Interceptors in Poland cover Europe from launches from middle east and southwest asia. They wouldn't be the only place interceptors would be placed (see Alaska, sea based systems, etc). Sheesh, try to mix up facts eh?
Interceptors in Poland cover Europe from launches from middle east and southwest asia. They wouldn't be the only place interceptors would be placed (see Alaska, sea based systems, etc). Sheesh, try to mix up facts eh?
How lame. Poland isn't between the mentioned locations, at all, unless you're talking about Sweden and Norway, and no mideast country other than Israel has missiles capable of reaching europe, and no nukes to arm them with...
But it makes perfect sense in Bush World- a non-defense against a nonexistent threat from the mideast, and a poke in the eye for the Russians...
So, I guess we shouldn't have kept launching rockets because of the failure rate. Nor should we keep doing shuttles, or any space launches for that matter.
Every launch tells you something. The targets are getting harder to hit and they are getting better at hitting them. The 50% number is also including non-launches. If we counted how many fizzles took place in the space program we'd have scrapped it long ago.
Every launch tells you something. The targets are getting harder to hit and they are getting better at hitting them. The 50% number is also including non-launches. If we counted how many fizzles took place in the space program we'd have scrapped it long ago.
Specop 007
Diamond Member
- Jan 31, 2005
- 9,454
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- 0
Hell we've had missile defense since the 80's.
Reagan said so!
Moot point really. If and when lasers become fully deployed missiles will be obsolete. Until then theres no truly effective counter and as said earlier its a numbers game.
The best deterrent is the fact we have enough Canned Sunshine to keep the globe lit up for a week and a half.
Reagan said so!
Moot point really. If and when lasers become fully deployed missiles will be obsolete. Until then theres no truly effective counter and as said earlier its a numbers game.
The best deterrent is the fact we have enough Canned Sunshine to keep the globe lit up for a week and a half.
K1052
Elite Member
- Aug 21, 2003
- 52,748
- 46,519
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Originally posted by: Specop 007
Hell we've had missile defense since the 80's.
Reagan said so!
Moot point really. If and when lasers become fully deployed missiles will be obsolete. Until then theres no truly effective counter and as said earlier its a numbers game.
The best deterrent is the fact we have enough Canned Sunshine to keep the globe lit up for a week and a half.
We've had ABMs since the early 60's (also known as strap a multimegaton nuke to a missile and aim for the general vicinity of the incomings).
because the public isn't made aware of all the different styles of ABM systems in development. If you hunt and peck around the net you can across a good half dozen such systems just in the US alone that are all working towards the same goal.
Tactical missiles and even artillery are being dealt with, something people said was totally impossible (intercepting artillery) with lasers, how long before missiles delivery systems become a thing of the past.
Spend the money I say, if it gets us one step closer to surviving a nutjob overseas or here we are all better for it.
They have to keep the weapon industry happy otherwise there would be no incentive to continue new development.
Until the monsters under by bed are destroyed, I will never sleep. I demand somebody destroy the monsters.
I actually know a fair amount about our BMD systems, and I can tell you that they are universally useless. The main problem with ours currently is the phase for which they are designed, but in the end you will see it doesn't matter so much. There are 3 phases in a ICBM's life, the boost phase, the midcourse, and the terminal phase. We attempt to intercept in the midcourse phase.
The problem with midcourse interception is that it is insanely vulnerable to countermeasures. Since it is trying to intercept the missile in space, decoys are incredibly effective due to the fact that a deployed decoy balloon and a deployed warhead behave in very similar ways due to the lack of atmosphere/gravity working upon them. The cost to implement these countermeasures on missiles is VASTLY lower then it is for us to come up with new systems to detect and ignore those countermeasures. In effect, we will have to spend a hundred times (or a thousand times) what other nations do just to try and stay ahead of their relatively simple to implement countermeasures. Decoy balloons are just one of dozens. In effect, it's a money and R+D race that we are now losing before we even got our missile system started. Mid course intercept is crap... and our whole system is based upon it. Sucks, huh?
