7,072 views Apr 4, 2023The US Army has successfully fielded its first long-range hypersonic weapon (LRHW) system to practice a full range of expeditionary hypersonic launch capabilities.A weapon is touted to be hypersonic if it exceed speeds of Mach 5 which is 5 times the speed of sound.This is about 1,715 meters per second or 3,836 mph or 6,174 km/h.The weapon system was deployed by the 1st Multi-Domain Task Force (1st MDTF) long-range fires battalion, 5th Battalion and 3rd Field Artillery Regiment (5-3 LRFB).As part of the exercise Thunderbolt Strike, it was fielded more than 3,100 miles or about 4990 km away from the Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington to Cape Canaveral in Florida.Idea was that the soldiers would be able to practice with LRHW system through a series of drills during the exercise.In this video Defense Updates analyzes why the first-ever deployment of LRHW is a major step?#defenseupdates #LRHW #hypersonicmissile