N. Korean Missile Test

[blackllotus]

Even if the military has made advances with the system, they probably wouldn't tell anybody until they had to use them. Its possible that this is the case here, however I find it unlikely.

 

[Puffnstuff]

You never show your hand at the first challenge.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: CaptnKirk
You've got about the same chance as that of derailing a locomotive with a ball-peen hammer.

Which is why best chance was for a extreme high power Laser Satellite system (AKA Star Wars) that never got off the ground because we are too busy lining personal pockets with big Oil money and phoney wars.

 

[CaptnKirk]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: CaptnKirk
You've got about the same chance as that of derailing a locomotive with a ball-peen hammer.

Which is why best chance was for a extreme high power Laser Satellite system (AKA Star Wars) that never got off the ground because we are too busy lining personal pockets with big Oil money and phoney wars.

Gas Dynamic Lasers that are capable of striking from orbit are big, heavy, slow to position to fire, leak their fuels,
and would be difficult if not impossible to maintain.
Geo-sync orbitys if positioned to park over a designated target area are outside the envelope of access for the Shuttle.

Beam attenuation would render the method usless once we probe into the atmoshpers, so all targeting would have to be done in space.
Even the AirBorne Laser as carried by a 747 class vehicle, would have severly restricted capabilities for deployment.
They can't fly high enough, are not inherently a stable platform for target aquisition from, and can't fly
into target area countries without risk of being attacked themselves.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: CaptnKirk

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: CaptnKirk
You've got about the same chance as that of derailing a locomotive with a ball-peen hammer.

Which is why best chance was for a extreme high power Laser Satellite system (AKA Star Wars) that never got off the ground because we are too busy lining personal pockets with big Oil money and phoney wars.

Gas Dynamic Lasers that are capable of striking from orbit are big, heavy, slow to position to fire, leak their fuels,
and would be difficult if not impossible to maintain.
Geo-sync orbitys if positioned to park over a designated target area are outside the envelope of access for the Shuttle.

Beam attenuation would render the method usless once we probe into the atmoshpers, so all targeting would have to be done in space.
Even the AirBorne Laser as carried by a 747 class vehicle, would have severly restricted capabilities for deployment.
They can't fly high enough, are not inherently a stable platform for target aquisition from, and can't fly
into target area countries without risk of being attacked themselves.

Plasma based Laser FTW

 

[ntdz]

Originally posted by: CaptnKirk
Shoot it down? Seriously, we can't.

We attempt to do so will expose how inept our multi-million dollar Missle Defense System really is.

We could barely hit pre-arranged staged flights to test the development of the phases of milestones in process.
No real need to expose a weakness, let them stay guessing - can they or can't they.

Personally, I think all those reports of us not being able to hit the missles are a publicity stunt as to not let our enemies know we have a working ABM shield.

 

[fornax]

Originally posted by: ntdz
Personally, I think all those reports of us not being able to hit the missles are a publicity stunt as to not let our enemies know we have a working ABM shield.

Like the enemies who matter (Russia, China, etc.) don't track and observe our tests. They know what's going on much better than we (the genral public) do.

 

[Nyati13]

Originally posted by: CaptnKirk

Originally posted by: MadRat
So, kirk, could SM-3 take one down?

Raytheon SM-3

This is a generational improvement on the Patriots from over a decade ago.

Kind of. The SM-3 is an improved generation of the US Navy's Standard SAM (Standard is the actual name, not it's type. ) The Standard missile family shares no parts or engineering with the Patroit family of missiles. The Patriot is up to PAC-3 generation now, which is very improved over the original Patriot.

 

[Zorba]

Originally posted by: ntdz

Originally posted by: CaptnKirk
Shoot it down? Seriously, we can't.

We attempt to do so will expose how inept our multi-million dollar Missle Defense System really is.

We could barely hit pre-arranged staged flights to test the development of the phases of milestones in process.
No real need to expose a weakness, let them stay guessing - can they or can't they.

Personally, I think all those reports of us not being able to hit the missles are a publicity stunt as to not let our enemies know we have a working ABM shield.

Isn't the whole point of having a missile defense system to deter people from shooting at us, because they would know that we could knock out their warheads while killing them with ours?

I see no point of the system if no body knows it works.

Kind of like a DoomsDay device, there is no point in having it unless everyone knows that you do.

 

[aurareturn]

"Shoot it down? Seriously, we can't.

We attempt to do so will expose how inept our multi-million dollar Missle Defense System really is.

