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The Navy Leads The Way
   Next Article → LEADERSHIP: Big Bills Sink Ships
November 9, 2007: The U.S. Navy has two more successful tests of its Aegis anti-missile system. So far, the Aegis system has knocked down 85 percent of the missiles fired towards it. The navy modified its Standard anti-aircraft missile system to knock down ballistic missiles. This system, the RIM-161A, also known as the Standard Missile 3 (or SM-3) [PHOTO], has a range of over 500 kilometers and max altitude of 160 kilometers. The Standard 3 is based on the failed anti-missile version of the Standard 2, and costs over three million dollars each. The Standard 3 has four stages. The first two stages boost the interceptor out of the atmosphere. The third stage fires twice to boost the interceptor farther beyond the earth's atmosphere. Prior to each motor firing it takes a GPS reading to correct course for approaching the target. The fourth stage is the 20 pound LEAP kill vehicle, which uses infrared sensors to close on the target and ram it. The Aegis system only operates from warships (cruisers and destroyers that have been equipped with the special software that enables the AEGIS radar system to detect and track incoming ballistic missiles.

 

The U.S. has two other land based anti-missile systems.  The U.S. Army THAAD [PHOTO] anti-ballistic- missile (ABM) system has a range of 200 kilometers, against targets as high as 150 kilometers. THAAD is intended for short (like SCUD) or medium range (up to 2,000 kilometer) range ballistic missiles. THAAD has been in development for two decades. Each THAAD battery will have 24 missiles, three launchers and a fire control communications system. This will include an X-Band radar. The gear for each battery will cost $310 million.

 

The 18 foot long THAAD missiles weigh 1,400 pounds each. This is about the same size as the Patriot anti-aircraft missile, but twice the weight of the anti-missile version of the Patriot. Ultimately, the army would like to buy at least 18 launchers, 1,400 missiles, and 18 radars.

 

THAAD is a step up from the Patriot PAC-3 anti-missile (which is an anti-aircraft missile adapted to take out incoming missiles). The PAC-3 works, but it has limited range (20 kilometers).

 

 

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sethian120    The dog that didn't bark   11/9/2007 7:02:36 PM
It is utterly inconceivable to me that each of the weapons systems designed to intercept enemy WMD missiles would not have, at least as a back-up, and more sensibly as a primary destructor a nuclear warhead rather than the bullet-hitting-a-bullet gold-plated engineering we are currently indulging in. 
 
The WMD missile defense shield was originally based on that premise until some politically correct idiots decided that the possible radioactive fallout from a nuclear explosion wiping out nuclear threats to us on the ground was too horrible to contemplate.  That's crazy thinking and it's about time we disposed of it.
 
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Herald1234    Did it ever occur to you   11/9/2007 7:25:46 PM
what exploding a nuclear warhead that close to your own radars will do to blind you to the follow on missile salvo?
 
Herald
 
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sethian120       11/9/2007 9:14:39 PM
 "exploding a nuclear warhead that close to your own radars"--and just how close would that be, pray tell?   I was under the impression that the distance to contact with incoming warheads would be on the order of a thousand or more kilometers with ICBMs.
 
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WarNerd       11/10/2007 3:05:00 AM

 "exploding a nuclear warhead that close to your own radars"--and just how close would that be, pray tell?   I was under the impression that the distance to contact with incoming warheads would be on the order of a thousand or more kilometers with ICBMs.


If you look at distances and the time of flight, and the need to positively identify the missile as hostile (many ICBM designs have a satellite launching cousin, and you can not be sure which it is until the 3rd stage ignites), you have zero time left to launch if you want to make the long range (1000km and above atmosphere) kill.  This means authorizing the potential first use of nuclear weapons to, at best, a theater commander without the need for presidential authorization or "permissive action links" at the time of use.  This is why the nuclear tipped ABM idea died.

Also, this only applies to ICBMs.  Sub based IRBM can launch from close enough that it will be physically impossible to intercept them at long range.

Lastly, if you do use a nuclear tipped ABM, and then find out after launch that you target is peaceful, what do you do about that nuclear warhead that you just launched?
 
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Herald1234       11/10/2007 4:00:15 AM

 "exploding a nuclear warhead that close to your own radars"--and just how close would that be, pray tell?   I was under the impression that the distance to contact with incoming warheads would be on the order of a thousand or more kilometers with ICBMs.



1.That is not something I would tell you, but if you dig around in then open literature you would find that hundreds of kilometers might not not be safe enough distance to detonateaniclear warhead; not to blank your OTH radars.
 
2. For reasons that involve a lot of ballistics [calculations which I did three months ago on this forum and which I don't intend to repeat.] it takes up to 700+ seconds to SAFELY reach a nuclear engagement  merge to exoatmosphererically engage a descending MACH 16 RV plunging from apogee and avoid the EMP effects. That is over the horizon about 2500-2800 kilometers downrange and well above 1000 kilometers altitude. You want to explode nuclear weaponed interceptor rockets about 700 kilometers altitude or lower and closer in OVER CENTRAL CANADA? Go right ahead; but expect your North American power grid to be a twenty year rebuild.
 
