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Do Hypersonic Missiles Make Defense Systems Obsolete?
An anonymous reader writes "The Diplomat's Zachary Keck wonders why the U.S. government is doubling down on missile defense systems even as hypersonic missiles threaten to render them obsolete. Keck notes that hypersonic missiles pose two distinct challenges to current missile defense systems. First, they travel far faster than the missiles the defense systems are designed to intercept. Second, they travel at lower altitudes and possess greater maneuverability than the missiles the current systems have been built to destroy. Nonetheless, the U.S. was planning on spending $2 billion a year on missile defense through 2017, and now the Pentagon is asking for an additional $4.5 billion over the next five years."
Yes, there may be these incredible "Hypersonic" missiles, but only the people with the capability to build or purchase them will have those missiles. Everyone else will be using conventional sub-sonic missiles. Also consider the many, many missiles (hundreds of thousands? I don't know) that currently exist right now and will be used in the future.
Today's anti-missile systems will be useful for many years to come.
Love sees no species.
And this would be why the R&D types, especially Navy, have been pushing like mad to get higher output lasers without the clunkiness of the old chemical-powered ones...
So maybe it's because a lot of people's jobs rest on these missile defense systems being implemented?
Also, I am curious how hypersonic weapons will fare against a ship equipped with either a Gauss cannon, or more importantly, a laser. Wouldn't both of these be an adequate defense against a hypersonic missle, if implemented properly?
Because Hypersonic missiles are ridiculously expensive and none of the probable combatants in near to mid term future wars are likely to have them. Even after they become viable weapons, only advanced military forces like China or Russia will be able field them for quite a while. The US is not going to war with China or Russia any time soon. We need defense platforms that deal with realistic enemies, and they will use missile tech that these defense platforms are capable of deal with.
Also, Beta sucks. Long live Classic!
I don't know, can they shoot down beta?
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Does anyone know why they can't use lasers to knock down these fast missiles? http://www.defense.gov/News/Ne...
It would be great if someone launched a hypersonic missile towards Beta.
First, maybe it would be good to have foreign policies such that there aren't a lot of people who want to shoot missiles at you.
Second, Just because a certain missile defense system might not work against the most advanced missiles, doesn't mean it is ineffective against less advanced missiles. Maybe the investment should be considered in light of which countries' missiles you are concerned about shooting down.
Third, while an insane country will shoot missiles at you even as they are starving, you should make sure that they, and their neighbors to their immediate North understand what might happen if they shoot missiles at you. The country to their North might not like what could land right off their Southern border.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Why do you think everyone's investing so heavily in lasers all of a sudden?
You are in a pretty good place if the only missiles that can successfully attack you are hypersonic, since they would be very expensive to build and take a lot of engineering prowess to work reliably.
Also how much of a payload can one missile really carry? Not much, good only for targeted strikes. But the more recent missile attacks we have seen have been more blanket attacks, like the Palestinian missiles constantly bombarding Israeli cities. Anything that can protect civilian populations from that kind of madness absolutely has a place.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If the enemy doesn't have good targets, these missiles don't accomplish much.
According to Richard Clarke:
As early as Sept. 12, 2001, Clarke says, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld urged bombing Iraq despite repeated assurances from intelligence officials that the threat emanated from Afghanistan.
"Rumsfeld said there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan. And there are lots of good targets in Iraq," Clarke said on Sunday's 60 Minutes. "I said, 'Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with it.' "
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Betas? We don't need no stinkin' betas! FUCK BETA
The simple answer is no, because not everyone can afford them. Even more importantly, those who can generally already had the ability to overwhelm any missile defense system via sheer numbers of warheads. The US really isn't as concerned about people like Russia and China attacking us, they have a very vested interest in stability.What the US is concerned about is a country like North Korea nuking Japan or the US West Coast. Or really even having the ability to do so, as it stop almost all US influence in the area. That is what missile defense systems are designed and deployed for.
"...hypersonic missiles fired from intercontinental ballistic missiles travel at lower altitudes..."
