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."

Comments

Mission Accomplished?

[cashman73]

Obligatory.

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[dcskier]

not so much. from tfa, this is only one part of the Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS).

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[Anonymous Coward]

Want to bet it only works 5% or less of the time.

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[cashman73]

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

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[sumdumass]

That would depend what the mission was. Would you consider getting sadam from power and setting a military presence inside the country a mision?

Usualy you have a plan and send the troops on misions. I think they acomlished the mision given to them up until thae time. It was more or less everything after that theat fell apart.

So mision acomlished could probable be used here

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[megaditto]

Even at 5% kill probability, if you fire 100 of these THAADs at an incoming missile you are 99+% likely to stop it

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[Nutty_Irishman]

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

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[Doc Ruby]

If you define the mission retroactively to include only what it accomplished.

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 mission has been turned on its head by Bush, no WMD converted into 3000 dead US soldiers and the hottest threat center in the world, probably part of Greater Iran.

We have the most effective military in the world, pointed at our own head.

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[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, which is good if we want to contain it. USSR (so contained earlier) is gone — America's decades-long presence in Western Europe accomplished its purpose. Now it is Middle East's turn...

We have the most effective military in the world, pointed at our own head.

Only if "your head" is somewhere in Najaf's orchards plotting to kill prominent Iraqis or US soldiers...

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[KeiichiMorisato]

Now I am going to admit that I didn't RTFA, but from your statement, I can tell you that doesn't make sense. If they had a 5% kill ratio, firing 100 of them would not give you a 99+% chance to stop the missile, 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. 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, in the end, the chance to stop the incoming missile is only 5%.

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.

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.

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[KeiichiMorisato]

Argh, I have to admit that I was wrong, as all 100 missiles are part of the same event of trying to hit the incoming missile once.

Too much arguing about the lottery....

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[KeiichiMorisato]

Darn, you posted before my resignation of being in error was posted.

Making a mistake on the internet (especially slashdot) hurts!

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[Doc Ruby]

Pretty convenient for you to ignore the Iraqi Civil War we precipitated which will turn Iraq into Iranian territory, a new terrorist hothouse, or most likely both. That's a worse threat to our "allies" (Saudi Arabia? Only to Cheney) than Iraq was. Including when Saddam was tracking our aircraft with radar over his country, as we tried to provoke him into war while he slid into total impotence from our various forces against him. Including the provocation Bush worked by illegally diverting Afghanistan money and forces before Congress even debated an Iraq AUMF.

Or are you going to pretend that we're doing a great job in Iraq, so we should do it again in Iran?

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[xquark]

You Americans and your wasteful ways you only need ~45 missiles to
reach a 99.9% probability hit rate! :)

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[mi]

Pretty convenient for you to ignore the Iraqi Civil War we precipitated which will turn Iraq into Iranian territory, a new terrorist hothouse, or most likely both.

Let's talk when it happens. I think, it never will, but speculating (which is what you are doing) is pointless here...

Or are you going to pretend that we're doing a great job in Iraq, so we should do it again in Iran?

The mission of our military, whom Bush was congratulating in his famous "Mission Accomplished" speech, was indeed accomplished. Enemy's army was disbanded, our bases covering the whole country, enemy leadership killed, captured, or in hiding... At this point the victors of the Antiquity would've killed all males older than 14 and sold all others into slavery. Victors of Middle Ages would've converted everyone to their religion at weapon-point. We — the modern-day victors — began building a new, better government. That's still in progress (I believe, we'll succeed, you don't), but — I repeat — the original military mission of defeating the enemy's armed forces was accomplished...

I shall not comment on whether we "should do it again in Iran", for that's a different topic. But I do think, we can should we decide to — and the defenses described in TFA may help...

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[inviolet]

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

Bush must've been a software developer at some point in his career, then.

My boss: "Is the new move-node functionality finished?"
Me: "Well, it's basically working..."
My boss: "It's 'basically working'?"
Me: "Yeah, it can actually move a node now!"
My boss: "So what's left?"
Me: "Oh, just optimization, UI, documentation, test-cases, UMTs, QA, stress-testing, beta..."

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you still have to regard each missile hit/miss as a separate event in order to perform the calculation. In probability theory, the definition of independence of events pertains to the conjunction of events on a sample space. Here's the definition:

Let A and B be events. Then, A and B are independent if P(A_and_B)=P(A)P(B), where P is a probability function.

Suppose A = B, then A_and_B = A. Thus, P(A_and_B) = P(A) != P(A)P(B). This means that the event A cannot be independent of itself, which certainly agrees with intuition.

Mathematics is a harsh mistress.

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?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry I should have said, "In probability theory, the definition of independence of events pertains to the intersection of events on a sample space." I've been doing too much logic recently, which I guess is having an adverse affect on my vocabulary. That said, intersection is defined in terms of the logical conjunction, so I wasn't too far off. =)

Also, just to clarify, when I wrote "A_and_B" what I really meant was the intersection of the events A and B.

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[Doc Ruby]

When it happens? It's a civil war right now, has been for at least months (years, for some of the factions). Even the liars running your war call it that now. You're in a negligibly small group of people living in a fantasy about Iraq that became unsupportable at least 3 to 6 months ago.

The military mission was to secure Iraq. Mop up the "isolated pockets of resistance", end the war. That's what Bush sold the people, the Congress, and the soldiers - except maybe Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith and the neocon crew had a different mission we've still not really learned, or seen accomplished (except maybe anarchy). The mission (that Bush has always denied he claimed was "Accomplished" on that aircraft carrier, except when strutting in a flightsuit actually claiming credit for it) was to stop Iraq's threat to the US, which has been totally screwed up into a much greater threat than the one under control before the war.

"Victors of Antiquity"? The Middle Ages? You're one of those "not as bad as Saddam" people. Well, most Iraqis want us out, because we've now made it worse by instigating their civil war that they want to themselves.

You can repeat your revised "mission" definition as much as you want. I know that kind of self-hypnosis has gotten you this far, but the rest of us are awake. Enough to notice that it's too late for you to claim that you 'shall not comment on whether we "should do it again in Iran"', after you just said "Iran now has 100+K American troops next to it, which is good if we want to contain it". At least you're up front about defying everyone in America with this escalation that's really designed to intimidate Iran into attacking, just like I saw Stephen Hadley say to Tim Russert a week ago. And of course you're also buying the bullshit that Star Wars will protect us from Iran. Especially invading while Iraq would need even more troops to maintain it as more than a second (or third) front in a war against Iran. With a military so depleted, so unable to recruit, that we're the least prepared for a defense against the rest of the real threats that we've been since 1812.

You have learned nothing from the worst strategic catastrophe, rendered by the worst presidency (both foreign and domestic, and especially military) in American history. People like you have turned America's might into "might have been", and handed Iran it's greatest victories since stopping Saddam (with arms from the Iran/Contra operation you probably somehow think was a good idea).

Dick Cheney, is that you?

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[benevixit]

Actually you were sort of right, though perhaps not for the reason you intended. While the 100^0.95 calculation assumes that the missile interception attempts are independent events, they will not be for any practical situation. Any factors that thwart your first interception - bad weather, solar noise disrupting your radar, a particularly tricky target trajectory, whatever - can persist to complicate the 99 other interception attempts. So depending on the way the "5% hit rate" is calculated, lots of interceptors still might not work to bring down a sufficiently difficult target.

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[ClosedSource]

"Iraqi Army, which used to threaten our aircraft patrolling North (Kurds) and South (Shia) of the country, is disbanded."

Sure, because our aircraft are much safer flying over Iraq now, right?

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[Anonymous Coward]

Darn, you posted before my resignation of being in error was posted.

Making a mistake on the internet (especially slashdot) hurts!

Ahh well, take solace in the fact that you've handled being wrong
better than 98.4% of the millions of other slashdotters who've
been wrong. I tend to just go into denial of being wrong when I'm
wrong, then I add slashdot's IP ranges to my firewall for awhile
so that all the geeks can't get me.

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[bhiestand]

So you wouldn't define military victory as "occupying all lands in a country, obliterating their military, and removing all leadership from power"? Then I guess the allies didn't actually win WWII until being a racist in Germany became illegal, and the American civil war wasn't really won until the Jim Crow laws were struck down... We should probably update our history books to reflect this new definition of military victory.

Of course I'm not saying we've done a perfect job in preventing an Iranian insurgency. I'm not saying the current Iraqi government is a model of democracy we should all follow, and I'm certainly not saying that we finished the job there before public opinion turned against it. None of this implies that we didn't actually have an incredibly quick military victory.

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[SnowZero]

Well, now you know, and more importantly, anyone who comes reading along will see both posts and not get the wrong idea. To grill, and to be grilled is the way of the Internet, and I have certainly gotten grilled before. Harbor no bad feelings and you'll be the better for it.

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[SnowZero]

True, but the 5% would assume complete dependence which is as crazy as assuming complete independence. If one takes a single approximation, independence is usually a lot closer to reality than total dependence. While the latter is possible if there is some sort of unforeseen "fatal flaw", such a flaw is likely to show up in testing. IOW, experimentally measured failure rates are often fairly independent, whereas projected failure rates are often more dependent than they are supposed to be.

All of this is of course silly, since the 5% rate simply came out of an AC's orifice.

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[mi]

[...] was to stop Iraq's threat to the US, which has been totally screwed up into a much greater threat than the one under control before the war.

And Iraq is no longer a threat to US indeed...

You're one of those "not as bad as Saddam" people.

Kindly dispense with labeling...

Well, most Iraqis want us out, because we've now made it worse by instigating their civil war that they want to themselves.

Sorry, can't parse...

Enough to notice that it's too late for you to claim that you 'shall not comment on whether we "should do it again in Iran"'

Off-topic.

You have learned nothing from the worst strategic catastrophe

The worst? Really? Do you have any idea, how devastating and expensive the Korean War was? Iraq war is a cake walk in comparison, and even if only half of Iraq ends up decent 30 years later, this war would still be more successful than Korean.

by the worst presidency [...] in American history

Yada-yada... You forgot to mention "court-appointed" :-)

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[mi]

That's just semantics.

And semantics is all the argument is about — whether or not there was mission that was accomplished. And there was...

Saying we defeated their military is absolutely meaningless when our people are getting blown up daily by guys with guns and bombs.

About 3K of our troops have been killed in four years and, what 20-30K more have been wounded. Although a numbers on their own, they very small compared to Korean or Vietnam war loses, which were fought against regular militaries. So defeating and disbanding Iraq's regular military was an important mission, its accomplishment worthy of congratulations.

You discount it, because it turned out easy. It is a mistake to consider the ease of doing something, while trying to estimate the importance of doing it.

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[Anonymous Coward]

So what if their formal military is gone, they have something much more effective now, obviously

Isn't that statement a bit short sighted? After all, if we left the region tomorrow, Iran would come down and take over Iraq's "much more effective" insurgency without blinking an eye. The difference is they wouldn't care about blowing up Shiite mosques or human rights. They would do what it takes to subdue the population.

The US military has every ability to crush the insurgency. They chose not to.

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[aurum42]

You're deluding yourself if you think casualty rates in Iraq are "very small" compared to Nam. This article may be of interest. Here's an excerpt:

But a comparative analysis of U.S. casualty statistics from Iraq tells a different story. After factoring in medical, doctrinal, and technological improvements, infantry duty in Iraq circa 2004 comes out just as intense as infantry duty in Vietnam circa 1966--and in some cases more lethal. Even discrete engagements, such as the battle of Hue City in 1968 and the battles for Fallujah in 2004, tell a similar tale: Today's grunts are patrolling a battlefield every bit as deadly as the crucible their fathers faced in Southeast Asia.

At any rate, the adventure in Iraq was just that; unnecessary (the administration exerted undue pressure on the intelligence agencies to give them the casus belli they wanted--and George Tenet got his congressional medal of honor (despite being the person who said the presence of WMDs was a "slam dunk") for toeing the party line ; and before you bring out the old canard about various ancient, sequestered chemical stores being "WMDs", remember GWB himself has admitted several times that he was mistaken on the WMD issue (oh clarification: not him personally, because he wants to be a second Teflon president, but the intelligence agencies, and the troops on the ground), and initiated on false premises.

GWB stated in circa 1999 that if he had the "political capital", he would invade Iraq--this was well before the dog and pony show of attempting to find a diplomatic solution. He repeated the same "political capital" nonsense in his inauguration speech in '04.

We opened a needless second front, went into Iraq without a plan for what to do after the initial phases of the war (Rumsfeld quashed any discussion regarding a post-war plan; and again, don't delude yourself...the "mission accomplished" thing was a cheap trick, one meant to deceive the American public) created a recruiting ground and haven for Al Qaeda, motivated all those millions of youthful would-be insurgents in the Arab world with fiascos like Abu Ghraib, Haditha and so on.

All the while, former White house interns are put in charge of something on the order of $13 billion (and much of it becomes mysteriously "unaccountable"), contractors with political connections get no-bid contracts and overcharge taxpayers to the tune of millions, and a war that will eventually cost on the order of $2 trillion keeps continuing with no end in sight.

I wonder how long your sort of blind party loyalty coupled with this sort of rationalization will continue...well, apparently you have the company of 30% of the voting population.

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[mi]

But a comparative analysis of U.S. casualty statistics from Iraq tells a different story. After factoring in medical, doctrinal, and technological improvements [...]

Exactly: "after factoring in"... A helicopter can only fly, if you "factor in" air-resistance...

At any rate, the adventure in Iraq was just that [...]

The talk was, whether or not there was a mission to be called accomplished. Your rant is on a different topic — whether or not we should've done that mission at all. Sorry, I'm not interested in another shouting match on this (different) subject.

I wonder how long your sort of blind party loyalty [...]

My loyalty is to the man, who put Saddam Hussein behind bars. But that too is off-topic here...

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[aurum42]

Why bother typing if you don't have anything intelligent to say? *sigh*

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[aurum42]

Sorry, that first link regarding casualty rates should've read like this.

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[Abcd1234]

And Iraq is no longer a threat to US indeed...

