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US Tests New Missile Defense
pumpkinpuss writes "The US military yesterday shot down a missile in a test simulating a long-range ballistic missile attack by a potential adversary such as North Korea or Iran. The target missile was launched from Kodiak Island, Alaska, at 3:04 PM Eastern time, tracked simultaneously by several ground and ship-based radars, and intercepted by a 'kill vehicle' 3,000 kilometers away over the Pacific 25 minutes later, according to the Missile Defense Agency. Lt. Gen. Patrick O'Reilly said, 'The kill vehicle was sent to a very accurate spot in space giving us great confidence.'"
Reader gilgsn points out the testing of a different "multiple kill vehicle" by Lockheed Martin, which was able to hover over the ground and track a target. Video of the test (WMV) is also available.
We don't need it anyway. If we are attacked during the Obama administration, he would call up the people that launched the missile, and after they talk, the aggressors will will see it Obama's way and press the self destruct button.
What a beautiful machine! I really love it's completely evil and aggressive look. The way the camera shakes because of the massive amounts of unergy it uses to keep hovering. This thing will be a hit computergame enemy.
I am a pacifist but i love military tech. Is that sick?
Iran can't yet hit the USA, but can hit Israel and europe. Also they aren't called ICBM for nothing. They can travel around the globe.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
By all accounts, these tests are completely rigged, and the system can be fooled by the simplest of tactics. The only way to really test it, is to set up a game, where you allow a completely independent team to try to fool the system and another team to try to shoot it down. It is really dangerous to kick off another cold war in order to deploy a system which is a complete fraud. This is yet another way to funnel money to defense contractors...
Deconstruct the State
However, he said the 40-year-old target missile failed to deploy its countermeasures -- such as decoys or chaff -- which were supposed to add realism to the test.
I guess it still qualifies as a valid test against a virtual enemy using archaic or not well maintained ICBMs.
Obama can do Jedi mind tricks?
Better. Even if you are the biggest and baddest, you still treat others with respect. It works miracles.
I can understand N. Korea since they can actually reach the Aleutians... but Iran?
I think Iran and North Korea are simply the easiest threats to identify right now. What this system is designed to do is counter any country that is not deterred by the threat of massive retaliation. Whether it be Iran, North Korea, a destabilized Russia, or a fundamentalist lead Pakistan, this system should give pause to any suicidal leader who is willing to trade the annihilation of his country for the chance to wipe out at least one American city.
That being said, by the time Iran acquires the ability to launch ICBMs at the US, this program may actually work as advertised.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
I am a pacifist but i love military tech. Is that sick?
There are those who would argue, that military tech guarantees peace.
Of course, if your game has wackos instead of rational players, all bets are off.
Even when the Cold War started to heat up, the US and the USSR were wise enough to keep their fingers off the buttons.
I am not so sure if the Next Generation Nuclear Players will have this same wisdom.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Since it's not so important to get it right I guess by the beard.
So since we've got some tiny islands that N Korea could barely reach if it got really lucky, that N Korea could benefit from attacking only by escalating a shooting war with the US, we should... polish the trigger and load the gun?
I think this is an arms race. Right now North Korea can only hit some tiny islands, and our tests only work in well controlled simulations. The hope is, by the time Korea can hit our mainland with nukes, we have a fully functional and completely deployed version of this technology. We can't just sit on our hands and wait for Korea(or Iran, or Pakistan) to obtain the capacity, and will, to hit us before we start the decades long research and development.
If they hit them, we'd suffer minimal loss, and N Korea would finally find itself facing the most global opposition possible. It would be a boon to the US, just as Georgia's attacking Russia finally gave Russia the chance to slap down its Georgia nuisance.
What we are preparing for is the nuclear ICBM equivalent of a suicide bomber. The coldly logical, and successful, strategies of MAD do not hold when confronted with an opponent that doesn't care if they face "the most global opposition possible". Losing a large American city to a nuclear ICBM is not at all equal to Russia's "Georgia nuisance".
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
I'm not a warmonger or anything like that, but if the system has a 1 in 10 chance of stopping a nuclear missile or other rogue missile launched at a U.S. city (say mine), i'd rather have that chance than zero chance if we don't have the system.
You say Obama will just fix all the countries hating us with his new world diplomacy, but there will always be people who don't like us (this isn't Star Trek Utopia), so the likelihood of there being at some point in the future some sort of threat similar to this to us or one of our allies, is highly likely.
They've had many successes with the system so far and already have it deployed on some ships and land-based areas. Also, who says if a real missile were launched at us we wouldn't launch multiple kill vehicles. If we have 50 interceptors sitting at one base and a missile coming in, nothing says you can't launch more than one to try to take it down and/or deal with the counter measures.
