US Missle Interceptor Tests a Success

An anonymous reader writes to mention that the U.S. Missile Defense Agency and Lockheed Martin recently reported success in the test flight of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system. "THAAD is designed to defend U.S. troops, allied forces, population centers and critical infrastructure against short- to intermediate range ballistic missiles. THAAD comprises a fire control and communications system, interceptors, launchers and a radar. The THAAD interceptor uses hit-to-kill technology to destroy targets, and is the only weapon system that engages threat ballistic missiles at both endo- and exo-atmospheric altitudes."

Mission Accomplished?

[cashman73]

Obligatory.

Re:

[Nutty_Irishman]

Somehow the idea of Bush telling North Korea to Bring 'em on [cnn.com] is rather unsettling.

Re:

[cashman73]

Try telling that to the Commander-in-Chief. Apparently, being only partially done with something is enough for him to declare success,... ;-)

Re:

[mi]

How about the mission defined in the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq, defend the security interests of the US from the threat in Iraq?

That's done too. Iraqi Army, which used to threaten our aircraft patrolling North (Kurds) and South (Shia) of the country, is disbanded. The threat to our allies in the region (Kuwait, Israel, Saudi Arabia) is gone too, thank you very much...

... hottest threat center in the world, probably part of Greater Iran.

Iran now has 100+K American troops next to it,

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[Danse]

but -- I repeat -- the original military mission of defeating the enemy's armed forces was accomplished...

That's just semantics. We rolled in and defeated their military in a matter of days. Except we actually didn't since a bunch of them ran off and became part of an insurgency that has hooked up with other like-minded folks and has been wreaking havoc for the last couple of years now, and which we are no closer to defeating now than we were then. Saying we defeated their military is absolutely meaningless when our people are getting blown up daily by guys with guns and bombs. So what if their formal military is gone, they have something much more effective now, obviously.

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[CajunArson]

> independent event, therefore they have nothing to do with each other and you can't add up their probablities.

Take a coin with a 50/50 chance of turning up heads. Each flip is independent of all the others. Now, what is the chance that for 100 flips EVERY flip will come up tails with 0 flips coming up heads?
    (0.5) ^ 100 = 7.8 * 10^-31 (0 for any chance this side of hell of not getting a heads)

If the chance of a hit is only 5% (meaning a miss is 95%):
      (0.95) ^ 100 = 0.0059205292203339975 (0.59% chance of a miss, or about a 99.4% chance of a hit)

Killing the missile only requires 1 hit. The parent may be optimistic in some ways, but he is completely right with his figures, and you need to go back to probability 101.

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[SnowZero]

Dear statistically challenged: 1-(1-0.05)^100 ~= 0.994 = 99.4%

because each defensive rocket they fire is an indepedent event, therefore they have nothing to do with each other and you can't add up their probablities.

Yeah, that's why you multiply them [wikipedia.org].

The likelihood of each of those rockets successfully destroy the incoming missile is 5%, and they can all fail at the same point as each other.

So, now you are saying they aren't independent? A sentence earlier you claimed they were.

So, in the end, the chance to stop the incoming missile is only 5%.

I await your assumptions and calculation that comes up with this result. Then we can discuss it.

There's nothing wrong with not knowing something, but there is something wrong when you try to spread your incorrect view. I suggest taking a stats class, or sitting down with a book, and learning.

it's an advancement,

[User 956]

The THAAD interceptor uses hit-to-kill technology to destroy targets

This is far superior to the "miss-to-kill" technology they were employing in previous models.

Translation

[everphilski]

It uses kinetic energy to destroy a target (1/2 * m * v**2), no explosives onboard.

Not to kill a good joke...

[Quila]

But that's as opposed to proximity detonation.

Re:

[ZachPruckowski]

This is far superior to the "miss-to-kill" technology they were employing in previous models.

Which in turn beat the crap out of the "hit-to-annoy" technology used before that.

Re:

[nsayer]

Ha ha, but "hit-to-kill" is in contrast, for example, to the current generation of TOW missiles, which try to fly just over a tank and explode directly above it. That is, they intentionally try to "miss" the target so that they can deploy blast energy at a more vulnerable location of the target.

Not anymore.

[Kadin2048]

I thought that the President had basically annulled that treaty, by saying that it was with a country that no longer exists, and thus is not in force anymore (or something like that).