Umm, Iraq was never a threat to the US (any fictional WMDs they had would have made them a regional threat, not a danger to the US), unless you buy the idea that it was supporting terror. Problem is, if you accept that definition, then Iraq, today, is a *far* bigger threat, as it's a virtual safehouse for terrorist groups (the chaos there makes it virtually impossible for the US to do anything but fight insurgents...), and provides them with a perfect source of new recruits.

So, explain to me again how post-war Iraq is less of a threat to the US than pre-war Iraq?

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that 50-60k american soldiers died in vietnam. That's not a discountable amount more then in iraq.

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[blugu64]

Way more people died in vietnam the have iraq, just because that doesn't fit your agenda doesn't make it the truth. Now before you make baseless accusations and insinuate a blind loyalty to a party, I didn't vote for either mainline canadate in the past election.

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[operagost]

Pretty much, being as there are zero enemy aircraft or SAM installations. Only helicopters are vulnerable to the shoulder-fired stuff the terrorists are using.

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[aurum42]

Notice I was talking about casualty *rates* rather than absolute casualty values. According to that study, infantry duty in Iraq is just as dangerous as it was in Vietnam...

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[Anonymous Coward]

most Iraqis want us out

Weasel words, weasel words, you fucking fagot.

Most of us Slashdotters have fucked your mom, and rumor has it, many have fucked you!

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[Doc Ruby]

Anonymous shithead Coward, you just offer more chances to tell the truth about this evil Iraq War and its fans like you.

Most Iraqis want us out immediately, you insane lying warmonger.

A fagot is a bundle of sticks, you illiterate homophobe.

My mother is dead, and she still wouldn't fuck a necrophile like you.

At night, the ice weasels come and eat Anonymous pisspants Cowards.

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[inviolet]

I agree with you. I am well aware that Bush's proclamation referred only to the conquering of Iraq's standing army. And I know what a historically unprecedented success it was. There is still room to crack jokes. So go pick your fights somewhere else.

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[ClosedSource]

So in other words, if you classify helicopters as non-aircraft you may be right.

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[KDR_11k]

That depends on whether these things won't disturb each other. Most likely they'd mistake each other for the target or damage ach other with their explosions/debries.

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[bhiestand]

Well then, with all that said, I must agree that it was a funny joke.

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[Danse]

Isn't that statement a bit short sighted? After all, if we left the region tomorrow, Iran would come down and take over Iraq's "much more effective" insurgency without blinking an eye. The difference is they wouldn't care about blowing up Shiite mosques or human rights.

I'm not talking about pulling out. I'm simply saying that Bush and company have royally screwed up this war and we're in a very bad situation right now. We can't seem to win, and if we leave, Iran takes over most likely, which is also bad for us. Having caused the situation, I don't think it's right for us to bail out now, but we're running out of options. General Petraeus seems to think he can do the job with the additional 22,000 troops, but I'd really love to hear what his wishlist would be in order to reach a much higher degree of confidence in bringing the situation under control. The administration seems to be trying to shift the blame as quickly as possible onto the Iraqi government, but that's just dumb. Of course the government is going to be ineffective. It's a brand new government. The country doesn't know anything about electing people, and most of the people who got elected don't know anything about running a government or a country. It's basically just a power grab, everyone trying to get their people represented. Then they just use their positions to keep fighting. We created this problem. We need to fix it.
 

The US military has every ability to crush the insurgency. They chose not to.

Yes, because we all know how well the old "destroy the village to save it" strategy is thought of around here. If that's going to be the strategy, then we just nuke the place and leave. I don't think you'll get much support for that from anyone with half a brain. It's not really an option, which is why we're in the situation we're currently in.

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[Danse]

they very small compared to Korean or Vietnam war loses, which were fought against regular militaries.

Explain the difference between a regular military boosted by foreign fighters fighting a guerrilla war and an irregular force consisting of former members of the regular military boosted by foreign fighters fighting a guerrilla war. If anything, I'd guess that the latter would be a tougher opponent since they lack the sort of command structure that would allow us to cut off the head, as it were.

So defeating and disbanding Iraq's regular military was an important mission, its accomplishment worthy of congratulations.

I think that was the initial point. Defeating the Iraqi military is not exactly a big deal. We rolled right over them last time too. We have them massively outgunned in a stand-up fight. The problem is that Bush ignored all the people that told him it wasn't going to be so easy. While he was celebrating a "victory" the country was going to hell very quickly. Remember what Bush told us before the war? How it was going to be short and would cost only about $50-$60 billion? It's almost 4 years later and we've spent nearly $300 billion so far, with no end in sight. Let me know when they actually accomplish something over there.

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[mi]

Explain the difference between a regular military boosted by foreign fighters fighting a guerrilla war and an irregular force consisting of former members of the regular military boosted by foreign fighters fighting a guerrilla war.

Guerrillas don't have heavy weaponry. No tanks, no airplanes, no artillery.

Defeating the Iraqi military is not exactly a big deal.

Maybe. But that was the mission, which the President, justly, called accomplished. That's all...

It's almost 4 years later and we've spent nearly $300 billion so far, with no end in sight. Let me know when they actually accomplish something over there.

I shall. Korea, mind you, was far bloodier and costlier (in today's dollars). And the South was a military dictatorship for many years before becoming the prosperous Democracy it is today...

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[Danse]

I shall. Korea, mind you, was far bloodier and costlier (in today's dollars). And the South was a military dictatorship for many years before becoming the prosperous Democracy it is today...

Don't compare it to Korea. The administration certainly didn't. They said quick and cheap. Why don't you compare it to what they told us it would cost? Part of the problem with the current state of things is that people like you refuse to hold the administration accountable for gross incompetence in the planning of this war. If you don't make them accept responsibility, it sets a bad precedent for future administrations. I don't want them thinking they can get away with bullshitting us into starting a war. They ignored everyone who told them what was going to happen. They pushed forward with their rose-colored predictions of a quick victory and being greeted as liberators. They were told that we needed to send a lot more troops. They were told that law and order would break down and there would be destruction and looting. They were told that there would be an insurgency. They were told that disbanding the military was going to cause more problems than it solved. They basically got rid of anyone that disagreed with their hyper-optimistic plans. They screwed up on virtually all counts, and yet people still pretend that they know what they're doing. It's rather sickening.

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[Doc Ruby]

Starting Score: 1 point
Moderation -1
    100% Troll

Are trollMods implying that the ice weasels eat Anonymous pisspants Cowards any time of the day?

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad you're not very good with math. One only needs 37 missles to hit 99.9% of the time.

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[Rommsey]

Actually he's not deluding himself in making the very small comparison with Vietnam. Did you factor in the amount of troops deployed in 1965 and 1966 to when there was full out warfare and then look at Iraq? Iraq was unnecessary in your eyes but not to those that screamed to be let free of Saddam's reign of terror and oppression. Not his neighbors such as Saudi Arabia who kept the US' military presence until Iraq was no longer a threat to them. Before you continue to run around spouting "toeing the party line" understand that the intelligence upon which Britain and the US made their stance on was the exact same shared with all other allies, and no one said it was false then. Hundreds and thousands of WMDs have been uncovered in Iraq and the media has reported on them, but the media was looking for the "magic key" and played on the peoples' opinion to make a fast buck. You are going to want to fortify your position with fact and ground them with reason because right now all I see is misguided opinion bent on defaming those that support Iraq.

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[aurum42]

You are mistaken--even in 2002, many had expressed severe doubts about the supposed purchase of Yellowcake (an intermediary in uranium enrichment) referred to by George Tenet and Colin Powell. Also see the Downing Street memo (perhaps you've heard of it?) Here's an excerpt:

Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

Note the bit about *facts being fixed around the policy*. This is an official classified report by a senior UK official. The Brits had serious reservations about the intelligence. But they are inextricably allied to the US, so they had to compromise. Perhaps you're genuinely compassionate about the plight of the Iraqis under Saddam--I can sympathise with that. But are you really so naive as to believe that the motivation of this administration in invading Iraq was compassion? Geopolitical influence perhaps, a feeding frenzy for contractors with political ties (induced by lobbyists...surely you haven't been ignoring all those reports) maybe; if compassion was the motivator, why aren't we in Darfur where there is an ongoing genocide that has claimed 400K lives? Why is it that Iraq's infrastructure is still shot to hell several years after "mission accomplished"? Sorry, but you *are* toeing the party line--one pre-1991 container of sarin and some inert munitions (the US Army has *lost* track of more munitions than any so-called WMDs) Have you seen the Bush 60 minutes interview? This is Bush on the WMDs you insist were found:

"We didn't find the weapons we thought we would find or the weapons everybody thought he had. "

Where are your hundreds and thousands of WMDs? Nonsense. See also this interview with a CIA agent

He tells correspondent Ed Bradley the real failure was not in the intelligence community but in the White House. He says he saw how the Bush administration, time and again, welcomed intelligence that fit the president's determination to go to war and turned a blind eye to intelligence that did not.

Re:Mission Accomplished?

[xquark]

You're dumb ass!

100% - 99.9% = 0.1%

0.95^n = 0.1% // prob of not hitting with n missiles.

n = -1 / -0.02227 ~= 44.903

With an n of 37 you get 0.1498, which is a probability
of 99.85 and not 99.9!

As I said at the start you are a dumb ass or a real tight
ass not wanting to spend the extra 8 missiles to make sure
you get a 99.9% probability of success.

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.

Re:it's an advancement,

[baldass_newbie]

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

Actually, according to the 1972 ABM treaty, there are certain types of guidance systems that we're not allowed to use.

Re:it's an advancement,

[biz0r]

Your comment was marked funny, as it should have been. But because I can't help but be a nagging voice I feel the need to point out that when they say 'hit to kill' they mean to actually STRIKE the side (or something) on the object to cause it to fail (likely) or pre-detonate (not likely). This is opposed to blowing up something near to it, causing the same net effect.

I am guessing the weight is lighter since not having to carry a payload of explosives, allowing for a faster and more maneuverable object with which to hit the offending missile.

Re:it's an advancement,

[kfg]

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?

It's hard to hit a missle, but not nearly so hard to get kinda close to one and make a big boom.

What they're talking about here is being able to target effectively enough to use bullets instead of grenades.

KFG

Re:it's an advancement,

[Rommsey]

Actually there is multiple ways to destroy missiles, but I'm sure you were being sarcastic right?

Re:it's an advancement,

[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:it's an advancement,

[BytePusher]

Maybe the other option would involve nearly hitting & exploding or energy weapons such as a laser.

Re:it's an advancement,

[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.

Re:it's an advancement,

[withoutfeathers]

The number one cause of interceptor failure in past tests has been the Range Safety Officer scrubbing the test because some condition was outside of nominal range. Don't take my word for it: Look it up.

Hitting a ballistic missile with a guided missile is old news. Integrating a continental scope system and testing it with an infintesimal risk of damage outside of the test range is a challenge.

Re:it's an advancement,

[Anonymous Coward]

The THAAD interceptor uses hit-to-kill technology

Microsoft isn't gonna be happy about theft of their intellectual property.

Re:it's an advancement,

[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.

Re:it's an advancement,

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

But all of it is superior to the "hello-miss-do-you-want-to-go-out-on-a-date-with-m e-let's-see-Resident-Evil-II-movie-I-hear-they're- giving-away-special-Magic-The-Gathering-cards" technology used around here for years.

Re:it's an advancement,

[spun]

Also far superior to the "hit-to-tickle" technology. And much better than the proposed "stop-and-ask-for-directions-to-confuse" technology. Though the "bitchslap-to-subjugate" technology would have been pretty cool if it had worked wiuthout the "pimp-my-mizissle" add-on.

Re:it's an advancement,

[Anonymous Coward]

Lots and lots of Shrapnel warheads. Damn I should work for darpa.

Re:it's an advancement,

[TheDugong]

Unfortunately, due to over-fishing there are no longer enough sharks on which to mount the lasers to form an effective defense.

Re:it's an advancement,

[Tuidjy]

As a matter of fact, hitting is not required for a kill with many anti-air missiles. The missile blows up as it passes near the target, doing enough damage to take it down.

I assumed that 'hit-to-kill' meant that these particular missiles actually attempt to make contact with the target. This would save on explosives, and thus make the missile smaller, lighter and more maneuverable. Of course, hitting the target is a lot harder than getting 'close enough'.

Re:it's an advancement,

[Agripa]

This is likely apocryphal but I remember reading about a message from the Afghanistan resistance to CIA during their war with the Soviets that went something like this:

"Stop sending surface to air missiles. Send surface to aircraft missiles."

Re:it's an advancement,

[thesandtiger]

"Mooooooom! THAAD's poking meeeeeee!"

IT'S SPELT MISSILE

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:IT'S SPELT MISSILE

[baldass_newbie]

I guess they missled that one...

*rimshot*

Re:IT'S SPELT MISSILE

[LiquidCoooled]

Well considering my Firefox thinks that Firefox* is misspelt I have as much confidence in it as I do with as a secure by default Windows installation.

* English/United Kingdom dictionary.

Re:IT'S SPELT MISSILE

[kfg]

What has wheat got to do with it?/grammar nazi.

KFG

Re:IT'S SPELT MISSILE

[Anonymous Coward]

Not so much a "grammar nazi" but an "American nazi" (insisting on the dialectal "spelled" instead of the correct "spelt").

Re:IT'S SPELT MISSILE

[kfg]

Actually, I have been called upon to defend my use of "spelt" in this very forum. You may have missed my pointe.

KFG

Re:IT'S SPELT MISSILE

[gardyloo]

Actually, I have been called upon to defend my use of "spelt" in this very forum. You may have missed my pointe.

    Maybe he'd have caught it if it were a Grosse Pointe.

Re:IT'S SPELT MISSILE

[dbIII]

Well considering my Firefox thinks that Firefox* is misspelt I have as much confidence in it

It is a name - I don't think Bruce is in your dictionary or even in an Australian dictionary either.

Re:IT'S SPELT MISSILE

[kfg]

That's the joke I was looking for and couldn't find; you bastard.

KFG

Re:IT'S SPELT MISSILE

[gardyloo]

Did you draw a Grosse Pointe Blank?

Re:IT'S SPELT MISSILE

[kfg]

Say Goodnight, Dick.

KFG

Re:IT'S SPELT MISSILE

[gardyloo]

*sigh*

  Goodnight, Dick

Whoa, Dude!

[DittoBox]

THAAD is RAADical!!

