US Test Multiple kill Vehicle

[Pariel]

Originally Posted by Cp

Reminds me of this:

Bwahahaha! Awesome.

That's kinda what I thought too--generally anti-ICBM missiles are extremely fast, to intercept the missile in it's primary or secondary stage, so the warheads haven't separated yet. This idea seems like more work, and more money, for no gain.

[Liquid_Cow]

Originally Posted by Pariel

to intercept the missile in it's primary or secondary stage, so the warheads haven't separated yet.

There are three distict phases of missle flight for the purposes of intercepting the missle and destroying it: Boost, Midcourse, and Terminal.

Boost is the launch and climb of the missile, its the time when the missile is most vulnerable, its slow, big, and not maneuvering, but to hit it you need to be close to launch point or have a really long range weapon. About the only thing which will work w/o being based near the missile launch site would be space based particle beams or focused energy systems (ie lasers), but space based weaps are prohibited by international convention.

Midcourse is basically the top of the arc, the multiple warheads split from the buss and begin final unguided decent to the target. To hit here you need space based KE weapons, land based interceptors (towards the end of this phase) or big land based energy weapons

Terminal is when the warhead is coming back down. The warhead cannot manuver, but its going extremely fast. Land based interceptors can work here, they need to be close to the target, but the physics of hitting an incoming warhead thats pretty small moving at something like 7km/sec while enveloped in a huge ball of plasma (superheated gas) which makes it tough to pick out the warhead (this is why most Patriot missiles missed during Desert Storm). All previously deployed ABM's have targeted this phase of flight. The most "successful" (never actually tested) used nuclear warheads themselves.

The MKV is an interesting concept, looking forward to seeing full scale testing with real missiles.

Originally Posted by spacemanc

ie - its not very easy, and if just one warhead gets through then its pretty much a major fail.

So saving 9 cities but letting one get toasted is a major fail? Why is this attitude so wide spread? Compared to the alternative I think a 10% success rate would be epic win.

[Solid Knight]

They're doing it wrong. You send your own nuke up and blow it up in the flight path of the other ICBM. Vaporize the entire thing.

[space]

Originally Posted by Liquid_Cow

So saving 9 cities but letting one get toasted is a major fail? Why is this attitude so wide spread? Compared to the alternative I think a 10% success rate would be epic win.

Whenever a new defence is developed, new countermeasures are developed to overcome them.
Im pretty sure that the Russians have already said they will incorporate violent maneuvers into their icbms which will overcome the shield. They've already done this for years with their anti ship missiles.

Also if the "rouge states" really wanted to nuke the US (which personally I doubt) - then it would be far easier and cheaper for them to develop submarine tech to launch them off the coast of the US, or even easier and cheaper, put one in a shipping crate and smuggle it across the border.

This whole shield idea imo is just aload of pork for the arms industry, and if you realy think that the costs would stop at $80 billion, then youre deluded.

Originally Posted by Liquid_Cow

Boost is the launch and climb of the missile, its the time when the missile is most vulnerable, its slow, big, and not maneuvering, but to hit it you need to be close to launch point or have a really long range weapon. About the only thing which will work w/o being based near the missile launch site would be space based particle beams or focused energy systems (ie lasers), but space based weaps are prohibited by international convention.

There working on the ABL for this - but again imo its unlikely to work and is another massive waste of money which is likely to be cancelled



Nuke-nobbler raygun 747 in first full-power blast • The Register

[[R-DEV]Eddie Baker]

Originally Posted by spacemanc

"rouge states"

Rogue states, Spaceman. "Rouge states" are the ones that elected George Bush in the US, or nation-states that were ruled by Pol Pot or Mary Kay.

[Liquid_Cow]

Originally Posted by Solid Knight

You send your own nuke up and blow it up in the flight path of the other ICBM.

Been there, done that. The orriginal US ABM system "Spartan/Sprint" system used a 2 interceptor system. The Spartan tried to intercept at the end of the mid-phase and Sprint during reentry using low yield nuclear warheads. The Sprint in particular was an amazing weapon system:

A cone shaped missile that accelerated at 100g, achieved a speed of Mach 10 in 5 seconds, had an ablative coating to dissipate the heat that was generated from the fiction from the atmosphere and was so accurate that the radar had to be de-tuned during testing so that it would not hit incoming RVs

SOURCE

Holy crap, zero to MACH 10 in 5 seconds!

The only problem with this method is that high altitude nuclear detonations caused massive EMP. So while we might not have bombs going off directly over our cities, they were set off a little bit higher, you still have the fall out of the bombs (though not as much as a ground burst), plus you add the EMP which would destroy most electrical devices on the ground for hundreds of miles around.

Despite that, the Spartan/Sprint was an amazing system considering it was designed in the 60's and implemented in the 70's (only deployed for a few months before the ABM treaty was signed by the USA and USSR). It was so accurate that in tests the missile actually hit the target (this is a problem because if the warhead had not yet been detonated, well nukes don't work well when dented).

YouTube Video

[NYgurkha]

hovering ball of rocket fuel:



Youtube Link

[Solid Knight]

Fine then, set up a system that launches all your nukes all over the world so that if you get nuked the entire world goes with you. Best defense ever.

[BetterDeadThanRed]

You've just watched Doctor Strangelove or that was just an amazing coincidence.

[Liquid_Cow]

Originally Posted by Solid Knight

so that if you get nuked the entire world goes with you. Best defense ever.

Been there done that, its called MAD as in Mutually Assured Destruction. Most of you are probably too young to remember this, but when I grew up I was painfully aware of what nuclear war meant, where the targets were near my house (I had a map with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd tier target) and had planned a fallout shelter in the basement. When I was in high school I took a Civil Defense class on how to use radiological monitoring equipment and how to select large/safe shelters in case of nuclear war. We worried about the Soviets blowing us up, not a 0.02 degree difference in the globe's temperature.

YouTube Video