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US Missile Shield already Defeated?
Anonymous Coward writes "Forbes is reporting that although interest in the missile defense system has waned while the US military addresses more pressing matters of immediate concern, the Russians have already developed an anti-missile-defense missile designed to defeat the system. Were the US military to actually prove that the missile defense shield worked, the Russian rocket's "zig-zag" flightpath taken en route to it's target would render the shield useless. Russian President Vladimir Putin says that the non-ballistic trajectory would leave the projectile virtually impossible to down or divert. The author feels inclined to say that the missile defense shield was intended as a defense against rogue states such as North Korea that have not acquired this technology yet."
Well since this is like the second attempt at creating this missle defense system, why dont we wait till version 3.0 comes out. I am sure they will have a patch to cover this scenario, but then we will discover that through a buffer over run you will be able to defeat the system.
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But hasn't the shield failed to even stop missiles when their trajectory is known before th test even starts? I think that this is one of those things that is simply too difficult a task to make work under battle conditions. At least for now...
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All we need now is an Anti-Anti-Anti-Missile-Missile to shoot down their Anti-Anti-Missile-Missile.
the missle defense system arent we already going to be in big trouble. I hardly think that a first strike today would only consist of ICBM launched from across the globe. If effective it would only help minimize damage.
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Were the US military to actually prove that the missile defense shield worked, the Russian rocket's "zig-zag" flightpath taken en route to it's target would render the shield useless.
Welcome to the game. If you build a better mousetrap, someone will come up with a better mouse. This will then force someone to come up with an even better mousetrap, and so repeats the cycle.
Personally, I'd much rather have the technology than not. As long as the technology exists, it can be improved upon. Perhaps to the level where the zig-zag isn't good enough. Perhaps we'll reach a parity whereby we'll be able to stop 50% or more of any anti-shield equipped missile. We won't know unless we try. And every bit of progress drops one more small threat out of the equation, leaving us free to concentrate of the big threats.
The alternative is to throw up your hands and give up.
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Why don't we just not go around pissing off other countries?
It'd be easier than spending all this money on trying to perfect something that people will always find a way around.
Not to sound too critical, but this Russian rocket zig-zag pattern is done on purpose right, not because of bad engineering and poor quality construction?
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
It will be a suitcase bomb delivered by a madman.
Star Wars is just toys for the boys and pork barrel contracts.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
What I've never been able to figure out, is why are we trying to get a missle that can hit another missle? That is HARD. Laying aside the question as to whether the entire system is a good idea or not, why not design an EMP-based weapon that will detonate NEAR the other missle? Nukes are complex and can't detonate without some sort of computer running the show. Instead of trying to detonate the missle (and spreading its radioactive payload all over the place) it seems like it would be better to kill the computer and keep the weapon confined to its impact crater.
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OK, so who owns the freakin' IP on sharks with freakin' lasers on their heads? Whoever does will win this little pissing contest... sharks with lasers > zig-zag missiles, no doubt.
No - but they have subs. Missle plus sub is a bad thing.
The simple fact is that the shield was NEVER built to defend against the Russians. When it is finally completely deployed, it MIGHT be sufficient to give some protection against the Chineese because they don't have 5000 warheads... And they had something like 18 missles - though I think they are building that number up some as the US proceeds with buliding it's defense.
So - it is mostly against the "rogue" state.
The other thing that people don't realize is that this is a system of systems. There are several levels of defense that are being worked on.
The Aegis cruiser now can be upgraded for theater missle defense (and it has a fair test record.) this is a fielded system.
Then there is the Airborne Laser sytem (big 747 with BIG laser) that is used to knock out things in the buster phase. (Still very much a technology under development.)
Finally - Patriots have been upgraded to do a better job than they did during Desert Storm, and actually also have a decent test record.
Have you compiled your kernel today??
As our Tow, Dragon, and Tomohawk systems use to avoid being shot down on their way to the target. And they're right- there ain't no defense against it YET.
