does anybody really think for one second that a real inbound would get only ONE counter launch??? it'll get a volley i'm sure with one sure to kill it
Posted on 01/31/2018 3:02:08 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Don't be too shocked by the news that a U.S. ballistic missile interceptor test has failed.
First reported by CNN, the Hawaii based test was conducted by the personnel assigned to the Aegis ashore missile defense system. But while the test is obviously a disappointment, the U.S. remains years away from having a missile defense program that can, with high confidence, launch and destroy nuclear warhead armed ballistic missiles.
"High confidence" are the key words here.
U.S. ballistic missile defense capabilities are actually pretty competent nowadays. While they might struggle with advanced countermeasure-equipped ballistic missiles from China or Russia, North Korean missiles would be vulnerable to U.S. attack across the three stages of flight: boost, midcourse and terminal.
The problem is that when you're dealing with nuclear weapons, competency is a poor substitute for "high confidence."
After all, American presidents present and future are unlikely to gamble with a North Korean showdown if they only have 95 percent confidence that the ballistic missile defense system will work. Put simply, the 5 percent margin is small, but it carries with it the prospective cost of a destroyed city and hundreds of thousands of dead Americans.
Kim Jong Un knows this. The North Korean leader's determined push for a nuclear ICBM capability shows that he believes his prospective ability to destroy a U.S. city is all he needs to maximize the political effect of that capability.
All of this speaks to the final issue.
As the months click down to a confident North Korean ICBM+nuclear warhead program, Trump has few good choices remaining. Ultimately, the only real outstanding issue for North Korea's missile scientists is how to construct a re-entry survivable and target-accurate warhead vehicle, and much of that work can be done in the lab.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
Then again... to gamble with an American showdown if they only have 5 percent confidence that the ballistic missile system will work. Put simply, the 5 percent margin is small, but it carries with it the prospective cost of a destroyed country and hundreds of thousands of dead North Koreans.
Isn’t this the kind of missile defense system that Reagan proposed nearly forty years ago, and which the Dems mocked? Thanks, Dems, now we are paying the price for your anti-American smugness.
Don’t be so sure. The guidance system in the Tomahawk cruise missile was deemed an expensive failure. That was so our enemies had no idea. Decades of superiority because we were successful enough and mature enough to know that loose lips sink ships.
Why is this public information?
Without knowing “what system” and “what kind of missile” and “what kind of test” we wouldn’t be able to say anything about the whole picture.
If something did come at Hawaii from North Korea, it would have every antimissile missile that we could muster chasing after it. This might have been just one.
It means the government military complex is looking for some more dollars to blow
Maybe it is... but can you give us anything better, champ?
I lament the hollowing out of American engineering capability. We’re not going to be outsourcing this to India, though who knows. Maybe India could do it better.
My thoughts precisely.
Well it sure doesn’t look like it is very secret. Probably because other countries with their satellites can see this stuff going on.
Still somewhere there must be a fuller report. If they ran 20 Aegis tests and 19 of them shot down the test missile, then that explains the “5% failure.”
But without knowing what kind of configuration would actually be set on guard, that doesn’t tell the whole story. Maybe Aegis was only allowed to shoot one projectile for each test. In which case, being able to shoot twice would work even better.
What Kim needs to stay focused on is the 100% probability that he and his cohorts in NK will be vapor if he takes that 5% chance. In fact if he smirks, smiles, grimaces or otherwise leads us to think a launch could be forthcoming he needs to realize that that probability is 100%.
I would say “India would soon be applying the US anti-missile technology to THEIR defense against Pakistani missiles aimed at India”, but the Pakistani nuclear weapons are more likely delivered by truck and containership into India.
In 1968 in Civics Class, I chose to be on the pro ABM side in an assigned one-on-one debate. I thought my hours of extended research at the school library (remember microfilm rolls? 20-pound volumes of The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature?) and my bullet list of arguments would win the day, because, after all, they were logical rather than emotional. But after my opponent and I each made our presentations, the class voted lopsidedly for my opponent over me.
How could I have possibly lost that debate, I wondered?
Oh, wait, maybe there's a missing piece of context I shoulda provided. This Junior High that I attended was located in .........
Boulder CO.
Nuff said.
Your closing argument should have been,
“Finally, everyone who votes for me gets a free doobie.”
A big cheer goes up from those who opposed Reagan’s “Starwars” years ago - see, we knew we were right -we’re glad we can claim that now, even though it puts the country at risk to let us be able to say it.....
Year away, huh. Sure, let’s advertise this to fat boy.
Incoming Snowflake Alert!
does anybody really think for one second that a real inbound would get only ONE counter launch??? it'll get a volley i'm sure with one sure to kill it
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