On 9/11, U.S. radar was facing wrong way

Star Ledger ^

[Sub-Driver]

WASHINGTON -- A top U.S. air defense official testified yesterday that an outdated "cold war" view of the world before the 9/11 attacks blinded the nation to mounting evidence that hijacked airliners were becoming the terrorist's weapon of choice.

Maj. Gen. Craig McKinley, commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, said even the nation's radars were, in retrospect, turned the wrong way, looking out to sea for incoming invaders rather than searching the skies for threats from within the country.

[swarthyguy]

OK, think of that muslim FBI agent, who refused to wear a wire and was then assigned to Saudi, subsequently becoming the counter terror liason with the Saudi security services.

In Woodward's book, he describes how a call was received saying "Angel is next". Angel was the then codeword for AF1. How would the jihadis have found that out?

Was it this FBI agent?

"God, there's more, there's so much more"....FBI agent on 20/20 talking about miscreant muslim FBI agents and the stonewalling and covering up and protecting of the Saudis done by high levels of the US government.

[ml/nj]

We never would have shot down the planes that crashed into the towers because we had no way of knowing what their intentions were. It wasn't until the second one hit that we were certain this was no accident.

In retrospect, it was obvious that once the plane was 20 miles south of it's assigned route and heading south that something was seriously wrong. But it's hard to comprehend the inventive evil Muslim mind.

But once the first plane crashed into the WTC, you and I may not have known that it was a hijacked airliner, but our military did. When a second plane was repeating that pattern I'm sure there was no doubt among the people tracking it about what was going to happen.

ML/NJ

[gwmoore]

OK, Duke..you're on

DEW Line Distant Early Warning Line. Originally designed and constructed to permit early detection and alert of Over-The-Pole or Great Circle incoming Soviet bomber attacks, later to permit detection early on of boost phase and coast phase ICBM attacks.

Incidentally, in an earlier post, it was stated that there were a couple of F-16's 12 minutes out.. Query..Were they ARMED? Would the pilots have been motivated enough to do what was necessary to stop the commandeered aircraft? The survival instinct is pretty strong.

Keep the Faith for Freedom

Greg

[norraad]

Another interesting hindsight;

Environmental regs. changed about the time the 60th floor was being built.

i.e. No asbestos protecting the metal structure above that floor.

The cheap crap replacement allowed the jet fuel to melt the metal.

Wouldn't have happened with the better safer insulation.

[Young Werther]

WRONG!! I spent a year, Mar 69 - Mar 70 inspecting the DEW Line. It was a contractor operated series of radar sights which looked northward for the Soviet Bomber threat which would come over the Arctic. The radars could track jet aircraft and little else.

After my DEW Line experience I was stationed at Minot AFB and flew several Snow Time missions where SAC would "exit" US territory and return to "attack" the US and exerecise our Air Defense Command assets. NORAD would cheat but could not stop us!! During one such mission we flew 18 hours and "attacked" Point Barrow Alaska, the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System, (BMEWS) radar at Clear AFS Alaska, Fairbanks, Anchorage, Seattle and flew a low level bombing run in Montana before returning home to Minot AFB in North Dakota. In all instances we reached the bomb release line without being interdicted.

Today the DEW is long gone. The BMEWS is probably still operational but satellite systems are more accurate. Sure had some good fishing tales come out of that DEW Line tour!!!

[JoeSchem]

So now they're blaming 9/11 on the Cold War Mentality?

Well, if imperialism hadn't ended, Saudi Arabia would be a province of the British Empire, and instead of being a member of a royal family, Osama bin Laden would have grown up a barefoot goat herder with thirty-five cents to his name -- hardly enough to underwrite an international terrorist organization.

So I blame 9/11 on the Anti-Imperialist Mentality.

(And you know, if only Western Civilization had really gotten behind the Crusades in a Big Way . . . . )

[Young Werther]

The DEW Line consisted of 33 AN/FPS-7 radars. Designed in 1954-55 and installed 1957-60. These radars were 200 mile line of sight radars with no height finding capability. The were already obsolete in 1970 when I inspected the DEW Line facilities. The BMEWS was installed to identify and track Soviet Missiles.

There was a famous TV special that was broadcast in the early 60s which chronicled the first test of the Thule Greenland BMEWS radar. In 1960 a massive Soviet ballistic armada appeared on the NORAD screens! DEFCON alerts were sounded and we seemed minutes from all out nuclear war. As the BMEWS computers began to calculate impact zones the NORAD controllers noticed that improbable targets were to be struck. Cooler heads prevailed and analysis continued. It became apparant that no Soviet missiles were aloft,(this was discerned from an earlier missile warning system that the BMEWS was to replace!).

What had the BMEWS radar been tracking? The MOON!!!!! Whew!