Sorry, very poor taste in pun choices there.

Re:Whoa, Dude!

[TheBogie]

Sorry, very poor taste in pun choices there.

THAAD is not a pun.

Re:Whoa, Dude!

[harp2812]

THAAD is not a pun.

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

Re:Whoa, Dude!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Do not taunt Happy Fun THAAD!"

Star Wars meets Planet of the Apes

[mfh]

This is perfect for my collection of anti-terrorist paraphernalia.

Recently Reported?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't this on the news two or three days ago? Oh yeah, there's the date--the 27th....

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?

[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?

[kfg]

There has been only one.

KFG

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 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: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:New arms race?

[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: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?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Not official launches, they don't. And even unofficial ones, I'm sure we've made it quite clear to North Korea or Iran that an unofficial launch from their territory would be just as devastating, requiring a "full retaliatory response", in order to help them focus their attention on preventing terrorists and "rogue elements" from "accidentally" getting ahold of them. We've told as much to Russia and China. "If we're gonna be blown up by stuff from your nation, anyway, well, W.O.P.R. says 'let's do this thing!' "

Re:New arms race?

[RxScram]

National Organization for Women?

Re:New arms race?

[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:New arms race?

[Anonymous Coward]

What in your opinion would NK and its political oligarchy stand to gain from shooting the US with a missile, even a nucular one? The NK leadership would already have lost its country and power as well as pretty soon after the act, their lives. For the NK the nuke serves the role of a deterrent against thinly veiled threats by the US (axis of evil, rogue nations) to force a 'regime change' in NK. Same goes for Iran.

With the capability to shoot down even a limited number of incoming nukes, the US could deny either leadership this grimly life insurance and thereby increase strategic pressure on the NK and Iranian leaders.

I can't believe that at any point a US government would be willing to actually gamble an attempt at such a regime change, risking its peoples' lives at the faith in its countermeasures, but in my opinion, even in this unthinkable scenario the missile defense would probably not significantly increase the likelihood of US attacking the NK. The nuke is just the last card up the NK government's sleeve. Seoul houses 23 million South Koreans just 80 kilometers from the NK border and artillery. An all-out war between the two Koreas would cost too much to the world economy. Additionally, NK's starving people wouldn't be such a huge prize for a successful conquest.

It feels like the chances of a US attack on Iran are limited by the US economy's capacity to absorb the cost of another occupation. Otherwise Iran seems the obvious next project even without any kind of a US missile defense; it hasn't even been able to set off a nuke and its land is soaked with oil, making for lucrative loot for the companies of the neocons near and comprising the current US regime. As a bonus to the US that comes with the risk of a WMD shootout with Iran, the US could probably leave any megadeath by nuclear retaliation it sees necessary to Israel. Israel hasn't appeared too caring of its reputation, much less of epic international hatred lately. Maybe a promise of having a working missile defense would make a conquest of Iran an easier sale to the US Star Wars fans.

I'm not an expert in international relations either.

Re:New arms race?

[lelitsch]

Hey, I agree and I disagree at the same time. THAAD or any anti-missile system that works would be a boon to a state like Israel which has limited strike back capabilities. Or for troops in the field. And it's definitely a more humane option than MAD. But if you believe for one minute that any US government would not turn a country that just nuked LA into a large sheet of glass, I have a nice beach in Arizona that you might be interested in.

Re:New arms race?

[smallfries]

Wouldn't you prefer a nice game of chess?

Re:New arms race?

[radtea]

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.

The U.S. is pretty much afraid of everything and everyone right now: illegally incarcerated suicides, completely innocent Canadian software engineers and of course, Mexicans. All societies go through periodic bouts of xenophobia, and this happens to be America's turn. It'll all pass in a few years, but in the meantime it is doing great damage to America's security.

The problem is that unless America becomes a police state, there is no practical way to secure the borders against anything, be it illegal immigrants or one-off nuclear attacks. Getting a single nuclear weapon into the U.S. is incredibly easy--so easy that I wake up each morning deeply thankful that no one has done it yet. When (not if) it is done, it will be done either by domestic transportation (imagine what one nuclear bomb set up to trigger at 3000 m might look like flying into O'Hare or LAX...) or by smuggling it in (canonically, hidden inside a bale of marjuana.)

ABM systems actually made a little sense (if they had worked and the "successful" tests hadn't all been faked) against the threat of massive attacks back in the Cold War. Today, against people who only need to get one bomb in after years of planning, they make no sense at all. They are the most wasteful kind of security theatre around.

Re:New arms race?

[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?

[PeelBoy]

Hell yeah! Battle Chess! To the death.

Re:New arms race?

[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 to be part of some national missile defense shield. It's a navy designed to be "theater" defense, which is much different and much easier. It's supposed to defend the fleet and, presumably, beachheads from balistic missile attack.

Conventional short and medium range balistic missiles will be more and more a feature of the modern battlefield because GPS makes them much more cost-effective than they used to be. Think of this system as a navy version of Patriot. Will it intercept nukes? Probably, but just because it's not 100% effective doesn't mean it's useless.

Re:New arms race?

[izomiac]

If you have decent defenses, and don't want to go to war, then I would think that improving your defenses would lessen the likelihood of you attacking anyone. MAD worked because the US & Russia had comparable technology and focused on offensive power. Now that the cold war is over, the US isn't as worried as much about being wiped off the map, but protecting its citizens against suicidal weaker nations/groups. Terrorists rely on anonymity/mobility to survive. North Korea might be crazy enough to launch a nuclear weapon. With either of those enemies, the US doesn't face annihilation as with the Russians, it faces getting a city hit and letting a few million people die.

Now, since MAD doesn't apply the rules change. If you have no defense, then you have to use your offense to reduce your enemy's offensive power before they can use it, i.e. a preemptive strike. If you have sufficient defense then you can wait until they attack once before declaring war and destroying them.

Here's an example. Suppose North Korea starts fueling some long range missile on a launch pad (in a silo/whatever), and the US strongly suspects that it has a nuclear warhead and is aimed for San Francisco. Now without missile defense there are two options. A) Do nothing and hope that the intelligence is wrong. Or B) Destroy the missile before it launches, hence declaring war. If the missile defense is reliable then there are still two options. A) Prepare the defense system and wait to see what North Korea is doing. Or B) (Same as before). Gee, I wonder which scenario makes the US less likely to attack?

Re:New arms race?

[Jack9]

Actually the link describes the distances you need to take into account (as well as the general idea that any missile that can "catch" another missile has to be much more sophisticated, expensive, and reliable). His claim that boost phase interception is the only realistic methodology is interesting to me, but ultimately outside the point I couched the link in.

Technology isn't good or bad, it just is.

Vaporware isn't. The worst kind is saftey technology that's completely made up, to justify classic overspending, as I indicated. I'm sure that this will protect us from missiles about the time that the space elevator is finished.

Re:New arms race?

[Anonymous Coward]

Having an missile arms race with the "rouge states" is actually a very good idea. Because education is a threat to the ruling powers there, only very few people in those countries have the technical skills which can be used for military technology. Thus, regardless of money spent, their R&D abilities are low.

    By having a missile arms race, the R&D of these states is being diverted from technology which can harm the U.S. (like, say, better IEDs, undetectable explosives, etc.), to military technology that will hopefully never be used, because the U.S. can more effectively deter it (ICBMs).

Re:New arms race?

[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 simulation software for a very early version. Cool software, we used a software message passing "bus" to interface all the parts of system (C4I, Launcher, GBR, Missile, Seeker). Basically it was what would be called an ESB/SOA technology today.

Re:New arms race?

[r00t]

"the general idea that any missile that can "catch" another missile has to be much more sophisticated, expensive, and reliable"

Oh please. The incoming missile is rather predictable, as it must be. Evasion will be quite limited by fuel supply (normally there is none) and general inability to detect the THAAD. The THAAD gets help from the ground-based rader, does not have to survive re-entry heating, and does not need to carry a nuclear warhead.

Re:New arms race?

[DerekLyons]

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/about_us/Dr_David_Suz uk i/Article_Archives/weekly07250301.asp to give you a high school primer on the physics of distance vs speed, which is noticeably independent of the targetting concerns.

And it's about as accurate as I'd expect a primer written by a high school student to be. I.E. badly misinformed and badly misleading. Oh, wait - this was written by a professional? (Takes a look at the website...) Nope, it was written by a geneticist who merely parrots the long debunked APS report of nearly twenty years ago and exhibits the same general ignorance of the technical issues involved common in the general public.

Re:New arms race?

[Anonymous Coward]

On the minus side, the THAAD actually has to hit a projectile moving at high speed, while a ballistic missle (especially if it has a nuclear
warhead) only has to hit the ground somewhere in the proximity of the target (the larger the yield of the warhead, the less accurate it
needs to be). And if I recall events of the second Gulf war correctly, low-tech ballistic missles like the Scud are hard to hit precisely
because their primitive guidance systems make them somewhat unpredictable. High-tech ballistic missles are likely to have multiple
independent warheads and decoys, so firing several missles could very well overwhelm your targeting radar (radars can only track a
limited number of targets). Note I'm not saying such a system is impossible, or not desireable, just that it is not as easy as you might
think it is.

Re:New arms race?

[jsoderba]

THAAD isn't designed to be part of some national missile defense shield. It's a navy designed to be "theater" defense, which is much different and much easier. It's supposed to defend the fleet and, presumably, beachheads from balistic missile attack.

THAAD is an Army system, a longer-ranged system to complement PAC-3. You're thinking of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System.

Re:New arms race?

[LoofWaffle]

You talk about this like you work on the program. Are you a spy?

Re:New arms race?

[tsotha]

Hmmmm. You are correct. The reason I thought it was navy was I did some peripheral work on THAAD testing while I was contracting with the navy. It's not normal for the navy to do that kind of work with the army. Although, come to think of it, we did Hawk testing too.

Re:New arms race?

[tsotha]

Did you miss the fact that the "T" in THAAD stands for "Terminal"? This missile isn't designed to "catch" anything. In fact, since it doesn't have a warhead it wouldn't do much if it could. It's designed to intercept the other missile as it comes back to earth. Intercept is something we've been doing for years with other programs, and quite often missiles designed to intercept incoming missiles will phisically impact them. This isn't technology that's generations ahead of stuff we have in deployment.

You're assigning missions to this missile that it doesn't have. It's not designed to protect "us". It's designed to protect army (as another poster pointed out) troops in a localized area, and there's no technical reason why it wouldn't work.

I'll never understand why people think a technology can never work because it doesn't work immediately. These kinds of things take time and money. SM-2 didn't work very well on the first day, either, but I'd want my affairs in order if one were fired at me today. Calling THAAD "vaporware" is just foolish.

Re:New arms race?

[Gyorg_Lavode]

You recall incorrectly. In the first Gulf War Patriot Missiles were found to have not worked and that the incomming missiles had simply broken up. In the second gulf war, PAC3's hit something like 8 of 9 incomming. Also, the most recent PAC3 test was a quad salvo against twin targets; a shoot twice concept. Both of the first interceptors hit and the second 2 interceptors were destructed.

Additionally, Aegis SM3's, (which a parent was speaking about when refering to the Navy's interceptors), have a stellar test record, only missing one.

The ground based missiles are the only ones that seem to have a sketchy record, though really only in 2 or 3 back-to-back tests. They have had multiple successful tests since then.

As far as decoys go, decoys are normally for missiles outside the atmosphere, not ones falling through the air.

Hitting a bullet with a bullet so to speak has a fairly good track record assuming all missiles launch.

3...2...1...

[MightyYar]

Anti-US rhetoric in 3... 2... 1...

Re:3...2...1...

[Anonymous Coward]

God damn Mom and Apple pie. I HATE baseball.

Re:3...2...1...

[Phrogman]

You know, it is possible for non-US citizens such as myself to disgree strongly with US foreign Policy, dislike the government of the US etc, without actually hating the US, what it stands for, or its political system. That is in fact how I feel most of the time. I have never actually met an American I didn't like, or find friendly. I am sure they exist, just as tons of nasty offensive Canadians probably exist, but I haven't met any from the US.

A lot of people dislike things about the US, its Gov't and Foreign Policy. They have that right. Its not automatically "Rhetoric" because it takes a negative view on some aspect of the US. Despite what many Americans seem to think, you are not perfect :)

Now, what I have noticed is that many Americans who will openly criticize elements of their culture, politics, religious behaviour etc with each other, immediately go on the defensive if a "foreigner" makes the same points. You folks seem pretty touchy about any criticism - not all of you of course, but a lot of you who post to forums. Make a comment against the US and bang! up come the smarmy remarks, insults, denegrations of whatever the poster said as mere Rhetoric etc. If you can feel free to criticize elements of the US, give others the freedom to do so as well. Accept they have a viewpoint that might differ from yours - even if you think its ill-informed or outright wrong. Isn't that what that whole free speech thing is about?

Point of fact I like the US a lot and have enjoyed travelling there a few times in the past, I just disagree with much (but not all) of its Foreign Policy over the past 20 years or so. Mostly, your government worries me :|

Re:3...2...1...

[MightyYar]

My post was mostly making fun of the people who troll around on Slashdot, taking even a purely technical article as an opportunity to swipe at the US. This is a military-related article, so my comment probably isn't really fair - military articles should probably be considered fair game for political discussion.

I think that your criticism about the "touchiness" of Americans is true, but is also true of all people and cultures. It is quite programmed into the human psyche to circle our wagons when threatened by someone from the outside. On Slashdot, even a discussion about the metric system can turn into an orgy of nationalism. Americans generally get defensive when a European says something nasty about our president because as much as Bush is hated at home, Europeans generally have absolutely no concept of the what it's like in the US. Europeans (again, in general) expect the US to behave like any EU country, but in reality it is far too large and diverse to get any kind of a national consensus about much of anything. You have very distinct political regions, like New England, the West Coast, the Midwest, the West, and the Southeast, which are as different as Italy, Poland, and Great Britain. Sure, we speak the same language, but we have very dissimilar cultures.

My point is that when you criticize Americans for something like foreign policy, you strike a nerve because we KNOW THAT IT SUCKS! It's the same thing that happens any time the federal government acts in the US - a homogenized solution that is good for no one, and is in place simply because it was the common denominator. Not only that, but the collective foreign policies of Europe suck, too - the only thing more ineffectual and homogenized than the US federal government is the European Union.

