Re: DIRECT HIT

ohara5.0@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

Poor Ray comes from the ignorant part of the OHara family. That
satellite was launched into POLAR orbit (much more costly than a lower

Not a polar orbit, I'm pretty sure (though I'd have to dig up the orbit tracks again). I'm pretty sure it was a high-inclination orbit, I want to say 50+ degrees, but not polar. The ground track topped out not too far above the Arctic Circle (I remember someone making a joke about McMurdo being the one completely safe place in this situation).

NOW, with the satellite failing, I admit this was a great opportunity
to send a message to some countries. Your FOBS (Fractional Orbital
Bombardment System) was wasted money Russia (and maybe China). All
the money the NORKS and Iran spent on missiles was wasted cuz they
aint a real threat. China caint threaten to nuke LA over Taiwan and
be taken seriously and Russian maneuvering RVs are a waste of money.
It also says something about the ability to alter the IR spectrum the
kill vehicle is looking for which has implications for decoys etc. Is
this merely a software change..hmmmmm...

I wouldn't say those countermeasures are useless. Granted, the SM-3 hit a target that was faster and harder to see than an ICBM bus or RV, but OTOH the Navy had access to near-constant realtime tracking of the target around most of the planet, and plenty of lead time to work out a plan of attack and go for an optimum shot. A solid and impressive achievement, but I'm not quite ready to go sunbathing on L.A.'s beaches while daring the PRC to try a shot just because the _Lake_Erie_ is in the area.
I wouldn't count out those maneuvering RVs yet, either -- they're sure to make harder targets for any ABM system, and who wants to make the enemy's job easy? :D
No doubt, various threat forces will be looking at ways to beat the SM-3 and its relatives (well, let's be real here, they already were), but the resounding success of this interception is going to establish some real uncertainty in the minds of parties who might have believed that US ABM systems were paper tigers, and it's demonstrated hard real-world capabilities in an incontrovertible fashion.

Granted that a bus sized satellite is a much bigger target than a nuke
rv but IR brightness goes as T^4 and this satellite was in orbit long
enough to be at space temps whereas an rv would be at least 100 K
warmer (no, you cannot cool an rv cuz Pu goes through many phase
changes with temp and the the nuke wont work).

If I were running R&D for someone who wants to beat the SM-3, my first avenue of research would be some sort of IR blinding or decoys. Free-flying decoys that match a real RV's flight profile aren't easy (you'd almost be better off spending that mass penalty on another warhead), but something like an IR Nixie, deployed behind the RV on a tether on just the right distance pull the centroid of their combined IR image one diameter away from the RV. The seeker is good (QED), but engagement times are short and closing speeds are high. If you can fool the seeker into making one or two mistaken corrections as it closes....
Of course, the obvious countermove is to keep improving the SM-3's seeker head as technology advances. Firmware certainly makes this easier.

Even better, it changes the entire picture of offense vs defense for
nukes. $60 million is cheap compared to the cost of a single nuke
strike. Make these anti missile (satellite) rockets in large quantity
and costs should go waaay down, maybe in the $10 million range whereas
the cost of a nuke warhead remains high by comparison. Eventually,
the cost of defense becomes much lower than offense.

The SM-3 is designed for taking on TBMs and IRBMs rather than ICBMS, though the difference is only a matter of refinement and degree. -- if you can engage the former, the latter is within reach, even if more development is required.
You raise a fascinating point, however: what happens when the relative costs of ballistic-missile offense and defense come within shouting distance of parity? I suspect we'll see the effects (if we're not already) in the short-range arena first, where we seem to be having our first successes, as opposed to intercontinental, where we seem to still need some more work.


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Relevant Pages

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    ... satellite was launched into POLAR orbit (much more costly than a lower ... NOW, with the satellite failing, I admit this was a great opportunity ... Granted that a bus sized satellite is a much bigger target than a nuke ... the cost of a nuke warhead remains high by comparison. ...
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  • Re: DIRECT HIT
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