> It will be cheaper to write an AI to coordinate those attacks, rather than building larger engines to break the hypersonic barrier.
'Cheaper' has to factor in all costs, including salvo launching platforms and logistics. Not everyone has (as you speculated on in another reply) an abundance of aircraft carriers and their F-35 squadrons and those that do will still place a high value on having the choice. This is why those than can are all developing hypersonic weapons and no amount of arm chair theorizing will stop it.
In any case, my original question, prompted by our brand new Moskva data point, was can surface ships be protected? They've already proved vulnerable to existing anti-ship missiles and the future will inevitably include hypersonics and flocks of AI missiles and anything else we here can dream up to make already poor defense even less viable. The implication being that they can't, and that this is the important question. If one seeks a clever way to save money perhaps the costly floating targets that are large surface ships should be at issue.
'Cheaper' has to factor in all costs, including salvo launching platforms and logistics. Not everyone has (as you speculated on in another reply) an abundance of aircraft carriers and their F-35 squadrons and those that do will still place a high value on having the choice. This is why those than can are all developing hypersonic weapons and no amount of arm chair theorizing will stop it.
In any case, my original question, prompted by our brand new Moskva data point, was can surface ships be protected? They've already proved vulnerable to existing anti-ship missiles and the future will inevitably include hypersonics and flocks of AI missiles and anything else we here can dream up to make already poor defense even less viable. The implication being that they can't, and that this is the important question. If one seeks a clever way to save money perhaps the costly floating targets that are large surface ships should be at issue.