I believe "intercontinental ballistic missiles" travel at well over Mach 5. More like 10-15,000 miles per hour than 3,000-7,000. So anything fired from them will also be traveling faster, at least at the start.
Second, the term "missile defense systems" includes things like the new laser weapons. And those can be fired at "lower altitudes and possess greater maneuverability than the missiles" targets. And a directed energy beam weapon is faster than ANY missile OR cruse missile.
This happens a lot. Note that the US loves supercarriers too and keep building them, even while more rational people know that they'll be sent to the bottom within minutes of an high-intensity, high-tech war breaking out. The Chinese allegedly have ballistic missiles with reentry vehicles which can find and hit moving ships.
Every major war has started with equipment, tactics, strategy inherited from the last war. The start of WWI, with light horsemen charging into, and getting cut up by, machine gun fire. The officers had their ideas -- and that was _it_.
The reasons for all this are complex, but in a nutshell, it's got to do with inertia, hubris, egos, and defence pork.
The US is lucky in a sense -- despite all this, their technology development pipeline is very deep, their resources are huge, and they are culturally adapted to change in a way that most other cultures are not.
Its an arms race. Yes, hypersonic missiles will render obsolete different types of interceptors. However, hypersonic missiles tend to have shorter ranges as they burn their fuel less efficiently. As as result, missile interceptors at longer range will probably be effective. Closer in... Lasers... or something else fast enough to deal with such a missile.
Its all a tug of war.
First thing's first... we need to render all legacy systems obsolete. The current missile defense system should be able to protect us from any of the older threats pretty much with impunity.
Good.
Then we only have to worry about the newer ones and most countries don't have access to that tech. The Russians... the Chinese... who else? So that means the only systems capable of getting through are modern russian and chinese tech. Which neither power has in great supply and neither power is likely to use unless they want to go for WW3.
Which doesn't mean we develop no counter to such weapons. Merely that we invest our resources in an efficient manner to counter threats.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Pentagon: What?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Experience in the US Navy here, specifically the targeting and tracking systems. But you don't have to know what I know to know what R2D2 with a hard-on does. It is missile defense and quite effective. It works by sending projectiles at the incoming missile to disrupt it.
Anti-aircraft is a similar notion -- send up fireworks which spread particles into the air in front of aircraft and hope it interferes with the planes. A missile defense system doesn't "chase" missiles, it is launched in front of them. They then explode in front of them in hopes of disrupting them in some way. Advanced systems, in my mind, would be a CWIS at the end of a missile system. It's not hard to imagine.
Just like you would on Usenet. ;-)
This sounds like the Bomber Gap or the Missle Gap all over again.
When you stir up a colony of bees, they buzz around angrily and try to sting you. On the surface, they appear mad, but I think some of them secretly enjoy it. Otherwise, they'd probably go back to the business of making honey as soon as they could.
But what about the Doomsday Device Gap?!
I see you and I raise you. What about a mineshaft gap?
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Heh, heh. :-)
My mention of Usenet was only to point out that smart people have been around longer.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
There is no such thing as an obsolete defensive system (or weapon, for that matter). A knife or a fist or even a wooden stick at the right time in the right place is worth more than billions of dollars of expensive hardware.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I would prefer things to go back to normal. But yesterday I realized I was not alone in my dislike of Beta. I even gave feedback. It is beyond clear at this point that nobody has heard nor is listening.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Throw more money we don't have at the problem and maybe it'll go away.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
I submitted my first post yesterday, but have not yet received the votes to make the front page. Feel free to get this up on the main page.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
A 6000mph missile is impressive until it's hit by a laser or particle beam moving at the speed of light...
When you stir up a colony of bees, they buzz around angrily and try to sting you. On the surface, they appear mad, but I think some of them secretly enjoy it. Otherwise, they'd probably go back to the business of making honey as soon as they could.
And then when you replace their hive with a plastic beach ball in a week, both they and you will be surprised and astonished when honey production drops to zero and stays there.