If that's the case, we should look to other phases right? These suck too unfortunately. As for the boost phase, the main problem is proximity. If you're going to intercept a missile on the way up your interceptor needs to launch from a place close to it, or you'll never catch up to the missile in time. This requires deployment of interceptors in dozens of different countries around the world which implies severe diplomatic problems, and it still wouldn't work for ICBM silos in the middle of China or Russia. An alternative to that is this old program you might have heard about called "Brilliant Pebbles", which is a collection of space based boost-phase interceptors. Sounds like putting them in space would work wonders, right? Wrong. No more proximity problems, but not only are they hideously expensive, space based weapons are extremely vulnerable to attack. (they are locked into predetermined orbits, they can't hide, and they are sort of delicate by nature. Witness the development of ASAT weapons.) So that's a bad idea too. In here is where the air based lasers go, but they are A.) vulnerable to attack and B.) require a constant patrol by dozens (if not hundreds) of aircraft over all possible hot spots. Not effective either.
Lastly we have terminal phase. This one REALLY sucks. In effect we would have to deploy interceptor missiles over every inch of the US, which would cost so much money and maintainence we would almost be better off letting them nuke a few cities... it would probably save money. In reality, there is no way we could ever cover all of our important sites with them... and so they would just launch somewhere we didn't have it. That, and even if you do hit the missile on the way down you are now raining radioactive debris all over your cities. Certainly better then it going off, but not a very ideal solution.
All that doesn't even mention how unlikely it is that any of these "rogue states" would be stupid enough to associate a heat bloom from an ICBM with a nuclear attack on us, when a truck or container bomb would serve the same purpose but without a guarantee of national obliteration.
What does it all mean? It means missile defense sucks, period. It has always sucked, and it shows no signs of not sucking any time in the near future. Our money is poory spent on this endevour. If we just absolutely HAVE to spend money on it we should be spending it on boost phase, as it might someday be effective. I would say cut funding entirely however.
The problem with midcourse interception is that it is insanely vulnerable to countermeasures. Since it is trying to intercept the missile in space, decoys are incredibly effective due to the fact that a deployed decoy balloon and a deployed warhead behave in very similar ways due to the lack of atmosphere/gravity working upon them. The cost to implement these countermeasures on missiles is VASTLY lower then it is for us to come up with new systems to detect and ignore those countermeasures. In effect, we will have to spend a hundred times (or a thousand times) what other nations do just to try and stay ahead of their relatively simple to implement countermeasures. Decoy balloons are just one of dozens. In effect, it's a money and R+D race that we are now losing before we even got our missile system started. Mid course intercept is crap... and our whole system is based upon it. Sucks, huh?
If that's the case, we should look to other phases right? These suck too unfortunately. As for the boost phase, the main problem is proximity. If you're going to intercept a missile on the way up your interceptor needs to launch from a place close to it, or you'll never catch up to the missile in time. This requires deployment of interceptors in dozens of different countries around the world which implies severe diplomatic problems, and it still wouldn't work for ICBM silos in the middle of China or Russia. An alternative to that is this old program you might have heard about called "Brilliant Pebbles", which is a collection of space based boost-phase interceptors. Sounds like putting them in space would work wonders, right? Wrong. No more proximity problems, but not only are they hideously expensive, space based weapons are extremely vulnerable to attack. (they are locked into predetermined orbits, they can't hide, and they are sort of delicate by nature. Witness the development of ASAT weapons.) So that's a bad idea too. In here is where the air based lasers go, but they are A.) vulnerable to attack and B.) require a constant patrol by dozens (if not hundreds) of aircraft over all possible hot spots. Not effective either.
Lastly we have terminal phase. This one REALLY sucks. In effect we would have to deploy interceptor missiles over every inch of the US, which would cost so much money and maintainence we would almost be better off letting them nuke a few cities... it would probably save money. In reality, there is no way we could ever cover all of our important sites with them... and so they would just launch somewhere we didn't have it. That, and even if you do hit the missile on the way down you are now raining radioactive debris all over your cities. Certainly better then it going off, but not a very ideal solution.
