We stand at a fork in modern deterrence. Hypersonics moved from science project to operational promise faster than many expected, but the jump from tens of prototypes to hundreds or thousands of fielded rounds is not automatic. If a high-intensity, peer contest is the design driver, planners must treat hypersonics less like boutique engineering and more like mass-produced ordnance. That shift will change budgets, industrial planning, alliances, and doctrine.
Washington’s rhetoric has recognized the magnitude of the problem. Senior research leaders have repeatedly said the department wants weapons at scale - hundreds of systems in the near term and ultimately thousands - not “onesies and twosies.” This is a demand signal that cannot be met by laboratories and one-off builds alone.
Reality bites where rhetoric ends. Industry and independent studies have warned for years that the existing U.S. hypersonics industrial base and testing infrastructure are inadequate to sustain large production runs. Critical materials and specialty suppliers are few, lead times are long, and the market signal from the Defense Department has been inconsistent enough that suppliers have not invested to expand capacity. Without a clear and durable procurement plan, companies will struggle to underwrite the investments needed to move from hand-built prototypes to production lines.
Even when programs mature, production rhythm is slow. Recent program assessments show that fielding an initial battery can take nearly a year from the first production missile to delivery of a full load for a single unit. Integration and test setbacks can halt throughput and force rework that multiplies cost and schedule risk. Those single-battery timelines are instructive: in a large peer conflict a force that fields a handful of batteries and cannot readily replenish war reserves or surge additional launches will be strategically constrained.
Budget practice and program management are part of the bottleneck too. Congressional analyses and budget documents through 2025 show large RDT&E commitments, but relatively limited programs of record and stop-start procurement profiles. Research money without an accompanying, stable production appropriation will continue to yield prototypes instead of magazines. The mismatch between RDT&E emphasis and procurement planning must be fixed if the services are to meet meaningful production targets.
On the supply side the trouble is granular and real. Critical high-temperature alloys, carbon-carbon thermal protection materials, and specialty additive powders are produced by a tiny supplier base. Congressional language in FY2025 highlighted concern that the supply of refractory alloy powders for additive manufacturing is limited and could constrain production. When only a few vendors can make a single component, scale becomes a logistics and industrial risk as much as an engineering one.
So what does “scaling for peer conflicts” actually require? Here are four hard pillars that must be built deliberately:
1) Demand discipline and multi-year buys
Industry needs predictable demand. Treat high-priority hypersonic lines as programs of record with multi-year procurement profiles and firm production contracts. Multi-year buys lower unit cost, give suppliers revenue certainty, and justify factory expansion and workforce training. When the demand signal flickers procurement collapses back into artisanal pace.
2) Build the supply chain now
A hypersonic munition is an assembly of scarce materials and specialty subsystems. Government should underwrite capacity for refractory powders, carbon-carbon TPS, scramjet subcomponents, and high-temperature bearings through guaranteed purchases, subsidies, and strategic stockpiles. Allied industrial partners should be brought into consortia to diversify sourcing and share test facilities. The alternative is brittle supply lines that snap in crisis.
3) Move from boutique to modular production architectures
Design for manufacturability must be a program requirement, not an afterthought. Modular commonality across boost stages, electronics boxes, and warhead modules reduces supplier specialization and enables higher throughput. Where possible, shift from single-source exotic parts to standardized interfaces and multiple qualified vendors. Automation, additive manufacturing, and digital thread practices can cut cycle time, but only if the program commits to volume production.
4) Harden testing and rapid iteration pipelines
Scaling requires test infrastructure that can accept high cadence launches and subsystem trials without backlogs. Current flight test ranges and hypersonic ground facilities are limited. Investment in ranges, live-fire corridors with allied access, and surrogate testbeds will accelerate learning and lower risk for production lines. Otherwise each failure becomes a production choke point.
There are trade-offs. Cost per shot will remain high relative to conventional missiles for the foreseeable future. That means commanders must be taught to employ hypersonics prudently - reserve them for targets that only hypersonics can reliably reach or for effects that shape the opening of a campaign. At the same time, if the United States and allies cannot produce these weapons in meaningful quantities, adversaries that mass missiles will obtain a capacity to attrit sensors, bases, and logistics in a way that outpaces Western replenishment.
Two complementary strategies reduce risk. First, accelerate research into lower-cost hypersonic architectures and boosters - cheaper rocket motors, simplified thermal protection, and glide bodies optimized for production rather than top-end performance. Second, invest heavily in counter-hypersonic defenses and sensors - space layers, integrated tracking, and directed energy work - because a balanced approach blends offense and defense to reduce asymmetry.
Finally, this is as much a political and budgetary program as an engineering one. If policymakers view hypersonics as a niche prestige capability, industry and Congress will not commit the dollars required to industrialize. If hypersonics are to matter in a contest with a near-peer, they must be funded like a munition class that will be shot by the thousands in protracted campaigns. That means tradeoffs across modernization portfolios and hard choices about what capabilities to prioritize.
The provocation is simple. We can choose to keep hypersonics as rare, strategic boutique weapons that awe test audiences and appear in parades. Or we can acknowledge that peer conflicts reward inventory depth and surge capacity, then align budgets, procurement, and industry to deliver it. If the choice is deterrence by scarcity, expect limited operational utility. If the choice is deterrence by volume, prepare for industrial mobilization and the hard, unglamorous work of turning prototypes into magazines.