SHEESH.
 
Herald
 
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reefdiver       11/11/2007 10:17:07 AM
Not to mention that the range of the missiles as listed in the original post are approximately:
* SM-3:     500km
* THAAD: 200km
* PAC-2:  160km
* PAC-3:    20km
 
And I would think their most effective range would be considerably closer - all uncomfortably close to be air-bursting a nuke. I do however sometimes wonder if kinetic kill is better than some sort of conventional exploding fragmentation warhead.
 
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ker       11/14/2007 2:17:35 PM
At first inception the B-2 was planed to penetrate heavely protected air space, with the help of satelites find mobile ICBM launchers and attack them before launch.  Timing there seams to mean that the bombers get there to deal with missles that the Soviets would try to hold in reserve.
 
What is the U.S. military doing to produce a system that could penetrate rouge state air space and then launch Air to air missles that could kill Intercontenental or intermedeat range missles in bust?  As with the B-2 you need time and warning to get there but shutting the door on missle launches would be very helpful even if some that were launched first got through.  Also this would be very helpful if the enemy fired one or two as a warning and then threatoned more. 
 
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mrcrea       11/14/2007 8:36:11 PM
"Timing there seams to mean that the bombers get there to deal with missles that the Soviets would try to hold in reserve."

If you remember originally the B2 was planned to be somewhat of a replacement(132 ordered originally) for the B-52.  So in that role it probably was not meant to go in and take out the mobile launchers.  The mobile launchers were first strike weapons anyway, along with the sub lauched. So there is no use in trying to track them. 

As for the 3rd world countries, there's always the missile defense shield.  As much as Russia may get up in arms about it, 10 missiles in Poland and a couple dozen in the Pacific is not enough to take out even a small percentage of their arsenal.  I'm going to say that the crux of that plan is to take out Iranian and N.K. ballistic missiles.  If you want a to keep a few B-2's in flight all over the world at all times at a huge cost, go for it, but it won't stop the launch once it's already taken place.   Also the fastest precision munition we have currently is subsonic so even if we launch at a place in N.K., it penetrates their defenses, it will still take several dozen minutes to reach where ever the target is.  How do you intend to stop a nuke launch that once it's gassed it's good to go.  Granted we do have those scramjet missiles in development, but it's a ways away from deployment.

US planners may have resigned themselves to the fact that someone may get a lucky shot in, but whoever took the pot shot is going to end up radioactive from border to border for a few thousand years.

By the way, Russia may want to read it's own treaties, there are no rules that say that we can't place an Interceptor in a foreign nation.  It only says a certain distance(I want to say 1,000miles but I'll go double check) from the capital.  Russia can try to put them in Cuba if it wants but there's no point, there limit on the number of interceptors is 200 total(Assuming they stick with the treaty) which the US can overwhelm given our arsenal. 
 
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WarNerd       11/15/2007 2:20:19 AM


As for the 3rd world countries, there's always the missile defense shield.  As much as Russia may get up in arms about it, 10 missiles in Poland and a couple dozen in the Pacific is not enough to take out even a small percentage of their arsenal.  I'm going to say that the crux of that plan is to take out Iranian and N.K. ballistic missiles. 

 
Precisely.
 
One of the nastiest tricks an Iran or North Korea with only a couple of missiles could pull would be to start broadcasting in the middle of the night and say "We are sorry, but there has been an accident and a nuclear missile has been launched at <<target>>.  This is an accident, not an act of war.  This could not have been possible if we did not need to be on constant alert because the United States <<rhetorical expletive>> has been threatening us."
 
The absolute last response they would want is: "Relax, we took care of it.  By the way, we are requesting a UN Security Council meeting in the morning to discuss your inadequate and irresponsible command and control systems, BE THERE."
 
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SOP919F3       11/15/2007 4:36:57 AM

With all due respect, I believe the real threat is not a ground burst attack (salvo of incoming missiles), but an off shore high altitude blast (launched from a ship in international waters) that would use the earth's magnetic field and fire out an EMP at the speed of light frying everything connected to wires especially at frequencies up to 30kHz.  This would affect civilians greatly.  Even at 120 miles in altitude they could still produce an EMP reaching 1,000 miles in radius.  This would make the Katrina disorder minor in comparison to what would follow.

As far as using nuclear weapons to produce EMPs to kill missiles, we have non-nuclear producing electro magnetic pulse (NNEMP) generators currently as payloads for certain bombs, cruise missiles, etc.  But the trick I believe is to get to the target missile FAST (Mach 10) - soon after launch and I would not trust an EMP to just disable it at this point.  Allowing a missile to climb into the ionosphere is an EMP disaster in waiting.
 
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