In any event, it is very unlikely that you will bring up something about the US that has not been discussed to death here inside the US before. Chances are that we discussed and debated it long before you ever even heard of it*. You piping in is kind of like joining the lunch table discussion late and saying the same things that were said at the beginning of the discussion. We may be the land of Fox News, but we also are the land of NPR. A "foreign perspective" is nice, but rarely does it differ significantly from internal discussions that have already taken place

* I don't necessarily mean you personally, since for all I know you read the American newspapers. I meant that there is usually a lot of debate before a big event like the Kyoto rejection happens and the foreign press really picks it up.

Re:3...2...1...

[freezin fat guy]

> I think that your criticism about the "touchiness" of Americans is true of all people and cultures.

What?!?

How can you even _insinuate_ that about our non-American people/cultures? I find it highly insulting. To even THINK that we are touchy about criticism is such typical American bull****.

(...you insensitive clod!)

Re:3...2...1...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, what I have noticed is that many Americans who will openly criticize elements of their culture, politics, religious behaviour etc with each other, immediately go on the defensive if a "foreigner" makes the same points. You folks seem pretty touchy about any criticism - not all of you of course, but a lot of you who post to forums. Make a comment against the US and bang! up come the smarmy remarks, insults, denegrations of whatever the poster said as mere Rhetoric etc. If you can feel free to criticize elements of the US, give others the freedom to do so as well. Accept they have a viewpoint that might differ from yours - even if you think its ill-informed or outright wrong. Isn't that what that whole free speech thing is about?

This comes from a centrist Democrat who knows we didn't single-handedly "win" WWII and that we've done a lot of nasty things.

You're not a US citizen. You're not my friend, neighbor, relative, or even fellow citizen. Basically, you're an economic competitor. As when siblings fight don't let the kid from next door hit that runt little brother of mine that I myself pick on, even if he is a shithead Republican. You're not one of us. Feel free to criticize, but do not expect the same level of courtesy that I afford to other US citizens. I don't think we're better or worse than you are, but there is a certain level of group cohesion (many would derisively term it as nationalism, which is their right). Many of us know things are fucked up here, and we're trying to get it under control. We don't need your input.

In my own anecdotal experience, we get on well with the Aussies (self sufficiency and can-do attitude abound), the UK (we find the stiff upper lip attractive), and not much else (and no, it's not because they got suckered into the war with us). Canadians? Well, they're unfortunate enough to live next to an 800 pound elephant who really doesn't care what they think. In that vein I feel bad for you. But, all is not lost... and I'm not joking here: you should join the EU and get out of NAFTA. Keep your wood, water, and oil and sell it to the Chinese or the EU. We here in the US need a swift kick in the nuts to sort ourselves out and become more self-sufficient.

US Missile Interceptor Tests a Success

[Anonymous Coward]

THAAD's right!

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:Sounds great but...

[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...

[dyslexicbunny]

I agree. This could have just as easily been hitting a wounded duck test. Perhaps we just say to the BMD folks, we'll shoot something at you within the next couple of days. And then see what happens as opposed to the BMD folks knowing everything that's going on.

Perhaps it was a real test and everything was great but given the lack of details, I highly doubt that.

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:Sounds great but...

[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.

Re:Sounds great but...

[Rommsey]

Every tracking system available for the job from NORAD was on the launches, including the radar stations in Thule Greenland and bunkered out in Alaska. This is not to mention the ships that tracked it with evolved AEGIS components.

Re:Sounds great but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, they do. It's called a big effin heat signature seen by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Support_Progr am_Satellite

Re:Sounds great but...

[LoofWaffle]

...including the radar stations in Thule Greenland... Actually, Thule is pointed the other way and both are too far north. PAVE PAWS in Beale would be the closest candidate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:NuclearWarningS ystemMap.png

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:Let me guess

[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:Let me guess

[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 an algorithm in a separate program here, you hard-code an object there. You work step by step, and if you've got the stamina and the skills, you can eventually put the pieces together and call it done. In this case, it looks like the US has both the stamina and the skills to do it.

That being said, while the missile shield will probably be deployed some day, it's an overall bad idea, only serving to bring back the days of the Cold War. Instead of destroying rockets mid-flight, don't give their owner a reason to build and launch them in the first place. But then again, for a multitude of possible reasons, it looks like that's not going to happen anytime soon.

Re:Let me guess

[Anonymous Coward]

...Now it's a test to see if another 60 billion can get us to hit a missile without...

60 billion here, 60 billion there, pretty soon you can fund a war in Iraq.

Re:Let me guess

[c6gunner]

Instead of destroying rockets mid-flight, don't give their owner a reason to build and launch them in the first place.

It seems that you're in need of a nice long beating with a clue by four. The only way for the US to avoid giving people a reason to attack it is to nuke itself before anyone else gets the chance. If you destroy the infrastructure, the people, and the land, then yeah, nobody will want it.

Seriously, how ignorant of history must one be to make such ridiculous statements? Are you aware that the world DIDN'T start in 1960?

Re:Let me guess

[Anonymous Coward]

oooooooooooooh good one. never heard that before!!! hey maybe in 10 years you can come up with another one.

Re:Let me guess

[that this is not und]

don't give their owner a reason to build and launch them in the first place.

Okay, fine. The big moving van will be arriving at your house tomorrow at about eleven. See if you can pack all your belongings up neatly, and try to match accessories with items that they go with so the new owners will be able to make sense of it all. All your possessions, the wiring and plumbing in your house, and anything else deemed of value will be stripped from your house and shipped to a nation deemed 'unfriendly' in hopes that it will remove their reason to attack us.

But then again, for a multitude of possible reasons, it looks like that's not going to happen anytime soon.

By that do you mean that you're not going to cooperate in this matter? We had great hopes that you would go beyond your rhetoric and contribute significantly to the effort to convince our enemies not to invade.

Re:Let me guess

[cyphercell]

I was thinking the same thing. It's hilarious that so many people here can't recognize a modular build. If the missile moves at 40mph has a magnet and a flashing light, then they are obviously testing for the results of material impact versus near miss detonation. If some guy is at a base waiting for weeks for someone to fire it's the alarm system. If the missile flies at decent speeds and caries gps/some ping mechanism, then the last thing to be worked out is the tracking system, which can definitely be worked out at speeds that incrementaly approach reality.

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.

Re:did they change the name?

[kennedy]

HAHAHA

"it's got what plants crave!"

Re:did they change the name?

[ksheff]

they didn't want to make the MPAA think it could be used against people with video recorders. :)

Re:did they change the name?

[mobby_6kl]

Fuck you, I'm shooting down missiles!

Re:did they change the name?

[nagora]

It used to be Theater High Altitude Area Defense.

They had to change the name after it failed to protect Lincoln.

THAAD?

[brouski]

Is that better than THAC0?

Re:THAAD?

[Dionysos Taltos]

Once upon a time, when the THAAD program started with a string of failures, it was derisively called "THUD" within the industry.

Translation

[everphilski]

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

Re:Translation

[BarlowBrad]

Interesting that a more technical explanation gives more definition/explanation than a government buzz-phrase. Or in Bush Speak for Joe Sixpack: "It hits the bad guy's missile so hard it breaks."

Re:Translation

[mkiwi]

Ah, but it is not just 1/2(m)v^2!

Don't forget about rotational kenetic energy- 1/2(I)w^2

Where I is the moment of intertia (in this case 2/5(mr^2) for a solid sphere)
KE(translation) = 1/2(m)v^2
KE(rotation) = 1/2(I)w^2

So, KE(total) = KE(translation) + KE(rotation)

Re:Translation

[mkiwi]

Actually, I don't know what the shape is, so the I could equal 1/12(r^2) or 1/3(r^2). Hard to see the shape of what it is using to take out the missiles from the picture in the article.

Re:Translation

[LoofWaffle]

The shape of the kill vehicle is conical

Re:Translation

[everphilski]

Yeah, but for all intensive purposes it shouldn't be rotating in for the hit. IIRC the kill vehicle has laterally mounted squibs to adjust trajectory, which would induce very, very minor moments (negligible when compared to the order of KEtrans).

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...

[crosseyedatnite]

Isn't the threat from North Korea mostly in the form of large amounts of conventional artillery within range of the South Korean capitol? This system would useless against that.

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: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:Whew...

[bwy]

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

Re:Whew...

[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:Whew...

[kfg]

Few know about the fire bombings on Dresden. . .

And even fewer about Tokyo. There's always Slaughterhouse 5.

Ironically, Kurt, an American, thinks he might be the only individual to actually collect a reparation for the Dresden bombing (for those who don't know he was a POW in Dresden at the time). He applied more or less as a cynical goof; and they paid.

It's a whacky world.

KFG

Re:Whew...

[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 Director of some U.S. intelligence outfit was mailed two photographs: one of two guys in KGB uniform sitting with a large numbered crate in Red Square, and then another picturing the same two guys in civilian clothes with the same numbered crate in a pickup truck parked near the Washington Monument. Missiles aren't the only way to get a nuke near a target. I would not be surprised if the U.S. didn't have similar plans, and play similar tricks on the Soviets during the cold war.

Re:Whew...

[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 that the SCUD alone would have caused.

Isreal and the US are also working on various laser systems, which I think may be better.

Korea's big rocket was a big dud, and if Korea's nuke was real, it was a near-dud as well.

Re:Whew...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Hezbollah rockets are not accurate at all. Most of them landed in wooded areas and the outskirts of town. On top of that, about 20% of them broke up shortly after they were fired. You'd think that'd be a good thing for Israel, but all of that debris actually clouded the radars and made it difficult to pick up the true threats.

Re:Whew...

[Dave Emami]

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.

Gratifying as it would be to tell Kim to screw himself, that wouldn't help South Korea very much. North Korea has a huge number of artillery pieces and rocket launchers, in hardened sites, aimed at Seoul and capable of hitting it with several hundred thousand shells per hour. As far as civilian casualties go, it would be at least a Hiroshima death level, even if chemical weapons weren't used. Kim really has no need to use nukes on South Korea, due to their bad luck of having their capital and biggest economic center only 30 miles from the DMZ.

Japan, on the other hand, would definitely have a use for this -- if NK has been able to engineer a nuke small/light enough to be used as a missile warhead.

Re:Whew...

[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.

Re:Whew...

[SomeRandomWag]

What do you want to bet this is really aimed at the Chinese? A much more plausible (and imho serious) threat is that of the PRC - the 'terrorist' threat is so overblown it's laughable. Should Taiwan ever flare up, without this type of system the US is screwed. I just read about the Chinese having developed a tactical ballistic missile to take out a capital ships at sea. US carrier in other words. This also happens to be a threat the US currently has no real defense against. If you're interested in a better description, see a story from Janes a while back http://www.janes.com/defence/news/jni/jni061219_1_ n.shtml...

No terrorist entity has anywhere near the capability to launch a ICBM at the US or US interests. And any nation (North Korea?), or quasi-nation (such as Hezbollah) that you might wish to label a 'terrorist state' knows full well that if they got their hands on a nuclear armed ICBM and launch it at the US then they, and their population base, will be obliterated by the US nuclear response. (On a side note, the missiles that Hezbollah was launching into Israel attain nowhere near the altitude that THAAD is talking about. They're far too low range to require this type of system. Now 'Dear Leader Kim's' on the other hand...)

Re:Whew...

[StikyPad]

Back off, Greenland!

Re:Whew...

[corbettw]

Even Ronald Regan acknowledged that it would be very difficult and possibly take several decades to get right.

Interestingly, he said that several decades ago.

Re:Whew...

[nasch]

Few know about the fire bombings on Dresden, even though more people were killed that night than in both Atomic bombings combined.

Wikipedia (I know, I know) disagrees, citing 145,000 for Hiroshima and 25,000 to 35,000 for Dresden. That would have to be way, way off for you to be correct - do you have any references?

Re:Whew...

[Shooter6947]

Firebombing of Tokyo killed in the 100,000 range, IIRC.

Re:Whew...

[bogjobber]

Few know about the fire bombings on Dresden, even though more people were killed that night than in both Atomic bombings combined.

That's actually a common myth that is untrue. Even at the highest estimates, the Dresden bombings killed at max 60-70,000 people. The wikipedia page says it's probably in the 25-30,000 range. The infamy of Dresden is both because it was later found to be largely unnecessary and because information of the bombing was largely unavailable until quite a while after the war. Most Americans didn't even know about it until Slaughterhouse-5 came out.

A better example would be the fire bombing of Tokyo. More people (probably) died in these attacks than either of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, yet you hardly ever hear anything about them in the media.

Re:Whew...

[Shooter6947]

While North Korea has built a nuclear weapon (well, the one test was a fizzle, it seemed, but they are at least close), and while they have built missles that can strike South Korea and Japan (but not yet the U.S.), they have not yet put the two together. In order to get a bomb onto a missile, or even an airplane for that matter, it has to be a lot smaller a lighter than the ones that the North Koreans have so far. So THAAD can't help defend from them -- yet, anyway. It's not clear yet how long it will be before the North Koreans have something that's deliverable.

Re:Whew...

[Anonymous Coward]

Those missiles were complete successes, the only reason they "blew up" was because they were remotely detonated using the failsafes so that the US, Japan, and SK could not get their hands on the missiles to determine full capability.
(captcha was 'disguise' heh)

Re: Whew...

[Black Parrot]

> 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.

Supposedly a huge mass of artillery, deeply dug in by 50 years of work.

If war breaks out, Seoul isn't a place you'd want to be.

Re:Whew...

[Anonymous Coward]

I seem to recall an old Defense Department study which suggested that if terrorists wanted to destroy a major city, the most reliable method would be to smuggle a nuke in via narcotics pipeline (just what proportion of THOSE get intercepted?)...

Just wondering whether a missile defense system would provide real security, or just psychological comfort. Even one that reliably worked might just prompt a different form of attack...

Re:Whew...

[Eskarel]

Not to be politically incorrect or anything, but the Israelis toss at least as many missiles at Hezbollah as vice versa.

Re:Whew...

[nasch]

Korea's big rocket was a big dud

The Taepo-dong was a failure, but The Daily Show reported that they're developing the Long Phat Dik, which could be much more frightening.