" On the surface, they appear mad, but I think some of them secretly enjoy it. "
I think it's pretty safe to say that if they are stinging, they are genuinely angry. After all... it kills them.
/. contributors are any more masochistic than bees are.
I could be wrong, but I don't think
The same kind of overexcited journalists makes such assumptions. "Oh, the new shiny will be everywhere now!"
By the way - take your time to read comments while they last - many good commenters (called "audience" by /. owners) will go away when Beta is forcefully rammed down our eyes.
The text is larger, there is tons of wasted 'white space'. You can't fit as much on your screen as you can in classic. So why do I want to spend more time scrolling? Why do I want less content per screen? Why do I want to go to a website that now looks like its designed for old people who can't read small font? I didn't buy monitors with high resolution just so the massive text would be nice and crisp.
"Cowardice in a race, as in an individual, is the unpardonable sin." --Teddy Roosevelt
Best post I've seen all day.
Well, yes, you are the only one who likes the beta. And let me tell you why ...
The problems with the beta aren't about how it looks, but about how it works. Even the complaints about narrow text columns and excessive whitespace are based on how difficult those features make it to use the site for it's intended purpose (reading and posting comments).
In addition, the beta removes critical elements of the comment functionality, and it's largely based on Javascript. That functionality is the core of the site, and many in the Slashdot community (the people that actually post all these nice comments that everyone comes here to read) would rather pour battery acid in their shorts than allow Javascript to run on their browser.
Creating a Slashdot that looks like Beta, and functions like the current site would take any competent web designer no more than a few minutes (just some CSS tweaks), and it would be easy to maintain both looks, because switching stylesheets is easy. Unfortunately, that's not the approach they've taken, and so now they face the choice of either throwing away all the work they've done on the Javascript-based Beta (essentially they may as well start over if they do this) or having the bulk of their contributors leave, which would basically kill the site.
The defensive part of anti-missile technology is mostly based on IT - detecting what is a threat and what is not a threat and targeting the threats. It also needs the same speed you developed above.
So, which do you think develops quicker - the missile technology or the IT technology? My bet is on IT. It's a newer science with an established higher rate of discovery than rocketry.
Yes, it is possible that the hypersonic missiles are truly better at avoiding our anti-missiles. But that assumes we have ignored the problem, as opposed to secretly creating anti-hypersonic missiles missiles.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Old-school Slashdot user from the 90s here.
I think what everyone is trying to say is that Slashdot should be left alone. No big makeovers, no big changes. We like it the way it is, and want it to be immune from the pile of suck that has taken over the rest of the web.
Slashdot has remained one of the few sites that has changed little over the years. It is already perfect the way it is, and any change is just going to make it worse. Leave it the hell alone. There is nothing wrong with its usability, readability, etc. the way it is.
Not only that, but... if you are trying to attract a different type of user to the site, you need to keep in mind that the people who are here LIKE the current company. If you attract scores of new users, it will be like an awesome small club opening its membership to all the drunk hobos in the city. The atmosphere and feel of the site are just not going to be the same, and us core, loyal, long time users will LEAVE.
Do what you must, I hope my advice is at least read.
Hey, at least the US can win the deterrence war against North Korea's nuclear rock throws...
That's actually been my concern: Slashdot becomes so polluted with "f* beta" that nobody wants to read or contribute to it anymore. We keep hearing that the main value of the site is its interesting/insightful/funny comments (true enough), yet most of the comments from yesterday were none of the above.
Yes, the bees are angry. You know it, I know it, the beekeepers know it. So let's all go back to making honey and see how they sort out the hive problem. Otherwise, without honey, the colony won't make it through the winter.
(Sorry for carrying the beehive metaphor a bit too far. ;-)
It says lower altitudes, not lower speeds. There is no contradiction there.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
...counter ballistic missiles over the past two decades and it wasn't designed for this either (and, by the way, they're REALLY hypersonic...)
They will continue to be upgraded for ABM capabilities as well.
Is there some reason why hyper sonic low level missiles couldn't be adapted to either? BTW, the Navy is spending a lot of time and money on lasers for this very reason.
