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

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: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: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: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?

[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.