If you look on the top of the page you linked to, it says "The State Department web site below is a permanent electronic archive of information released prior to January 20, 2001. Please see www.state.gov for material released since President George W. Bush took office on that date."

A quick Google search reveals that the U.S. dumped the 1972 ABM treaty in December of 2001 [cnn.com].

There are a lot of things that I take issue with Bush for, but this frankly isn't one of them; I've always been of a mind that it's lunacy to prevent nations from defending themselves. If the world is getting dangerous because of ICBMs, maybe that should be the focus of restrictions, not systems that protect from them. But then again, I've never been down with the whole "MAD" concept in general.

Re:

[shawn(at)fsu]

I've never been down with the whole "MAD" concept in general.
I think MAD only works when both sides are somewhat rational and realize how much they stand to lose. It is foreseeable that all your opponents will not be so rations or won't have as much to lose as an entire nation/state. Say what you will about the US vs USSR in the cold war but at least both sides had sence enough to keep it a cold war.

Re:Not anymore.

[s20451]

Of course the united states would never go for this as nuclear weapons are big business. so basically we're screwed.

Yes. Only the United States is to blame. India, Israel, the UK, and France would gladly give up their nukes because the only thing they are afraid of is an American attack.

Re:Not anymore.

[mi]

The current nuclear powers should disarm and the united nations should resolve that the mere development, construction or preperation to construct or develop nuclear weapons is itself a crime against humanity. Nuclear weapons should be utterly understood by all concerned to be off the table.

Why? They have their uses and are not that inhumane — supposedly, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings have taken less lives, than the weeks of conventional bombings before them (something like 150K lives per night is allegedly attributable to the latter).

And they ended the war, possibly several months earlier...

Today, for another example, using "tactical" nukes to bust Iran's nuclear-research bunkers would, likely, be quite efficient and kill fewer people than any alternative... It would, of course, be a political barrel of worms with anti-Americans world wide screaming their heads off (I wish they did!), but in cold blooded objectivity, it would be rather beneficial for all concerned, including Iranians (tough love and all).

It should be patently obvious to virtually anyone that a nuclear arms race is utterly immoral.

Arms race is just a part of the general race (technological, cultural, scientific). There is nothing particularly immoral about it. Killing people sucks (and is often immoral), but it sucks even more to be killed — or seeing someone dear being killed...

Re:

[Kadin2048]

I've been to Hiroshima. I've seen what's left of the Industrial Promtion Hall (so clean, it's eerie...). I heard a survivor recount how flesh peeled from people's bodies, the black rain that burned, wounds that didn't bleed but wouldn't heal. Anybody who thinks atomic bombs are "humane" has some serious functional difficulties, and literacy isn't even at the top of the list.

Ever seen napalm? White phosphorous? Thermite? They'll all melt the flesh off your bones, too, and more people met their ends that way,

With good reason

[everphilski]

In the next few years, there are more countries than just Russia that we will have to be worried about defending ourselves from ... the treaty covered our whole ABM defense system, regardless of the fact that other threats might emerge.

Re:

[Cadallin]

It gives people a false sense of security, that's why its dangerous and a bad idea. Also certain kinds of defense systems are inherently dangerous. For example, there was a joke about a "miss to kill" targeting system. You could actually do that, using airburst nukes to try and take out your opponents missiles in the upper atmosphere, however it should be obvious what the inherent dangers with such a system would be.

But back to my original point. Missile defense systems encourage the use of Nuclear

Re:Not anymore.

[Martin Blank]

You should read your own link more carefully.

President Bush said Thursday the United States has notified Russia that it intends to pull out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, starting a six-month timetable for withdrawal and opening the way for the creation of an anti-missile defense system.

He did not annul the treaty, but rather went through the process detailed in the treaty for withdrawing from it by providing six months of notice to the president of Russia. He went on to say that the Soviet Union and the hostility that it had towards the United States no longer existed, and so the ABM had become a hindrance to new threats, losing its value.

Re:

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> He went on to say that the Soviet Union and the hostility that it
> had towards the United States no longer existed

What a slap in the face to Putin, eh, in spite of his best efforts!

Re:

[Greyfox]

Yeah except that it's another red herring that lulls us into a false sense of security. None of the guys currently developing nuclear weapons will use a missile to deliver them to the USA. For one thing they'll nuke Israel, India, South Korea or Pakistan. For another, even if they DID want to nuke the USA they'd put the "device" on a shipping container on a boat, not on a long range missile.

