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Space Wars
There have been lots of interesting stories recently about the US's growing reliance on satellites to control gee-whiz weaponry and provide detailed real-time images to battlefield commanders. MSNBC has a story on the military's growing bandwidth crunch. The AP has a story about how many other nations are putting up their own spy and communications satellites, suggesting that the US edge in space imagery might disappear (unless we start shooting other satellites down, of course). And Bruce Sterling has a fun story in Wired (fun in writing style, not in its implications) suggesting that we're entering an age of Pax Americana, where the US military is so dominant that competitors exist only at our sufferance (though that might not stop people from trying).
The reason that the program won't be done for a long time is that as far as publicly released information goes, we have only had one successful attempt to shoot down a fake ICBM and this was with a missle that was sending out a HOMING SIGNAL. I doubt the enemy will be so courteous. Also, modern ICBMs, unlike the dummy ICBMs, have many countermeasures to prevent missles from shooting them down. We are not currently prepared to deal with these countermeasures including :
This is some information on a treaty from 1983 which prohibits use of force against satellites and also prohibits using satellites to shoot at the earth.
0xB
And NASA has had bad luck with a new TDRS satellite.
0xB
This is a little geo-centric, but if you live in Seattle (and I'm sure there are a bunch of Redmond folk reading this, right? :) then you should check out a freee, open lecture tomorrow night. Here are the details:
The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Regime. (Part of the lecture series "Open Classroom on International Law and Arms Control). 5:30-6:20pm in Kane Hall 220. Speaker: Ambassador Thomas Graham, Jr., Executive Director of the Lawyers Alliance for World Security. Sponsor: Institute for Global and Regional Security Studies.
I went to the first in the series last week, it was a brief history of nonproliferation treaties in the world. It was extremely interesting, and extremely pertinent to this article.
Ha! When I read that I couldn't help but chuckle... here in Canada it is a FACT that the US basically tells us whether we are allowed to launch a new satelitte or not.
For example, when Canada wanted to launch the RADARSAT 3, which would give the Canadian military a resolution about 5 times LESS than the current estimated US imagery resolution, they had to bargain with the US gvt before launching.
By the way, I am pretty confident that the US WOULD start "shooting other satellites down" if the need be.
So in other words, Americans need not fear, as long as their mighty guns are near!
"The scientist describes what is; The engineer creates what never was." - Theodore von Karman
The US has already developed an anti-satelite missile, launched by an F-15 in a steep climb. Not sure if it's still part of the ready arsenal, but I'm sure it could be if necessary.
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
IIRC the treaty to outlaw weapons in space partly came about when the USSR in the late '60's came up with a new form of ICBM flight path called FOBS (Fractional Orbit Bombardment System).
Instead of following a ballistic trajectory, the warhead was put into a low orbit from which it descended to the target. It never actually completed an orbit (hence Fractional), but just used an orbital path.
The downside was inferior accuracy, I think a smaller warhead and longer flight time. The up-side was that it (a) gave far less warning time than a ballistic trajector (b) could be launched in any directon and hence could come into the US behind the DEW line.
I believe it gave US strategic planners fits at the time...
I might be worried, except the EU can barely operate cohesively now. Entropy always increases--they'll be squabbling like a bunch of horny teenage boys over a Playboy in 10 years (or less).
The EU already has traitors in their midst economically. The end result of that debate will be quite interesting.
If you want to get a look at what an EU military would look like, keep an eye on the UN's military endeavors.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
imagine if a foreign country went after our other satellites? Boom, no more cell phone, no more tv, no more satellite internet. You could seriously harm a nation's communications by targeting their satellites. Also, it is not just consumer end stuff, but much of the backbone of the communications go through satellites.
...And through ground-based fiber, and through microwave relays (all those metal towers in the middle of nowhere that you drive past).
Satellites are very useful for sending _small_ amounts of information over long distances to destinations that are relatively isolated. High-bandwidth communications to/from densely populated and well-connected areas don't go through satellites.
