Surface-To-Air Missiles At London Olympics

First time accepted submitter TheGift73 writes "I have to admit, when I first read about this I thought it was a hoax, but unfortunately it's true. The UK government is considering placing surface-to-air missiles on residential buildings in London for the duration of the London Olympics. From the article: 'The Ministry of Defence is considering placing surface-to-air missiles on residential flats during the Olympics. An east London estate, where 700 people live, has received leaflets saying a "Higher Velocity Missile system" could be placed on a water tower. A spokesman said the MoD had not yet decided whether to deploy ground based air defence systems during the event.'"

Comments

Re:Air-Air Missiles?

[Anonymous Coward]

But we can scramble supersonically and the exclusion zone is large enough that anything save a hostile invasion force is probably going to be flying slow enough to intercept before it reaches the olympic site.

The zone is nearly 100 miles across. 50 miles at 500kts is around 5 minutes. The Eurofighters are going to be based at Northolt, within the area and around maybe 20 miles from the stadium. At speed they could get there in a minute or two.

There will be an AWACS flying around at all times as well as the usual ATC services looking out for unidentified aircraft. Radar is pretty good these days, if you fly in on anything of reasonable size without telling them, they will find you and they will scramble something after you.

I fail to see how just having fast jets on alert isn't enough?

http://olympics.airspacesafety.com/airspace-restrictions/restrictions-14-july-2012-to-15-august-2012

Where went wrong?

[tomthepom]

I thought that we invaded Iraq to make us safer. I thought the war in Afghanistan would make us safer. They told us that all this war, imprisonment without trial, assassination, torture, mass surveillance, nude scans and enhanced pat downs would make us safer.
And yet now, after more than ten years of this, we've reached the stage that we're considering placing surface to fucking air missiles on top of people's houses in the middle of London.
What the hell happened? Are we losing this 'war on terror'?

Re:Where went wrong?

[xmundt]

Greetings and Salutations;
          No...we are not LOSING the war on Terror. We, the citizens, have already LOST it. We have turned over unprecedented amounts of power and control to the government, and given up many of the liberties that our ancestors shed rivers of blood to take for themselves. It seems to me that the citizens of America and Great Britain have been turned into mewling, fearful infants by the deliberate actions taken by the government to re-enforce the idea that the only "safe" path is to let the "authorities" handle any situation. At least in America, have been brainwashed into an almost insane belief that life should be perfectly safe and any time that anything goes awry, we are to run to the government to fix the problem! While our love of CCTV cameras scattered around populated areas does run behind that of the government of Great Britain, it appears that the US government is rushing to catch up. It used to be that the only people that were under 24 hour per day surveillance were the prisoners in maximum security prisons. Using the Boogie Man of terrorist attacks, our governments seem to be on the road to turning the entire country into a high security prison.
          I fear that we have become an embarrassment to the spirits of our Grandparents, who showed such courage and strength of will during the horrors of the 2d World War. Can we regain that legacy? Change is always possible, but, I do not think that there is the strength of will left to do so. Rather, we will continue to accept the lies of the government, and continue to curl up into a little ball, hoping that if we ignore the problems, they will all go away.
        On that happy thought....
        Pleasant Dreams
        Bee Man Dave

Re:I have the login joshua and I want to play

[DarwinSurvivor]

Can we have a -1 basic grammar option for moderators?

Re:paranoid nanny state

[Dahamma]

A big ball of flame dissipating from 1000' is a lot better than a big ball of flame exploding on the ground, or IN a building. If the planes crashing into the World Trade Towers had exploded (and therefore released most of the fuel that caused the superstructure to melt) even 100' before they reached the buildings they'd still be standing today.

Re:paranoid nanny state

[Anonymous Coward]

i am an conscript in estonian defence forces in air defence batallion, i man a radar station and control fire of VSHORAD-s(Mistral) and AAA(ZU-23-2 "Sergei"). in private life i fly gliders as a hobby. so you could say i see both sides of the equation: pilots point of view and SAM operators point of view. and i say you can deffinetly avert the cource of passanger plane off a stadium full of people. sure it would still fall into a populated area but pretty much anything is better than a stadium full of people. using SAM-s at olympics isnt anything new eighter. speed is not a problem, the man at the top of decision making tree will know the second a plane breaks into air defence area and then its just a matter of yes/no getting down to SAM operators - and they will already be ready waiting for the go code, just a matter of pulling the trigger. and thats the worst case scenario where there is zero warning time

Re:paranoid nanny state

[swalve]

I'm a lefty, and I complain about the nanny state too. I'm all for universal health care and taxing everyone what it takes to pay the bills. But I just can't stand it when they make laws that restrict actual freedom for lots of people, just to appease the "what about the children" pearl-clutchers.