The MAD concept, as insane as it was, worked rather nicely. If either side thought they could survive a nuclear exch

Re:

[Nutria]

For one thing they'll nuke Israel, India, South Korea or Pakistan.

That's why we've installed Patriot batteries in Japan and Israel. (I would not be surprised if they are also in ROK, but they have more to worry from massed artillery 20KM from Seoul.)

This world is so economically interconnected that an attack on Japan, ROK or Taiwan (and even Israel) would in essence be a attack on America and the EU that would hurt them more than you can probably imagine.

Re:

[EtherealStrife]

Reminds me of how a previous leader basically annulled the Treaty of Versailles, before going on a global war against the infidels, and those who threatened his nation. His name escapes me. He too saw the limitations placed on his country's defenses as lunacy. Déjà vu.

Re:

[that this is not und]

That isn't actually how it started. The really 'big' shooting started after this leader you speak of reached a mutual non-aggression treaty with Russia in which the two parties essentially agreed to divide Poland between them. Then this leader invaded Poland, which drew the Allies into war in defense of Poland.

(Later, Russia became one of the 'good guys' kinda-sorta. But they kept Poland in the end. And they got away with a lot more. Since they were among the 'winners,' camera crews didn't roll into th

Re:

[baldass_newbie]

not if you are from palestine

Bull. Palestinians have been on the Knesset (whereas the PLO didn't even have an elected body until after Arafat died.)
Also, the Palis had trade and stores, etc. until the homicidal amongst them got them removed from most of Israeli society.
But Palis could vote and own land. In fact, until Iraq the only place Arabs had ever been democratically elected in the Middle East was in Israel.

Re:

[homer_ca]

The thing is, regular explosives don't make a big enough boom to take out a missile by getting close. We had working interceptor missiles in the 60's, but they had nuclear warheads which made guidance a much easier problem.

And nuclear weapons

[Ungrounded Lightning]

This is far superior to the "miss-to-kill" technology they were employing in previous models

Joke all you want, but that's what we've actually been doing. Didn't anybody ever tell you that close counts with hand grenades?

And nuclear weapons.

Which, unfortunately, was exactly the "big boom" "kinda close" that had been contemplated in some previous ABM designs.

After all, if it has blossomed, MIRV style, into a cloud of decoys and multiple real nuclear bombs on independent trajectories, spread out by quite a bi

Re:

[Rommsey]

There are multiple stages in the flight of a ballistic missile for which you can target it. The layered system the US is working towards designing and implementing aims to cover launch, boost, orbit, and re-entry phases of flight.

that too

[r00t]

Choosing just one option would be suicidal.

We can use hit-to-kill like THAAD. We can use ground lasers, orbiting lasers, and airborne lasers. We can use sabotage of the enemy equiment, physically or by screwing up the software. We can use diplomacy. We can use the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. We can have a sneaky sniper on enemy territory shoot an ICBM right at launch -- a hole in the boost rocket will do the job. We can use an X-ray laser. We can use economics as both carrot and stick. We can export o

IT'S SPELT MISSILE

[Anonymous Coward]

download Firefox and you'll see the big fucking red line /spelling nazi

Whoa, Dude!

[DittoBox]

THAAD is RAADical!!

Sorry, very poor taste in pun choices there.

Re:

[harp2812]

THAAD is not a pun.

In fact, THAAD has no sense of humor whatsoever. THAAD is not amused.

New arms race?

[caitriona81]

Now the question is whether this will just be a defense against missile threats from rogue states, or the start of another arms race. How long before we start to see missiles with the kind of sophisticated countermeasures against interception that military aircraft have against missile threats?

Re:New arms race?

[Dunbal]

Now the question is whether this will just be a defense against missile threats from rogue states

      The system works on short and intermediate range missiles - the kind presumably launched from submarines.

      The arms race isn't new - it's an ongoing thing if you have an army. The only option is to do away with it to get out of the race. But if you're a large nation with many useful resources - stuff other people might want - you're stuck in the race.

      Still the danger here is if you (temporarily) have a way to avoid taking damage from an enemy, that makes it MORE likely that you will strike with less hesitation. Frankly I look forward to the day that this technology can be defeated. A little fear and hesitation is good for foreign policy once in a while. It begets respect.

Re:New arms race?