All that doesn't even mention how unlikely it is that any of these "rogue states" would be stupid enough to associate a heat bloom from an ICBM with a nuclear attack on us, when a truck or container bomb would serve the same purpose but without a guarantee of national obliteration.
What does it all mean? It means missile defense sucks, period. It has always sucked, and it shows no signs of not sucking any time in the near future. Our money is poory spent on this endevour. If we just absolutely HAVE to spend money on it we should be spending it on boost phase, as it might someday be effective. I would say cut funding entirely however.
What i find worrisome about the situation, is not russia's rockets, NK nuclear program or our NMD - but Putin's reaction to it. He said something to the affect that it was causing a 'powder-keg in Europe.' He is treating it as an offensive act.
Unfortunetly it was in NPR and wasn't able to catch the entire story.
Unfortunetly it was in NPR and wasn't able to catch the entire story.
Arkaign
Lifer
- Oct 27, 2006
- 20,736
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Related : http://www.defensetech.org/archives/cat_lasers_and_ray_guns.html
2009 Test Run! Hopefully it works, as it would spell the definitive end to ballistic and cruise missile threats, so long as deployment is sufficient.
2009 Test Run! Hopefully it works, as it would spell the definitive end to ballistic and cruise missile threats, so long as deployment is sufficient.
See unfortunately as I detailed in my other post... it really won't. "Sufficient" deployment would involve hundreds of 747's around the world with lots of them flying at all times. In addition to that you would need a large fighter escort to protect them, etc... etc. Any country that can field an ICBM has enough SAM and fighter technology to be able to establish some local air superiority for 5-10 minutes in order to launch it. The air lasers are among the most useless technology available unfortunately.
Arkaign
Lifer
- Oct 27, 2006
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I talked about the project a few years ago with a knowledgeable friend (Air Force Engineer for the past 17 years), and although he doesn't directly work with the ABL project, he says that the ability of a gigawatt laser system would not necessarily be limited to the initial launch phases of a target, rather that the extreme heat and radiation from the beam would fry the electronics in a target quickly enough to be useful even on re-entry. The caveat is that targeting would have to be maintained at perfect precision to give the longest exposure to the target. Additionally, even though the ideal firing altitude would be as high as possible, it is feasible to run a much more powerful ground-based laser system that uses 10x or more power to counterbalance the additional atmospheric resistance.
Power and target tracking are the obstacles. I agree, that if limited in use to launch phase, that ABL is useless, but I do not think it's reasonable to say that that would be the final goal. The final goal would obviously be to create a laser system that is powerful enough to knock out targets within seconds at any stage.
The problem as I see it is that frying the missile is of limited usefullness outside of the boost phase. In the mid course phase we once again have the problems of countermeasures/dummy balloons/etc. In the terminal phase the warhead is doing little other then falling on the target, there is no guidance and therefore little electronics to fry. I mean I guess you could try to fry the detonation system, but that seems difficult in the extreme to me as a lot of them simply would have detonators that explode on contact and are not complex. This is also a terminal phase solution which would require a blanketing of more then 3.5 million square miles inside the US. (okay, not all of that inhabited... but seriously enough to make it impossible) That is frankly impractible. This is why ground lasers would not be particularly effective either, effective mirror network issues notwithstanding. Not just that, but if you are trying to disperse biological or chemical weapons with your ICBMs, they are contained within thousands of heat shielded bomblets that would be extremely difficult to pick up on radars, destroy, etc. Nuclear warheads are by FAR the easiest to intercept... and they are hopelessly beyond us.
The biggest problems with this as I see it aren't even technological, they are practical. If you want this laser to shoot missiles out of the sky you have to put it on an air platform (which is very vulnerable), or a space platform (which is super vulnerable) in order to have a large enough coverage area to make a practical investment. I do not see effective BMD coming any time within our lifetimes.
And again of course, we tend to forget that a ballistic missile attack on the continental US is one of the least likely ways one of our enemies would attempt to strike us with.
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