"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." - Tennyson
I can understand N. Korea since they can actually reach the Aleutians... but Iran? I'd like to see some propaganda that actually is realistic and Iran coming up with a missile that can reach the US is something of a fairy tale.
I don't understand why it's automatically assumed that this defense system will be both stationary and based in the US. The ultimate goal of this project is to create a deployable theater-wide defense system. Remember the Gulf War, and all that crap with the Scud missiles? Those were nuclear-lift capable ballistic missile systems.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
It's been known for quite a while in defense circles that it's generally a poor idea to have a weapojg, defensive or offensive, that can be gotten around at miniscule cost to the other side.
For example, defensive missles, due to the basic geometry of the scenario, can only protect from missles coming through a very narrow cone. You see missles can't slew sideways worth a darn when in boost, and not at all post-boost. The incoming missle is bearing down at 18,000 MPH or more, even a small angle off results in an impossible to hit target. I know, in the movies and artistic simulations you ALWAYS see missles hit at ridiculous angles, but in the real world it's a no-go.
So all the bad guys have to do is target a place that is a couple hundred miles from the nearest interceptor base, or launch from an unusual angle, or use low-trajectory missles, or use say a Cessna to deliver the bomb. Voila, or whatever the word is in NK-speak, you've bypassed a trillion dollar defense system.
We already have a way to prevent anyone from launching an ICBM at the US, or a NATO ally, or Israel. A method that has a proven track record, and doesn't require gimmicks and rigged tests to seem worth something. It's called "enough nukes to turn the country launching a missile into a glass parking lot". MAD works, and unless it's Russia (maybe China) then it wouldn't even be "Mutually".
Say whatever you want about suicide bombers and martyrs. The leaders of Iran, North Korea, Russia, and whatever other possible nuclear threat you want to name, are not suicidal, not idiots, and not about to sacrifice all the power they've acquired and their entire country in order to destroy a city or two before being completely wiped out.
Obama's not going to make all our enemies stop hating us. Much more likely, he's just going to start mending relations with our allies. He's also not going to go and preemptively invade North Korea, or try to liberate a few more Muslim countries. So he doesn't have to make our enemies like us, he only has to not attack them and force them to retaliate in order to make it nearly inconceivable that a nuclear ICBM would be launched at us.
No, what we have to worry about are shipping container nukes, suitcase nukes, whatsit we can hide in the bottom of a fishing boat nukes. Nobody who wants to launch a preemptive strike is going to give us a hemisphere-sized parabolic fucking ARROW pointed at them, much less a chance to shoot their device down. They're going to smuggle a nuke in so we never see it coming. Which makes a missile shield kinda worthless for defense against a first strike. It'll just be sitting there doing nothing when the bomb goes off.
This, by the way, is why some theorize that the true purpose of the shield is to allow us to launch a first strike, and counter any missile-based retaliation. Russia says so, anyway. I don't really buy it, though I'm sure it's a bullet point feature in the minds of some. I just don't see it being politically acceptable or necessary any time soon, especially not based on assuming the defense shield can reduce the cost to us to an acceptable level. Russia, at least, has nothing to worry about. Their stockpile has deteriorated, but it's still enough to put the M in MAD. A 75% effective defense field wouldn't cut it, much less 10%. If they can even hack that, when Russia also has the tech to play the measure/counter-measure game and use the built-in advantage of being the attacker.
It may not be useless to have around, just in case, I suppose. I haven't been very impressed with their "successes", it seems like more of a boondoggle than anything and I don't think it shouldn't be a priority. Our priority should be the biggest threats, and well, ICBMs just aren't it.
The enemies of Democracy are
I give a nice sarcastic "boohoo" to both sides. Both are racist morons blinded by religion and a baseless sense of entitlement. Both like embittered 2 year olds who don't get their way, except armed with tanks, missiles, and suicide bombs.
I haven't found much of a reason to feel much pity for either side. I'm not religious, so I don't buy the "god gave this to us" crap, nor do I think the events of 2500 years ago has much relevance on the land claims of today. So there goes the Jewish side of the argument. I also don't think that killing innocent civilians just because you don't like your neighbors garners much respect (this is true for both sides), especially when you decide to kill your neighbors distant relatives and relations (true mostly for Palestine), or decide to teach your children first how to hate (true for both sides, but more towards the Palestinians), and to commit suicide for no real reason.
I think the US should just leave both sides to fend for themselves. Helping either side is morally murky, being that both sides cross the boundaries. Picking sides in this conflict has done NOTHING to help the US, and much to hurt us. I don't even get why it is a damn issue.
They will have to learn to live together, and compromise (the mature, rational, and intelligent answer), or annihilate each other (the answer they want).
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
U.S. Shoots Downs Missile in Simulation of Long-Range Attack
I don't care how good the cause is.. Killing mentally challenged missiles for testing purposes is just wrong