Prompt Global Strike - A missile to hit anywhere in 1 hr

Brahmand.com ^ | 4/28/2010 | Brahmand.com

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

Prompt Global Strike (PGS) is an initiative of the United States military to develop a system capable of a conventional weapon strike anywhere in the world within an hour.

The system is designed for time-critical strike in emergency situation, or to counter terrorist activities like attacking a terrorist leader based on inputs of his location, or against a rogue state preparing to launch an attack by localised destruction of his weapon assets.

Need for Conventional Prompt Global Strike (CPGS) can be described in a given scenario where the United States has learned of a terrorist group’s plan to transport a nuclear weapon, and the opportunity to intercept the shipment is both urgent and fleeting. In this scenario, there are no U S military forces close to the expected shipping point and one weapon type in the US arsenal can reach the point in time - a nuclear-armed ballistic missile.

Another scenario involves a rogue state preparing to launch a ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead from a location that current conventional forces could not reach with sufficient speed. And yet another plausible scenario is one in which the United States has learned that a top terrorist leader will be at a certain place at a given time and again the nation has no conventional forces capable of striking that place at the right time.

The key concept is that in each case, a PGS weapon would be used, but without crossing the nuclear threshold and provoking massive nuclear exchanges.

[wildbill]

I don’t know if any of you watch the videos posted here and elsewhere on the efforts to attach terrorists on their home ground via airborne surveillance and helo gunships or other platforms.

If you do, you will note the seemingly interminable time it takes for a authorization to fire after the targets have been identified as hostile/armed terrorists. Sometimes you grit your teeth and can’t help feel the frustration of the gunners as they await the ‘good to go’ from their controllers. Often the terrs disband from a tight target group while the controllers decide to approve.

I grant that you have issues in a civilian environment—but do our troops on the ground have to wait for a command decision by higher-ups? Why do Apache gunners who are on the scene have to wait for others to approve their eyes-on the-ground information? I’ve seen vids where the terrs are shooting at the gunships and they have to wait for permission to fire back.

Where will this type of micro-management of the battlefield wind up? With the CIC, the President, making every shooting decision? We have the technology to make that happen.

The Rules of Engagement are not sensible and can be dangerous to our troops.