Posted on 04/19/2005 7:53:08 PM PDT by CHARLITE
Shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, or MANPADS (man-portable air defense systems), have proliferated throughout the world. They can be purchased on the military arms black market for as little as $5,000. More than two dozen terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda, are believed to possess such weapons. The FBI estimates that there have been 29 MANPADS attacks against civilian aircraft resulting in 550 deaths. At least 25 of the reported attacks have been attributed to non state actors.
Even though a U.S. airliner has not been attacked by a missile, the question well may be when, not if, such an attack will happen. Therefore, the federal government should act now to provide protection for civilian aircraft instead of waiting to respond to an attack. The need to act beforehand is particularly acute because, although the human death toll would likely be less than on September 11, 2001, the economic consequences of an attack could be enormous. According to one estimate, the total economic loss resulting from an attack could be as high as $70 billion.
After 9/11 the public could eventually be coaxed back into flying by assurances that the government and airlines were taking security precautions to prevent more hijackings. But if even a single airliner is shot down by a missile, public confidence will not be easily restored. The harsh reality is that ground security to defend against MANPADS is nearly impossible.
The U.S. government should take advantage of available technology currently used on military aircraft to protect the U.S. commercial aircraft fleet. The cost to outfit all 6,800 U.S. commercial aircraft with advanced laser-jamming infrared countermeasures against MANPADS is estimated at $11 billion plus $2.1 billion in recurring annual operating costs. In 2004 Citizens Against Government Waste documented a total of $22.9 billion in federal pork-barrel spending—more than twice what’s needed to procure the countermeasures against shoulder-fired missile attacks. Canceling the Air Force’s F-22, the Navy’s F/A-18E/F, the Marine Corps’ V-22, and the Navy’s Virginia-class submarine would yield savings of $170 billion in future program costs. The president’s proposed federal budget for fiscal year 2006 is $2.6 trillion. Certainly, the U.S. government can find needless spending equal to less than one-half of 1 percent of its budget to help fulfill its primary responsibility of providing for the common defense.
Charles V. Peña is director of defense policy studies at the Cato Institute
[TWA800 was not only attacked, but brought down by a missile.]
The evidence does not support this conclusion.
Why don't we go after the nations that provide support to terrorists? Why don't we be pro-active and destroy those who would threaten us?
Don't follow the news much do you.
There's always countermeasures. They may not be cost effective, but it's always possible. For example a powerful laser could just burn out the detector on the sensor of the missile. But it's true that decoying the missile seeker, or even just causing it to break lock, is getting more difficult. The missiles won't go after something that doesn't both "look like" a target and act like a target. It's difficult to get false targets to behave in such a manner. Denial (IE blinding the seeker) is more difficult with a passive seeker, although even an Radar seeker can go into a home on jam mode if it's blinded.
One possibility is a towed decoy, which can be made to both maneuver like and "look like" the targeted aircraft. These work well if there's only a single missile going after the target, but if there is more than one, then you need more than one decoy, since the decoy is likely to be killed.
Especially since *none* of the recovered panels show the distinctive pattern of a MANPADS missile strike.
, THERE IS NO EFFECTIVE DEFENSE THAT A LOW FLYING AIRCRAFT CAN MOUNT
I live next to the Mpls / St Paul airport and I agree.
If you know of evidence that I don't (which is possible) that passes the standards of critical methodology please link to them and I would be eager to read it.
Any aircraft that's optically visible would be a sitting duck.
When a plane is 300 feet up or less and landing?
MANPADS by necessity have very small warheads. They are more likely to go for the engines. That's not as true of the newer ones but still true. Most airlines can execute a return to base upon losing a single engine. In fact there was at least one aircraft, an Airbus A-300 from DHL, that got hit by a MANPAD SAM flying either into Baghdad, and the pilot was able to put the plane back on the runway.
I agree, the older ones do go for the engines, and as such are much less of a threat. Assuming that all they have are Strelas and Redeyes would be stupid - one must assume they have the current generation, or the just prior one, of weapons, and those don't go for engines. They go for fuselages. If they don't get a paint on the fuselage, then they go for the engines, but I'm told that's rare.
Against a slow-flying transport plane on final approach with gear down and flaps deployed, just about any MANPADS will succeed. Even an unguided RPG-7 will take out an airliner. Just ask the poor bastards in Iraq that were on a Brit C-130 with full military countermeasures - they didn't help at ALL.
Agreed, because then you just shoot it with a gun, RPG, or MANPADS in boresight or ballistic mode (if it has one).
I told my neighbor a day before my family was to take its first flight post-911 that these shoulder fired weapons were a big threat. Four days later the plane in Africa leaving the Jewish resort was shot down.
It's just a matter of time before it happens here.
First of all then don't get a skin "paint", since they are passive devices. What they do get is skin lock, however at low airspeeds the skin is not very warm. Airliners, unlike jet fighters, don't go low and fast. That makes lockup harder. That is, at least until the missiles are equipped with imaging seekers, similar to that on the Javelin anti-tank missile. I suspect a decent seeker could be built out of a "webcam" type camera module and something about like a palmtop computer, or better yet the signal processor from a cell phone, to do the image processing. Make it work in IR rather than visible light, spectrum and you'd have something pretty useful. Put a firewire or USB "plug" into the missile and the operator could use the screen from a digital camera or a palmtop to "lock" the missile onto the desired target.
Obviously there are critical points that won't allow recovery. But how long does an aircraft spend down below say 500 feet? Longer than the need to, but still not all that long. The A-300 was landing, not taking off.
Let's not go further on speculating how to make such a device, per the Loose Lips policy. You're right, it is a lock, I was using the wrong term.
That said, a Raytheon Missile Systems (then Hughes Missile Systems) engineer and I were sitting around one night a while back and he told me that an airliner fuselage at landing was, indeed, warm enough to get a lock on with a Stinger. He wouldn't tell me how it was done, nor did I press him.
"The evidence does not support this conclusion."
What I've always wondered about, though, is ....if it WAS a stinger missile (launched from L.I.), wouldn't the terror group that pulled off such a feat have wanted to boast and brag about it afterwards? Why do something spectacular like that, and then remain silent? What's the point? They're all about "big publicity" for their terrorist acts.
Remember how some liberals kept yelling about how it was the Israelis and the Mossad which were really behind 9/11? Then, UBL and Ayman Al-Zawahiri couldn't let people think THAT, so they came out bragging about what a big success the attack was. I would think that they would have done the same thing about TWA 800, if they'd done it.
You will want to read this thread ping.
The evidence that the FBI has been allowed to release does not support a missile-shoot down conclusion.
But the chief FBI investigator, Kahlstrom, was likely "pursuaded" by the Clinton administration to change his original investigation which assumed a missile to assumption of mechanical fault. His overnight change in tacts was stunning.
We know Clinton wanted to avoid dealing with terrorists - too messy and detrimental to his "legacy". Look at WTCI, Kobar, OK City, the Cole.....all on Clintons watch without definitive action to find out who was the instigator of the plan.
Bottom line.....there were far too many witnesses to a missile track rising from the water to discredit them. The FBI took the easy way out......coverup, stonewall and call it Boeings fault.....
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