the internet man. I mean it with all sincerity.
Whether these claims are real or not, they do illustrate one of the crazy things about technological progress. Capabilities that are difficult for states to develop eventually become something corporations can easily implement, and from there they become affordable for private citizens, first to buy, and then to DIY.<p>Two obvious and concerning corollaries are that state capabilities eventually become easy to obtain for non-state terrorist groups and, later on, unbalanced individuals. Consider what ISIS would have done with these, and then think about what the unabomber would have done.<p>I'd fully expect this particular company to face multiple hurdles in actually exporting any of these missiles. They might not be able to actually deliver at the quoted price-point. China might not permit it, due to the political blow-back. Israel and the U.S. obviously have an interest in making sure none of these missiles wind up in Iranian hands. The execs of this company are probably feeling a bit like a target has been painted on their heads right now.<p>However, controlling technology like this is ultimately a game of whack-a-mole. If this company fails, gets regulated, decapitated, sucked up by the Chinese military, etc., ten other companies will pop up all over the place that can produce the same thing or better, <i>cheaper</i>. There's also a supply chain of components behind this company that can now export critical parts to those building their own. We've simply reached (or are about to reach) the point where missiles of this sort can be made very cheaply.<p>Here's hoping missile defence gets better and cheaper <i>fast</i>.
Relevant philosophy paper: "The Vulnerable World Hypothesis" by Nick Bostrom [0].<p>In that paper, Bostrom floats the idea that it might be in humanity's best interest to have a strong global government with mass surveillance to prevent technological catastrophes. It's more of a thought experiment than a "we should definitely do this" kind of argument, but it's worth taking the idea seriously and thinking hard about what alternatives we have for maintaining global stability.<p>[0] <a href="https://nickbostrom.com/papers/vulnerable.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://nickbostrom.com/papers/vulnerable.pdf</a>
Cheap hypersonics don't threaten global stability, they threaten global hegemony. Which is really what I suspect irks most people afraid of them.<p>We've seen a shift towards cheap offensive capacity that gives middle powers or even smaller actors the capacity to hit hegemons where it hurts, very visible in Ukraine and the Middle East now. This leads to instability only temporarily until you end up in a new equilibrium where smaller players will have significantly more say and capacity to retaliate, effectively a MAD strategy on a budget for everyone.
This is what people should keep in mind when the statistic about US defense spending being higher than the next N nations combined or whatever it is now. If I buy a 30k Prius, and you spend 300k on a different car,<p>1) that doesn’t mean you can drive 10x as fast and<p>2) maybe you just bought an overpriced Prius, perhaps a gold plated one<p>This is a more general problem in politics, where the overall budget being allocated is reported rather than the practical result.
Yeah, you often read stories on the internet about how the SR-71 could easily outrun the MIG-25, proving US technological superiority, but those don't really take into account that there was like a dozen made of the former, with titanium hulls and exotic engineering. While there were more than a thousand made of the cheap, steel hulled MIG 25
These don’t seem comparable to me. The sr 71 was never meant to be mass produced or to head to head against a mig. The sr71 didn’t even have any guns it’s a spy plane. The sr 71 accomplished its goal with flying colors and spotted nuclear test sites and information on the Cuban missle crisis.<p>The star fighter, or f15 or f22 would be more apt.<p>TLDR special purpose tool vs general fighter cannot be compared
Or they bought a lambo, which is amazing, and goes really fast... but when you are out of gas, the Prius will keep going. :)
The future of almost all industries is smart software (costing billions to make, but infinitely copyable) and cheap hardware.
Pakistan invests in chinese air -defenses- gets steamrolled by india.
Iran buys chinese air-defenses- gets steamrolled by Israel and the Us.
Russia claimed the s400 was all the rage- and its going nowhere in ukraine.
If propaganda claims where a currency, could you buy anything with all this?
I see your $99,000 missile and I raise you a $10 intercept.<p>Time for those laser-defenses to come up to speed.
Lasers have very limited applications, they have an inherent line of sight limits, and even the most powerful ship mounted lasers that can do like 50kW, take a minute to boil a kettle of water away, more if you wrap it in tinfoil.<p>And a shot might cost $10, the laser itself cost $$$, fits only in a cargo container, and requires crazy amounts of juice.<p>Meanwhile a simple AA gun needs none of those things and can kill things just fine.
Lasers will probably only be used for point defenses against drones which isn't useless but they aren't the cheap future panacea everyone seems to think.
Do they hit their targets? Eventually with enough of them it’s not super important but… it does matter a bit.
According to the Google search I just did, an average American hypersonic missile costs between 13 and 41 million dollars.<p>So that is between 131 and 410 of these. At that rate, and with enough disdain for my enemy and apathy for their people, I can just launch a shit load of them in the right direction and cross my fingers.
> Nobody knows yet the true capabilities of the missile, but it doesn’t matter. The accuracy doesn’t matter very much, the payload doesn’t matter very much. If it’s launched at a certain target in Tel Aviv, it still is going to hit something in Tel Aviv. The Israelis have no choice but to attempt an intercept, and will spend millions to do so<p>Sounds like the massive price disparity more than makes up for any accuracy issues
>"Do they hit their targets?"<p>Are you sure you want to find out?
What seems to be the problem with their S300 clones? Anyone knows ? Easy to jam I suppose.
