Posted on 11/05/2018 12:17:49 PM PST by ETL
A U.S.-Japanese interceptor successfully shot down a test ballistic missile over Hawaii. It was the second-ever success for the joint missile defense program, and a stunning technological accomplishment. Also, the whole thing was captured on video.
The interceptor, called the Standard Missile-3 Block IIA, destroys targets with sheer force, rather than an explosive warhead, and according to its manufacturer Raytheon, the interceptor's "kill vehicle" (a projectile) rams into a ballistic missile with the force of a 10-ton truck traveling 600 mph (965 km/h).
But does any of this make the U.S. (or Japan) any safer? Are American cities less likely to be struck by nuclear missiles now?
That's a much tougher question to answer.
This second-ever success for the SM-3 missile interceptor follows two public (and embarrassing) failures for the program, during which the interceptors failed to hit their targets. As Defense News reported, the first test in February 2017 was successful, but a second test in June 2017 failed after a sailor "accidentally triggered the missile’s self-destruct feature." A third test, in January, failed to hit the target.
As Jefferey Lewis, a nuclear expert and Director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, has noted several times on his podcast, this track record isn't particularly inspiring for a program tasked with protecting cities from nuclear fireballs.
The task of hitting a nuclear missile that's shooting through space with an interceptor is incredibly difficult. The missile itself moves at blistering speeds and is relatively tiny in the vastness of space. The SM-3 must move even faster, and travel at a near-perfect trajectory, to smash into its target. It's often compared to shooting a bullet with a bullet. The interceptor, theoretically capable of being launched from sea or land, uses radar data transmitted to it from land to home in on its target.
Lewis has noted previously that even the low success rate of defense systems like the SM-3 makes them look more capable than they may really be. In the real world, a nuclear attack probably wouldn't involve just one missile. It probably wouldn't occur in the ideal weather conditions during which these tests are scheduled. And it might come from an unexpected location or travel along an unexpected trajectory. It's unclear how an interceptor that has a 50-percent or so success rate during tests would perform in that sort of real-world scenario.
Folks involved with the SM-3 program have a more optimistic take on the tests. Missile Defense Agency Director Lt. Gen. Sam Greaves told reporters in March that even failures represent learning opportunities for the program, and that it will ultimately make the U.S. safer. The goal is to eventually station SM-3s in Poland, Romania and Japan. A May 2018 report from the Government Accountability Office put the interceptor's price tag at $39 million.
Meanwhile, as Live Science has reported previously, some experts believe that efforts to expand U.S. missile defenses have triggered Russian investment into bizarre new forms of nuclear weapons designed to avoid such defenses.
Originally published on Live Science.
Yes, I’m quite sure.
The old (obsolete?) Minuteman III missile had a re-entry speed of around 17,000 mph (almost 8 km/s)...
Fast missiles aren’t new.
“steering” ANYTHING moving at that speed isn’t done.
“maneuvering” (as in evading shoot-down) which would be reactive, isn’t even thinkable in that context.
You’re speaking of (and linking to ) a truly SLOW missile system. That’s the only kind where evasive maneuvering would be possible, and also where it would be least effective.
Hypersonic missiles are slow? Okay, if you say so.
Please disregard all of the factual information you’ve been presented, and argue with me over the definition of a term inappropriately used in a news article, okay?
Hypersonic cruise missiles aren’t just on the table but they’re a deployed reality.
That said, hypersonics still have a longer travel time than ballistic missiles and they can be more easily tracked by satellites than subsonics, assuming the satellite is looking in the right direction. Hypersonics can also be taken out by conventional or advanced AA systems.
Did they stick to the usual of hitting the missile in the descent stage or change tactics and hit the missile while it was ascending?
The money quote:
“Someone in the GRTs marketing department didn’t quite do their homework.”
Fusing time is an issue for that - look at what happened with the Patriots in the Gulf War. The Patriots would detonate and throw their frag load at the Scuds - or so it seemed. Turns out they would detonate too late and the cloud of frag would actually pass harmlessly behind the Scud warhead. Skin to skin kills are actually more reliable when the target can’t maneuver.
Well if the Congress had funded those SDI programs, the US would be ahead of the curvein all aspects.
Descent stage is the more realistic scenario for these missiles. Assuming a nuke tipped ballistic missile, most of those have launch sites far enough inland that a seaborne launcher or a launcher close to a Western target doesn’t have the range to hit the missile on the way up (assuming it’s even able to see the launch come over the horizon), so it’s only going to be able to attack the missile in midcourse or descent mode.
It’s even more critical for our battlegroups because the Chinese now have a ballistic carrier killer (a very large ballistic carrier killer) and Aegis is considerably weaker against a vertical ballistic threat.
Timing is even more critical with a single missile. Multiple barrels with stacked caseless cartridges that are shot out over a few milliseconds. That should cover a couple hundred yards.
In theory yes, but there’s (at least) two problems with that: (1) the timing of said explosion; and (2) the extra payload weight of that much steel (and the explosives). That extra baggage would hamper the interceptor’s necessary closing speed.
I wonder what Mr Pike of the Federation of American Scientists is saying now?
His response to the first tests in 1991, after the NYT quoted many others that a non-explosive rocket could not ballisticaly hit another in space...:^)
https://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/30/us/in-test-star-wars-picks-off-a-warhead-in-space.html
Not true.
Okay.
Convincing argument, BTW...
It’s not an argument.
I noticed.
Newtonian physics gets in the way of maneuverability in re-entry vehicles. The “typical” ICBM or SLBM travels between 18 and 30 times the speed of sound. That’s travelling quite a few meters in a millisecond. The inputs required to move a warhead from a purely ballistic path at those speeds is tremendous... The hardware required would be far heavier than the warhead itself. The computational speeds that would make even minor course corrections would, as every other system, suffer from some instruction and communication latency. Even latencies in the sub-nanosecond range would result in what we in the missile business used to refer to as a “miss”.
Cheaper and more effective to field more warheads.
As to “cruise” type missiles, going exoatmospheric is largely unnecessary and sacrifices range to no great gain.
Much slower, even in their hypersonic configuration, they may be amenable to maneuvering, but this renders their flight time longer, again putting the warhead at greater risk.
The idea of a maneuverable re-entry vehicle is solid handwavium.
Newtonian physics also gets in the way of shooting a bullet out of the sky with another bullet.
Directed energy über alles.
If we’re going to shoot them down, I suggest we start earlier in the flight path, and do so with directed energy weapons.
Yeah, I know... Weaponizing space...
If we don’t, they will.
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