[jfengel]

That may have been true with respect to Mutually Assured Destruction, but I think that this is aimed more at modern asymmetrical warfare. These days the US doesn't really fear massive barrages from the Soviet Union or China as much as it fears a single missile from North Korea or Iran with a nuclear warhead. Something which can inflict tens of thousands of casualties.

Response to such an event would be difficult. To prevent it from happening again we'd have to inflict massive, disproportionate damage on the enemy, thus incurring truly epic international hatred. We wouldn't even be 100% certain of being able to identify the enemy.

This throws the balances of MAD out of whack. I can actually believe North Korea would try such a thing and believe they could get away with it. It knows that the first thing China would do is insist that the US take no retaliation, and back it up with real MAD. Shooting down that one missile (or at least making North Korea believe we could) dramatically reduces the risk.

(Note: I'm not an expert in international relations. There are plenty of people who would say that the US is busily making the world a more dangerous place, and has been since before our latest Iraq debacle. I'm just trying to explain the actions in terms of our own perceptions. "Truth", if there is such a thing, may well differ.)

Re:

[Dunbal]

I'm not an expert in international relations.

      That was cute: Don't worry, looking back at history I'd say there is *no such thing* as an "expert in international relations" ;)

Re:New arms race?

[Martin Blank]

Submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) are not intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) from a technical sense, and usually not from a practical sense, either. Trident missiles used by the US and UK have a range of 12,000km, more than double the maximum range used by the State Department when describing IRBMs. Russia has used SLBMs with ranges of 7000km or more (up to about 8000km) since the early 1960s). Only the French and Chinese field SLBMs with ranges that fall within the State Dept's definition of an IRBM (3000km-5500km).

THAAD is intended for use against tactical weapons, such as those that might be deployed over a theater. Mixing eras, it would be used against weapons with V-1 and V-2 missile ranges. It's also far less expensive (and apparently far more effective within its given role) than the more well-known ABM system, and will be complementary to the eventual deployment of the ABL, which itself sort of straddles the divide, being dependent more on the curvature of the earth than anything else for its range.

Re:New arms race?

[megaditto]

No, this is convincingly aimed at the rogue states (with 1-2 missiles), and not at, say Russia or China.

That's because the system is nearly impossible to scale up or upgrade effectively, and it is very vulnerable to countermeasures.

Therefore, there's simply no reason for the arms race.

Re:New arms race?

[Jack9]

There is no question as the technology is perhaps the worst kind. A lucrative defense contract that produced a system that doesnt work in real world scenarios. Are you so misled by a defense contractor's press release to ask a followup question or are you being sarcastic?

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/about_us/Dr_David_Suzuk i/Article_Archives/weekly07250301.asp [davidsuzuki.org] to give you a high school primer on the physics of distance vs speed, which is noticeably independent of the targetting concerns. We wont hear about this until the system " unfortunately fails to counter" a simple rocket launched from a truck somewhere near Washington D.C.

"If you build a missile defense that is so fragile almost anything an adversary does will cause it to collapse, then you invite a weak adversary to (attack)" - Theodore A. Postol

Re:

[tsotha]

Okay, first of all your link doesn't support your argument at all. Suzuki is talking about boost phase interception, which is a whole different kettle of fish. You can't really use missiles for boost phase interception unless they're stationed in orbit. And why do you say this technology is "the worst kind"? Technology isn't good or bad, it just is. Pretty much every first-world country plus China and India is doing ballistic missile defense research - we would be foolish not to.

THAAD isn't designed t

Re:

[Cyberax]

How about NOW?

New Russian rockets can maneuver in three dimensions and deploy decoys. And I'm not even speaking about multiple warheads on each rocket.

Re:

[RxScram]

National Organization for Women?

Re:

[dbIII]

Now the question is whether this will just be a defense against missile threats from rogue states, or the start of another arms race.

Good point - Israel needs something to stop twenty year old surplus Iranian missiles hitting them becuase their home grown space laser mentioned here just before the recent war doesn't really work.

Re:

[twiddlingbits]

That technology already exists and has for decades. Dummy warheads, faked heat signatures, electronic countermeasures and others exist as defenses to the ABMs. THAAD has counter-counter-measures built into the terminal phase package. Countermeasures and how to defeat them are some of the most sensitive aspects of any missile program. THAAD has been around for about 15 yrs now, and is just getting to the testing stage.At one time, back in the mid-90's I worked on this program for about 6 months designed sim

Sounds great but...