Re:Whew...

[Lord_Slepnir]

It was an old factoid that my history teacher gave us back in High School. Further investigation on my part leads that the only organization that cited numbers that high was the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment...

More likely, the number he gave us was the sum dead from a number of raids carried out on the city, or taken from the high end of some of the earlier estimates (Encyclopedia Colombia or Britanica), or some combination of the two. At any rate, the number of dead is much lower than I previously thought it to be. Live and Learn.

Re:Whew...

[nasch]

Live and Learn.

Awesome, I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone say this on /. :-)

Re:Whew...

[Deliveranc3]

Not to mention all the bombs probably hidden in major cities around the world.

I live in a big City and I'd like to be sure we have some way of finding weapons which were say, burried during the building of our subway system before I go mixing it up with post nuclear powers.

We are damn lucky MAD works and we should stick with it, if the U.S. wasn't such a bunch of assholes (making countries continue with treaties signed decades or even centuries ago) we wouldn't need to worry about counties trying for nuclear proliferation.

When the U.S. pulls it's army bases out of Somalia the Somalians will stop trying to hide Nukes in New York until then please chill out.

Missle ???

[Salsaman]

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

Re:Missle ???

[kfg]

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

Yes.

KFG

Re:Missle ???

[funkdancer]

I guess the slashdot editors, uh, miss'd that one.

Re:Missle ???

[Anonymous Coward]

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

No it's an abbreviation - it is short for 'miss by a mile'

Re:Missle ???

[Spit]

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

It's made out of aluminum tubes.

Re:Missle ???

[grimJester]

American English seem to be taking over...

About Time!

[bostons1337]

Well its good to know the defense department is doing something good with all our tax money besides spending it on booze and strippers....

Re:About Time!

[pixelpusher220]

well, that actually happened at the *after* party celebrating the success. So your worries are aleviated ;-)

Space debris

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Think about 100,000 half-pound tungsten carbide balls floating around. It wont take many launches to get 'em up there and it would reduce the lifespan of anything in LEO (low earth orbit) down to a year and permanently ground human missions for everyone.

Re:Space debris

[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.

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:Next up....

[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:Next up....

[istartedi]

If I win an anti-anti-anti-missile-missile missile in a contest, what are the taxes on it?

Re:Next up....

[cain]

Missle missle Missle missle missle missle Missle missle.

Re:Next up....

[wirelessbuzzers]

Currently Lockheed Martin is developing an anti-anti-anti-missile-missile missile to counter this new threat.

Nah, everyone known that to counter an anti-anti-missile-missile missile, you need an anti-anti-anti-missile-missile-missile laser.

Re:Next up....

[cyphercell]

I know you guys are just being funny, but in sixty years when all wars are fought by robots and counter missile exchanges how devastating will it be when one of those kids crosses in to enemy territory and actually kills people? What will the automated response be? Do you surrender after 100,000 fatalities or do you escalate?

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

[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 paranoia upon ever-smaller targets.

Yes, terrorists are dangerous - but so is everyone else. There will always be crazy people who want to kill others for horrible reasons. We don't have to increase the damage potential against terrorists at every threat - that will NOT fix the 'problem' of terrorism. It only further increases the insanity, and makes us more like the demons we would destroy, making us less safe for all our efforts. And sooner or later, everyone else will see us as the terrorists for our increasing use of so called 'defensive' tactics.

Ryan Fenton

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

[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.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

MAD is only useful in dealing with rational entities.

Now we have the Threat Triad (tm). Like the fire triad, the threat to the US is an entity who has all three: 1) ABILITY to hurt us (i.e WMDs and delivery mechanism); 2) a DESIRE to hurt us, and 3) the WILLINGNESS to hurt us and suffer the consequences.

MAD only addressed number 3 as the situation at the time presumed number 1 and number 2 existed with the USSR. Number 2 and 3 are essentially out of our control, although we can have some influence in that regard with some countries depending on how sane and rational their leadership is.

That leaves number 1 as the one that we have the greatest control of. Albeit not complete control, but we can do more control w/r/t number 1 than the other two (i.e. by military intervention). That is the reason the modern security model, with the rise of irrational and extreme leaderships, has shifted more emphasis to number 1. A big side effect is the fact that we still can use 2 and 3 with many countries, but those options are receiving less facetime because of the rise of dependence on number 1.

I don't like it, but it is an unfortunate necessity. An ABM system addresses number 1. The reason ABMs were considered bad and a treaty was entered restricting them, was having a shield against missiles made you more likely to launch your own because it reduced your risk of consequences from the reprisal. The value of an ABM system now enhances number 1 more than it reduces number 3.... and this is particularly important with the current crop of radicals to whom number 3 is irrelevant.

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

[KKlaus]

This is true. I remember a comment by Michael Yon saying that the general MO for suicide bombing is to get the bomber drugged up and laid the night before to entice him while he commits, and then don't let him get sober. Still dangerous, but hardly having the type of zeal they are portryed to have.

Islam needs to stop being the subject when people talk about extremism. Its poverty and lack of freedom that causes it, and Islam is just the paint on the outside. Need to focus on the root. Like my dad used to say, when you have a lexus to drive around town, you have better things to do than blow yourself up.

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

[blahplusplus]

"I'm personally against the political use of such systems."

The truth is as bombs get even bigger, any weapon system becomes a moot point. It's time to start tackling the real problem and downfall of society: Men and women's genetically inherited behaviour.

After all if someone gets a big enough bomb and is suicidal enough, no defense on earth is going to matter. We should be working on gentically weeding out irrational and warlike characteristics from the human race. Some may "Cry eugenics" but the truth is human beings can easily become wretched creatures they are underneath the "civility" because the are running genetic behavioural programs they've inherited from the past in a modern environment... which is dangerous to say the least.

The truth is civlization has not even begun yet, we still have prisons and war because most human beings lack the ability, knowledge, will and the technology to make a better world.

Just a few quibbles...

[Ancient_Hacker]

>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."

A few quibbles with this "test":

• Was there just one incoming target? Why? Even KJI can afford a few dozen missles.
• Was the approximate time and direction of the threat known?
• Any decoys deployed by the intruder? Why not?
• How large an area can it protect before the angle-off becomes unmanageable?
• Any jamming from the intruder? Why not?
• How does this help against low-trajectory ICBM's, sub-launched IRBM's, or cruise missles, all capable of carrying sizeable WMD's?

IIRC about $60 billion has been spent on ABM since 1950, with negligible results. What a super porkbarrel for the techies!

Re:Just a few quibbles...

[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.

Re:Just a few quibbles...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually low-trajectory and sub-launched missiles are a lot easier to hit, because it's a shorter distance to target and they're not going at the fantastic speeds you get at the lower arc of an ICBM. You might even get multiple shots off at it. The trouble of course is detecting the launch before it's too late.

Re:Just a few quibbles...

[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 system. Anymore "angle-off" and the target is out of range. One would presumably have an overlapping system of these.

* Any jamming from the intruder? Why not?

Placing a jamming system on the target is just making it easier to hit. It is easy to home in on the radio waves emitted by anything with a jammer.>

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

"Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system is the only core Theater Missile Defense (TMD) system which will be capable of engaging the full spectrum of theater class ballistic missile threats."
http://fas.org/spp/starwars/program/thaad.htm

"The THAAD system was designed to handle short and medium range ballistic missiles; such as Scuds and derived weapons. However, a limited incidental capability against ICBMs exists."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_High_Altitud e_Area_Defense

Re:Just a few quibbles...

[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:Just a few quibbles...

[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:Just a few quibbles...

[Dionysos Taltos]

I suggest you review the entire program 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:Just a few quibbles...

[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 POTENTIAL to shoot down an ICBMs from NKorea with inteceptors in California and Alaska, I'll take the POTENTIAL over nothing. Aegis ships have a theater intercept capability and their tracking data can be uploaded and used by other systems. Its about defense in depth. Right now ICBM missile defense has a limited capability, that we are continuously expanding and increasing. And there are additional systems, upgraded inteceptors, the airborne laser, all these individual components will build into a bigger more robust system. Is it expensive, yes, take a lot of time, yes, a lot of R and D, yes. But we now have a POTENTIAL of shooting down a crazy rogue nations ICBMs, decreasing their blackmailing options, I'll take that any day of the week.

Re:Just a few quibbles...

[Dionysos Taltos]

Here's a link for information on MEADS

Re:Just a few quibbles...

[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 Francisco in one hit, but big enough to do some serious dirty damage to those capitalist pigs? I'd think that LA would be a good target for this sort of thing. Right next to the Big Pond, and it's pretty full of freaks(*insincere apologies to those of you from there*).

Is it really the case that one couldn't drive a ship from NK to the states, maybe with fabricated ID saying you're Japanese/South Korean/Whatever? I just ... I have a hard time believing that they search(while hundreds of kilometers out to sea) any ships that from asia before they get in close.

Sure, it's a slower delivery mechanism, but why aren't we worried about this too? Just too annoying/expensive to bother with? Not as showy a show of power and technological awesomeness?

Re:Just a few quibbles...

[Dionysos Taltos]

True. The idea is to have multiple opportunities at any threat. The flight of a missile is broken into three phases. Boost, Midcourse, and Terminal. There are missile defense systems being designed and tested for each of the phases and for different types of missiles (ICBM, cruise, scud).

Re:Just a few quibbles...

[Anonymous Coward]

TBM's aren't realistic vehicles for carrying decoys and warheads; TBM's are road transportable, which greatly limits their size. Given the size of warheads, they're pretty much limited to 1 warhead. ICBM's, which releas MIRVs can have RV's which are decoys. RV's which are decoys are really RV's which they can't afford to put warheads in.

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).

Re:old news....aired on...

[ksheff]

I was wondering how something that could have been on the Discovery Channel last week be news, but this is slashdot. The corkscrew manuever that it does right after launch is kinda weird. Until the show mentioned that it's supposed to do that, I thought it looked like it was out of control.

Re:old news....aired on...

[jaweekes]

I watched it too. I was wondering if anyone else was going to pick up on that. See http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/future-weapons/w eapons/zone2/arsenal-2.html for a very little write-up. It looks very strange when it first launches, as it does a cork-screw thing before locking and shooting off.

Re:old news....aired on...

[Anonymous Coward]

Normally the missile would not do that. It only does that to decrease its initial inertia to keep it within the confines of the test range.

Re:old news....aired on...

[Anonymous Coward]

The segment on FutureWeapons was filmed at White Sands Missle Range in NM last summer. Last week's test was the first at the Pacific Missle Range in HI. The corkscrew maneuver was required at WSMR to bleed off energy for testing on the "small" range in NM, but would not be used in a real engagement. Last week's test was the first launch of the system without the corkscrew. I saw the launch and kill first hand -- it was very cool.

The system isn't due for actual deployment until 2010 or 2011 -- it's still in testing. You have to walk before you can run, and you have to be able to shoot down simple unitary targets before you engage targets with multiple warheads, decoys, or countermeasures.

Re:old news....aired on...

[mikesd81]

From Wikipedia: During test flights that occur at White Sands Missile Range, the missile undergoes the THAAD Energy Management Steering (TEMS) maneuver to burn excess booster propellant and primarily to keep the missile within test range boundaries (see Figure "TEMS contrail" on right).

Re:old news....aired on...

[Anonymous Coward]

The test that was shown on Future Weapons was from July.

The corkscrew was done to bleed off excess energy because of the relatively small range at White Sands. This was a White Sands-only maneuver. This was not performed in the recent test at PMRF, and will not be used in a tactical environment.

Not to kill a good joke...

[Quila]

But that's as opposed to proximity detonation.

Star Wars...

[Sri Ramkrishna]

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

sri

Re:Star Wars...

[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 developed by Russia.

Re:The article fails to mention...

[DerekLyons]

whether or not the system can defend against the recently developed random-trajectory missile 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:The article fails to mention...

[Anonymous Coward]

All of the having essentially a snowballs chance of ever seeing the light of day.

That's not the best analogy when talking about Russia. I think a lot of snowballs in most of Russia see the light of day a good part of the year.

Re:The article fails to mention...

[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 countered," I agree that it's a paper tiger. There's no point in worrying about it. Yes, they should think ahead and look to counter anti-missile-counter missiles, and maybe they are, but it's a lot more difficult if they don't know exactly what they're dealing with (how much does it zigzag)?

Re:The article fails to mention...

[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" ballistic missile is no defense against something like THAAD, both because of limitations on a ballistic missile and the capabilities of the terminal guidance package on THAAD. Despite the fact that it uses kinetic intercept, it is a guided missile with a very competent seeker technology that homes in the target all the way to the end just like a "heat-seeking" (not that we've made heat-seeking missiles in ages) missile; the way people talk about these things, you would think it was flying some kind of precomputed ballistic intercept trajectory.

Re:The article fails to mention...

[Anonymous Coward]

Even the most sophisticated and 100% accurate missile defense shield fails against decades-old missiles + an overwhelming number of decoys. Only one nuke needs to get through, and you'll never stop them all. This nice article explains in more detail. Anyway, the next nuke that is detonated as an act of terrorism will probably be delivered by much simpler means, e.g. via FedEx...

Re:The article fails to mention...

[Darth_Vito]

Did anyone else go to this linked Slashdot story and double check their calendar to see if it was February 1st already? It is strange the way the time is included but the year is omitted from postings.

Re:The article fails to mention...

[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.

Re:The article fails to mention...

[j. andrew rogers]

AIM-9 is a broad family of missiles, but the technology in them has changed a lot. In early versions, they were literally missiles that homed in on the infrared heat signature of another aircraft.

However, a couple decades ago they started transitioning to broad-spectrum imaging terminal guidance. These do not follow a heat source, they actually know what the target looks like (in the sense a human would) and chase it, hence why they are largely impervious to spoofing and counter-measures. It is hard for a MiG-27 to not look like a MiG-27. These imaging systems still work in the infrared spectrum due to its advantages, but they are not seeking hot targets per se and haven't for some time. The latest AIM-9 versions have vectored thrust now too, so it is virtually impossible to out-maneuver them with clever and carefully timed acrobatics.

Re:The article fails to mention...

[Jonathan_S]

>>(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.