I can think up a possible defense, but it'd be rather nasty on the environment- large microwave generators at a high enough power broadcasting a cone that cooks the electronics of any missile within range, thus making evasive missiles purely ballistic. But like I say- it'd also be cooking birds, wildlife, destabilizing the Ozone Layer.....
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Shooting down a ballistic missile that you fire is hard enough. The scale of the problems is immense. They're trying to shoot down an object that is somewhere in 10 billion cubic miles of space, that's going as fast as 15,000 miles per hour. The physics of the problem are near impossible for graceful newtonian arcs, let alone the engineering of such a feat. The solution to the problem is such a tenuous single state solution that adding any other factors (zig-zagging missiles, decoy missiles, or something as expected as slight shift in air density) make the task functionally impossible, given the little or no warning that a nuclear missile attack tends to arrive with.
And yet the vast majority of Russia lives in poverty.
It's good they've built a better mouse. That's what the people need. *note sarcasm*
Anyone find any numbers on what these "zig-zagging" missiles cost to develop? Anyone else sick of seeing countries burn money on defense while their people starve?
What it's come down to is simply Fruedian penis...err...missile envy.
My work here is dung.
...is that the Russians are running their mouths about their nuclear capabilities again. To channel the president, the best defense against Russian missiles is a democratic Russia.
Russia really is not the problem. If Russia decides it wants to nuke the US, the US is getting nuked. End of story. Sure, a missile defense system might blunt the blow a little, but the truth is there is no good way to stop a few thousand nukes. If Russia bites, it is going to hurt. Both nations are going to end in a nuclear cloud.
The real danger is that North Korea or Iran scraps something together that can just barely make it to the US. Then, through political instability, fanaticism, or provocation they lob a few nukes at the US. Such nukes would probably just barely be able to reach the US, and certainly would not have any fancy zig-zagging capabilities. In such a case a missile defense shield would be a damn nice thing to have, even if it can't stop a full Russian assault.
The real issue is cost / benefit. What are the chances that a nation is going to develop such fanatical fever that it thinks nuking the US and promptly getting glassed over in response is a good idea? The US position on nukes is pretty clear. Nuke us, and we are going to glass you, so it isn't like they are going to be confused by the response.
It would be nice to throw a few dollars at it and have technology waiting in the wings should we need it or should it ever become cost effective. If I could get an effective ballistics defense system for the cost of an aircraft carrier, I would merrily be all over that. If it is going to cost a fleet of air craft carriers, I am far less enthusiastic. A defensive weapon in the arsenal is nice, but not if it takes Apollo like time and effort to achieve it.
I would like to see low level funding of a ballistics defense system. I do not want to kludge together a half-working system at massive expense. Work towards getting the technology ready should it be needed, but don't go all out building an elaborate defense system that is massively expensive and only kinda-sorta works until there is a clear threat.
I doubt a rogue state would use missiles. Why spend a few billion on a fancy missile system when you can drive the nuke over the border, fly it over in a cargo jet, or float it over in a shipping container?
Besides, missiles are very visible and give away the country of origin. If North Korea fires a nuclear tipped missile, we'll know exactly where it took off and respond accordingly. If it comes over quietly, we really won't know exactly who sent it.
From the Fine Synopsis, they zig-zag through, obviously... ;-)
So... if you can get through the curtain by zig-zagging, would it be more accurately called an "Iron Venetian Blind"?
It would be relatively simple and cheap to overwhelm the system with much cheaper drones. Star wars has been and always will be about economics. In the early 80s it was about bankrupting the Soviets, as well as giving us an extra chip to play with in disarmament negotiations that they did not have. Now it's about a President who is faced with an amazingly complex foriegn affairs landscape, and wishes to deal with it in a simplistic way (while making defense contractors rich).
"Our nuclear threat will not be coming to us in the nose-cone of an SS-20, it will come to us in a Ryder Truck" - Me discussing missle defense on the Bernie Ward show 9/10/2001
He did not want the US/Canada to develop a missle shield to begin with. Then says his rockets can do somersaults at will to dodge tracking missles...