Knocking out microwave relay communications would require either a host of *insanely* powerful jammers orbiting overhead, or far more sticks of dynamite than is likely to be practical.
Knocking out fiber communications would involve taking out all of the fiber routing nodes on the continent, or cutting an insanely large number of backbone cables.
Taking out satellites isn't a cakewalk either (it only takes a box of nails, but the box has to be very high up and positioned to within a few metres).
In summary, I think the lower levels of the US's communications network are robust enough to survive virtually all practical attacks (if an enemy can wipe out the communications infrastructure, we have bigger problems than just losing communications).
While the article mentioned is interesting this idea is nothing new.
Paul Kennedy, the man who wrote "The Rise & Fall of the Great Powers" has a much more interesting & Thought pervoking article then the article supplied.
The article can be found here.
A quote:
"But that conclusion is almost beside the point. The larger lesson - and one stupifying to the Russian and Chinese military, worrying to the Indians, and disturbing to proponents of a common European defence policy - is that in military terms there is only one [America] player on the field that counts."
"....Nothing has ever existed like this disparity of power; nothing. I have returned to all of the comparative defence spending and military personnel statistics over the past five hundred years that I compiled in The RISE AND FALL OF The GREAT POWERS, and no other nation comes close."
I *highly* recommend people read it even if you dont agree its an interesting read.
So these bullpup guns are bad, and the M16 type design is good? Okay...but when why is the FN-P90, a bullpup design, replacing the MP5 (an M16-type weapon) in the US Airforce (don't know about Army)?
I actually don't see why you'd need to point the muzzle away from your target during reloading. Depending how you hold the weapon, it seems that it would be sometimes easier to reload while pointing forward, and sometimes more difficult, than the M16. Likewise, assuming a good design, I don't see why you'd need two hands, or more time. Lying down to fire (sorry, in the rest of the world we understand the distinction between a verb and a past participle) would seem to be easier, since you've got no magazine hanging out the bottom and can streamline the gun against your shoulder. And once again, assuming a decent design, I can't see why you'd need to expose more head and shoulders when firing around a corner. You don't have to hold the weapon against your shoulder to fire.
I've seen these things used very competently by actors. I'd be surprised if real soldiers had more difficulty with them, despite more strenous and difficult circumstances.
You also forgot to mention that bullpup designs have longer muzzles, greater magazine capacity and are generally more lightweight. For example, compare the P90 to the M16. The P90 weighs 3.0 kg loaded, has a 50-round magazine and a muzzle velocity of 715 m/s unless subsonic rounds are required, where a 304 m/s bullet can be used. It has a cyclic rate of fire of 900 rpm and its 5.56 mm rounds can piece level-3 body armour at 200 m with a maximum range of 400 m. It's also extremely easy to clean (four minutes), has a built-in supressor and laser site.
The M16 weighs 3.99 kg loaded, has a 30-round magazine and a muzzle velocity of 853 m/s. Its cyclic rate of fire is 800 rpm and its 5.56 mm rounds have a maximum range of 360 m despite its greater muzzle velocity (I couldn't find the effective range in the time I felt like spending). As is also fairly obvious, the M16 is a very long and bulky weapon (a metre long), while the P90 is compact and streamlined and precisely half the length.
I was under the impression that these weapons were used under different circumstances. One is a rifle, the other a submachinegun. Nonetheless, you could check your facts before applying gross generalisations. Your entire post comes across "patriotic" rubbish demonstrating an arrogant Usian viewpoint that might is right. Everyone knows the US has the most advanced military force in the world, and most people realise that this does not always guarantee victory. Why are you getting so uptight trying to prove it does? Is a country's worth measured by its firepower?
s'not.
sorry.
Germany wants to do more, France wants to scupper any Nato/EU tie-ins.
France is only slightly more organized about fighting wars than Italy.