We could barely hit pre-arranged staged flights to test the development of the phases of milestones in process.
No real need to expose a weakness, let them stay guessing - can they or can't they. "

If you, a normal US citizen knows that our anti-missle system sucks, then what makes you think that their government doesn't know? What's there to hide even when you know?

 

[MadRat]

Kirk alluded to what I was largely implying with my question. The only way to intercept these missiles is endo-atmospheric, which is when it re-enters the atmosphere. Otherwise you have to intercept it somewhere along the apex, which for a North Korean launch would be mid-Pacific Ocean. Exo-atmospheric interceptions is what people want. Endo-atmospheric is what is possible. The problem with re-entry is that the nuke can still go off and you accomplished little more than a shot deflection. For a city like New York or Los Angles, that is little assurance.

 

[smack Down]

Originally posted by: fornax

Originally posted by: ntdz
Personally, I think all those reports of us not being able to hit the missles are a publicity stunt as to not let our enemies know we have a working ABM shield.

Like the enemies who matter (Russia, China, etc.) don't track and observe our tests. They know what's going on much better than we (the genral public) do.

Like russia even cares if we can shoot down the first 5 missiles it launch. The remaining missiles are enough to blow up the world 4-5 times over.

 

[CaptnKirk]

Originally posted by: aurareturn

If you, a normal US citizen knows that our anti-missle system sucks, then what makes you think that their government doesn't know? What's there to hide even when you know?

A) What makes you think that I am a 'normal' US citizen ?

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Plasma based Laser FTW

A) As of today the only thing that Phased Arrays are capable of onerwhelming and causing havoc to
are the the lonely brain cells of the viewers of FOX News.


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The only way to take out this missle, other than a bombing of the vehicle on it's launch pad, with our present technology status,
would to be to know within a roughly 50 mile radius of what the target area is, and be there with a battery of anti-missle systems,
and launch a cloud of interceptors for it to fly through during it's decent to target phase of re-entry.
Could we get lucky & get the collision that would knock it off course? Maybe, but that chance is minimal.
Realistically - if this incoming weapon system was successfully intercepted, it might fail to arm and detonate
splattering radioactive debris (If it were to be armed with a crude thermonuclear warhead)
all over the target area footprint - a pattern of hundreds of square miles of area, either land or sea.
However should it have been successfully armed it could detonate on impact, or simply be deflected
off target by a few miles from it's intended target site.

High altitude detonation is the best scenario that we can hope for if the weapon system is armed.

Russia built 50 Megaton warheads, knowing that a miss of 100 miles with a warhead that large was a moot point.

Our Nuclear weapons throw 150 Kiloton warheads - a fraction of the power of the soviet design,
but nominal point of impact for our targeting is 90 meters or less at ground zero CEP.
We also 'Cap it off' with an aerial burst, which is positioned 1 mile above the ground blast
which 'Pancakes' the ground detonation,
and forces it to spread out sideways accross the ground, effectivily increasing the magnitue of the blast by 100 times.

Oh, by the way, about accuracy - we have in the past sunk the telemetry barge monitoring the test programs
while it was sitting at achor in the middle of the 'ground zero' test point in Kwajalein.

(My Old Toy)

<a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.fas.org/spp/military/program/smc_hist/SMCHOV14.HTM">The best option, which never was completed, was the Space Based Interceptors -
KeWe's (Kinetic Energy Weapons)</a>
like the Brilliant Pebbles and their deployment pods, a cloud of deployed killers that can see everything from the launch through boost.
Kill it when it hesitates at the apogee, before turning over and dropping to the target.

 

[Future Shock]

In all of this discussion of ABMs, there is nothing seriously being debated about the old Nike-Zeus system, which most probably worked: you want to kill a nuke, use a nuke. Don't play around with this mamby-pamby ultra-precision guidance stuff, throw up a few Nike-Zeus interceptor missles with nuclear warheads, and saturate the incoming warheads with neutrons and blast effect that will either destroy them outright, scramble their detonation systems, or saturate their primaries so they are rendered inoperative.

These new-fangled systems can only kill with direct or near-direct hits, and can only use blast or impact to kill. Youi want a real deterent? Go back twenty years...

Future Shock

 

[kage69]

These new-fangled systems can only kill with direct or near-direct hits, and can only use blast or impact to kill. Youi want a real deterent? Go back twenty years...

I agree. This is also the only practical way to address the issue of decoy warheads (something both Russia and China are looking into) in a timely manner.

