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Laser Shoots Down Artillery Shell In Flight
An anonymous reader writes "The Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser is a joint project between the US Army and the Israeli Defense Ministry, with much of the work being done by TRW. Tuesday they had a spectacular success when they shot an artillery shell out of the air."
They make it sound as if an artillary shell is a HARDER taregt to hit than a rocket. Rockets accelerate, tumble, and move erratically. Artillery shells move in well understood, computable trajectories. They probably had the damn flight path of the shell computed before they fired it. It's one thing to shoot down a shell when you know it's path ahead of time, another entirely to get a fix on an unknown, erratic rocket and destroy it.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Shells don't kill (many) people by ballistic momentum, they kill mostly through shrapnel.
That said, raining shrapnel from the sky could still be dangerous, but it would land short of the original target. So just overshoot?
It'd also be useful in Afghanistan right now, where every so often somebody tries to lob a mortar round or rocket into a US camp. They don't lob a huge salvo (e.g. a Katyusha launcher might be tough to hide from the drones, satellites, manned aircraft, patrols...) but one could do some damage if they improved their accuracy or just got lucky enough. The ability to zap 'em would be nice.
Israel... yes, they're probably expecting more Katyushas c/o Hezbollah, and all the mortars that the Palestinians technically agreed not to have, but do have anyway.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Nope. This isn't _Star Trek_...
(1) To feed people, first you need to wipe out the bastards using food as a weapon -- a real problem in many conflict zones. Mogadishu, anyone? Recall what happened when the lightly-armed UN handed out food? It got seized by the militias. In other places, it'd be the government that'd confiscate the food.
(2) Your peace is not their peace. Radical Islamists want the world to be Moslem. Some others would prefer there to be NO Moslems. Some prefer equality of opportunity, while others prefer equality of poverty. Some want a modern world, while others will only be happy with a Year Zero Khmer Rouge-style approach. You can't make them all happy, simultaneously.
At any given point in history, probably a large portion of the human population is Thoroughly Pissed Off. Are you going to tell them to just completely change their value systems and surrender?
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
This wasn't rigged. Everyone was told ahead of time that the target missle had a GPS receiver on the warhead as well as a C-band beacon.
Just because the unfairness was pre-published doesn't mean the test had scientific validity.
The purpose of the test was not in acquisition and tracking, but in the kill vehicle technology
That's plenty difficult, but easy compared to the target identification problem. A chain is as strong as its weakest link. There's still no plan for how the acquistion can work and not be defeated by simplistic countermeasures. Without that, the high speed missile impacts are worthless.
(Ok, not quite worthless- there is one EASY way to solve the detection problem: give up on kinetic kill, and just load the anti-missile missile with an atomic warhead. You don't need to worry about which fragment contains the enemy bomb if you can just liquify everything in a 10km radius. For some reason, the Pentagon hasn't wanted to take this plan to the American public...)
Honestly, peoples hostility to this program in current time has me baffled.
What's so odd about an fighting an expensive program that'll never work?
Regardless of if the TBM can work mechanically (kinetic kill) and tactically (satellite detection of launch), there's no way it will work strategically.
Scenario 0: Terrorists. A small, well funded group acquires an atomic warhead. Either they're supplied by an "axis of evil" state, or they loot one from a under-defended Russian bunker. Now they've got 600 lbs of pure destructive power- why bother attaching it to a missile, which is expensive, risky, error-prone, and open to detection- when they can simply carry it into their target city with an SUV / powerboat / Cessna? If they did launch a nuclear ICBM, a pair of Tridents would glaze the entire originating nation before the first mushroom cloud has faded.
Scenario 1: Nation. A large country developes nukes and strikes the US. For each warhead, they fly out 3 dummy missles and maybe mix in some MIRV technology as well. The dummies can be cheap, they don't even need real guidance. Remember, atomic weapons are NOT kinetic-kill. You can (conventionally) explode the rocket in midflight, or otherwise jink and be evasive, without reducing your destructive power. (Accuracy doesn't matter with a 50 megaton bomb). As long as the first bomb is detonated anywhere with line-of-sight to US defensive sensors/satellites, it will disrupt enough radar to make cover for the rest.
Any nation big enough to build & fire a few ICBMs is also big enough to make enough dummies to swamp any TBM defense system. (Our existing atomic warheads provide a strong deterrent protection, of course)
Scenario 2: A lone madman. Some lunatic gets hold of a Russian missile silo, and on the spur of the moment fires a warhead at NYC.