Develop the laser based missle defense and forego trying to knock one out with another missle.
Of course, the missle shield never worked anyway, for a simple reason, decoy missles.
t m
The idea is that the missle defence 'kill vehicle' will launch after it has been confirmed a rogue nation has launched a missle against the US (or North America), and will hunt down and intercept it. The difficult is *not* actually hitting the target, which has been accomplished, but knowing which one the real target is.
Obviously, any nation sending nukes against the states would send decoy ones as well. As Theodore Postol (an expert on missle defence) recently said in a speech at McGill, not sending nukes would be like making a tank without armor, assuming the enemy doesn't have anti-tank weapons.
Even the most up to date missle defence technology really doesn't have a good way of differentiating nukes from fakes, if we don't know what the fake would look like in advance.
More info here: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0902-03.h
All this complex tech doesn't stop a fanatic with a backpack nuke in a major city....
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Regardless of whether it is a good idea to have an effective ABM system in place, the technology will work. The rocket problems (which are a decade past due) are eventually being worked out, as several unrelated weapon systems are dependent on the same rocket technology working correctly. The question is not whether it can work (it can) but whether or not deploying and maintaining a comprehensive ABM system is worth the expenditure, which it may not be. The money spent on the guidance package is widely reused, and the rocket technology is slated to replace many existing rocket powered systems, once they work out the kinks. In that respect, the military research has not been a waste as the primary components are or will be used in many other places. The new ABM systems they are testing have very little relation, either in design or technology, to the old existing systems; most of current "ABM missiles" like the Patriot are anti-aircraft systems where they hacked the software to hopefully hit missiles outside the original design envelope.
This really should be a policy and fiscal argument, not a technology argument, as the technology will eventually work as originally designed. The argument that there is something fundamentally wrong with the design is a loser and poorly informed, but a much stronger argument can be made about the mission of such a weapon system.
Wouldn't the laser equipped 747 still be able to nail something like this? And why are we going for a ballistic anti-missile system and not a laser one? http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/01/12/airborne.las er/index.html
We can retaliate, but this idea that we can "glass their a$$" if they nuke us is just false. We may, and may is really strong word, be able to drop a tactical nuke. But that is about it.
Why would we not just wipe them out, you ask? Because we do not have "limited theater nuclear weapons." That's the fancy term for "we cannot stop the fallout from moving." So if NK attacks and we just send in one ICBM, we will spread fallout over NK, Japan and China. NK - well they got what they asked for. Japan - they are an ally and we would be really sorry. China -- well they are going to look at this about the way we would if China nuked Mexico (assuming Mexico deserved it), and Texas became a wasteland.
The middle east? Just as bad. Nuke Syria and you are going to glass a bunch of desert and poison a lot of people. These will then become terrorists of tomorrow (or freedom fighters depending on your view). On top of which Israel would be drawn in, they would use a nuke or two and suddenly you can get all the oil for free but you need a lead suit to fill up at the pump.
In reality, if they get one to us, they would hurt us big. Not because they would win the war (the knew that would not happen), but they would ruin the economy. Look at post 9-11 economics, four buildings and 2600 people die (very bad). It took two years to get the economy back and we could go to ground zero that afternoon. Now imagine 9-11b where Los Angeles is uninhabitable for even 5 years and having to move 7 million people to other areas of the country.
As someone said on the Sunday talk show circuit, we have to be right 100% of the time, without creating a prison for our population. They only have to get it right once.
I see a lot of knocks against Russian engineering in here from people who obviously don't study history or current events. Russian engineers are some of the most creative and imaginative in the world and some of the things being turned out by their aerospace industry currently is top-notch. Don't forget we're riding their "junk" into space and their new Sukohi fighters are the match of anything we have with the possible exception of the F-22 Raptor... and the Sukohis are cheaper. If you have any doubts about the ultimate capability of vast quantity over quality just ask anyone living in Berlin in 1945.
Regardless... never doubt the capabilities of Russian equipment when they have the resources and the guy turning the wrench actually reads the blue prints.