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Speed of sound, even in multiples, is nothing compared to the speed of light. Light/energy based defenses just need to be more nimble.
It's pretty much stopped making 'stuff' and sells intangible services while snapping up other people's software companies and rebranding them. But services require too much linear labor input even at firesale prices in China so it's probably just as well that half the employees now are lawyers and accountants. Soon IBM will be a holding company for buying and selling intellectual property and that's pretty much it.
Also, the beta sucks.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Who needs expensive hypersonic missiles when you got religion and fanatics.
The side without the religious fanatics.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
As I have learned on others on /. the answer to a yes/no question on /. will be no. Others are bring up the reasons no for this question, cost, limited use, politics, but the answer will be NO.
Also, hypersonic technology is hard. Do the math. Its a lot harder than either politicians or reporters might think. Just because somebody can test a vehicle for a short distance (ie tens of seconds) does not mean it is a viable solution to anything. Making one that actually flies for any duration and can maneuver and evade is not yet a reality. At those speeds you don't need much to go wrong, to get going really really wrong. Its very unforgiving above Mach 7.
There are very few countries that can pull it off right now and they are not even the ones we particularly need to worry about. Those that we do need to worry about are still trying to figure out simple ICBM's, which is a full magnitude easier than even the simplest short duration hypersonic flight, and a whole lot cheaper to make.
Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
KMSMA (WWBD?)
Everything I have read about hyper sonic missiles is that they really have one intended purpose. Sink navel carriers. The only powers that have the resources to create these things are the super powers. All the super powers have nukes. Likely any engagement serious enough to warrant the sinking of a carrier, would result in a nuclear response (seen as a precursor to degrade nuclear response and possible first strike) . Which likely no one will want, hence no one will use them anyway.
Piss pot crazytown countries may not be able to build them, but might steal them (I doubt buy, as mostly only the super powers have carriers as well, why sell a weapon that can be used against you). However they likely lack either A) nuclear deterrent, or B) an effective delivery system (ICBM's) making it even less attractive.
Also while they might be faster and fly lower, I somehow really doubt the maneuverability claims. Generally speaking, the faster something goes the harder it is to turn it. Called inertia or something like that. Which means it would likely be even easier to hit. The tricky part would be detection, target acquisition, and the fact if you miss at range, likely not a second chance.
A more likely strategy would be to overwhelm defenses with many multiple targets, overloading the ships capability to react all at the same time allowing for one to slip through. However from the sounds of the technology, these things won't be easy to make or cheap to produce... That said a super carrier costs a lot too.
I don't care about beta anymore. Deleting posts and modding down stuff that they don't care is MUCH WORSE - THAT'S whats really killing slashdot.
So farewell. See ya at reddit.
-- --
This is not about defense or missiles. This is about keeping our defense contractors fat and happy. Missile defenses have never worked very well... mostly failures... but that doesn't stop our government from throwing billions at the "problem" when the money could be of some actual use building bridges and roads or trains.
It's just like the war on terror. Lots of fear generated leading to lots of wasted spending which is mostly ineffective.
It does keep the contractors happy and profitable and that it the primary purpose.
Your job as a taxpayer is to:
1. Be afraid... very afraid
2. Work hard at your crappy job and pay lots of taxes
3. Don't complain because then you are a communist, socialist, liberal crybaby who only wants to destroy Amerika.
Also, the Beta site sucks.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
The Bee's will join another colony or make their own and the beekeeprs can go fuck themselves
Useful vs posturing? I'd say that posturing is the primary and best use of military equipment. A strong military posture encourages other countries to be your ally. That's very useful.
Lasers (speed of light) are faster than Hypersonic missiles.
Eventually a Laser defense will be viable.
