The Russian-Ukrainian military conflict broke out for nearly eight months, and the intensity has been further increasing. Many European countries are worried that the risk of war will spill overflow, which will affect themselves. In order to deal with military threats from Russia, under the initiative of Germany, European countries recently planned to form an air defense system called "Sky Shield". NATO An official said that the establishment of the "Sky Shield" aims to enhance the overall air defense strength of European countries.
According to this plan, European countries will spend huge amounts of money to purchase Israel's "Arrow-3" air defense missile, the United States' "Patriot" air defense missile and Germany's IRIS-T SLM air defense missile to build a multi-level air defense network. European countries hope that the "Sky Shield" can effectively intercept various aerial targets such as medium and long-range ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, , fifth-generation fighter , and drones. However, a strategic expert from European countries said that the "Sky Shield" built with huge investment can only intercept the traditional missile , and cannot deal with the hypersonic missile .
As a new weapon in recent years, hypersonic missiles are generally considered to be unable to intercept. At least the current air defense system is ineffective against it. The fundamental reason is that hypersonic missiles fly too fast, and it takes much shorter time from launching to hitting the target than traditional missiles. Even if the current air defense system can find traces of hypersonic missiles, it does not have enough reaction time to guide the interceptor to intercept them.
It is worth noting that hypersonic missiles have changed from the new concept weapon of several years ago to a practical combat weapon. In March this year, the Russian Aerospace Forces used the MiG-31 interceptor to launch the "Dagger" hypersonic missile to strike Ukraine's military facilities. According to the Russian military, the strike effect of the "Dagger" hypersonic missile is satisfactory. According to previous reports by Russian media, the "Dagger" hypersonic missile has a range of about 2,000 kilometers and a maximum flight speed of Mach 10.
At present, the Russian Aerospace Forces have deployed the MiG-31 fighter carrying the "Dagger" hypersonic missile in the overseas enclave Kaliningrad . Kaliningrad is known as the "Heart of Europe". With the range of the "Dagger" hypersonic missile, most European countries will be included in the strike range by it. General Surovijin, the new commander-in-chief of the Russian Special Military Operations against Ukraine, also said in a recent interview with the media that the "Dagger" hypersonic missile is not afraid of any air defense system.
Military experts said that if European countries cannot find the means to intercept hypersonic missiles, the "Sky Shield" they have built will not have much effect, and the funds invested may be "wasteful", because in the future, hypersonic missiles will likely replace traditional missiles and become the main equipment for a country's army to carry out precision strikes.