Historical revisionism at it's finest! When Reagan proposed the v1.0 missile defense, the USSR/Eastern Bloc was the only potential enemy. Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden were allies back then. Who else might Reagan have had in mind?
So - it is mostly against the "rogue" state.At least that is the current excuse. Much like the justification for the invasion of Iraq, I expect that the rationale will change as circumstances require
The other thing that people don't realize is that this is a system of systems. There are several levels of defense that are being worked on.The fundamental issue is still the same: how to shoot down a bullet with another bullet. It doesn't matter how many layers of abstraction you have, it never becomes any less complex than that. The physics of the problem suggest that the best way to stop a missile from landing is for it not to be launched in the first place. I don't see Bush pressing for disarmament though.
Besides, a missile is an expensive and complex toy. There are much simpler and cheaper ways to launch a nuclear attack. Some people in this thread have suggested a suitcase bomb. It would be much easier to utilize cargo containers as a delivery mechanism.
Patriots have been upgraded to do a better job than they did during Desert Storm,Well, it wouldn't take much:
The field-test results of what is currently available has not been encouraging. There are failures even with advance knowledge of the exact trajectory of a slow-moving target missile...
I think it has more to do with corporate welfare than actual defense. Defence department cronies get tons of federal cash and nobody really expects to see a finished product. They just have to rig up an an impressive looking prototype from time to time.
It's a bad combination - cronyism and PR.
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
Why not use an EMP to knock missles out of the air?
1. Hard to get a big enough EMP (unless you're using nukes - see below).
2. Biological warheads are still very dangerous even without any sort of electronic system in the head.
3. Not needed - the missle shield is already effective when you realize that we'll be putting nuclear warheads on the anti-missle missles.
There are too many easy ways to defeat the shield - another really easy choice is to drop dummies all over the place (like missle command, except only a few are live - and you don't know which ones). Balloons can be used to distract targetting too. I went to a pretty convincing talk about this at the Hopkins Physics department.
No, the only way it can be effective is to have nuclear-tipped missles, and they know that. They're just getting us ready for it slowly. "Oh, it worked, but now they have this, so we'll need to use nukes. And we've already spent $183947374984 on it, after all."
--LWM
Tell me again why one of these rogue states would bother with a very complex, and very visible, ballastic missile system when they could simply send it to the US in a cargo container? Maybe it can't get past the dock (which is hardly a given), but it would still cause immense immediate and economic damage to blow one in a busy port.
For that matter, blowing it a few miles offshore would still be enough to cause extreme civil disorder and economic chaos.
Finally, don't forget that launching a missile makes it clear who launched the missile... and invites massive US retaliation. A cargo container leaves a lot of doubt.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
While your point is a good one, it's not what Bush has in mind, no doubt. Likely the American people will never get a straight answer, just as we haven't from this administration for any number of borderline or flagrantly illegal or stupid acts. My guess is that the "extraordinary act" that Bush would be most likely to cite is a combination of 9/11 and "rogue states with WMDs" even though it's pretty clear that neither of these would really apply to this treaty. The major reason for this is probably to allow the Bush camp to pursue their true dream of authorizing the use of so-called "tactical nukes". I must admit I don't know much about the ABM Treaty, but I'm willing to bet it has some more of those pesky international statutes that get in the way of Bush authorizing low-grade nuke strikes against anyone he pleases. Remeber, the department of DEFENSE has been in the business of OFFENSE for decades. Don't look to the defensive reasons (possibly functional missle shield) for these changes in policy, look to the offensive reasons (better war toys). There you will find the true motivations.
Just my gut feeling from the way everything else has been spun and twisted by this administration. As the grandparent post said, please correct me if I'm wrong.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
Welcome to the game. If you build a better mousetrap, someone will come up with a better mouse. This will then force someone to come up with an even better mousetrap, and so repeats the cycle.
But building a better mousetrap is rather difficult, which is why we have the saying about it.