[common middle name]

...how many tracking devices was the "target" running so that the projectile could find it and hit it? I really don't think enemy missiles will do the equivalent of waving a banner and screaming "Hey defense system! I'm right here!"

Re:

[peragrin]

They have worked out most of the bugs now, so it only has one device that goes Ping I'm over here every second. Unlike the earlier test which had a GPS receiver in the target transmitting position data to the anti-missile missile.

Re:Sounds great but...

[kaiser423]

That's actually how the THAAD tests work. Same with Aegis, and the GMD (ground-based on the coast).

They use nothing but the actual hardware that's in the field. No special stuff to track the target. This is actually a working, real-world style system. Typically, they put the operator on alert for a couple of days or a week (at least in Aegis tests), and they fire it sometime during that window without notifying anyone. They also usually fire a couple of other missiles at the cruiser (well, near misses) that the crew also has to destroy while launching their interceptor.

It's a neat, nearly totally mature capability and it is currently a real deterrent.

Re:

[Hawthorne01]

Then that would be a test of the radar warning and alert mechnisms, not the missile tracking and guidance, wouldn't it? Those can and do exist independent of each other.

Let me guess

[nightsweat]

They strapped a thirty ton magnet to the missile with bright flashing light and had it fly 40 mph? Naaaah. I'm sure the test wasn't rigged. The military would NEVER do that.

Re:

[Lord_Slepnir]

The first time anything worked, the test had to be a bit rigged. Now it's a test to see if another 60 billion can get us to hit a missile without the flashing light

Re:

[GroeFaZ]

First of all, you can't tell this time (not from TFA at least).
Second, yes they have done that before. But who would expect such a complex system to work on the first attempt? Who in his sane mind would even _try_ to get it all right on the first attempt?

If you have ever written a fairly complex program, i.e. one that provides work for several code monkeys, one that has an actually recognizable and useful architecture, one that does what it's supposed to do, then you know this is the way to go. You test

did they change the name?

[fred fleenblat]

It used to be Theater High Altitude Area Defense.

Re:did they change the name?

[User 956]

It used to be Theater High Altitude Area Defense.

When President Camacho is elected, it will be changed to "Totally Huge Awesome Area Defense".

Brought to you by Carl's Jr.

THAAD?

[brouski]

Is that better than THAC0?

Whew...

[Lord_Slepnir]

At first, I was thinking "Great, now all we can defend ourselves against all of those ICBMs that Al-Queda has laying around". But then I realized that there are countries that don't have the luxury of having a few thousand miles of ocean between them and their enemies. I think this technology would be great if deployed to South Korea, Japan, Tiawan, or Isreal. Nothing says "Screw you, Kim" like a system to completely nullify the technology that he's spent years and an equivalent of about his entire country's GDP to develop. Or a note from the IDF to hezbollah: "Can you please stop shooting missiles at us? I'm getting tired of re-loading the launcher".

Re:Whew...

[kfg]

I realized that there are countries that don't have the luxury of having a few thousand miles of ocean between them and their enemies.

Tell me about it. I can damn near see Canada from here.

KFG

Re:

[bwy]

Both THAAD and Aegis BMD systems are designed to be forward deployed to the parts of the world that you mention.

Re:

[GroeFaZ]

"Can you please stop shooting missiles at us? I'm getting tired of re-loading the launcher".

Except that shooting smart defensive rockets probably costs anywhere between 1 and 3 orders of magnitude more money than shooting those dumb, yet quite accurate, nearly home-made Hezbollah missiles, not to mention that the defender has to slack off only once to let one slip.

Re:

[Thundersnatch]

The problem is, of course, that a terroist organization would never deliver a nuclear weapon via missile. They would slip it ashore via boat, truck, or maybe in a small aircraft. Al Qeada would love to pop off a nuke in the port of Los Angeles, only to have us nuke Pakistan or N. Korea in retaliation.

During the cold war, the Soviets had a number of man-portable nukes designed to be smuggled into the lands of the "Primary Adversary" (USA) and detonated as a first strike. I recall a film in which the Directo

Re:

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Missle interceptors have a shaky history though. It is very, very hard. Even Ronald Regan acknowledged that it would be very difficult and possibly take several decades to get right. So far, it's been a boondoggle.

The initial euphoria over the Patriot missle system wasn't backed up by anything that showed it to be worthwhile, most analyses showed it to not have much benefit, I think many showed it caused more problems than it solved because the fragments of the SCUD + Patriot was worse than the damage th

Re:Whew...

