Missile Defense Test Intercepts ICBM Target, Says Pentagon (cnbc.com) 109
schwit1 quotes CNBC:
In the first test of its kind, the Pentagon on Monday carried out a "salvo" intercept of an unarmed missile soaring over the Pacific, using two interceptor missiles launched from underground silos in southern California.
Both interceptors zeroed in on the target -- a re-entry vehicle that had been launched 4,000 miles away atop an intercontinental-range missile, the Pentagon said. The first interceptor hit and destroyed the re-entry vehicle, which in an actual attack would contain a warhead. The second interceptor hit a secondary object, as expected, according to a statement by the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency.
Both interceptors zeroed in on the target -- a re-entry vehicle that had been launched 4,000 miles away atop an intercontinental-range missile, the Pentagon said. The first interceptor hit and destroyed the re-entry vehicle, which in an actual attack would contain a warhead. The second interceptor hit a secondary object, as expected, according to a statement by the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency.
This is the real game changer (Score:2)
When we are pretty sure we can live without worrying about large scale salvos of missiles between countries, I think the world will end up being a more peaceful place (in aggregate, not for all areas of course humans being what they are).
Between that and hardening agains EMP (which will happen naturally anyway at some point from solar flares) we are actually doing things that will matter on a country-wide scale.
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EMP hardening was called 'EMI interference reduction'. The USA passed it's law in 1982.
Just as an example: Recent testing shows most cars will stop when hit by an EMP. But will start right up again.
"passed its law" (Score:2)
The USA passed it's law in 1982.
Awesome! So what effects did that "law" have? What was that called again? I guess since it was passed way back in 1982 the electrical grid must be totally OK with a an EMP attack!
Or wait, maybe we can actually improve on something to make it more robust? GASP!
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Sure, you can always improve shielding, but 'good enough' is good enough.
FYI you shield electric transmission by burying it. Like we've been doing with local service for decades now.
Shielding high voltage transmission is a difficult problem.
Good enough is good until it is not (Score:2)
Shielding to protect against accidental inference with other electronics is quite a lot different than shielding to protect against something on the scale of an actual EMP attack, or Carrington event.
Sure, you can always improve shielding, but 'good enough' is good enough.
Not necessarily for an EMP attack.
FYI you shield electric transmission by burying it.
Yes you do! So you are saying there are no overhead power lines left, fantastic.
Oh wait, there are? So we could still improve that factor? Huh!
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FYI you shield electric transmission by burying it.
EMP works through electromagnetic induction. How do you propose to shield buried cables magnetically? They'll still get affected. [wikipedia.org]
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Well, to be fair, if you bury them deep enough...
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Q: What is the resistance between two points of a large solid sphere made of high resistance material?
You should have worked that question in highschool calc. Explained how 'ground' works. A: 0 Ohms.
You could have further done a little research on the engineering of buried cables. Hint: Conduit and/or grounded layers to control capacitance.
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The conductivity of the material doesn't effect eddy currents in your conceptual universe?
You need to retake fields, or take it for the first time. If you've never taken it, you should shut up now.
Re:This is the real game changer (Score:5, Informative)
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Except that even knowing all that previous attempts have failed, so in fact is is a bigger deal than you are trying to convince others of.
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Which is why for the longest time we focused on hitting ICBMs while they were still on their way up or at the top of their arc. This test is specifically to prove out having the capability to also hit the ones remaining at the end.
Even if you can kill 99% of what is launched at you before the MIRVs separate, it's still really nice to save a few more nuclear detonations by taking out what remains on it's way down at you. Otherwise, by the time you know which ones you missed, it's too late to do anything abou
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Yep, missile defense is all about layers. Ideally you have something in place to kill in boost phase, but past that kill it in ballistic arc. Then comes the last line stuff. The fun part is now missiles are including active and passive defense. Lower the warhead count and include anti anti missile drones...
The fun/scary part will be to see what the air/space force does with something like spacex's superheavy. That thing could send up quite a lot of warheads at once. And being reusable and cheap, I fore
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"Which is why for the longest time we focused on hitting ICBMs while they were still on their way up or at the top of their arc. This test is specifically to prove out having the capability to also hit the ones remaining at the end."