The problem is that this "cycle" is so overwhelmingly stacked in favor of the attacker that treating it like some kind of treadmill you just have to have the dedication to stay on is foolhardy and doomed to fail. The problem of disabling an incoming missle is inherently orders of magnitude more difficult than the problem of landing a missle in the vicinity of a target.
It's always been this way in the battle between attack and defense. Knights' armor was easily penetrated by the English longbow. Once the cannon was invented, the reign of the castle ended almost overnight. Or look at a modern day example: The M1A1 Abrams, with all that technology first deployed in the 90s, has pretty good survivability against should-carried infantry weapons invented in the 60s, or cobbled-together explosives made in some insurgent's garage. Against a similarly modern weapon system, like an A-10's cannon, that super-advanced armor might as well not be there for how easily it is breached.
The way you stop a nuclear missle assault is not with a techonological shield that can never keep up due to its inherent disadvantage. You do it with psychology -- make the opponent not want to launch the missle. This is the basis for MAD, and it has been proven to be effective. Unlike this missle defence shield which fails even the most optimistic of tests rigged in its favor.
The sad part is that for the only enemy against whom MAD won't work -- rogue terrorist groups not tied to a nation they don't want to see remodelled into a glass parking lot -- are also the ones against whom missle defense will never work either, because they won't use missles.
The only benefit of a "missle defense shield" is that it keeps military contractors employeed and makes people who don't want to think too hard about this kind of thing anyway feel safe. Worth every penny, if you ask me!
The enemies of Democracy are
and build a fucking great bullet proof dome
come on US, do it, build a giant bubble and lock yourselves in
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Read up on where the Ruskies have been spending their defense dollars. Functional anti-ABM missiles is very possible.
Sunburn/moskit/Brahmos http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russi a/moskit.htm
The 3M82 "Mosquito" missiles have the fastest flying speed among all antiship missiles in today's world. It reaches Mach 3 at a high altitude and its maximum low-altitude speed is M2.2, triple the speed of the American Harpoon. The missile takes only 2 minutes to cover its full range and manufacturers state that 1-2 missiles could incapacitate a destroyer while 1-5 missiles could sink a 20000 ton merchantman. An extended range missile, 9M80E is now available.
http://www.sinodefence.com/missile/antiship/3m80.a spThe missile is armed with a conventional 300 kg penetrating warhead containing 150 kg of high explosive, or (in the Russian Navy) a 200 kiloton nuclear warhead. Even with a conventional warhead, 3M-80E missile is large enough so that one hit from a single missile could seriously damage or possibly even sink a U.S. Navy major surface combatant, a hit from one or possibly even a few conventionally-armed Moskit missiles might not be enough to halt flight operations on a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier because of the carrier's much larger size and its high degree of compartmentalization. A nuclear-armed 3M-80E Moskit, however, could easily destroy a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier (and any other nearby ships), even if the warhead detonates at some distance from the carrier.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/india /brahmos.htmIndia expects to significantly enhance its long-range strike abilities with the BrahMos cruise missile, jointly developed by New Delhi and Moscow. The supersonic missile -- which derives its name from the Brahmaputra and Moscow rivers in both countries - has a range of almost 300 km and is designed for use with land, sea and aerial platforms. The Indian Air Force (IAF) is reportedly considering the possibility of fitting the BrahMos on its Su-30 combat jets. The production will commence by end of 2003 for induction in the year 2004.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/2005/04/16/stories/20050 41602941400.htmBrahMos is essentially an anti-ship supersonic cruise missile that flies at a speed of 2.8 to 3 Mach (2.8 to three times the speed of sound). It can take out targets 290 km away.
http://www.brahmos.com/Brahmos web page SS-27 / Topol-M / RS-12M(1|2) http://www.missilethreat.com/missiles/ss-27_russia .htmlhe Russian SS-27, or Topol-M, is an intercontinental-range, ground-based, solid propellant ballistic missile. It represents the pinnacle of ballistic missile technology, incorporating modern fuel and warhead designs, as well as being capable of being launched from both missile silos and Transporter-Erector-Launcher (TEL) vehicles. Current Russian accounts stress that the SS-27 is invulnerable to any modern anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defenses. Yuriy Solomonov, director of the Moscow Institute of Heat Technology and designer-general of the Topol family of missiles, has stated that the SS-27 will be the foundation of the Russian strategic nuclear arsenal by 2015.