Look most missile which use guidance I know of fall in 3 categories : 1) IR guidance 2) radar guidance 3) visual guidance. None of those system care about the speed of the missile for one simple reason : they "see" at the speed of frigging light, so the speed of the missile be it below or above the sound speed does not matter. No the problem from guidance are not that the missile are blind, but rather that they have not much maneuvrability out of various reason (big turn distance). So for a quick moving , maneuvering target like a plane, they suck. But for a target like a navy ship, they are perfect. Ship do not dodge that easily so missiles lack of easy turning is fine. Same for ground target really.
I have to quetion why people even moderated you up.
Heh, worthy of Sun Tzu.
Which one is that? As far as I can see all the major wars in recent years were started by religious fanatics on both sides. Yeah, I could Bush and Blair. They thought the imaginary man in the sky was on their side too.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Max is Mach 10, but the problem is they are low level cruise missiles which the Patriot radar would never see until it was too late to fire.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Problem however is, the beekeepers do not know it. They say they know it, but they will not know it until the honey-production has dropped to zero. Ps. Fuck Beta
The Dutch will inherit the earth. If not, we'll settle for a bit of ocean. Beta delenda est!
Look, to be quite frank, local short to medium range intercepts really only work when you have good intel and good signals.
Hypersonic cross-Atlantic or cross-Pacific missiles are something you take out using other technology we're not supposed to talk about. And that tech still works. It would only not work if it rapidly corkscrewed in flight in a varying pattern, which no missiles actually do.
Relax.
(caveat: I can neither confirm nor deny working on or near such systems)
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Obsolete: Yes (in terms of being outdated and outclasses)
Useless: No
The thing to keep in mind is that while there are weapons systems more advanced than the current missile defence, most of the potential aggressors are still using missile systems which are still pretty old.
The old stuff comes at quantity (which, as said, has a quality of its own), so you still want to defend against that.
So a good missile defence stops most of these, and you can still add other defences against more advanced weaponry, which - while more advanced - is hopefully less numerous.
My laptop is obsolete too, but it's still useful.
...and asymmetric, then the only legitimate targets for an adversary become the public citizens that fund the efforts.
If no military response can ever be effective, it is the only thing left. We call it terrorism now, but it will be business as usual in the near future. Drones bombing your weddings?
Bomb their weddings. And schools and anything else.
The only limits to empire are consequences. When an empire can inflict with no fear of retribution to overtly military assets, other targets of retribution will be placed at risk.
I used to hate FaceBook and Twitter, but I don't anymore. Now don't get me wrong, I still don't use either one but now I perceive them to have great value. As online "destinations" they serve as flypaper for all the AOL-types who pollute the internet. By giving the functionally retarded a place they can call home, it leaves the rest of the 'net to be used for better purposes: intelligent commentary being one such use.
Now they want to throw the doors open to every drooling shortbus rider because they can make Mo Money off it that way. The number of eyeballs attracts advertisers, not the quality of discourse.
Wars are not fought like that anymore.
Today's war are fought by insurgents, terrorists, and the like. Uniformed armies, and missiles, and the like are obsolete for fighting today's war.
That is how it seems to me anyway.
See above
It's about spending. Nobody in our government cares whether the systems work so long as defense contractors get paid, and then turn around and support politician's re-elections.
I've certainly had some interesting discussions on irc today with other bees looking to swarm elsewhere.
I'm thinking I can't trust these bee keepers anymore.
There is NO magic panacea you have to meet EVERY credible threat. If you're thinking that you can sit in your bunker and throw missiles and drones out you're a fool.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
If Slashdot ultimately implodes, maybe somebody could start an open-source alternative. For example, how about a moderation module for one of the popular CMS's that acts like Slashdot's system? The skills are certainly here.
OTOH, my experience in trying to build a "community" is that it's much easier said than done. I think it would be pretty hard to get this gaggle of geese to flock together anywhere else. And anyone who subsequently irritated them would wish they were at least getting paid for the privilege.
The core, loyal, long time users need to be generating some revenue, because that's all that matters to sites like this. Sure, they may have core, loyal, long time users. But companies would cash in all of them for some knitting forums if that would bring in revenue somehow.
