Brovane
Diamond Member
- Dec 18, 2001
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Well the US Navys Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense Program has been high successful in intercepting missiles during testing and has conducted tests meeting your criteria. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUL9lSeVN5A This test seems to meet your criteria.
Also the Upgraded Patriot systems performed very well in operation "Iraqi Freedom". During the Iraqi conflict the Patriot batteries had 8 independently confirmed kills on inbound missiles.
Brovane
Diamond Member
- Dec 18, 2001
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Did they really need to make it stealth? The "missile defense shield" doesn't work anyway. Stealth missile = ANY missile.
1prophet
Diamond Member
- Aug 17, 2005
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CallMeJoe
Diamond Member
- Jul 30, 2004
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Considering the number of missiles the Russians have, and the destructive power of each warhead, if we can't get better than 95%, what's the point of having a shield at all?
I thought we were talking about an ICBM interceptor, not a tactical defense system.
Maybe I'm misinformed but:
Even if we blowed all the missiles up real good in midair, wouldn't there still be massive amounts of radioactive contamination on account of all that wonderful nuclear debris?
DrPizza
Administrator Elite Member Goat Whisperer
The missile defense shield is one of the most idiotic ideas every conceived. In an era where (imho wrong) individuals are talking about sending man back to the moon as a baby step toward settling elsewhere off this planet to ensure the survival of our species, the missile defense shield is actually a bigger step toward the likelihood that we annihilate ourselves as a species long before we ever settle somewhere else. As stated in this thread:
A. Weapons technology is always ahead of defensive technology.
B. A cold war now is not a good idea. So we attempt to build our shield... Russia attempts to build better weapons. And, you think Russia's neighbor, China, is going to sit by and twiddle their collective 2 billion plus thumbs? A nuclear arms race isn't going to have just 2 players - The U.S., Russia, China, Pakistan, and India would all join in. England would be too busy drinking tea and listening to Prince Charles about how irradiating food is dangerous - they'd be better off with salmonella and e-coli; and France probably would be too busy writing rough drafts of surrender speeches. (j/k!)
I've been looking and wish I could find it; there's a youtube video of Michio Kaku describing civilizations and how we on earth, being at stage 0, and close to the transition to stage 1 are at a very critical period - I believe he said there's about a 50/50 chance between destroying ourselves and becoming a stage 1 civilization.
A. Weapons technology is always ahead of defensive technology.
B. A cold war now is not a good idea. So we attempt to build our shield... Russia attempts to build better weapons. And, you think Russia's neighbor, China, is going to sit by and twiddle their collective 2 billion plus thumbs? A nuclear arms race isn't going to have just 2 players - The U.S., Russia, China, Pakistan, and India would all join in. England would be too busy drinking tea and listening to Prince Charles about how irradiating food is dangerous - they'd be better off with salmonella and e-coli; and France probably would be too busy writing rough drafts of surrender speeches. (j/k!)
I've been looking and wish I could find it; there's a youtube video of Michio Kaku describing civilizations and how we on earth, being at stage 0, and close to the transition to stage 1 are at a very critical period - I believe he said there's about a 50/50 chance between destroying ourselves and becoming a stage 1 civilization.
Brovane
Diamond Member
- Dec 18, 2001
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[/quote]Considering the number of missiles the Russians have, and the destructive power of each warhead, if we can't get better than 95%, what's the point of having a shield at all?
Well if we stop even 90% of the missiles from hitting there targets that are launched at the US then this is a very good thing. This will allow a lot quicker recovery than if all the warheads hit there targets. Also the existent of a working ABM system complicates a nuclear attack package planning because you cannot assume that your warheads will hit the target.
I thought we were talking about an ICBM interceptor, not a tactical defense system.
[/quote]
From my understanding we were talking about Missile Defense systems in general. The US Navy's Aegis Ballistic Missile and the US Armys THAAD are both one part of a multi-layered missile defense system. ICBM technology and the technology to intercept it are high classified technology. Since the US has abandoned the ABM treaty a lot of progress has been made on developing effective weapon systems. How long did it take the US Air Force to bring the F-22 into full scale deployment? The US only withdrew from the ABM treaty in 2001. Research for decades on the technology to intercept ICBM's has been very much stagnant since the early 1970's. The US was working towards a effective ABM system in the 60's before the ABM treaty stopped this. The system's currently in placed are only the first steps in developing a effective ABM system.