The ultra-precise line-of-sight approach isn't worthless though, I could see the value in having a orbiting laser platform that could ignite the fuel tank of a missile as it's preparing to launch. Once the threat is in motion though, particulary if it has the ability to change course, it's time to haul out the big guns and not screw around with chance.

 

[BaliBabyDoc]

Originally posted by: Nyati13

If NK does launch that test missile, I seriously doubt that it would be aimed towards the US. It would likely be angled SouthWest into the middle of the Pacific. That trajectory would take it so far away from the Anti-Missile system we have in Alaska and California, that we couldn't shoot it down even if the ABM system did work.

Which it doesn't so that's a moot point anyway.

Haven't you been watching Fox News?! Their animated graphics CLEARLY show a 3-stage NK missile blowing up San Francisco.

 

[Nyati13]

Originally posted by: BaliBabyDoc

Originally posted by: Nyati13

If NK does launch that test missile, I seriously doubt that it would be aimed towards the US. It would likely be angled SouthWest into the middle of the Pacific. That trajectory would take it so far away from the Anti-Missile system we have in Alaska and California, that we couldn't shoot it down even if the ABM system did work.

Which it doesn't so that's a moot point anyway.

Haven't you been watching Fox News?! Their animated graphics CLEARLY show a 3-stage NK missile blowing up San Francisco.

Well CNN shows it hitting Alaska!!! Just proves that the news media don't have a clue.

 

[CaptnKirk]

Originally posted by: Future Shock

In all of this discussion of ABMs, there is nothing seriously being debated about the old Nike-Zeus system, which most probably worked: you want to kill a nuke, use a nuke. Don't play around with this mamby-pamby ultra-precision guidance stuff, throw up a few Nike-Zeus interceptor missles with nuclear warheads, and saturate the incoming warheads with neutrons and blast effect that will either destroy them outright, scramble their detonation systems, or saturate their primaries so they are rendered inoperative.

These new-fangled systems can only kill with direct or near-direct hits, and can only use blast or impact to kill. Youi want a real deterent? Go back twenty years...

Teah, that's the ticket - we'll nuke ourselves in the effort to keep nuke out.
Nike-Zeus

Nike-Zeus begot the Patriot, which begot the Aegis - basically a chain of technology improvements over the previous generation.

Army Nikes - Army Patriots - Navy Aegis from 1950's to the present.

Originally posted by: BaliBabyDoc

Haven't you been watching Fox News?! Their animated graphics CLEARLY show a 3-stage NK missile blowing up San Francisco.

Originally posted by: Nyati13

Well CNN shows it hitting Alaska!!! Just proves that the news media don't have a clue

CEP of a few thousand miles doesn't matter to radioactive mutants.

I doubt that NK has the presision to hit much more than North Korea or it's coastline, which I guess gives credance to the theory
that it's just as likely to hit Alaska as to hit 'Frisco.

They're 50-50 to detonating a nuke in the People Park in downtown P'yongyang to prove to their citizens they really have one.

 

[Zebo]

:::YAWN::: SK is rich and freedom loving- we really need to let them deal with thier kin over there. Stop feeding men to SK and food to NK and watch real transformations take place.

 

[spelletrader]

A) What makes you think that I am a 'normal' US citizen ?

Stating actual qualifications is always better then a vague reference to uncommon knowledge. That said, I am a former military Explosive Ordnance Disposal technician currently working for a Government contractor at one of the largest missle test sites in the US.

The only way to take out this missle, other than a bombing of the vehicle on it's launch pad, with our present technology status,
would to be to know within a roughly 50 mile radius of what the target area is, and be there with a battery of anti-missle systems,
and launch a cloud of interceptors for it to fly through during it's decent to target phase of re-entry.

Not entirely accurate. Tiered missle defense which incorporates high altitude land based intercepts (THAAD), Sea based medium altitude intercept (SM-3) and low altitude land based intercepts (Patriot PAC-3) currently have the capability to knock a Tae Po Dong (or improved No Dong) out of the sky with launch point (which we already know) and trajectory data (which we will aquire shortly after launch).

Could we get lucky & get the collision that would knock it off course? Maybe, but that chance is minimal.

Luck has little to do with it, our technology is there already. Also, a collision at those speeds and altitudes does would not merely "knock it off course". A direct impact by an intercept missile would stop the target from reaching it's destination completely, destroying all flight capabilities. A proximity detonation would cause enough instability in flight systems to cause the target to lose all flight capabilities as well, though it may widen the debris field.

Realistically - if this incoming weapon system was successfully intercepted, it might fail to arm and detonate....

Isn't that the point? Do you know anything of the design and function of nuclear warheads?

