Re: Interceptor downs missile in test over Pacific

El Castor <NotAnyone@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
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Islander <nospam@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Jerry Okamura wrote:

<dezakin@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Earl wrote:

jgrove24@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote in
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El Castor wrote:

Interceptor downs missile in test over Pacific
Fri Sep 1, 2006 2:42 PM ET

By Jim Wolf

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military shot down a
target ballistic missile over the Pacific on Friday in
the widest test of its emerging antimissile shield in
18 months, the Defense Department announced.

The Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency said it had
successfully completed an important exercise involving
the launch of an improved ground-based interceptor
missile designed to protect the United States against a
limited long-range ballistic missile attack.

It would impress if they tried it during a rain shower
and randomly launched a target..everybody knew the
target was fired, so no BFD.



There are 3 items needed to be able to intercept 24/7

1) a radar system capable of detecting the launch and
alert the defense forces.

We built that in the '60s to handle the Soviets -- all we
could do was eliminate the launching country.

2) an interceptor that works. Demonstrated both with Navy
system and land based system. The Navy missiles were
available some time ago.

3) a system of launch locations on high alert ready to
launch when needed.

Just a matter of building the launch tubes and have
rotating silos on call. Just a variation of what we had
before with SLBMs and ICBMs.


All the components exist or just need to be paid for. No
real technical issues, just political ones. Do the
politicians think you are worth protecting?





Back in the ancient days we could spot a soviet mass
launch, and get the word out to our facilities in time to
be of use.

Because of our close in SLBMs we could have HBombs
exploding in the Soviet Union about the time our cities
started to evaporate. And this was maintained 365/24/7
for decades.

So now we just launch interceptors instead of city
killers. (SLBMs were targeted at air fields, radars and
other problems for the bombers -- but the Soviets, with
their poor roads put them in cities.)


Note that the military will never promise full
protection. It will do its best but Murphy is in command
-- so some missiles will get through, unless you are
willing to pay for 1000% overlap coverage. Insurance is
expensive.

Balloon decoys add maybe 1% to the cost of a ballistic
missile and completely defeat interceptors. Its a total
waste of money.



What good does a balloon decoy? An ICBM when it is
launched already knows where it is headed isn't it? Is it
going to change direction because of some ballon decoy?


Good grief Jerry! You have it backwards. There are a
number of problems that one needs to solve in targeting an
ICBM. One of these is the release of decoy targets by the
ICBM to confuse interceptor missiles. Balloon decoys are a
part of that strategy because they are light weight (soas to
not take up too much of the payload) and because they
disperse rapidly and continue traveling at close to the same
rate of speed as the warhead in the rarefied atmosphere at
the apogee where critical targeting is done. Add to this
the practice of using multiple warheads, aimed at different
targets and you have a very confusing mixture of targets and
decoys. At a minimum this delays targeting until the ICBM
is further in its trajectory, even with the technical
approaches that Earl has mentioned.

As in all military systems, defense is much more difficult
than offense.

In this case, it is not at all clear that the problem can be
solved sufficiently well to be worth the cost. As Earl has
pointed out on several occasions, some missiles will get
through. Better to not have a false sense of security that
might tempt you to assume a more aggressive behavior than
you would if you know that you are not protected.

There are so many things that I simply don't understand
about you people, and your dedicated unwavering opposition
to the ABM is one of them. Has it occurred to you that an
ABM injects an element of uncertainty into the plans of any
potential aggressor, and uncertainty may in itself be a
powerful deterrent. To deliberately leave our largest cities
exposed to obliteration by some nut job trying to coax a
messiah out of a well just so we will not have a "false
sense of security" is utter madness, and the reason why
people of your ilk will hopefully never set foot in the
White House.



The problem they have is that they never learned to look at
problems that are fuzzy.

Any strategic study points out that the way to win is to make
the enemy uncertain. With uncertainty comes hesitation. And he
who hesitates is lost.

This is why the original plan as presented by Gen Graham was
based on a layered defense that would deny an attacker the
predictability of an assault. If they are uncertain that they
can take out their targets, the risk shifts significantly,
particularly knowing that failure to win immediately means
certain destruction.

And the last defense was something that was nearly foolproof. A
CIWS that supplied a stream of metal in the path of the RV.
Since the RV had to detonate within 250 yds to kill a silo,
running into a wall of shells 5 miles out would protect everyone
(except Bambi, who would get fried in the few cases where the
intercept resulted in a detonation).

Extending a situation in which half the silos survive (and thus
have enough second strike capability to fry a continent) to a
save every city with 99.999 probability made the results harder
to achieve. But those in a city that made it through would be
happy, even if 20 million citizens were in cities that failed.

All the military can do is increase the odds on survival. The
politicians decide to get into the game.
.

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