I believe that the previous poster was referring to the fact that early IR guided missiles needed a large heat source to track (pretty much you had to get behind a target airplane and aim it at the engine exhaust). But current IR guided missiles have much more capable seekers and act more akin to thermal imaging cameras (at least in terms of sensitivity) than simple "heat seekers".

Modern IR guided missiles (like the later revisions of the AIM-9) are "all aspect" missiles. You can aim them at any part of a target aircraft and they can track it. You don't have to point them at a significant heat source.

Re:The article fails to mention...

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupid Russians. There were plenty of previous versions of interceptors flying at random trajectories. Now see, they missed their targets whose trajectories were not random but they will sure hit this random Russian thingy since they both fly at the same (random) trajectory.

P.S. This was a joke.

Re:The article fails to mention...

[onkelonkel]

Smuggle it in through Miami hidden in a shipment of cocaine.

Re:The article fails to mention...

[Rich0]

Agreed - the thing that makes ICBMs so hard to destroy is their insane kinetic energy. However, it is this very same energy that makes them almost impossible to steer after boost phase. Short of actually detonating the warhead nothing is going to make it change direction more than a degree travellling at Mach 20+.

Re:The article fails to mention...

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you seen a THAAD test? That thing is maneuverable as hell. The test I saw had it bleed off speed by making this incredibly tight corkscrew on launch.

As long as the guidance system is good then I don't think it would have a problem hitting a randomly moving target.

Re:The article fails to mention...

[Anonymous Coward]

If a country has 2006 technology, they have something to lose from MAD. If they have 1955 technology, then we need another plan. Like this.

Re:The article fails to mention...

[cyphercell]

I don't have a link but, IIRC I saw something on the military channel (US). The missile requires gps coordinants and can be fired at a 45 degree angle off target. The accuracy was within 9 yards, I don't remember the distance, but the time from launch to contact was about 2min. I think something like this would be hard to hit, but then again that's US technology.

Dare I say...

[urbanradar]

...in Soviet Russia, interceptor missles YOU a success.

TFA is off by a decade in time

[Anonymous Coward]

"The THAAD program began flight testing in November 2005 at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR), NM."

Way wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_High_Altitud e_Area_Defense/ The THAAD program began flight testing in 1995. And took 4 more years before its first successful test.

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.

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:Not anymore.

[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.

[sumdumass]

I liked the entire mad concept. It made not only anyone in power but their military think twice about their actions to some extent.

Actualy I am a fan of MAD but it would only work if the arms race was already under way. I guess a limitation would be that the threat would need to have existed before it was capitolized on. Thats what most objectors have issue with. They tend to think (or want to think) the threat can be eliminated without using it. But any country can eliminate the known threat and secretly build the weapons without the other side knowing. So the advantage of mutualy assured destruction is that those weapons can never be used with an expectation of anyone ever benefiting from a war. In the hands of large populations like russia and the US, it is very efective.

In the hands of someone like Iran who wants a war with the US for some religious experience, it would suck. But the problem there is mre to the importance of Iran, Not to many people care about them outside their ability to make war with others. With WMDs the MAD principle fails because it would force people to change that opinion. And when a country is starving for attention, It is likley it will get some one way or another.

Re:Not anymore.

[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 Weapons by giving nations the false sense that they can go ahead and utilize nuclear weapons, because any return strike will be mitigated by their own defense system. In reality, that would probably only "work" if used as a strategy by the United States or the former USSR, as they are the only countries with sufficient stockpiles of weapons to make such a strategy "viable." After all, who cares if 90% of the planet is rendered dead and uninhabitable in a full on nuclear exchange, a few million of your side survived! Treaties like the one described were entered into because both sides (in their calmer moments) realized that they really, really didn't want to get into a full on Global Thermonuclear War.

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:Not anymore.

[madcow_bg]

In the hands of someone like Iran who wants a war with the US for some religious experience, it would suck. But the problem there is mre to the importance of Iran, Not to many people care about them outside their ability to make war with others. With WMDs the MAD principle fails because it would force people to change that opinion. And when a country is starving for attention, It is likley it will get some one way or another. Your post was very interesting untill that part, and I suppose that is why the mods have marked it as a troll. If you refresh your knowledge about Iran (even the wikipedia article will do) you'll quickly notice that Iran has been *against* the use of WMDs, check Iran-Iraq war for more info. Besides, Iran still claims they *don't* want nuclear weapons, just the energy.

OTOH, I remember a while ago some US official making remarks on using tactical nuclear devices. I am sure they are not as dangerous as the rest of the arsenal, but "HOW DARE THEY SPEAK AGAINST IRAN, IF THEY ARE EVEN CONSIDERING SUCH A THING AN OPTION???".

Besides, in Iran people from different religions seems to have more freedom than in the rest of the middle east - as in jews can drink wine, which muslims are not allowed. More than that, they are democracy. Iran has such diversity, that it is very hard to rule without cutting somebody's freedom, but they manage just fine. They are one of the oldest civilization, as in more-than-300-years. More like 3000 years. They have a heritage to defend.

Re:Not anymore.

[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:Not anymore.

[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 exchange (Say, because they had a working anti-missile system) they would have nuked the other side in a heartbeat. Then everyone in the world would have had to deal with fallout from several thousand nuclear devices exploding. I suspect that a "limited nuclear exchange" between two countries in the next 20-40 years is unavoidable and we can only hope that the devistation that results from that is enough to persuade the rest of the world that pursuing these weapons is a losing proposition.

Re:Not anymore.

[zxnos]

the problem with iran is that while the president claims he only wants nuclear capabilities for energy, he then says they will wipe israel from the map in his next sentence. if he never said anything to contradict his intentions i would give him the benefit. i also read recently he barred some inspectors.

Re:Not anymore.

[Rommsey]

There is a large difference between Strategic Nuclear Arms, which we fear Iran is pursuing and Tactical Nuclear Arms, of which congress has been mulling over. Israel is the most free nation in the Middle East, not Iran. Iran is not a democracy it is a theocratic republic. Very big difference. Iran's "diversity" is media hogwash that people carelessly buy into. Iranians are seeking freedom and one day they will revolt against the Ayatollah nonsense that has a tyrannical grip on the country.

Re:Not anymore.

[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:Not anymore.

[sumdumass]

Well, In Iran the point wasn't realy to slam them. It was to ilistrate were MAD wouldn't work. You wouldn't want to let someone become part of a MAD process that wasn't already there. Especialy since Iran's political powers have spoken out about the destruction of our allies and is in part being blamed for the insurgency in IRAQ by supplying weapons and allowing militants to cross the border. Mad would just be insane to think about with them if keeping them out of the race is more realistic.

I know Iran has a lot of good qualities. The US used to be good allies with them too. Well, at least when the Shah was in power. Then power changes and boom, It wasn't very good anymore. I'm not sure whats stopping us from regaining an allied status outside the Iraq war*both of them) and now our insistance they don't go atomic.

Re:Not anymore.

[Anonymous Coward]

--Israel is the most free nation in the Middle East, not Iran

    not if you are from palestine

Re:Not anymore.

[Nutria]

There is a large difference between Strategic Nuclear Arms, which we fear Iran is pursuing and Tactical Nuclear Arms, of which congress has been mulling over.

This is an excellent point. A 10Mt weapon air-burst over a large city does considerably more damage than a 20Kt underground burst.

Re:Not anymore.

[DM9290]

We need to create a new ABM treaty and take it further. Nuclear weapons are the one great threat to the very existence of mankind (that we have created ourself). They should be irradicated utterly, and no one whatsoever should have them at all. 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.

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

It should be patently obvious to virtually anyone that a nuclear arms race is utterly immoral. arms races in general are immoral, but a nuclear arms races are so over the top immoral that it boggles the imagination.

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.

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect that a "limited nuclear exchange" between two countries in the next 20-40 years is unavoidable and we can only hope that the devistation that results from that is enough to persuade the rest of the world that pursuing these weapons is a losing proposition.

So, it's inevitable. Maybe the US should just strike (target du jour) first? After all, there is precedent: for all its moralizing, the US remains the ONLY nation-state to nuke another.

I know, when the US does it, it's a rational act, when some up-and-comer does it, it's fanatical. On the side of Right, you have the cold, calculating US; on the other, the wild-eyed envious Third World zealot. However you cast it, it still results in Hiroshimas and Nagasakis.

I guess we can think of it as a built-in mechanism for population control...

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:Not anymore.

[s20451]

I think MAD only works when both sides are somewhat rational and realize how much they stand to lose.

MAD doesn't really work. Or, at least, that's not how a nuclear war would most likely play out in real life: massive attack followed by massive retaliation. MAD hasn't been a part of US strategic nuclear doctrine since the sixties.

A real nuclear war would likely involve a series of escalating attacks on either side, probably starting with an exchange of battlefield weapons, escalating to supply depots, then military targets near cities, then larger-scale "counterforce" attacks. Each time there would be a rational reason to continue: there's no reason to expect a massive response to a limited attack, since MAD means that a massive attack would mean suicide for the attacker.

We're just lucky that nobody has stepped across the first line yet, although the world was about 24 hours away from exactly this scenario during the Cuban missile crisis. Kennedy was about to order an invasion of Cuba when a last-minute deal was struck to remove the missiles. What the US military did not know was that the Soviet commanders had tactical nuclear weapons at their disposal, and -- for the first time in Soviet history -- had been pre-authorized to use them in the event of an attack. From there it would have been a short mental leap to nuclear bombardment of targets in Florida and the southwest, which would have been supporting the invasion.

Re:Not anymore.

[KeiichiMorisato]

I hate to break it to you, during the cold war, Iran was an ally of the US and the US provided military power to Iran in exchange for oil and being the lapdog of the US in the middle east. Then the people democratically elected Mossadegh, who decided to go against what the US wanted so, the United States initiated a Coup d'etat against a democratically elected and very popular leader in Iran in 1953 (because of oil and military interests) and imposed their own leader on the people of Iran. After years of US influence and being a US puppet in the Middle East, the Iranian people overthrew the government in a revolution. Do you think they want to overthrow this government and become a US puppet again?

Re:Not anymore.

[nmb3000]

Nuclear weapons are the one great threat to the very existence of mankind (that we have created ourself). They should be irradicated utterly, and no one whatsoever should have them at all.

That sounds like a job for Superman!

Re:Not anymore.

[s20451]

using airburst nukes to try and take out your opponents missiles in the upper atmosphere

Apparently this is already a design criterion. I recently came across this paper, concerning the re-entry characteristics of the Galileo atmospheric probe at Jupiter. Check out Figure 7, where we read, "Galileo stagnation region heating is equivalent to the combined heating of an ICBM warhead flying through a thermonuclear explosion."

Re:Not anymore.

[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:Not anymore.

[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 their territory to film the crimes-against-humanity which they were committing, which were on the order of ten times worse than those the 'loser' had committed)

Katyn, dude. (homework assignment)

Re:Not anymore.

[Phillup]

so, the United States initiated a Coup d'etat against a democratically elected and very popular leader No problem, now we have voting machines to make sure the "right" person wins.

Re:Not anymore.

[kd5ujz]

I would say Egypt, or even the former Iraq. The majority seemed to be free, as the women could drive, attend school, and hold jobs.

Re:Not anymore.

[coredog64]

The ABM treaty was fairly worthless in that the Soviet Union ignored the terms pretty much before the ink was dry. Once the
Soviet Union fell it was absolutely worthless because it was intended to prevent an event that would never happen (massive nuclear with
the Soviets) and it would have prevented development of worthwhile systems (limited systems which could reduce or eliminate a small
launch by a rogue state).

Re:Not anymore.

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Much of Iran's nuclear weapons facilities are supposed to be underground. If they are, even the newer, conventional bunker busters could do the job effectively. I've read a number of online scenarios regarding the use of the new bunker busters. All of them attempt to calculate the effect of one bomb, and show that they can be pretty devastating. A multiple, possibly sequential, bomb attack might well be effective, and would certainly be a lot less controversial.

Note, see here: http://www.strategypage.com/military_photos/200610 122107.aspx
for bunker buster video.

Re:Not anymore.

[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:Not anymore.

[EtherealStrife]

I'm Polish, so you're just preaching to the choir about Katyn and Russia. Even "Federal" Russia is attempting to cover its ass on that one, for fear of the political repercussions 60 years after the fact.

As for my sarcasm, I guess I must limit it to the non-political. :)

Re:Not anymore.

[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, than have ever died in nuclear blasts. Why so much less outrage there? More people died in a night of fire-bombings of wooden cities, than in the atomic bombings; they're just more spectacular.

Nuclear weapons aren't particularly unique. Several of the invasion plans that were tossed around prior to the use of nuclear weapons on Japan involved saturating the islands with nerve gas, and just taking it by default after the population had been decimated.

Re:Not anymore.

[aldheorte]

If it were not for nuclear weapons, we would probably be on conventional World War IV about now. The acquisition of nuclear weapons is the acquisition of guaranteed sovereignty and the principal of mutually assured deterrence is the only guarantor of peace between large powers. There is no argument that the potential for destruction of nuclear weapons is orders of magnitude more devastating than conventional war, but tens if not hundreds of millions of people would have died in conventional wars in the last six decades without them. Nuclear weapons are why we have cold wars instead of hot ones, or only hot ones between unmatched opponents instead of superpower versus superpower.

Re:Not anymore.

[LividBlivet]

And yet, here we are.

MAD may have kept us only one RCH away from hell but that was all that was required.

Re:Not anymore.

[bhiestand]

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). They are certainly more humane than other weapons of mass destruction, not to say that they're pleasant. You are certainly correct about the number of lives killed; the fire bombings were much worse! If you don't include the people killed by after effects, the firebombing of Tokyo killed more people than Hiroshima. If you include them, Hiroshima killed the most, Tokyo fire bombings were #2, and Nagasaki was a distant third. I can't remember the numbers from Dresden, but many more Japanese were killed from fire bombing than nuclear bombing.

Of course the real point in using it was the psychological impact of "look what we can do with one plane and one bomb". I'd equate this to scaring someone off with a shotgun when a small pocket knife just isn't doing the job, even though you can slowly bleed them to death with a small knife.

Re:Not anymore.