There's no 'S-300' as such, there are sets of fire control, target acquisition and tracking radars, and various types of missiles, each of which can be upgraded, and mixed and matched to some degree, with some combinations being up to the S-300 standard or better.<p>The closest thing to a standardized variant is the one installed on ships.<p>It's a crazy variety of hardware out therem and one of the most dangerous things about SAMs, that a lot of the old Soviet missile stock is passively guided, so pairing a decades old missile sitting in storage with a state of the art radar makes it relevant even today.
Air defense works in layers where each layer often covers for another. S300 is good, but it's just one piece of a useful anti air defense strategy.
S300 is very good AA, but in practice modern SEAD with a sizeable number of planes can outrange them and they're not great at protecting themselves. We saw this in India-Pakistan and seeing this again in Iran-USA. You can see more of a stale mate when they aren't getting outranged in Ukraine-Russia.
Previously: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41305736">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41305736</a><p>No idea why a story about a YC company was flagged.
Damn, can you imagine how quickly Aliexpress orders are gonna arrive now?
If they're that cheap they can probably afford to cry wolf with them. Get people used to seeing unarmed missles flown in to random places, where the possible damage doesn't justify trying to shoot them down, then suddenly start putting explosives onboard.
>"A Chinese company is in production of a hypersonic missile, with a sticker price comparable to that of a luxury sedan"<p>Well they've perfected manufacturing at scale. I see no surprise here.
Amazing! Yet another life destroying invention. What could go wrong?
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when China take Taiwan there's not a single thing the world is going to be able to do about it<p>they use thousands of fishing boats to practice blockades<p>they are building massive oil reserves and getting most of population into electric vehicles<p>let's just hope they wait to next decade and not like 2028
Attacking and occupying a distant island in this age is getting more difficult, not easier. Look at the Black Sea, where Russia's remaining ships cower in fear in port, as they try to avoid super cheap marine drones. Massive missile attacks on a country can only do so much damage, and they harden the population against the aggressor.<p>If Taiwan has been paying attention, and I don't doubt they are in an age when it's becoming clear the US is a paper tiger that will never protect them, they are well prepared to handle a good chunk of their own defense, using the brain trust they have inside their nation. They have everything they need for their own defense now.
People thought the same on Iran, untouchable. China has the same air defense and tech as Iran, not effective in real world situations.<p>Blockades go both ways. China is energy dependant so very vulnerable to blockade response by the US and Japan. A few choke points make it easy, the ocean is not open ended.
If they’re half as good as the robot I saw today in china slapping that kid id get a few
Chat, is this real? I've seen this guy pop up on youtube. I assume he's a Chinese state mouthpiece as he's a westerner in the mainland with a very pro-China spin (substack recommended the other posts below), but I'm curious how strong the factual basis for this reporting is.<p><i>China's factories are in another world - Mar 23, 2025</i><p><i>Chinese factories build fire trucks for under $400,000 in six weeks. In the US, it's $2 million in 4 years - Apr 19, 2025</i><p><i>Iran is blowing up $500 million radars. China's export bans mean they are gone forever. - Mar 16, 2026</i>
Good question. I think China is undoubtedly far better than the US at advanced, cheap mass-production. So wouldn’t be surprising they could do that for the military too. Not to say the US couldn’t get better.
Better than the US at producing almost anything at this point. There are a few tiny islands of advantage left for the US in advanced engineering but they won’t last.<p>Prediction: China will win the new race to the moon for this very reason.
This is basically what made the USA a military super power in the first place? At least it's what made them so powerful during WW2 and I guess beyond.
There's a few of these guys that make posts about technology that doesn't materialize after a few years, they can be ignored. There are plenty of pro-China observers that offer grounded analysis of Chinese military-industrial base out there that don't make claims that China has unobtainium technology. /r/LessCredibleDefence has a shortlist of these propagandists.
Yeah it's certainly unimaginable that the civilization that invented gunpowder, cannons, guns, rockets a thousand years ago can make it for cheap now :)<p>'Hypersonic' missile makes it sound like it's alien technology, no it's solid boosters that do not follow the usual ballistic trajectory with a computer from 1970.<p>The raw materials cost less than half of a standard car.
I've only read a few short blurbs about this. What makes you think the booster doesn't follow a normal ballistic trajectory?
"no it's solid boosters that do not follow the usual ballistic trajectory"<p>Hypersonics do not. They are extremely fast and extremely low flying.
You don't have to assume: He seems to provide ample detailed western sources to back up his claims in every video.<p>Perhaps it'd be more difficult for him to broadcast if he had an anti-china perspective, but the content itself seems legitimate.
> <i>He seems to provide ample detailed western sources to back up his claims in every video</i><p>Does he? The only sources seem to be a CNSpaceflight tweet from last november of a promo animation from the missile company, and a South China Morning Post article that is just quoting commentators on Chinese state TV talking about the the possible capabilities of the missiles.<p>The other sources (someone else's substack that's sourced from a December article[1] from The Independent, and two articles on "interestingengineering") all just quote the same animation and commentators.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.the-independent.com/asia/china/china-hypersonic-missile-price-us-weapon-b2878035.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.the-independent.com/asia/china/china-hypersonic-...</a>
China does keep close tabs on foreign bloggers in their country (especially over the past decade or so), and anything remotely nonpositive does get people visits from police or worse. There is a huge chilling effect, even for people who mostly do have positive things to say.