[YrWrstNtmr]

The threat from North Korea TO South Korea, yes.
The threat to Japan, Hawaii, or maybe even Alaska or Seattle is another matter. Why do you think Kim has been trying to shoot those missiles out into the Pacific? Not much success so far, but he may get it to work eventually.

Re:Whew...

[Lord_Slepnir]

Conventional artillery takes a while to do it's work. Not to mention that South Korea probably has a ton of counter-battery artillery trained on every known artillery park within range of Seoul. A nuclear tipped missile, however, can flatten a city with only a few minutes notice, and it's likely that (If the North Korean military is smart) there are no stationary launch sites; When the word comes, a tractor-trailer will drive out of a mountain tunnel somewhere north near the border with China, shoot, and then retreat.

On top of that, there's a huge psychological effect that a nuclear bomb carrys that conventional attacks don't. Every schoolchild knows about the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Few know about the fire bombings on Dresden, even though more people were killed that night than in both Atomic bombings combined.

Re:

[moosesocks]

I remember reading somewhere that North Korea has enough artillery pointed at Seoul to do some serious damage to the city in a matter of minutes, before any sort of counterattack could be initiated.

If NK strikes first, South Korea largest city (the world's second-largest) is effectively helpless.

The threat isn't ICBM

[aepervius]

ICBM, or even Balistic or even simple missile is one thing. A city buster transported by conventional means (hidden in a truck, in a wood crate, in a car, or in a plane or whatever does not look like a threat) is another. THAAD might be interresting for theater of operation, or even zone like israel where hezbollah terrorist use katuschia rocket daily (used to?), but a determined nation with nuclear capability, can certainly in an insane moment flatten any city in the world with a bit of time and a convent

Missle ???

[Salsaman]

Is that the American word for "missile" or something ?

Next up....

[Lord_Slepnir]

Hezbollah has announced they have developed an anti-anti-missile missile. "Take that, you zionist pigs!" said one spokesman. Currently Lockheed Martin is developing an anti-anti-anti-missile-missile missile to counter this new threat.

Re:

[Lord_Slepnir]

Crap. "anti-anti-missile missile" should be "anti-anti-missile-missile missile", and "anti-anti-anti-missile-missile missile" should be "anti-anti-anti-missile-missile-missile missile". Preview next time, slep. Preview.

Re:

[istartedi]

If I win an anti-anti-anti-missile-missile missile in a contest, what are the taxes on it? [slashdot.org]

Testing for more testing, not for use...

[RyanFenton]

From TFA:

'Lockheed Martin's program manager and vice president for the THAAD program... "On the expansive range at PMRF, the THAAD missile can fly greater distances, increasing our testing options and creating a realistic tactical environment"'

The article seems to indicate that this testing is not to allow for use, but to allow for further testing. This wasn't the "prove it works" test, but rather the "we could possibly get it to work" test.

I'm personally against the political use of such systems - it defeats the progress we've made in terms of MAD over the REAL threats to humanity in terms of nuclear weapons - politicians are already eager enough to justify use of weapons when in "this new terrorist era" or whatnot. But if it DOES work, and it does save lives, then it's development is still a net good - I'd just still be against deployment until we have direct evidence it would be necessary to save humanity. I'd much rather put 10000 times the effort into not needing such a tool, rather than spend all our efforts on a new arms race.

Ryan Fenton

Re:Testing for more testing, not for use...

[kaiser423]

No, it actually means that out on white Sands they could only shoot short-range targets. They hit those regularly. Out in the ocean by Hawaii they can shoot much longer range missiles since it's not flying over land, so they're testing the mid-range capabilities and those are working also.

White Sands proved that they could shoot down short range missiles, and the PMRF testing is ensuring that they can hit medium range missiles. It's just another step. Now they'll try more complex geometries. But the test was nearly 100% valid as a real-world training exercise. The system works now; they're not saying "we could make it work." They're saying that it just did.

Re:Testing for more testing, not for use...

[Ironsides]

it defeats the progress we've made in terms of MAD over the REAL threats to humanity in terms of nuclear weapons

MAD became obsolete the moment an opponent showed up that didn't care whether they lived or died so long as you didn't survive. It was useful against the USSR and China, but not against anyone that we would not qualify as 'sane'.