[PHPfanboy]

You're using the terms (Israeli) Arabs and Palestinians interchangeably, which of course they are, it's the same families and people as next door in Palestine just they have Israeli IDs, and of course own land and vote. In fact the first Sunni Muslim Arab was just this week appointed a cabinet member.

Palestinians are those who fled/were forced to flee in 1948 when the Arabs tried to kill the Jews. They own their own land (which is also taken by settlers/government/army) and they do vote, but not in Israel. If they continue to vote the way they do, there'll probably be another war and then they will be back in Israel, but that's a different story altogether.

And Palestinians have been in the Knesset, not on it. Sorry to nit pick, but the details are important.

Re:Not anymore.

[mi]

Sweet! So torturing captives really is OK [...]

Bzzz... Attempt to change topic detected.

I heard a survivor recount how flesh peeled from people's bodies

Wars suck. It does not matter, if the flesh is peeling off by itself after radiation exposure, or if it is peeled off by the victor's sword. Wars are to be avoided, but that's off-topic.

We are discussing (and comparing) weapons, which are used at war — regardless of how the particular war came about.

Anybody who thinks atomic bombs are "humane" [...]

No weapon is humane, but some weapons are more humane than others. For example, a precise ICBM, which can be aimed directly at a military installation near Saratov, is more humane than imprecise one, because you'd have to use a bunch of them and obliterate the entire Saratov along with the darn military installation...

Re:Not anymore.

[DkY]

Good god, this is some good Godwin avoidance!

Re:Not anymore.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Nuclear weapons are the one great threat to the very existence of mankind (that we have created ourself). They should be irradicated utterly, and no one whatsoever should have them at all."

Yeah, and they should be eradicted too. Let's start with Iran and N. Korea.

Re:Not anymore.

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot Poland.

Re:Not anymore.

[OwnedByTwoCats]

he then says they will wipe israel from the map

Except the President of Iran never said any such thing.

Re:Not anymore.

[OwnedByTwoCats]

Your version of the history and culture of the area is far from what actually happened. 1948 was 5/6ths Israeli conquest of Palestinian lands; the opposite of what you claim.

Re:Not anymore.

[DM9290]

"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."

The United States is the only country which has ever used a nuclear weapon offensively.

The united states has 6 to 10 times as many nuclear weapons as all the rest of the world combined excluding Russia. It also spends as much on conventional weapons as the rest of the world combined.

It doesn't much matter whether or not any other country might have a reason to not go along. Russia has been dismantling weapons faster than the US and has not demonstrated any desire to resume the arms race. Any other country can be persuaded to give up its nukes to avoid economic sanctions.

most rational people understand the inherent immorality of nuclear weapons. Hell.... How many Iraqi's died just because of some crazy President from Connecticut, who likes to pretend he is a Texan, dreamed that Saddam is trying to make a nuke?

Don't blaim France and the UK for the fact that Republicans and Democrats wants to resume the nuclear arms race.

Re:Not anymore.

[Anonymous Coward]

White phosporous weapons are against some international treaties and are almost as hated as nukes (proportionally, based on their size and usage (i.e. attacking military vs civilians)) by people who are aware of them.

The "almost" is because of the lasting effects of radiation which doesn't really apply to phosphorous.

Re:Not anymore.

[Doctor Memory]

Ever seen napalm? White phosphorous? Thermite? They'll all melt the flesh off your bones, too, and more people met their ends that way, than have ever died in nuclear blasts. Why so much less outrage there? I was replying to a post that claimed that atomic bombs were humane, not napalm or phosphorus. I'm not unaware of other WMDs, but nobody (before you) brought them into the discussion. FWIW, though, I think the effect of flesh peeling off of apparently-undamaged people is a bit different from seeing someone burn in a fire that can't be extinguished, although I won't venture an opinion as to which is more horrifying.

Nuclear weapons aren't particularly unique. Nuclear weapons aren't unique? You mean that we have other single weapons that can level a small city? If you mean we have a vast panopoly of ways to kill others, then yes, but I'd still argue that nuclear bombs have a distinct niche.

Several of the invasion plans that were tossed around prior to the use of nuclear weapons on Japan involved saturating the islands with nerve gas, and just taking it by default after the population had been decimated. Actually, the nerve toxins available at the time (mostly tabun captured from Germany) weren't all that toxic. They'd sicken people, and probably kill the infirm, but they weren't as nasty as (say) mustard gas. Still, I don't doubt they'd have tried it, if they could have figured out some delivery method.

Re:Not anymore.

[DM9290]

"MAD may have kept us only one RCH away from hell but that was all that was required."

luckily. care to go again? double or nothing?

Re:Not anymore.

[PHPfanboy]

er... are you sure you were responding to my comment? What is 5/6ths and how is it opposite?

Re:Not anymore.

[Anonymous Coward]

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).

I love the ease with which some people can justify the single biggest slaughter of innocent, defenceless civilians in WWII outside of Hitler's death camps. Looks like 9/11 didn't wake everyone up.

Re:Not anymore.

[KDR_11k]

Unfortunately with ABMs the threat of MAD might get nullified for one country and it would be critical for other countries to obliterate that country before its ABMs are operational.

Re:Not anymore.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/archive/archive? ArchiveId=15816

"The establishment of the Zionist regime was a move by the world oppressor against the Islamic world," the president told a conference in Tehran on Wednesday, entitled The World without Zionism.

"The skirmishes in the occupied land are part of a war of destiny. The outcome of hundreds of years of war will be defined in Palestinian land," he said.

"As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map," said Ahmadinejad, referring to Iran's revolutionary leader Ayat Allah Khomeini.

Re:Not anymore.

[KDR_11k]

Don't think of it as a treaty, think of it as a declaration of their nuclear first-strike rules. If a country starts deploying ABMs you have to nuke them now because later they could be immune and start the war.

Re:Not anymore.

[dovf]

Palestinians who are Israeli citizens living in Israel are probably better off there than they would be anywhere else in the Middle East --- I don't see any of them running to move to any of the neighboring countries, or to a Palestinian State, should one be created. Even Palestinians living in the occupied territories are probably better off than they would be in most of the neighboring countries. That's not to say that things couldn't be better, and I sincerely hope that we are able to learn to live peacefully side-by-side. But the first step has to be acknowledgment of the fact that Israel is far from the Ultimate Evil that it is often made out to be.

Re:Not anymore.

[madcow_bg]

No doubt about it.
So, there is no problem for Iran to obtain those weapons? After all, there is no danger for civilians whatsoever.

Twist it as you like, but using nukes and protesting against their use is hypocrisy at it's best.

is this like the success

[Anonymous Coward]

of the missile interception program of the Star Wars project in the 80s?

Corrected Headline

[Anonymous Coward]

US THAAD system knocks letter "i" out of incoming ballistic word

Fuck The War: +1, Helpful

[Anonymous Coward]

Your federal tax dollars at war to help the world's most dangerous leader.

P.S.: To "Senator John McCain (a.k.a. The Sorry Sack Of Babbling Protoplasm):

    I'm sorry, Mr. McCain. Kim Jong iL is not close to the numbers of Mao.

Thanks for your patriotism,
Kilgore Trout

"THAAD is designed to defend U.S. troops, allied forces, population centers and critical infrastructure against short- to intermediate range ballistic missiles."

Tagging "typo"

[thib_gc]

No... it's just a typo. I'm tagging this article "typo".

ok for us

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:ok for us

[YrWrstNtmr]

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

Who says they can't?

Re:ok for us

[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:ok for us

[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 fairly effective ABM system would make attacking such a nuclear state without nuclear retaliation to yourself seem at least plausible since the political reality is that even one of your cities getting nuked is unthinkable.

Thing is, I'd sure hate to see that system fail if it emboldened us enough to attack them...........

Re:ok for us

[Big_Breaker]

Decoys are a reasonably effective strategy but it comes at a significant cost.

1. Even decoys require launchers and lift vehicles (rockets). The decoys need everything that the armed ICBM needs, absent a warhead. Otherwise the difference in flight characteristics will be obvious and the decoys can be ignored.

2. Proportionate response. If we see twenty missiles coming at us from North Korea we will respond proportionately with twenty missiles. This happens as soon as a launch is confirmed, before THAAD has intercepted any missiles and before the fraction of decoys - if any - is known. Since we do not know any of this information, our proportionate response will assume that all their missiles are armed, so all of ours will be armed. While we lose a city, the DPRK is obliterated.

Did they hit anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, did they hit something or not?

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.

They recognized a target and tracked it. Did they knock it down?

Re:Did they hit anything?

[PopeRatzo]

So, did they hit something or not?

You're missing the point. Just because the mission was accomplished doesn't mean the mission was accomplished.

You've got to learn to understand this administration. In the first instance, "Mission Accomplished" meant that the mission of making sure that a forever war had been created that would enrich military contractors for decades to come, to give back what had been taken from them when the Soviet Union went belly-up in such an unexpected manner. That, and protecting Americans from having to get their hair mussed up trying to figure out alternatives to fossil fuels. And never mind that Bush and Co. were all in the oil business. That's not in the least bit relevant. Just more crazy hippie talk.

This time, "Mission Accomplished" means that they can now justify (sort of) another few trillion keeping those same friendly contractors busy building [drumroll, please] MISSILE DEFENSE, the Star Wars of the new millennium.

Problem is, the enemy du jour (Islamonazifascistliberals) don't really have much in the way of missiles. But far be it from the guys in charge to let that stop them. It's easier to sign a check than actually get a clue. And much easier to light a fuse than tell someone who's poured millions into your campaigns that they're going to have to start working for a living.

Re:Did they hit anything?

[Phillup]

In the first instance, "Mission Accomplished" meant that the mission of making sure that a forever war had been created that would enrich military contractors for decades to come... Actually, the mission was to hang a banner on a tall object in rough seas.

;-)

Re:Did they hit anything?

[PopeRatzo]

Actually, the mission was to hang a banner on a tall object in rough seas.

Brother, you made me laugh. Mission Accomplished.

Re:Did they hit anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't build weapons or defense systems for the enemy du jour, you build them for the enemy of the future.

Re:Did they hit anything?

[LoofWaffle]

Yes they did "knock it down". http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-434281424 2402397718&q=thaad&hl=en

Re:Did they hit anything?

[fastcoke11]

Hahaha it's so true. Apparently the pres and vp earning dividends off a company they give multibillion dollar no-bid contracts to doesn't bother some people.

Although I will say that the missile defense shield shouldn't just be abandoned because the enemy du jour is a bunch of international drug-dealing, murderous, criminal organizations. I think there is merit to realizing that there are still thousands of ICBMs aimed at this country. And the THAAD is also very useful against short to intermediate-range missiles, which is helpful against rogue nations who would like to shoot some of those at our troops or allies. And if they're tipped with nuclear warheads, that could get ugly.

But then again I work for Lockheed Martin, so maybe my view is a bit skewed. [i kid]

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:Another quibble

[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:Another quibble

[icegreentea]

they already have stuff to shoot at cruise missiles. sm-2 and patriot missiles. they've had these for a long time. it's easier to shoot down cruise missiles then ballistics. something about the speeds involved (mach 3 max vs mach 15 or something)

Marketing Speak

[sabt-pestnu]

engages threat ballistic missiles at both endo- and exo-atmospheric altitudes

This is marketing speak for "it's steerable as a rocket, not just with flight surfaces." Note that this would describe most ballistic missiles of all sorts. ... and would NOT describe the "Cruise Missile", which depends on lifting surfaces for most of its flight.

Link about the Dec 11 test...
http://www.missiledefenseadvocacy.org/index/THAADN EWS.php

And you can look up THAAD on wikipedia yourself...

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.

4th edition

[merikari]

That was in the 2nd edition. THAAD is the "to hit numner" using a one sided die...

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...

Yes, they changed the name.

[Dionysos Taltos]

THAAD

Yet more killing technology...

[flajann]

Why am I underwhelmed. Well, OK -- it's an "interceptor", but hey, I am so tired of the "defense" department sucking up all manners of resources and talent just to create the more "efficient" kill.

While technically it's attractive -- even to a die-hard peacenik like me -- I would much rather see more positive efforts. Besides, an inceptor -- expensive -- will be easy to foil with duds and dummies -- cheap. All "the enemy" on a shoestring budget needs to do is launch a bunch of duds along with the real missile, and the intecptors will waste their time, letting the real one slip through.

Yet another fine example of "military intelligence".

Re:Yet more killing technology...

[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 condom as opposed to not wearing one, your odds are just better. Sex is not free (risks / costs), just like freedom.

Re:Yet more killing technology...

[TopSpin]

All "the enemy" on a shoestring budget needs to do is launch a bunch of duds along with the real missile

Won't it cost your proverbial enemy far more money to produce a barrage of dummies? The launcher isn't free just because it's not armed with a warhead. If the enemy can afford such extravagance, why wouldn't they simply arm all the missiles and count on the ones that get through? Either the enemy can afford to launch enough missiles to defeat the defense or they can't. Which is it?

Will it be easier to detect the launch of a salvo of missiles, as opposed to one? What number of lives will be spared by the successful intercepts? What more retaliatory capacity will be preserved by the successful intercepts? What number of either will not be harmed due to the preponderance of dummies? Aren't cruise missiles far more sophisticated than ballistics?

Only a fool would claim ABM can achieve perfect defense. Only detractors attempt to use perfect defense as the standard. Rational people observe that the presence of ABM raises the bar, perhaps enough to matter.

There has always been a boogy man. There will always be a boogy man. No 'better foreign policy' is going to change that. Sometimes the boogy man fades away and were left astounded that we should ever have been concerned. What fools we were! Sometimes the boogy man attacks. Those parts go in the history books, over and over. THAAD is just the modern incarnation of a slightly higher castle wall.

You and I have had the good fortune to be born in a place that can afford to keep the boogy man away. Perhaps you loath yourself and those around you enough to wish it were otherwise. The rest of us don't need to experience actual shrapnel to learn just how fast that attitude can vanish.

Re:Yet more killing technology...

[mikesd81]

You understand that THAAD has now war head right? It's to intercept and destroy other missiles by force...not to hit buildings and moving vehicles with people.

Great news!

[pascalpp]

I happen to have $500 billion sitting in my bank account, and now I have something worthwhile to spend it on! I was going to buy healthcare for everyone in my country, but, um, nah!

