Posted on 07/05/2017 9:42:54 AM PDT by be-baw
U.S. officials watched North Korea prepare for the Tuesday launch of its first successful intercontinental ballistic missile, a well-placed senior U.S. official told Fox News – however, no anti-missile defense systems appear to have been activated to shoot down the rocket. The U.S. had watched North Korea fueling the rocket prior to launch, the official said.
Given the apparent advance notice enjoyed by U.S. officials, it's unclear why the Pentagon did not attempt to shoot the ICBM down with the U.S. missile defense shield components in the region. The missile flew 1,700 miles into space and was in flight for 37 minutes.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Who leaked this information?
The good news is that it was a liquid fueled rocket.
It also shows the US had adequate intel there was no nuke warhead.
The sudden emergence of a solid fuel rocket that flies like this one would be an emergency.
The Norks knew.
Only half the assets needed to cover South Korea are in place, and the rest will not be coming due to Chinese protests. I suspect the trajectory took it out to sea and not toward any covered target, so the interceptor would have had to chase the NK rocket, not conducive to shooting it down. The US systems used to be set for interception from the front of the flight path. I am not sure how much that has changed now.
“The good news is that it was a liquid fueled rocket.”
Oops. I said solid fueled. Should have read article more closely. You’re right. It was liquid fueled.
Maybe they did try to shoot it down and missed.
If we shoot the missile down they will all figure we will protect them from attack so they will posture and do nothing like they have been doing since the days of Hans Blix.
If we shoot and miss, that's even worse
Probably the same people who, had we shot it down,
would be screaming we had no right to.
“Why wasn’t it shot down? Presumably, we knew solid fuel was being used. Maybe they wanted to see how successful it was.”
Strategic patience.
Shooting it down could have caused the North to unleash the biggest artillery fire mission ever seen on Seoul. Yes we likely know the grids of every gun within range of Seoul, but it take a huge effort to take them out. I’m willing to bet Fat Boy had every single gun crew on standby ready to fire the second we attempted intercept.
Who knows. They may have been baiting us, but we didn’t take the bait.
Probably fully covered by all assets.
If you know what you know, they are working on an ICBM, then it is better to learn about what you don't know, what they have developed.
As far as I can tell the range is about 500 miles which makes it only intercontinental in the sense that it can reach the farthest western reaches of Alaska.
At the same time is is good to track and target the launch but not reveal our ABM capabilities without a real threat posed by a test launch. Let them guess how effective our interceptors are.
Sometimes, you have to look at the bigger picture. We have plenty of assets in the region to intercept it. Aegis at sea, plus land based systems in Japan and Alaska. We’re watching NK, but Russia and China are watching us. We were monitoring the set up and launch, so we had our systems pointed in the right direction and getting telemetry data right away. Sure, we could shoot it down, just to show we can, but that gives vital data to the aforementioned interested parties on our capabilities. If the course had shown a threat, it would have been engaged. Why give it to them for free?
Exactly.
Why shoot down something you know is going the other way. Track it, film it, record it and analyze it. Plus it gives away the launch sites, launch preparation activities and all the other good stuff.
Then when you need to shoot it down, there won’t be any errors.
“If we shoot and miss, that’s even worse”
True. I had already forgotten that the missile intercept test US Milliatary conducted on June 22 failed.
BTW,leaks are maddening! Can't anybody keep their freaking mouth shut? Unless the "high placed official" was told to spout off,he/she should be fired.News today is pathetic and there is a fine line between fiction and non-fiction.
I are confused. Foxnews calls the Korean missile both a missile and a rocket. Do they even know the difference? And, if knowing, so they care? Missile has guidance system (either internal or perhaps over a wire), while a rocket is aimed, launched and ‘hope it goes where we aimed’ but does not possess guidance package. Trivia? Nope. Missile being guided ought to impact near where it is aimed, rocket not so much.
Aegis at sea
LMAO we can’t even keep one from being ramed by a big ass cargo ship
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