Re:

[RyanFenton]

...and not everyone would consider terrorists to be any more of a threat today than they have ever been, over the history of humanity. Terrorists are the same as any crazy person in any nation, just with a new label. Any crazy person could get ahold of a nuclear weapon - that's always a threat. Should we start another arms race on the thought that a random crazy person (terrorist) could get ahold of one? I say that we should make it a priority to STOP such escalation, rather than pile ever-larger parano

Re:Testing for more testing, not for use...

[frogstar_robot]

MAD became obsolete the moment an opponent showed up that didn't care whether they lived or died so long as you didn't survive. It was useful against the USSR and China, but not against anyone that we would not qualify as 'sane'.

These people who blow up themselves up in markets and crash airplanes are mostly sexually frustrated, indoctrinated young hotheads. The older ones writing the checks and ranting and raving in these madrassas can damn well be threatened. Anyone who has enough loot to develop or buy nukes doesn't want to die either. Those who would sell nukes are also accessible to threats. I think we are being faked out by the militant muslim world to some extent. If they can get us thinking of them as maddog bomb throwing lunatics who could do anything then they've more than half won already. Look how much milage they got out of that stupid cartoon. Incidentally, Old Yeller tells us what the correct answer is when faced with a mad dog.

All that said, I'm not some jingoistic idiot. We were incorrect to invade Iraq but we were correct to attack the Taliban. Notice the lengths Osama goes to stay alive or at least indeterminately dead? That hosebag doesn't want to die. I have no doubt that the Ayatollah of Iran has plenty of kamikazes just itching to man the planes but the leadership of that country doesn't want to die either.

Re:

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I don't remember MAD arms race with China. The closest was a conventional war through intermediaries in Korea.

But you make a good point there because a lot of the violence that gets noticed now is very much the kamikaze type.

old news....aired on...

[MoFoQ]

old news...I watched it in action on "Future Weapons" on Discovery Channel last night....and that was a rerun (it aired last Monday night as a new episode).

Star Wars...

[Sri Ramkrishna]

So Ronald Reagan finally got his Star Wars technology eh? Queue the Star Wars music!

sri

Re:

[0racle]

It's A Trap!

The article fails to mention...

[Codename46]

whether or not the system can defend against the recently developed random-trajectory missile [slashdot.org] developed by Russia.

Re:

[DerekLyons]

whether or not the system can defend against the recently developed random-trajectory missile [slashdot.org] developed by Russia.

And of course the article you linked to fails to mention whether or not the subject missile is real - or yet another Russian paper tiger.

Since the fall of the USSR, Russia has steadily released a lot of power points with various grandiose weapons, space accomplishments, etc... etc... All of the having essentially a snowballs chance of ever seeing the light of day.

Re:

[Monkeyman334]

I am looking up articles on this missile, and I don't get it. Is it a ballistic missile or not? If it's a ballistic missile, then it has a more or less predictable path. If it could change direction significantly (start flying back up into the sky, or even go level), then that's more of a cruise missile and probably couldn't be countered with an anti ballistic missile battery. Instead, a regular air to air/surface to air missile would be used.

If they haven't more info than "we have a missile that can't be c

Re:

[j. andrew rogers]

The guidance package on THAAD is capable of homing on extremely agile targets, as it is a variant of the same intelligent imaging based homing software that is used in a myriad of other weapon systems e.g. the AIM-9X Sidewinder used for air-to-air combat. Unlike many other targets this family of guidance package has a close to perfect intercept probability on, a long-range ballistic missile is not particularly agile. If the rocket motor can deliver, the guidance package certainly can.

A "random trajectory"

Re:

[Laur]

(not that we've made heat-seeking missiles in ages)

AIM-9s and later versions are still in production and active use. I know that there are other infrared tracking missiles, but that was the first one that came to mind.

New Name..

[rjpear]

Originally the System was "My name is Earl"..but NBC filed suit... Next was the "iThaad" but Apple had that... (And I think Cisco had that first...depending on what lawyer you talk to).. So now we are stuck with Thaad. They were going to paint it Brown and call it "Thune"... but the marketing folks at Lockheed thought a Brown "Thune" would be fiscal disaster even the pentagon wouldn't go for...

What exactly did they test successfully?

[rrohbeck]

The flight test met all objectives, including demonstrating the integration of the radar, launcher, fire control and communications and interceptor operations; demonstrating radar and interceptor discrimination; and target acquisition and tracking by the interceptor's seeker.

Somehow I can't find "we hit the target" among all the blurb. All it says is "we flew a missile and it performed as expected."
You just have to set the right expectations.

