[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

[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.

[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.

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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.

[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).

[Moonman62]

Like I said, a head on shot against a target as small and fast as an incoming missile is extremely difficult.

Given the right technology it's not difficult at all.

Like you say, They got much better as time and technology advanced.