Huh?
This history of *serious* missile defense in the US dates to the mid-1950s, so that's about 70 years of effort. During that time we only seriously considered boost-phase attacks during a single decade starting in the mid-1980s. One can consider the actual programs:
Wizard - t
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Yes but we need to remember the reality of this 'defense' its no missile shield. China and even Russia ( they are still capable at this point but who knows for how much longer ) isn't going to send a single missile if they decide to deploy ICBMS against us.
They will fire a volley each with some number of war heads. Now yes there are treaties that we assume they have actually followed that limit the number of warheads but they could still fire or deploy from a single missile some number of dummy warheads (w
Re: This is the real game changer (Score:1, Interesting)
No one's firing a volley of ICBMs at you you paranoid idiots. For starters China owns half your shit. How are you going to pay them back the trillions of dollars you owe then if you're blown up? You know all that bullshit propaganda you're drenched in every day about how Russian and Chinese hackers are trying to destroy your way of life? That's care of the military industrial complex. They're desperately trying to reinflate the cold war boogeymen to keep you scared so they can keep stealing your tax dollars
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> How are you going to pay them back the trillions of dollars you owe then if you're blown up?
So the cost of taking out the world leading military power / bully is a few trillion of there dollars? Could sound rather cheap....
Mind you .. more fund would just be to dump your US dollar reserves on the open market and watch there country implode on it's own as there economy pulls itself to pieces
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Ferret
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You don't know the target in advance. You know where the target is going to start from and where it's going to end up, and you probably know when it's going to start. You don't know what the atmospheric conditions at the time are going to be and how they're going to affect speed and trajectory.
At the speeds that these things travel, there's no such thing as a near miss. If your interceptor explodes a couple of metres away, then by the time the explosion reaches the target's position at the time of the
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Good. Missile defences that others think might work are much better for stability than ones that host countries know will work. The defender knows they're vulnerable, so they don't do anything stupid. Potential attackers can't be sure an attack would succeed, so they don't do anything stupid either.
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No, missile defenses don't work on a strategic level opponent. If China/Russia wanted to nuke us, and wasn't sure how capable the missile defense was, they'd merely lob over 5X more missiles than they originally intended, and have them MIRVed (Multiple Independent Re-entry Vehicles). In other words, they would merely overwhelm the missile defense system. Also realize its much, much cheaper to build more missiles than a missile defense can effectively respond to. Finally, no nation has MIRVs with glide
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Yes. That's what I said. The best missile defence is one that doesn't work. If the US thinks their missile defence works, they might do something stupid. If they know it doesn't, less chance of stupid. If the Russians or Chinese or whoever don't think it works, MAD is maintained as usual. If they think it does work, for whatever reason, they're less likely to launch, not more.
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Bullshit, they simply announced what they'd done.
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Ferret
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Nope, this is a new level of stupid from the US military. Missiles are changing, they will no longer fly a ballistic trajectory because the US dropped a certain missiles treaty, so now the solution to targeting each others capital cities, is long range stealth cruise missiles, which fly close to the ground as speed and can no be currently effectively detected until it is too late, they will destroy the anti-missile system and the target is was meant to protect.
Even with ballistic missiles, only one change
Re:This is the real game changer (Score:4, Informative)
A missile defense technology is really only effective against a rogue attacker who is crazy enough not to care about retaliation. e.g. North Korea flinging a missile at the U.S. west coast. And the bigger issue moving forward will be a small terrorist organization or a nation state sneaking in a nuke via a suitcase or car, and detonating it. Uncertainty over who exactly perpetrated the attack prevents retaliation, making it the perfect means for a weaker power to attack a stronger one. Missile defense doesn't protect you from that.
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Either side could rain a salvo of missiles on the other, but neither did because they feared likewise retaliation.
Also, most people in both countries didn't actually want to be killers of millions and millions of people.
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Arguably, that was a solved problem between rational nation states. Mutually Assured Destruction kept us safe for 40 years during the Cold War. Either side could rain a salvo of missiles on the other, but neither did because they feared likewise retaliation.