Missle?

[Artifex]

Obviously, someone managed to shoot an i out with the thing.

Re:

[YrWrstNtmr]

A few quibbles with this "test":

Look at any similar development. The air-to-air missile, for instance. The standard AIM-9 has gone through many, many improvements over the years. None worked perfectly, in all realms, against all countermeasures, the very first shot.
Get it to actually 'hit' the target first, then work on the other parts.

Another quibble

[LotsOfPhil]

It seems like cruise missiles (which aren't ballistic) do a lot of damage. This would not bother a cruise missile.

Re:

[YrWrstNtmr]

This would not bother a cruise missile.

And cruise missiles are much harder and expensive to deploy and have a shorter range. That this is not perfect against any and all types of threats does not make it useless.

Re:

[Ironsides]

* Was there just one incoming target? Why? Even KJI can afford a few dozen missles.

One target, one missile. Why use more than one when you are still testing 1:1 first?

* Was the approximate time and direction of the threat known?

The humans knew it, the computer didn't until after launch.

* Any decoys deployed by the intruder? Why not?

Does any missile currently use a decoy?

* How large an area can it protect before the angle-off becomes unmanageable?

That's called the "range" of the defense sy

Re:

[Martin Blank]

Does any missile currently use a decoy?

In deployment, no, but Russia was playing with them a couple of years ago. It was probably more of a response to the GMD system than any real threat to deploy, since they could (and would) instead launch hundreds of missiles, overwhelming any possible defense.

Re:

[Ironsides]

instead launch hundreds of missiles, overwhelming any possible defense.

Correction. Overwhelm and current defense. Ideally (realistically?), once the system is developed the cost of the individual interceptor missiles would be cheap enough such that one could have one (or more) for each incoming missile.

Re:

[Dionysos Taltos]

I suggest you review the entire program [mda.mil] before you ask further irrelevant questions about the THAAD test. THAAD is just one part of the entire program. Specifically, look at Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS).

Re:

[Shaolas]

This sort of reasoning always bugs me with missile defense. The "it's a waste of money if it doesnt stop every possible thing in the world right now, oh and slice and dice and juelienne." Its about building a capability over time, you start with one capability and then add more. You integrate additional systems, like the PAC3, Aegis, X-Band radar in the Adac etc. And you gain a capability over time. For instance we already shoot down theater missiles very well, its called a PAC3. We right now have the

Re:

[Kandenshi]

How does this help against low-trajectory ICBM's, sub-launched IRBM's, or cruise missles, all capable of carrying sizeable WMD's?

Clearly there's a reason[maybe 'cause I'm a big dumb Canuck] why no one else seems to worry about it, so why don't one of you supersmart slashdotters explain this to me... :D

How expensive is a civilian-type ship, capable of crossing the pacific ocean? Something big enough that it could carry a medium-sized nuke. I'm not talking something able to take out LA or San Francisc

Re:

[YrWrstNtmr]

why is it ok for us to have these missiles, but not ok for other countries?

Who says they can't?

Re:

[frogstar_robot]

Who says they can't?

No one does. It's just that they are hideously expensive to develop and twenty years on we still don't have all that much to show for it. Faced with an effective ABM system, one answer is to simply overwhelm it with massive numbers of real and decoy missiles. The sheer weight of missiles that the Soviets could throw at us made even developing an ABM system a fairly crazy thing to do. Someone like Kim Jong Il isn't going to have huge numbers of missiles for quite a long time. A f

Re:

[trongey]

why is it ok for us to have these missiles, but not ok for other countries?

We're bigger and stronger than the other countries. It's kind of like you and your lunch money during middle school.

Re:

[stevesliva]

What happens when countries figure out they can launch debris into space .. creating a hostile LEO for everything from spy satellites to civilian stuff.

Nothing, so far. It's another MAD scenario. And if it did happen, countermeasures such as using earth-based lasers to slow the debris down would be developed much faster.

Re:

[drpimp]

Your assuming they don't hit them ALL. But you are right in the aspect that it's sort of a crap shoot when it comes to this kind of tech. I expect you have a better answer to stopping these kinds of missile attacks correct? (An invisible force field??) I mean seriously they could spend a shitload of money ***TRYING*** to come up with a solution to a REAL potential problem, OR save a shitload of money and just wait and see if the missles actually hit their targets if and when it happens. It's like wearing a