....splattering radioactive debris (If it were to be armed with a crude thermonuclear warhead)
all over the target area footprint - a pattern of hundreds of square miles of area, either land or sea.

The actual radioactive material in a nuclear warhead is minimal (when compared with the ecological disaster you seem to be trying to convey.

In point of fact, the debris field would actually be near the point of intercept, not the target area (also the point of shooting it down in the first place). The debris field size would actually depend on the altitude which the target was interecpted. I have seen debris fields as small as 1 square mile at lower altitude intercepts and as large as 20 square miles for upper atmosphere intercepts.

Regardless, if there a choice between debris from a nuclear icbm falling into the pacific or a nuclear warhead striking American soil, which would you choose?

However should it have been successfully armed it could detonate on impact, or simply be deflected off target by a few miles from it's intended target site.

Deflecting missilies like a goalie would a hockey puck? Sorry that is not how it works, keeping a missile in flight is a difficult enough thing to do already, they cannot be "deflected" and hope to maintain any kind of flight worthiness.

High altitude detonation is the best scenario that we can hope for if the weapon system is armed.

I agree. Check out THAAD.

Russia built 50 Megaton warheads, knowing that a miss of 100 miles with a warhead that large was a moot point.

False information. The Russian built 50 Megaton test bombs. Huge difference. They built maybe 5 of them. Originally designed to be 100 Megaton, they had to change design (and a very efficient design it was) and dropped it to 50 MT. These were made to be air dropped from long range soviet bombers. They were never brought into their stockpile as an actual weapon design, nor were they ever warheads to be used on an ICBM or any type of missile what-so-ever.

The largest yield warhead they ever put on missiles was 550 kiloton, and we had equivalents. (ERROR: As K1052 pointed out below there were warheads ranging from 1MT to 9MT at certain times in the history of nuclear warheads)

Our Nuclear weapons throw 150 Kiloton warheads - a fraction of the power of the soviet design,
but nominal point of impact for our targeting is 90 meters or less at ground zero CEP.
We also 'Cap it off' with an aerial burst, which is positioned 1 mile above the ground blast
which 'Pancakes' the ground detonation,
and forces it to spread out sideways accross the ground, effectivily increasing the magnitue of the blast by 100 times.

Our warheads are selectable for 5 or 150 Kiloton yield (NOTE: As K1052 pointed out below, ICBM warheads range from 100KT to 450KT yield). They are called "tactical" nuclear warheads for a reason. You see, the damage potential of nuclear weapons is primarily blast (as you allude to in your airburst info), with larger yields you get diminishing returns on blast effects. In other words, the blast radius does not increase at the same rate as the yield of the weapon. So rather than create a 50 megaton yield weapon that affects a 100 square mile area, it is more efficient (both in terms of nuclear material and delivery systems) to use multiple lower yield (150KT) warheads spaced at 5 square mile intervals over the target area. (NOTE: All "square mile area" numbers are ficticious and used as examples only)

[/quote]Oh, by the way, about accuracy - we have in the past sunk the telemetry barge monitoring the test programs
while it was sitting at achor in the middle of the 'ground zero' test point in Kwajalein.[/quote]

So you boast of ICBM RV accuracy but cannot fathom that we can create ICBM interceptors that can be even more accurate than systems that were designed years ago? /boggle

We can and will shoot down anything North Korea tries to put up in the air if we feel it is a true threat.

Spelling and grammar are my bane, I'll correct any glaring errors if I spot them.

EDIT: Just a quick note, all information provided herein is readily accessable on the internet.

A quick note on THAAD as well. It is still officially listed as a "test" weapon system. However, I have personally witnessed weapon systems go from design to test to field deployed in a week. The I2000 penetrator is the first one that comes to mind. When the first batch of those got to the gulf during the first war the skin of the weapons were still warm to the touch because the explosive had not yet fully solidifed.

THAAD is late in the test phase and most likely operational enough to be used against a Tae Po Dong. They may already even be staged at nominal intercept points around the world, though I have no first hand knowledge of that.

Scott

 

[K1052]

Originally posted by: spelletrader
The largest yield warhead they ever put on missiles was 550 kiloton, and we had equivalents.

This is incorrect. Both sides fielded ICBMs mouting multi-megaton nuclear warheads at one time or another.

The Titan II comes to mind for the US that carried the W-53 in a Mk.6 RV yielding about 9MT.