We now have a different, more effective form of MAD. Instead of relying on the arguable love of a nuclear power's leader for his country, we now can rely on the love of that same leader for money. Putin, Xi Jinping, et al. are the richest people on the earth. By starting a nuclear war, they risk their money, since a decimation of the world's economy will rob them of their wealth. The intertwining of the global economy across countries makes the world safer by making the world's leaders dependent on the
Re: This is the real game changer (Score:2)
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Re:Arms race (Score:4, Insightful)
Nobody can afford to build enough to stop a massive attack.
This technology is more usefully thought of in the realm of games theory. It introduces uncertainty that completely changes the game.
As to the arms race? It's already on with China, Russia is still basically broke. They're not going to spend their vodka money on weapons.
Re:Arms race (Score:5, Informative)
One can add to these two "objections" to the Iron Dome system a third, minor quibble: It is costly in terms of dollars as well. Each Iron Dome battery costs about $100 million; Israel currently has nine batteries.
And each Iron Dome Tamir missile that Israel fires — and usually two are sent up to intercept each descending rocket — costs at least $50,000.
Each rocket Hamas fires costs $500 to $1,000 to produce. Hamas had 9,000 rockets at its disposal at the start of the recent conflict. Hezbollah reportedly has 100,000 rockets, including long-range Scuds. Do the math. How Israel might cope economically, not to mention militarily, with such a rocket deluge in a future clash is a very real problem.
- Los Angeles Times
We don't need terrorists to bring down our planes. They can just bankrupt us.
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Hence they don't shoot down the ones that are off target and smeg the launch sites hard.
At some point they will just call 'Gaza' the launch site and smeg it hard. And nobody sane will blame them.
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At some point they will just call 'Gaza' the launch site and smeg it hard. And nobody sane will blame them.
Considering that their surgical strikes seem to receive the same international condemnation as carpet-bombing would, I really do wonder what would happen if they did that. (However, I don't actually expect them to do that.)
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Your claim is the jews were shooting unguided rockets at the Germans and were righteously killed? Nazi!
Why not cool down (Score:4, Insightful)
Won't this have the effect of restarting the arms race as each power attempts to ensure they have enough ordnance to overwhelm the anti-missile capabilities
If a country like North Korea cannot possibly build enough missiles to overwhelm anti-missile capabilities of America or any NATO country, then why would they waste money on building a lot of missiles to begin with?
Over all the effect is less missiles, not more, when really good defenses exist.
Re:Why not cool down (Score:5, Interesting)
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China wants to keep Korea separated. N.K serves as a buffer zone for them. If two Koreas are democratically united, US Army base would be right at the border of their country.
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>Allies, NK has one very large ally. And it is aggressive.
The only big aggressive nation in existence today is the US. How often does China probe US airspace, hm? How many warships do they have sailing around pushing the limit on US territorial waters? How many "training exercises" do they have around the US? Do they have troops and weapons in Canada or Mexico trying to get control of them to put weapons on US borders? Every nation on earth added together isn't anywhere near the aggression shown by the U
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North Korea isn't building nukes to hit the US. They're building nukes to hit American expeditionary forces attacking North Korea. Maybe with a few left over to lob at Japan and South Korea.
Stop buying the media hype. The North Korean leadership isn't crazy. Ever since Russia built one, nukes are for self defence through deterrence. North Korea has demonstrated the ability to build them, removing invasion from the options the US can consider.
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North Korea isn't building nukes to hit the US
They say they are building them to hit the US. See for example this article [latimes.com]. There are plenty similar over the years.
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Of course they say that. It builds up their reputation in the press. See the beginning of my second paragraph: "stop buying the media hype."
If you've only got a few bombs and you actually want to nuke the US, missiles are probably the worst way to do it.
Re: Why not cool down (Score:2)
Yes, at extra slow speed. (Score:1)
Well below Russian re-entry ballistic warheads's speed, which will be at least 5x to 10x higher.
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Don't be delusional.
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delusions of genocide
Did you maybe mean grandeur? I am not aware of any genocidal ambition on the part of Putin. Its not hard to believe he might hold some idea of racial superiority but I don't see him engaging in ethnic cleansing etc.