The current ICBM intercept system was only stood up so quickly just in-case something happens because we really had no defense before this system was put in place. Kind of like the US rushing the M3 grant into service for WW2 until the M4 Sherman could be developed. Some defense is better than no defense. As the technology matures the system will become better. We did see this with the Patriot missile system it performed much better in a Missile Defense role in "Gulf War 2" than the first Gulf War. The THAAD system went through a lot of technological hurdles however the program looks to be hitting its full stride now and is being placed into production. The NMD is really in its first phase which is called C1 the next phase will be called C2 which will be more sophisticated system and then a C3 phase is planned which will be even more sophisticated. You have to learn to crawl before you walk and then eventually run. Also the US is also looking at both the US Navy's Aegis Ballstic Missile defense system and the THAAD system to see if these could also be modified to intercept a in bound ICBM in what is called the terminal phase of its flight path. The current missile used in the Aegis system is called the SM-3 Block-1a system, which already has some impressive capabilities like even downing a satellite when needed. The next generation missile would be the SM-4 and it looks like this system could have a ABM capability against in bound ICBM. It seems like people are not giving the Missile Defense system any time to mature and claiming any failure as reason to cancel the system. Looking from a engineering perspective a failure in testing is great because you get to examine what failed and then take corrective action to prevent future failure.
StageLeft
No Lifer
- Sep 29, 2000
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Yep, the good old days of the Cold War. It was great for movies and books and I have no fear at all about going back to it. Living under a state of fear about waking up eviscerated by a 350 mph hot wind is just what I want to feel after tucking the kids in every night. I say the best thing now is for the US to get into another arms race and try and bankrupt Russia. Hoo yah!
Maybe, but moving away from fantasy to reality, the US really is close to being able to take out warheads with lasers. I think they have almost started production of anti-artillery land-based systems. They have worked on planes with lasers and with some more years of development I don't know that it's unrealistic to think that a fleet of planes with enough juice/lasers to do it could take out a vast number of incoming warheads. I think it safe to assume that a counter-missile is probably easier/cheaper to produce than a missile since these nuclear ICBMs are pretty darn expensive to make in the first place.
It is unrealistic, the problem is that the lasers have a very limited range, in a best-case scenario something like 300-500 km (depending on the type of missile, atmospheric conditions etc). Not much considering how fast an ICBM moves.
The only way to make an efficient "shield" using lasers is to have planes very close to the launch sites so that they can aquire the target and destroy it during the "boost phase".
This might be feasible (albeit very expensive) if the purpose is to protect USA from e.g. a ICBM (or more likely a TBM) from North Korea (since NK is a small country and it would -at least in theory- be possible to have a few ABM planes in the air close to the border at all time). This is the basic idea of the laser equiped 747s being tested now.
However, even in this case the system would be VERY unreliable; it is a very complex system.
DrPizza
Administrator Elite Member Goat Whisperer
I'm not so sure you really comprehend what "mutually assured destruction" means. You don't "recover". They fire theirs, we fire ours, everyone loses. Everyone. And, if there's a problem with only 10% getting through, then you simply send more.
With what? Lasers in space? Ground based lasers suffer from refraction problems in the atmosphere. Putting lasers in space is simply going to cause an arms war in space. What do you think all the posturing has been in the past couple years with shooting down satellites? The Chinese have proved they're capable, the U.S. has proved they're capable. It's a no win - no win situation.
CallMeJoe
Diamond Member
- Jul 30, 2004
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The problem with this argument is that even 10% of Russian missiles still means the effective end of the United States. It still leaves us with MAD as our only effective deterrent. A marginally effective ABM does less to deter second-tier threats (like Korea) than the knowledge that they could inflict only limited damage to the United States and are assured devastation in return. At this point the only effective first-strike nuclear weapon against the United States is true stealth delivery, meaning smuggled devices entirely untraceable to their origins. ABM does nothing to stop them.
