Successful Missile Defense Intercept Test Takes Place Off Hawaii

MDA.MIL ^ | April 6, 2007 | MDA

[RDTF]

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[RDTF]

[GrandEagle]

This is fantastic news! This is the third hit out of how many firings - just curious.
It is unbelievably difficult to hit a missile with a missile.

[Reaganesque]

Shhhh! You might disturb the smug complacency of the Libs about how SDI can’t work!!

[zarf]

Shhhh! You might disturb the smug complacency of the Libs about how SDI can’t work!!

How strange their silence, isn't it?

[RDTF]

article says it is the 26th successful ‘hit to kill’ since 2001.

[RobbyS]

Somewhere Ronald Reagan is smiling.

[ASOC]

Cool test, with the OTH commo plus the orbital sensor launch warning.

“course now that NORADs favorite mountain is to be mothballed......

Who will hear that wonderful “(warble warble warble) Launch warning Launch Warning” going to the ever exciting “Launch confirmed, launch confirmed” Maybe we'll get lucky and get a THADD unit here.

[GrandEagle]

article says it is the 26th successful ‘hit to kill’ since 2001.
I saw that, what I was interested in was let's say something like "it was the 26th hit to kill out of 40 shots".
THAT it hit is great but really doesn't tell how reliable the system is. For example, (I'm an old USAF missile guy - tactical air to air, air to ground stuff) at the tail end of Vietnam, the AIM 7 and the AIM 9 had several hits, but a terrible record. If memory serves me correct, the AIM 7 was sometime like 1 in 10 or so actually hit the target and the AIM 9 was worse.
They got much better as time and technology advanced.
Like I said, a head on shot against a target as small and fast as an incoming missile is extremely difficult.

Anyway, I was just curious about how operational it was - it will really be cool when we can depend on it!

Unfortunately I'm on a very slow dial-up through my cell phone and can't call up the original article. I'll catch it when I get home.

Cordially,
GE

[TheBethsterNH]

Well Honolulu defined does mean “sheltered harbor” looks like that is living up to its meaning.

[bobjam]

Keep in mind that this is an ongoing program that has come a long way since the 1980’s and still has some ways to go. This latest test appears to be not so much a test of the interceptor technology (which is already known to work) but rather a test of the militray’s communication, command and control of the situation. An Army team in Texas, using real time data from a Navy ship in the Pacific, launched a missile from Hawaii that destroyed another incoming missile. That interceptor launch site could have easily been in Greece, Japan or Alaska.

[freemike]

The thing is,, we need enough of these to shoot down waves of thousands of missiles. Whenever a representation of an attack is shown, it is always of a few missiles. What would happen should they lob hundreds hour after hour. I never bought into this “first strike” thing. We need millions of these interceptors all over our nation.

[MrB]

Actually, they don’t WANT it to work -

because it would be “unfair” for America to have this advantage over her enemies.

[MrB]

The Wright bros didn’t try to load a couple of hundred people for a trans-Atlantic flight while they were testing their powered glider either.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Your Vietnam (actually ALL the expensive missile and MOST of the expensive ship systems “experiments” and “new ideas” from 1951 through 1972!) is essentially correct. Your caution is justified based on your memories - the Sparrow, for example, could have shot down 115 MORE MIG’s over Vietnam than it did, but in those 115 shots the missile never ignited: it dropped from the plane like a dumb rock.

Since Reagan’s build-up in the mid-80’s, the newer weapon systems generally do work, do work well, and are rapidly implemented sometimes directly from civilian ideas right to the troops in only a few months.

---

By the way, when I worked on the THAAD missile radar and THEL lasers in 3D CAD systems, it was the Theater High Altitude Air Defense. Not sure where the “Terminal” abbreviation came from in this article.

[Robert A Cook PE]

The thing is,, we need enough of these to shoot down waves of thousands of missiles. Whenever a representation of an attack is shown, it is always of a few missiles. What would happen should they lob hundreds hour after hour. I never bought into this “first strike” thing. We need millions of these interceptors all over our nation.

Not really true: IF (big IF) Russia were shooting thousands of missiles at us, yes we would need (incoming missiles + 1) counter missiles.

But, North Korea has only a handful of long range missiles, and none are successfully tested. Yet. Only 2-6 nuclear weapons - and they would come from a very limited area under most reasonable circumstances.

So only one counter battery CAN remove most of the threat. Which is better than the democrats tactic: Surrender immediately because WE can’t be trusted with NAY defensive weapon, while THEY can be trusted NOT to develop ANY offensive weapon.

ONE counter battery means that NK needs

[patton]

Engagements were redifined as “boost”, “mid-course”, or “terminal”.

[GrandEagle]

LOL! I do understand that I'm getting to be an old fart and that technology is getting MUCH better!
This is exciting news for sure and I can't wait for it to in active service!

[AIM-54]

good news.

but I do worry about losing it all to Chinense espionage. Our government’s lax attitude seems like a technology giveaway program to me.

[Tallguy]

the AIM 7 was sometime like 1 in 10 or so actually hit the target and the AIM 9 was worse.

The AIM-9 Sidewinder had most of the MiG kills in Vietnam; the AIM-7 Sparrow -- which was Radar homing -- had only about 2 kills in over a couple of hundred shots. There were very few gun kills in Vietnam. Even the USN's vaunted F8U Crusader (known as the last of the 'gunfighters') scored the vast majority of it's kills with the Sidewinder.

You're right, though. Test percentages need to be heavily discounted. A missile with a 90% reliability in test may only have a 20-25% kill rate in combat (and I think I'm being overly generous with that estimate).