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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.'"
...why we bother having the Olympics. We should all just have a big war instead. The winner gets a gold medal.
"UK government uses civilian residents as human shields to protect their missile sites".
It'll make the terrorists think twice before blowing up those flats to eliminate the SAM batteries.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
IOC needs to protect its copyrights somehow.
I mean, we DO have to protect Airstrip 1, after all.
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
The winter games in 2002 in SLC had unprecedented military participation. There were radar and missile emplacements all over the foothills and there were troops all over the place including Apache helicopters and F-16's patrolling the skies during the days major events. The SLC international airport was off limits entirely to unscheduled flights and the military was authorized to shoot down any plane violating SLC airspace.
We see a lot of air traffic being that Hill Airforce base is close and Fort Williams is where the Apaches train but I've never seen so many military air craft all over the place.
A curious Olympic Games. The only winning move is not to play
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
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'?
PULL! Should also make Discus and interesting event.
Oh, it gets worse than that... it's pure idiocy to even try using the things as a defense.
If some jackass wanted to slam a plane into the crowd, they'd merely have to fly very fast and very low. Most missiles have a minimum effective altitude (due to the physics of speed, for starters). Most missiles also work on the principle of sending shrapnel into an enemy plane, hoping to tear it apart... few (if any?) are made to simply blow a plane up.
Finally, with sufficient speed, no missile short of a full blown telephone-pole-sized SAM (we're talking massive multi-ton Soviet-style rigs) would completely stop a multi-ton object moving full-throttle at nearly 1,000 km/h. So instead of an intact aircraft slamming into a crowd, you now have a big flaming ball of metal flying into the crowd. Umm, okay...
The best you can hope for is to knock it off course, which in London just means that it'll slam into some other heavily-populated area full of buildings.
Seriously? Someone in security has been watching too many frickin' movies.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Can we have a -1 basic grammar option for moderators?
You wouldn't be. I have the misfortune to own a place with a great view over a convention center often used for various government meetings. Since two of my balconies overlook their terraces and hall windows from above, every fucking time they have some diminutive French, Italian or Russian head of state I have to remove my flowers and my telescope tripods from the balcony, keep the windows closed, get a badge from the security scum that infests the stairwell, endure their cheap cigarette smoke, bad breath, awful manners, atrocious looks and general incompetence.
The worst was when the wife of the first black president came over a few months ago, they even ordered us to remove our cars from the parking lot in front of the place. I don't get it, I heard she was really brave dodging bullets in Bosnia back in her days with the military.
So far we have been lucky not to have an expensive weapon system mounted on the rooftop, but I don't even want to contemplate what that would mean. And they never, ever compensate you for the trouble.
To sum it up, having to deal with a security implement in your building sucks major ass, and should be avoided at all costs and complained against loudly at every opportunity.
He is mentioning the "away" is still full of London crowd. If a hostile plane can reach London itself, wherever it hits will cause loss of lives.
If the missiles are long or medium range SAMs, then there is no need to put it inside London and at the top of the apartment building. It appears therefore that the SAM is a short range.
They had AA in place for the Athens Olypmics. They were clearly visible out beyond the outfield wall at the Softball and Baseball fields. This type of thing:
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6203/6074130550_928b676ecc_z.jpg
Although that was in an open, unpopulated area. Placing them on a residential complex is obviously a step up though.
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.
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
Sure, the speed of the missile itself is not a problem. But getting this "go code" in time seems impossible.
The Olympic Village is in the middle of London, lined by civilian airports.
* London City airport with 200 flights per day is just 5km away (that's just 20 seconds at full speed, or 60 seconds at landing speed!)
* Heathrow airport with 1300 flights per day is just 30km away.
* Gatwick and Stansted airports are both 40km away, 1100 flights per day between them.
All the flights from these may overfly London, and Heathrow planes are often in holding patterns over Central London.
It's basically impossible to define a "air defence area" in London. And if a passenger plane accidentally strays into it, a pilot says "sorry, my mistake" on radio, what politician is still going to give the "go code" to shoot it down in 20 seconds?
"No one died" times 7.5 is still not much.
Here is what it said:
Fewer than five per cent of Muslims polled believed they should separate themselves from non-Muslims, and fewer than 10 per cent believed it was acceptable for religious or political groups to use violence for political ends.
and
Almost 80 per cent agreed that the attacks on the London Underground in July 2005 had damaged the image of Muslims in Britain.
Hardly as as damning as you suggested. The right wing media in the UK has been doing its up most to portray Muslims as the enemies of the "truly British" white majority. I'm not saying there is no issues with Muslims in Britain, but anything negative written about them needs to be read with a whole heap of salt.
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.
Unless their exclusion zone is measured in a circle at least 100km wide (are we going to shut down Heathrow, then?) [...]
We don't need an exclusion zone to shut down Heathrow for the duration of the Olympics. We've got immigration officials to do that for us!
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"