This is the only place where the TBM plan could concievably help, and its so unlikely compared to the other scenarios that its hard to argue that TBM is cost effective. (Unless you think the expenditure would help the economy, which is actually likely). But much better would be to solve scenario 0 & 2 at the same time, by reducing nuclear proliferation worldwide. I won't get into the steps to do that- there's two well-documented approaches, neither one attractive to the American mood.
I recognize Americas (as much as any nations) right to arm itself as well as it can. But I don't see overwhelming strength, used at will against other nations, as a long term path to world peace.
America, and Americans, have a responsibilty to the world. The world can use a cop. But we've all seen bad cops.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
Just because the laser has essentially a limitless range doesn't mean the targeting systems do. Remember, the precision needed for hitting a specified target increases as the square of the distance between the laser and the target does. The curvature of the earth also presents difficulties when targets are at far distances. For every mile the target is away, the laser must be 25 feet higher in the air than the object targetted. This essentially precludes ground based long range attacks. The mounting of the laser on an aircraft presents even more difficulties in getting accuracy and precision out of the targeting system due to the movement of the aircraft.
Ah yes, and the Wright brothers failed because their flyer wasn't a 747 or a Concorde.
Get real. You develop a complicated system a piece at a time and you test the pieces as you develop them. You bring several pieces together in a "technology demonstrator" and then, maybe, just maybe, you move on to a prototype and only if that works do you develop a fieldable system. You are using the criteria for a multiple fieldable systems to criticize the demonstration of a component and, on top of that, you are criticizing said system because it may not be able to do something its not intended to do. Shheeeessh. I suppose you also don't like seatbelts in your car because they won't save your sorry behind if someone fires an anti-tank missle at you.
I haven't heard a single missle defense person claim we're safe now. We're just a little further down the road to maybe developing a system that might be able to keep us safe from a specific threat.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
"Solution, low altitude cheap drone cruise missiles..."
You can't get any cheaper than an artillery shell. That's why they are used so widely all over the world. The eqipment is far more rugged and battle tested than any drone to be fielded. Pipe dreams of rapid deployable cruise missile-like weapons are nice, but right now, they're pipe dreams for all but the largest of nations. And even those nations are going to stick with artillery. For the simple fact that it's simple to use and can be rapidly deployed. Maybe someday somebody will come up with the RPG of missile drones (simple to use, advanced AI with decent target recognition on the cheap for use in the rugged third world? Don't hold your breath), but you'll never be able to put more cheap drones into the air faster than I can saturate the area with artillery. Your point about decoys is probably the simplest, best bet, but I'm assuming target discrimination will improve as well. It's the same old game of move, counter-move over an over.
Blackmail. Make the cost of using the lasers too high. An example, they use overt lasers, you use covert biologicals in their civilian sectors. They use space, you contaminate their water in a major city. They use B-2's, you use a dozen or a hundred guys with bic lighters one night. They steal your natural resources when you are a small weak country, you ally with a strong non allied country and promise them 1/2 your resources for help. They do economic sanctions, you make their economic infrastructure non functional, the "backhoe whoops" syndrome, or code red part deux.
Just because you may be able to accomplish your objective by other means doesn't render a specific technology/strategy and/or weapons platform automatically irrelevant as you seem to be implying. In fact, it's the same argument you hear opposing ballistic missile shields. "Well hot damn. They may protect us from ICBMs, but they can still sneak a nuke in across the boarders, therefore a missile shield is completely useless!"
I've always found that particular leap of logic astounding, personally. I can wage war by other means, therefore, that particular defense is useless. No, wrong, BS. Every one of your counter arguments are great, until you add the statement, "but so can your enemy." Fighting the unlimited dirty war you propose against a well armed, well financed opponent will earn you a massive ration of shit in a hurry, no matter who the opponent is. Sure. Nerve gas a city. You just signalled your willing to fight a no holds barred campaign. Your well financed opponent will likely get a lot nastier rather than pliable as you seem to hope. Contaminate Frances major water supplies. It'll hurt them, sure, but mark my words they will get a handle on the situation on come gunning for whatever weak-assed organization that launched the attack. Yes, even France.
On a side note, check out David Drake and his Hammer's Slammers series. He fleshes out anti-artillery and guide artillery systems quite well in his works.
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