Currently the US missile force use the W-87 warhead yielding 300KT (mounted in singles on many MMIIIs after the Peacekeepers were decomissioned), the W-78 warhead yielding about 350KT (also on the MMMIIIs), and the W-76/W-88 (100KT and 450KT respectively) combo in the Trident D5s that are in the Ohios.

 

[spelletrader]

Originally posted by: K1052

Originally posted by: spelletrader
The largest yield warhead they ever put on missiles was 550 kiloton, and we had equivalents.

This is incorrect. Both sides fielded ICBMs mouting multi-megaton nuclear warheads at one time or another.

The Titan II comes to mind for the US that carried the W-53 in a Mk.6 RV yielding about 9MT.

Currently the US missile force use the W-87 warhead yielding 300KT (mounted in singles on many MMIIIs after the Peacekeepers were decomissioned), the W-78 warhead yielding about 350KT (also on the MMMIIIs), and the W-76/W-88 (100KT and 450KT respectively) combo in the Trident D5s that are in the Ohios.

I stand corrected, the larger warheads pre-date my service time.

Our 5kt-150kt (W-80) selectable warheads are used in our cruise missiles and bombs.

That's what I get for quoting from memory of systems I haven't seen in 6+ years! Thanks for setting me straight.

Scott

 

[CaptnKirk]

Originally posted by: spelletrader


Blah, Blah Blah
So you boast of ICBM RV accuracy but cannot fathom that we can create ICBM interceptors that can be even more accurate than systems that were designed years ago? /boggle

We can and will shoot down anything North Korea tries to put up in the air if we feel it is a true threat.

Having wotked on the MX some years back, I find your critique to be lacking

Even today our intercept record is absymal, considering the controls to these staged test events.

You don't seem to even concerned about the aerial dispersal of plutonium over the planet's atmoshpere and it's efects.



As far a NK goes - do you really think they are the technological equivalent of us in rocket science?
They'll be lucky if it doesn't blow up in their face, nuking themselves in the process.
They don't really appear to be as advanced as our Vanguard was in 1958.



Nice to see that the MX is being retrofitted to launch satellites, as was the final fate of the Titans.

 

[spelletrader]

Having wotked on the MX some years back, I find your critique to be lacking

You worked on Peacekeepers and the MX, I got that point. I fail to make the connection to how that qualifies your doubts of our current missile intercept technology.

Even today our intercept record is absymal, considering the controls to these staged test events.

Do you know how many missile intercepts are tested on a monthly basis? Do you realize that the majority of failures are actually testing (novel concept) new hardware/software technology? Actual stock reliability testing has a much better track record, seeing as these are actual deployed weapon systems, that makes a bit sense.

You don't seem to even concerned about the aerial dispersal of plutonium over the planet's atmoshpere and it's efects.

Because I understand exactly what would happen if a Tae Po Dong carrying a nuclear payload was intercepted by one of our missiles. Whatever residual nuclear material was dispersed into the atmosphere, or sea, would be minimal compared to a nuclear strike on American soil.

There would actually be less harmful environmental effects from a successful intercept then there would be from an actual detonation in an unpopulated area.

As far a NK goes - do you really think they are the technological equivalent of us in rocket science?

No, and I never said they were.

They'll be lucky if it doesn't blow up in their face, nuking themselves in the process.
They don't really appear to be as advanced as our Vanguard was in 1958.

If they have any sense (I know I am reaching) their warhead will be zero point safe, and a pad detonation will just result in a rad clean up (we refered to it as a "crash & trash" when I was in). But nuking themselves would strike me as poetic justice.

Nice to see that the MX is being retrofitted to launch satellites, as was the final fate of the Titans.

And the eventually the state of the MMIII, and all the other ICBMs hopefully, when we no longer need them anymore. What can I say? I am idealistic and hopeful!

Scott

EDIT: Another quick note on intercept missile tests. The test projects sometimes do not have kill authority on the target missile/vehicle. Usually because the project is within budget constraints and cannot aford to shoulder the cost of the target. These may appear to be misses, when in fact they are "simulated kills".

Don't get me wrong, our missile defense program still has a long long way to go, but they are currently pretty damn good.

 

[CaptnKirk]

Originally posted by: spelletrader

Scott

And all that . . .

Anyway, NK won't likely have a warhead of any type on this test shot if the progress with it, a mass simulator or
maybe even a gerbil on a treadmill, but why arm it?

If they really are in the process of fueling it, it indicates they are even more primative than we suppose,
having not solved the inherent propultion problems with solid fuel boosters, and returning to troublesome liquid fuels.

Hypergolics - are they even that advanced? Kerosene & LOX - that's always good for a Hot Rum isn't it.