[gwmoore]

Hey, thanks for the heads up. I had completely forgotten that incident until you brought it up again. Heck, the way it was written up was kind of like the "War of the Worlds".

The only other time I can remember that kind of reaction was the night of the Kennedy speech to the Soviets about removing missiles from Cuba. That was an eerie time.

I just remember the looks on people's faces, since I grew up in the "Duck and Cover" era, I do believe that we expected a nuke exchange. The really strange thing is the resignation of what everyone thought would soon be reality. There weren't any riots (there would have been today), or looting, or just plain craziness and anarchy (likewise would have occurred today), just this eerie quiet resignation of one's fate.

One thing it did do, one grew up fast, hard, and conservative!

Keep the Faith for Freedom

Greg

[Monty22]

Dang, I thought it was a Over The Horizon ICBM system. Bombers, I'll remember that.

[Young Werther]

The OTH system was tested in the early 70s but was never operational. The DEW Line communications system was called tropospheric back scatter. A sufficiently powerful beam of RF energy was aimed at a spot above the horizon. It Energy would be scattered in all directions but a certain amount could be "heard by sensitive receivers that lay over the horizon. The OTH radar worked the same. It was speculated that sufficient adar return could be received at the transmitting site to create a radar depiction of what was happening 'over the horizon". It worked by satellite surveillance superceded it! The DEW Line sitepictured above was LIZ 2 at Point Lay Alaska. The site is adjacent to an Eskimo village pictured at the top. The main building is the long, thin module train that housed the power, radar and communications gear, the sleeping quarter, cafeteria and admin office. The surveillance radar is housed in the white geodesic dome above the module train and the 4 black conical antennae are the lateral communications links which was troposcatter radio links. The other two sheds are the vehicle garage and the supply warehouse. After all these years I still carry a Case pocket knife that was given to me by a site manager.

The Bomber threat was diminishing and the sea launched threat was more critical. Several Height Finder radars were moditied to deliver SLBM warning. There were several on the East coast and several on the West coast. However, SLBM interdiction was an active SOSUS, (remember hunt for Red October?) and the name of the game was to sink the Boomers before they could launch.

As far as OTH radar, there was consideration in the 70s, to produce a commercial version which would "handle" the expected traffic growth over the Atlantic. That to never came to pass!

This brain fart has been brought to you by over 40 years of reading Aviation Week!

[Sub-Driver]

SOSUS was not entirely exact as to pin point location. Usually P3's or British Nimrod's were sent up to refine the "track" or if an SSN was in the area they'd have the trail. Trailing these guy's at first was exciting, then became boring with the advant of towed arrays and digital processing.

(Hey, Sonar Sup, I've 3 dot correlation!, My response "Conn Sonar, new contact XXX hertz tonal, designate as Sierra XXX, request 30 degree course change starboard to resolve towed array ambiguity" and let the fun begin..........)

[Snickersnee]

Wasn't PAVE PAWS an OTH system? I was told that it could see an object the size of a car over Poland at 40,000 ft from Cape Cod.

[Alas Babylon!]

Well, yes and no. I was assigned there, 1979-82, 6th Missile Warning Squadron, Cape Cod AFS. It's primary mission was tracking launches of SLBM. It's de facto mission was space tracking. It could track things in space down to a bolt size piece of metal, but it's horizon was off the West coast of Europe, down across Northwest Africa, across the Atlantic to Northern Brazil, up across the Lesser Antilles, up the East Coast of the USA, then Northward to the Greenland-Iceland gap.

[Young Werther]

The Pave Paws is a phased array, line of sight radar. It does not have OTH capability.

Check it Out! A PAWS that refreshes

[The Duke]

Nope - it's a trick question.

The DEW line is .... nothing ... because it doesn't exist any more, and hasn't for at least 20 years. Many Americans, I'm sure, probably think we still have a significant ability to detect incoming nukes.

[gwmoore]

The DEW line is .... nothing .

Embarassing, this... considering I spent my entire career in aerospace engineering, as well as having been involved with communications both professionally and as a "Ham".

I never gave much thought to the fact that the line had been removed. I pretty much figured it had been upgraded.

Thanks for the heads up.

Greg

[VOA]

POP QUIZ: What is the purpose of the "DEW LINE"?

Ironically, fans of the Canadian rock band "Rush" probably are more likely to
know what the DEW was/is than many elected officials in Washington, D.C.

DEW was a song the band produced about the nuclear standoff during the
last few years of the Cold War.

[The Duke]

So, do you have a pet Cobra, or a Great Dane?

[The Duke]

BTW, I think both OTH's have been decommissioned as well - which I tought was a real shame.

[snowtigger]

. The BMEWS was installed to identify and track Soviet Missiles.

We still do this job, as well as tracking anything out of North Korea,et al. We do it with state of the art equipment, and top-notch Air Force people, along with some of the most knowledgable civilian "tekkies" in the world. 'nuf said...