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/icbm/rt-2pmu. htmThe single-warhead RT-2UTTH Topol-M is an advanced version of the silo-based and mobile Topol intercontinental ballistic missile. The SS-25 Topol is generally similar to the American Minuteman-2, while the more sophisticated SS-27 Topol-M is comparabl
How much is going to be spent on an anti-anti-missile-defense missile missile and the anti- anti-anti-missile-defense-missile-missile-missile?
One more program an anti truck bomb missile
North Korea's subs are based on technology from the mid to late 1950s, specifically the Soviet Romeo and Whiskey classes and some possibly from the Foxtrot. These were in turn derived from the German type XXI u-boat which was deployed in the last days of WWII. The basic design is over 50 years old. How many of these subs are even capable of operating is a matter of some conjecture but that they lack fuel for even basic training operations is well known. Add to the fact that the North Koreans have no experience whatsoever at handling missiles on a sub at sea. Although they could of course if it was "Hollywood Style", but whether that would work even as a one off is debatable.
To put just how far the US is ahead, even China's "top of the line" subs which are nuclear are on technology from the 1960s are so far behind the US that we apparently do not assign attack subs to follow them full time as we did to Russian subs during the cold war. They can be found easily at any time, case in point: US subs have followed Soviet/Russian SSBNs for thier entire patrols (90+ days without being detected), read Blind Man's Bluff for a fascinating overview of US Sub operations & espionage.
The methods are only good against specific types of target, so any kind of cruise missile is going to get straight through an anti ballistic missile system. Drones and "intelligent" self-controlling vehicles will also go right through. Of course, this all assumes anyone would use a missile. Why bother, when a robot with tracks - dropped near the coast - could drive itself to its target? The DARPA contest proved quite nicely that robots can handle just about any terrain and go from A to B without the need for human intervention.
The "correct" design needs a combination of mechanisms. I would put a visible light camera, thermal camera and RADAR on the anti-missile missile, as the combination will defeat just about any jamming mechanism and - because you're tracking directly - would not rely on guesswork on trajectory, would not be specific to a type of target. I'd also have two airborne tracking systems, which the missile could direct, to maximise information available and minimise the risk of failure in any one component.
Such a system would need to also be designed with maximum manoeverability in mind. Winglets, steering jets, whatever it took to be able to turn the thing quickly in any direction. You'd also need to take a lot of space up with the computer needed to be able to handle all of the navigation and prediction. For that reason, I'd probably go with a ramjet over a rocket, to reduce the space needed for fuel. (To start the ramjet, you'd use a gas cannon to give you the initial velocity needed.)
If you designed a system this way, it should be fairly effective against any kind of attack - EXCEPT ones involving EMP (as it would wipe the computer systems) OR ones that were travelling so fast that convergence was impossible within the range of the sensors (hydrogen-fuelled ramjets can go up to mach 6, but the hypersonic system being tested by the USAF is supposed to do mach 20 and the Australian scramjet status is completely unknown - other than it works).
"But our enemies don't have US-built systems!" Uhh, a certain Osama Bin Laden was supplied with US weapon systems, as was Saddam Hussein. Not all US allies are terribly careful with who they sell to, either. It is not sane to assume the best possible case for a system that is designed specifically for the worst possible scenario. If you are already assuming that you're in the worst of all possible worlds, don't deliberately weaken the scenario for the sole purpose of artificially reducing the problem to something that looks good to the ignorant but won't do anything for you in practice.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
and invites massive US retaliation. A cargo container leaves a lot of doubt.
Bush however will probably find a way to blame it on Saddam. Or maybe Iran, if that support his agenda better.