Or maybe the use of hypersonic missiles is a combination statement of intent/live test under battlefield conditions.
Or do you think it is a good idea to mass produce weapons with only a few test launches under controlled conditions?
The hYpeRsOniC mIsSIle they used was just an Iskander ballistic missile launched from a plane.
That's it. That's
literally all it is. Ballistic missiles have
always been hypersonic. The fucking V-2 was hypersonic. Everyone has to get this through their domes because it's fucking important - "hypersonics" fall broadly into one of two categories:
1. Ballistic missile, but fancy. The latest hotness is a
~hypersonic glide vehicle~ to let the warhead coast in at low level for the final run so it avoids the biggest drawback of ballistic missiles; that they come in high, wide and handsome. (Since they were so fast this was enough to protect them until ABM systems got better, and better, and better...) This isn't really new either - the Apollo command module and the fucking
shuttle were technically both "hypersonic glide vehicles" as well, because they could steer during re-entry. This isn't new tech as applied to weapons, either; any ballistic missile with some extra fins in the right places can use some energy to do slight evasive maneuvers. Iskander falls into this category. It's called MAneuvering Re-entry Vehicle, MARV.
These missiles are nice and all but suffer all the usual problems of ballistic missiles -i.e. since they're rockets, which have to take all their oxidizer with them, they're fucking big and heavy (oxidizer is 66% or so of the resources required for combustion.) This makes them big and easy to target, and hard to project power with - you either need to base them somewhere on land (lol basing rights omg etc) or make them bigger and bigger and that shit gets expensive
fast. It is literally rocket science.
2. Air-breathing hypersonics. This is the ground-breaking very scary shit; scramjets and stuff. These weapons get their oxidizer
from the air, for free. You know, like thermobaric weapons do. Extrapolate from there. This is the technology that allows for missiles you can actually fit into VLS cells in numbers, or under planes without making them look like a whale nursing its calf ala the Khinzal. Incidentally, the nation that built the Bell X-15 in the 60s? Still the tech leader in this shit.
Russia claims to have one of these - the "Zircon." Incidentally, we've never seen actual clear video of this mythic weapon in action. Becuase it's total bullshit.
So now you all know.