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[account_deleted]

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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.

Re:What exactly did they test successfully?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're really looking for "hit the target", it's there to be found... http://www.missiledefenseadvocacy.org/index/BN0129 2007-1.html or
http://www.missiledefenseadvocacy.org/index/BN0127 2007.html

Actually...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's supposed to be "mistle", referring to the new defense system for women at office christmas parties.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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 bit by the time your missile gets there, you need a BIG boom to disable all of them that matter. And without an atmosphere to carry a shockwave it helps if you can irradiate with heat, gammas, and neutrons, and can vaporize the whole antimissile and hit the targets with the vapor.

Problem with that is you're setting off your OWN nukes above your OWN targets - and high enough above the atmosphere to do a major electromagnetic pulse when the gamma burst makes a sheet of electrons the size of a continent jump upward by a few miles. (With defenses like that who needs an enemy missile with a real warhead? Other than to provoke the defense.)

So, yes, "hit to kill" is a BIG improvement over the "miss-to-kill technology they were using in previous models". (Assuming you have at least as many anti-missiles as they sent warheads and convincing decoys.)

Re:And nuclear weapons

[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.

Re:And nuclear weapons

[Anonymous Coward]

The other big problem with using nuclear weapons on your interceptors is that the detonation was like a big strobe flash to your radars. Everything behind the expanding cloud of plasma gas (fireball) couldn't be seen. I don't know how long the fireball took to dissipate enough for radar to penetrate. Probably too long.

Who would that be?

[Tungbo]

What party has intermediate missiles and has no fear of massive retaliation?

North Korea, you say?
If you study their behavior, you'll see that they may be erratic. But the
"beloved leader" is MOST consistent in terms of protecting his own live - Witness the miles and miles of underground dwelling that they have built.
IOW, he may be as eccentric as many western celebrities, but certainly NOT a suicide bomber. So who is this system really going to be used against?

Re:Who would that be?

[Ironsides]

If he starts to lose power, "beloved leader" would most certainly stop to care about what would happen to himself. The only way KJI isn't going to launch is if there is no chance of losing power. Once that is gone, well, outlook not so good.

On the other hand, this system is supposed to work against a fairly wide variety of missiles. This includes SCUDS, which are much more widely used.

Migrating birds?

[kramulous]

But what about the migrating birds? Some with gastrointestinal problems?

Somethings afoot at the USA

[Riquez]

This is the 3rd new weapons tech announcement in so many days. First the US Navies Electromagnetic Rail Gun, then the Heat Ray & now this. You don't think they are planning something do you?

Re:Somethings afoot at the USA

[KillerBob]

They're always planning something. The question is whether they act on it.

Given the specific mention of Iran in the last state of the union, though.... :(

It is an excuse for new missile bases

[Denial93]

The dwindling number of countries which still suck up to the US (like the Czech Republic) are already interested in having such a system on their soil. Everyone with a brain knows it can't work as designated, but there are other uses. The missiles can target airplanes or cars, or be refitted, quickly and quietly, to carry any sort of warhead.

When you increasingly rely on bully strategies that involve large numbers of individual actions that blatantly disregard local laws or human rights, such a system is exceedingly useful. IMNSHO, the primary use of MEADS (which this is a part of) will be the power to blow up any target in the Middle East reliably, at any time, within minutes, with no air force involved and possibly in a difficult-to-trace way. If there was no CNN effect, they might as well deploy Katyushas, like the Hezbollah does.

Missle?

[Artifex]

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

Re:Missle?

[TempeTerra]

That was to show they're serious. It's all fun and games until someone loses an i.

Featured on Future Weapons

[ryanisflyboy]

This was featured on Future Weapons on Jan 22nd: http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/future-weapons/e pisodes/episode-guides.html

The episode was very interesting. If you aren't familiar with the show it is very good, and the host is one heck of a sniper. He drums it up a bit, and is a little over the top, but the guy can shoot so you have to show some respect.

I feel safe now

[jbrader]

So this thing can shoot down a missile when its controllers know one is on the way. How well does it work against a whole fleet of unexpected incoming missiles along with decoys,chaff and multiple warheads? Or, to be a little more up to date, how well does it work against a handful of fanatics in a stolen jumbo jet, or with a mini-van loaded with fertalizer? "Missile defense" is a gigantic, money sucking hole. How much did this thing cost and how much safer would we be if we had spent the same amount on diplomacy or on improving conditions for our own countrymen rather than fattening the wallets of a handful of defense contractors?

Wrong System.

[Anonymous Coward]

Arguments about the validity of the criticisms voiced in that link aside, they have nothing to do with this system.

THAAD and Aegis are both theater anti-missile systems, meant to take down short to medium range missiles, not ICBMs. Think of them as improvements on the Patriot missile. Field experiance with the Patriot proves that they are feasable. Not infallible, or as successfull as the Gulf Storm media would lead to believe, but still very usefull. These are better yet.

A perfect example of where something like this might come into play would be to protect our allies (South Korea / Japan / Hong Kong) in south east asia against local advisaries (North Korea / China).

Anybody saw the link between the two news?

[Anonymous Coward]

What a coincidence with Hubble's camera.

I wouldn't call that a success since they probl'y hit the telescope with that missile.

See : http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/2 9/2235215/

Do you seriously think...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you seriously think that if N. Korea launched a missile that hit U.S. mainland/alaska/hawaii, that China would urge no retaliation? And if they did, what value would it be? I would expect as an America that the U.S. basically turn P'yngyang into lava within 8 hours.

If you don't respond with force to a strike on your homeland, then you might as well disband your entire military force.

Yes, Missle

[Sloppy]

I was actually trained to misspell this word. The problem is that in high school, someone (very roughly) cloned "Missile Command" on the high school computer, and many of us would sometimes play it.

But the computer was a PDP-11 running RSTS/E. Filenames had the 6+3 constraint. So the game was called "MISSLE" (plus an extension depending on source or compiled). Since I got used to typing it that way, my brain got used to spelling it that way.

I like to think I'm a fully recovered missile speller now, but it has been a tough journey.

The ABM "treaty" was never ratified!

[unassimilatible]

Treaties must be ratified to have the force of law. The ABM treaty was not. Therefore, it was never a treaty.

Re:The ABM "treaty" was never ratified!

[Saganaga]

Sure it was. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Ballistic_Missil e_Treaty:

The treaty was signed in Moscow on May 26, 1972 and ratified by the US Senate on August 3, 1972.

What about Topol?

[e-scetic]

I don't see anything in the article to indicate THAAD works against ICBM's that can behave more like cruise missiles and zigzag to their targets. Check the following:

• Newsweek
• Pravda

USB Missile Interceptor Tests a Success

[phenxor]

USB Missile Interceptor? Oh.

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 conventional method. HECK, the wood-crate with lead lining method has another big advantage : you can't easily trace back from where it came, on the contrary to a balistic missile. If you all US-ian quake in fear at NK nuke capability then instead of such anti balistic system, I would recommend searching through all goods coming in your seaport.

Come On...

[teh1337striker]

Am I the only one here that watches FutureWeapons on the Discovery Channel?

other non-nuke bunker buster

[r00t]

Get a piece of depleted uranium (or tungsten) the size and shape of a telephone pole. Drop it from space.

For bonus points, slingshot it around Jupiter. It then travels in the direction of the bunker, helped by both Earth and Sun gravity.

Re:other non-nuke bunker buster

[AaronLawrence]

Many people use this throwaway concept of "dropping it from space". Unfortunately, you can't "drop" anything from something in orbit, like a satellite. Try letting go of an object and it will just hang there beside you, with the same orbital momentum as you.

You have to do a full re-entry with precision rocket burns, taking account turbulence and air resistance on the way down, since your launch platform is going to be in orbit and travelling therefore at some large number of kilometres per second.

Re:other non-nuke bunker buster

[r00t]

Unfortunately, you can't "drop" anything from something in orbit

Well, I never mentioned orbit. In that case, "drop" roughly means to accelerate in a direction opposite to your ground track.

The expectation is suborbital, like an ICBM. That works rather well. You don't get into orbit anyway without a course correction specificly designed to produce an orbit; any simple trajectory leads you right back to the Earth. Time to impact is somewhere between 20 minutes and a couple hours, more if you want extra energy.

If you take a big long trip for even more energy (at a cost of some time), orbit is not really anything to think about. You do general space mission planning, same as for any other deep-space trip. Comet-like orbits would let you have a steady supply of objects making high-speed flybys of Earth though, any of which could be divirted to strike a target on reasonably short notice.

Re: It's a neat....

[BatMacumba]

? informative? Um... the article was a press release from LockheedMartin. Got stock in them or something?

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 out culture to reduce misunderstanding and general hatred in the long term. We can use radar-controlled heavy machine guns to stop incoming devices.

As a final protection, there is always the cave 10 feet underground stocked with calcium and iodine supplements.

Nothing is 100% perfect. Every little bit helps.

Re:that too

[Anonymous Coward]

We can export out culture to reduce misunderstanding and general hatred in the long term

How about 'We can study other cultures to reduce misunderstanding (on our part) and general hatred (on our part), and paranoia'. I guess that's just not on the list. The problem the rest of the world has with America (or at least the current administration) is not about misunderstanding, it's about understanding underlying ambitions (perpetual world hegemony) all too well.

Your options are interesting in what they omit. Almost every option you mention is concerned with the use of force or dominance to compel (not persuade) the other party to comply with your wishes. While force sometimes has to be employed, it is a symptom of failure, not a long-term solution.

Re:It was useful against the USSR and China

[BatMacumba]

-sniiiiiiiiif- ahhhhhh! nothing like fresh, regurgitated propaganda! ahhhhhh!

Right system.

[r00t]

Remember, the Patriot missile was an anti-aircraft system. In the anti-missile role it's like the dancing bear or the piano-playing dog; we are delighted that it works at all.

A recent upgrade to the Patriot system provides more THAAD-like missiles and better software, but it's still a system originally designed to take down slower-moving aircraft.

Now we have THAAD, supposedly for short-range and medium-range missiles. It'll probably do a decent job on the ICBMs as well, which is better than we had before. Like the Patriot system, it will get upgrades. Like the Patriot system, the lessons learned (hopefully not via cratered cities) will help us to design the next generation.

boost phase

[r00t]

You can sometimes use missiles for boost phase. That depends on geography.

Launch from center of Russia or China: no.

Launch from North Korea: yes. (from ship, plane, Japan, South Korea, etc.)

BTW, only a fool would want to rely on one single intercept method. Numerous anti-missile ideas are worth implementing.

American Hospitals still need more staff...

[Anonymous Coward]

Great, the USA citizen doesn't have to worry about getting hit by nuke,
but if he gets hit by a bus, there are not enough doctors or nurses to take care of him!

USA - Health Care, Life, Liberty, and the persuit of Happiness (for all those who can afford it...)

Half a Trillion $$$ spent in Iraq, growing more everyday - and still American children's health and fitness suffers.

How about a cure for diabetes?

Re:American Hospitals still need more staff...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can someone help me determine if that is sarcasm or canadian in AC's voice?

got artillery taken care of too

[r00t]

There is now a laser-based system that nicely takes out artillery shells, morters, and small rockets.

Wouldn't that be ...

[PPH]

...called THUD if its a hit-to-kill weapon?

Obligatory West Wing Reference

[Anonymous Coward]

By how much?
Uh, Leo...
By how much did it miss the target?
Colonel?
1-3-7.
We missed it by 137 feet.
Miles.
We missed it by 137 miles??
When you consider the size of outer space, Leo, that's not so bad.
Sir...
By the way, the words you're looking for are `Oh, good grief.'

insane kinetic energy makes it easy

[r00t]

Impact with a large bird would probably wipe out the ICBM. Maybe even a very small bird would do.

Imagine it the other way around if it helps you. Imagine the ICBM is motionless, and the bird is at mach 20. (equivalent, by relativity) Remember what a chunk of foam did to the space shuttle.

Hey, that would do the job nicely. We can use space shuttle foam.

About the corkscrew

[mikesd81]

I remember the host saying that it did that intentionally to burn off some energy. I'm thinking but not sure that may be because of the controlled test because he said that it specifically wouldn't go past White Sands borders?

Grenade strangler

[Incadenza]

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

In separate news, the Dutch institute of technology just announced a fishing net made of superfibre to protect troops in *stan against RPGs. Does this fall under low tech (it is a regular fishing net producer that makes these things) or high tech (it is still a superfibre)?

Babelfish translation here: http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pag econtent?lp=nl_en&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.volkskrant. nl%2Fwetenschap%2Farticle392325.ece%2FVisnet_van_s upervezel_smoort_antitankgranaat
But that will need some extra translation:
visnet = fishing net
granaatwurger = grenade strangler
wachttorens = guard towers

Buzzword Bingo

[Attila the Bun]

It's so nice to to touch base with the latest bleeding-edge technologies in the field of top-down, user-centred, interpersonal solutions. This bespoke methodology is bound to give proactive leaverage to next-level paradigm shifts in our operating model and incentivise the rationalization process across the enterprise.

Endo-atmospherically yours,
A. T. Bun

Missle Head Designer..?

[myram]

Snoop Dogg? Or because it's 'nucular' driven?

Do you know what "Theater" means?

[wiredog]

These aren't intended to protect the US from a massive missile attack, they're intended to protect deployed US and allied forces from short and intermediate range missile attacks. Think South Korea or Japan defending against North Korean attacks, or US forces in Saudi Arabia defending against Iranian missiles.

different from the chinese anti-satellite test?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anybody cares to explain how this is different from the anti-satellite test China conducted just a few weeks ago? Isn't this conducted in outer-space too?

Some data on ballistic missiles...

[sean.peters]

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

Short and intermediate range ballistic missiles are not typically launched from submarines. The only ballistic missiles launched from US subs are no-kidding ICBMs - Trident II's. With a few exceptions (the Brits, Russians, maybe a few others), no one else has a subsurface ballistic missile capability at all. And the THAAD system would not be capable of intercepting that kind of missile (if I understand it correctly).

Actually, short and intermediate range ballistic missiles are pretty much always land-based. Think Pershing II in the US, or SCUD overseas. These are the kinds of systems THAAD is meant to counter.

Sean