Posted on 07/01/2003 7:22:07 AM PDT by areafiftyone
But apparently there is a reason we need a new delivery system.
Well, an ICBM is a huge and costly affair just to deliver a few pounds of payload. The new system(s) seem to be aimed at being mostly reusable.
It takes a man...
If you remove the man from the vehicle, it becomes smaller, cheaper, more manuverable, dispensible, replicable, personnel costs become cheaper. A squadron of drones can sit partially assembled in a hangar for years, and need little maintenance, zero training and be fully functional in a short time. A squadron of manned vehicles need highly trained extremely fit air-crews, that need constant training, hence constant flying with the requsite fuel and maintenance costs plus maintenance crews etc.
ICBMs are limited in flexibility. Easy to hit with an ABM, and cannot be recalled when the red phone jangles.
Pournelle and others on a team at Boeing in the 60s proposed kinetic energy weapons in orbit. Basically a bundle of "crowbars," dense metal rods with some ablative re-entry on the tip and just enough brains and steering ability to recognize and drop on the thing that was being targeted. He used them, or his Alien attackers did (very effectively), against Kansas National Guard tanks in Footall.
Thor would involve a projectile of around 27kg, traveling at orbital velocity, around 8,000 meters per second. The kinetic energy would therefore equal 864 mega joules, or over 200 kg or TNT (I got the math from the "Voyage to Arcturus" blog: http://avoyagetoarcturus.blogspot.com/2003_04_01_avoyagetoarcturus_archive.html).
You could loft a whole lot of these with any of the proposed systems on a moments notice. Put them in orbit with some maneuvering ability before release and every 90 minutes or so you'd have the option of dropping them over just about anybody you wanted to. How about a bundle of 1,000 of these things dropping on a massed Iranian army? An Al Qaeda traning compound? The DN... no, that would be wrong...
I've worked extensively with the services and DoD--let me translate this for everybody:
"The idea is that Boeing is getting eaten alive by Airbus and we want to find a way to give them money. We will tailor the initial requirements so that only Boeing can meet them as in Requirement One: Lead System Integrator will have a name starting with a 'B' and ending with 'ing'.
Once Boeing bids the contract at a price, the Gov will give them exactly half of that price. All requirements of the program will then be waived except Requirement One.
The final product will take off only from a very specialized airstrip with very special facilities (Edwards AFB only) and will carry the payload of a teacup. Its range will be slightly longer than the length of the runway.
A loop of it taking off for a 'test hop' will be shown over and over and the Air Force and DoD will claim it is a breakthrough, 'revolutionizing' warfare--while all the guys who operate it and maintain it know it is a dog."
I am losing faith that the Big Fine American Defense Contractors (BFADs) can even produce an actual operational major acquisition program. We haven't had one in about 12 years....
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