Russia is not a failed state. Russia is a failing state; there is a difference. Broadly speaking Russia still has a working bureaucracy and government can and does enforce its laws. That said they have an economy that is increasingly becoming an petroleum/chemical mono culture in a world whe
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delusions of genocide
Did you maybe mean grandeur? I am not aware of any genocidal ambition on the part of Putin. Its not hard to believe he might hold some idea of racial superiority but I don't see him engaging in ethnic cleansing etc.
Let me introduce you to the Georgia-Russia War [wikipedia.org]. A quick and nasty little bit of Russian military intervention. They are currently preparing the war crimes trials [cnn.com] from this very short 5-day war. That's a bit quick for war crimes unless you really wanted to get rid of parts of the civilian population as a general principle. Then there is Russian takeover of Crimea and their intervention in Ukraine. I'm not sure many of the citizens of those places would agree with you. Ethnic tensions and playing on the
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Ah, "genocide" has been watered down to mean a few hundred casualties. Awesome, another word rendered useless.
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Genocide is intentional action to destroy a people. I suppose the Russians might have *intended* to invade and destroy a people but got bored after the first couple hundred.
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Every single time they fly a rocket to ISS they are testing their ICBMs, all Russian ICBM rockets are R-7 rocket based. Exactly the same rocket base used in Soyuz space craft. If they can dock on ISS ,they can deliver a nuke on your roof, probably with even better accuracy.
Decades? They build the engines and rockets bodies and launch them twice a month in the Soyuz format or launching satelites with 0.03% failure rate over 45 years. Do you really think they do not have any spare engines or bodies from R-7 r
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Every single time they fly a rocket to ISS they are testing their ICBMs, all Russian ICBM rockets are R-7 rocket based. Exactly the same rocket base used in Soyuz space craft. If they can dock on ISS ,they can deliver a nuke on your roof, probably with even better accuracy.
Um, the R-7 design really isn't that practical as an ICBM. It uses LOX, which means it has to be fueled up right before launch. Sure, it may have originally been designed as one, but everyone quickly realized that hypergolic storable propellants were far better suited to that job.
When was the last test? (Score:2)
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The US regularly conducts missile tests, both from land based solos and submarines. There is typically one or two launches a year to verify operational readiness. The missiles used are pulled from active service, have their warheads replaced with dummies, and fired at Kwajalein.
Cat and mouse game. (Score:2)
While it's good that they can intercept ICBMs, I suspect the only thing this will accomplish is spurring the development of anti-interception ICBMs. Naturally, development on anti-anti-interception ICMBs. The perpetual development of intercept and anti-intercept technology will continue back and forth ad nauseam.
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Well, if the Russians claim they are uninterceptible, then then they must be. The Russians always tell the truth.
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While it's good that they can intercept ICBMs, I suspect the only thing this will accomplish is spurring the development of anti-interception ICBMs. Naturally, development on anti-anti-interception ICMBs. The perpetual development of intercept and anti-intercept technology will continue back and forth ad nauseam.
Too late...Multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles [wikipedia.org]
Yeah, now try intercepting 4000 of them, at the sa (Score:2)
Yeah, now try intercepting a salvo of 4000 of them, at the same time, each with multiple separate warheads. Heck, try to intercept even a few dozen. This is a very asymmetric problem that's very unlikely to be solved to any kind of satisfactory degree.
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There won't be a salvo of 4000. Outer edge of plausibility might be 100 or so, from only the large players (who aren't going to be doing it). Intercepting 25% will save *millions of American lives*, 50% tens of millions. Is that what you are objecting to?
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> might be 100 or so, from
Assuming this scenario for a moment....
That's enough warheads to drop 3 on the 30 largest cities in the US.
The system has no capability to shoot down this many. This is doubly true because anyone able to launch that many will also launch hundreds of high-quality decoys that the system is unable to distinguish (as opposed to low quality ones from other nations)
Because of the overkill on those targets, shooting down even the majority of them will have almost zero effect on the out
More twaddle (Score:2)
"In the first test of its kind, the Pentagon on Monday carried out a "salvo" intercept of an unarmed missile soaring over the Pacific, using two interceptor missiles launched from underground silos in southern California."
Really? = http://www.whiteeagleaerospace.com/sprint-salvo-launch-2/
Really really? - http://erasgone.blogspot.com/2012/09/how-remote-army-post-in-pacific-helped.html