Or to use a more relevant example, the news site Newsvine once had many core, loyal, long time users who contributed stories to the site much as we have editors here submitting stories (several times over in most cases). The community at Newsvine thrived on the discussion model and generally had a good time even when there was disagreement.
Then MSNBC bought Newsvine, let it become a festering cesspool of political attacks -imagine if EVERY story on /. became red state versus blue, and insightful posts were reduced to the commentary version of apes flinging poo. Sure Slashdot has some of that. But imagine it ALL like that. That's what Newsvine became. And then, they used it to develop what is now the current NBC news website. You need to see it. Oh golly you should see it.
All of that crap was done in the name of generating revenue. That's what happens when dollar signs become the most important thing. Dice is already heading that way with Slashdot. Eventually they will push the button and flush Slashdot. Cash is king. And we don't generate enough. I don't think we ever could either because no matter WHAT we do, there will always be this thought in their heads that they can get more money, if only... if only they do THIS or sell THAT.
Sig for hire.
The big, bad armed forces can drool over sci fi toys and drop billions on hypersonic (and I might add, unproven) missiles, but the average ground pounding militia (aren't they always militia?) will still manage to make a lot of cheap and effective missiles out of stuff they can buy at the local Mosque Depot or Al Lowes.
I'd like to think Americans would be as resourceful if there was a war on our soil.
Sig for hire.
Your mention is Usenet was there because you think being around longed equals smarter. Clearly it does not. For proof, Just read your posts.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
the missile defense system can't be improved to deal the hyper sonic missiles.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
it's about hyper sonic. To be considered hypersonic, a missile must travel at speeds of between Mach 5 and Mach 10, or 3,840–7,680 miles per hour.
Super sonic means exceeding the speed of sound, mach 1.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Well, if you ever actually logged in and gave useful participation, you'd know that mod points are given to anyone who logs in and gives useful participation.
If you don't like the way things are moderated, it's up to you to do a better job.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Ya, they'll keep polluting the comments with this crap for a few days. Then Slashdot will or won't go with the new format. They done a couple pushes to go to new formats. There was less bitching, but they still never went with them.
At least this one never stuck. :)
http://www.metlin.org/content/blog/omgponies.jpg
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Andover didn't fsck with it. VA Linux/Sourceforge didn't fsck with it. Don't fsck with /.! It's a community driven site, don't treat it like it's a "property". We know that there's a commercial interest behind the scenes but, if you treat it like a property rather than a community site, chasing eyeballs with design and content changes, that will affect the COMMUNITY upon which it is built. Leave well alone. Make your ad revenue and pander to the InfoWorld crowd with something else. Geeks are fickle beasts.
I hope my advice is at least read.
Read? Perhaps. Understood? These are marketing and advertising people we're talking about.
With that uid you have been around long enough to remember the AOL invasion of Usenet and the massive chaos that imposed on users. However, unlike Usenet back then, we now have plenty of alternatives, and this place will become quickly abandoned if a similar impact happens. I wonder if those pushing this have read Santayana...
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo! http://goo.gl/J9bkO
I agree they should change the site little. The commenting should stay as is. The threaded discussions should stay. The lack of smilies and other bullshit should stay. Modernising the skin isn't a bad thing, though. If they want to stick an image next to each story, so what? I disagree that bringing in new faces is a bad thing. New blood is always good, you just have to make sure that it's the right sort. That should be possible to do. TBH, I imagine the powers that be probably want to do something about this: http://www.google.com/trends/e...
soylentnews.org
In regards to Keck's first postulate, that hypersonic missiles travel faster than current missiles (read ICBMs) it is simply untrue. Even the long obsolete Minuteman II missiles were capable of achieving escape velocity, something that a hypersonic missile has yet to demonstrate. Regarding his second postulate that they possess greater maneuverability than what the current defense systems are designed to destroy, that is also suspect. Even ICBMs were capable of mid-course maneuvering, and as above, no hypersonic missile has demonstrated any capacity for "evasive maneuvering"...yet.
Most threat will be from third world countries and terrorist organizations that don't have hypersonic missiles and wont have them for a long time if ever at all