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Subject: Israel & Germany Develop Secret Nuclear Missile Detection System To Counter Iran
Nasty German Idiot     11/17/2008 10:32:28 AM
According to a report by the Defense News Website, Israel and Germany have been cooperating together in secret to develop a nuclear missile detection system Code-named Project Bluebird. The system is based on the prototype of an aerial infrared sensor designed to identify a nuclear-tipped missile speeding toward a target amid a cluster of decoy missiles. Military planners are working under the assumption that in a nuclear strike, decoy missiles could be launched along with those carrying nuclear warheads to confuse and overwhelm missile defense shields - Project Bluebird is designed to avert such a scenario. 11/17/08 XXXttp://www.infolive.tv/en/infolive.t...n-system-count XXXttp://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...=1226404751066 ______________________________________________________________________
 
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Nasty German Idiot       11/17/2008 10:34:51 AM
sorry, here is a working link to the Jerusalem Post Article:
 
 XXXttp://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1226404751066

 
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battar    Two weeks.   11/17/2008 2:25:51 PM
It would take me about 2 weeks work to devise a system that could outwit such a project. The trick is to fit each warhead with a beacon producing a signal which overrides the infra-red signature of the true warhead. You would also pack a little radio-active material in the decoys, and make sure each one has a unique trajectory and temperature, making it impossible to track the "odd man out".
The USA have been there before with the Theater high altitude defense system, it has been proven vulnerable to decoys.
It is also highly prone to "false negatives". What if you are only 96% sure the target is a decoy? Do you refrain from launching and risk a 1:25 chance that it is the real thing?
 
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Nasty German Idiot       11/18/2008 11:25:26 AM
I dont have any further info on the project than whats written in the link I provided, but I would guess that the German and Israeli scientists are intelligent enough to think about the infrared "override" you describe.  After all thats exactly what this project is about - "counter decoy missiles". 
 
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FJV       11/18/2008 1:03:30 PM
Not exactly:
 
Making things more difficult and causing the opponent to divert rescources to making decoys instead of warhead carrying missiles can be reason enough for having the system in place.
 


 
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battar    Old trick   11/18/2008 3:07:54 PM
The idea of multiple warheads in a single launch vehicle is not new. It dates from the 60's and the Russain ballistic missiles. In the original versions, none of the warheads were decoys - they all contained nuclear weapons.
 
Generally, if you know what the enemy is using, you can find a way to counter it, be you either attacker or defender. Countersystems work only up to the point when the other side as figured them out. Designing a decoy is usually far simpler and cheaper than designing weapons - in the first Gulf war, he Iraqis used barrels of burning oil as decoys to mislead infra-red anti-tank missiles. You don't actually have to draw the weapon to the decoy - you usually only have to make it "break lock" momentarily with the real target. By the time it re-acquires it, it can be too late.
 
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HERALD1357       11/19/2008 6:18:40 AM

It would take me about 2 weeks work to devise a system that could outwit such a project. The trick is to fit each warhead with a beacon producing a signal which overrides the infra-red signature of the true warhead. You would also pack a little radio-active material in the decoys, and make sure each one has a unique trajectory and temperature, making it impossible to track the "odd man out".

The USA have been there before with the Theater high altitude defense system, it has been proven vulnerable to decoys.

It is also highly prone to "false negatives". What if you are only 96% sure the target is a decoy? Do you refrain from launching and risk a 1:25 chance that it is the real thing?

There is NCTI stuff you can do, battar, to discriminate. The enemy ain't that good.


Herald
 
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battar    Local friendly weapon shop   11/19/2008 4:05:17 PM
erald, what you can do, and what we all do, is to assume that the enemy buys his waepons from the local neighbourhood Russian-speaking arms merchant, and devise weapons to counter the toys in his catalog. The enemy, as you say, isn't good enough to make local modifications, and the manufacturers aren't offering seminars and training courses in missile technology.
But what if someone gets smart?
 
Most electronic countermeasures I've had lunch with are designed to counter specific radars/weapons. If he enemy modified his transmitter, we would have to re-write our own software too, or else nothing happens. Most modern warships have nothing that can counter a WW2 naval radar - simply on the assumption that these no longer exist.
 
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HERALD1357       11/21/2008 12:00:39 AM

Herald, what you can do, and what we all do, is to assume that the enemy buys his weapons from the local neighbourhood Russian-speaking arms merchant, and devise weapons to counter the toys in his catalog. The enemy, as you say, isn't good enough to make local modifications, and the manufacturers aren't offering seminars and training courses in missile technology.
My own current headache is certain Chinese speakers.
But what if someone gets smart?

That is always the default position you must take with Iranians. Clever doesn't begin to describe some of the stuff they've pulled off. I never am overwhelmed by their propaganda publicity smokescreen; but behind that, as they demonstrated in the Lebanon recently, they are full of real EW nastiness. It would be foolish of me to think that what they apply in small measure to a terrorist operation, they cannot apply in greater measure to their SSM strategic forces.   

Most electronic countermeasures I've had lunch with are designed to counter specific radars/weapons. If he enemy modified his transmitter, we would have to re-write our own software too, or else nothing happens. Most modern warships have nothing that can counter a WW2 naval radar - simply on the assumption that these no longer exist.
 
I don't know if you can honestly mask warhead characteristics from certain aspects to fox certain kinds of passive detectors if you are given enough time to look at the object along its track.  At some point the tells show up rather quickly among the objects.  Since the NCTI methods cannot be discussed: I can only vaguely hint that the SP article published about Blue Heron is both accurate and misleading at the same time and let that go. Of course if I had my druthers we would use demolished man techniques and be 100% ID sure of the garbage coming at us.  Get them in ascent before they stage or bus.  Its the only SURE way.


Herald
 
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