Don't get me wrong here; I have no problem with ABM research. If we can produce and deploy an effective system, fine. Spending hundreds of millions of dollars to produce and deploy a system before it is ready, just to show we can (and antagonize the Russians by doing so) is stupid and wasteful. Develop, then deploy.
- Aug 23, 2003
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If 10% of Russia's nuclear arsenal hit us, we can say goodbye to 100 of the largest cities in the United States and their surrounding metro areas.
Russia wouldn't blanket the entire country with missiles; they PLAN on our missile defense systems having some degree of success, so they launch dozens of missiles at high value targets. With thousands of missiles in their arsenal, and only one direct hit needed for widespread destruction...MAD is ensured.
Russia wouldn't blanket the entire country with missiles; they PLAN on our missile defense systems having some degree of success, so they launch dozens of missiles at high value targets. With thousands of missiles in their arsenal, and only one direct hit needed for widespread destruction...MAD is ensured.
Like any armchair warrior, the inconsistencies are all justified under the banner of FUD war against the democrats.
He's repeatedly trying the 'soft' approach where he pretends to accept some of the democrats' position to use against them, when it suits him.
bamacre
Lifer
- Jul 1, 2004
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A better question is, why in the hell are the Republicans and Democrats trying to poke the bear by expanding NATO to its borders? And why do the Republicans and Democrats have a hard-on for Iran?
This imperialistic and interventionist foreign policy shared by the two parties is greatly weakening our nation.
This imperialistic and interventionist foreign policy shared by the two parties is greatly weakening our nation.
I think it's because the default mode for any major power is to pursue more power. Some nations learn not to, or are unable to. Few major powers are so restricted.
This is how unwittingly, we can move more and more towards ventralized global power (currently the regions are consolidating - Europe now Asia and Americas more and more).
There are 'interested parties' from the Pentagon to the arms industry who have real business issues involving these things, and the power to do something about it.
Eisenhower wasn't trying to be funny when he spoke about this, and neither was FDR when his plan for for the Pentagon to be a temporary building because he said if they got a big permanent base outside the watchful eyes of elected government, they could get out of control. The idea of saying "you know, the world's political structure is probably better for the human race if we hold what we have" doesn't come up much in the meetings of the leaders.
The ironic thing is, even while I'm opposed to a lot of the power building, I'm also and perhaps more exposed to other worse regimes doing it, which can happen if we don't.
The world's power structure isn't just shaping up around regional governments, though, it's a whole lot around the big businesses, who are set to ally as the real 'world government'.
And their enemy is often democracy, who can thwart their interests, and again and again you will see measures put in place that cripple the power of elected governments.
Until we find ways to set up power to prevent nations from pursuing their 'interests' with violence, we'll likely continue to see these things happen, including form the US.
On a more dangerous note, increasingly the US's leading advantage in the world it its military, and that unfortunately may make it more likely it'll get used more.
Brovane
Diamond Member
- Dec 18, 2001
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Originally posted by: Lothar
Do you know the difference between a scud missile and an ICBM?
Yes I do. Really I was more illustrating a couple of points.
#1- Missile Defense is multi-layered and has several different parts.
#2- The improvement in the technology between the first Gulf war and the second Gulf war.
Brovane
Diamond Member
- Dec 18, 2001
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Well lets look at that. Assuming the Russian primary targets are cities.
Probably primary targets are military. They would probably have several missiles slated towards areas like Norad, Raven Rock, Nuclear Missile Bases and other high value military targets. Probably those targets would suck up a lot of the missiles if a working ABM system stopped 90% of inbound missiles. The Russians don't have the arsenal to launch 10 missiles at every target because they have to assume that that 9 of them will be stopped. Also one direct hit doesn't cause widespread destruction. One AirBurst above L.A. wouldn't automatically take out all of Southern California. Multiple warheads would be needed.
The Russians really haven't had to PLAN on our missile defense system now they do. A working ABM system makes there plans more complicated.
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