We already have the cruise missle and torpedo now... Aviation Week has discussed both but not in detail.

I just cannot wait until they announce the successor to the SR-71. Its been flying for several years from what we hear, based somewhere out here in the West. Have heard where but my memory gets feeble at times like this and cannot remember which state its based in... :) OPSEC you know...

AFAIK, One needs to split the question between cruise missiles aimed at ships which we can defend against and missiles going to targets without immediate defensive weapons, which we have no proven defense for. ICBMs are most effectively destroyed during boost phase and those systems designed to kill in boost phase are not on line yet.
Once the warhead(s)/decoy(s) are released we have no defense yet.

And which part of the DOD do you work for? You must be one of the few people in the world who knows every classified program that the US has to be able to say that we without a doubt we have no defense against something.

To tell the truth, I cannot disagree with you that we may not have anything like this, but to make a statement that "we have no defense against something" is a bit more all encompassing than I would ever make, but then I prefer to be correct in my statements.

AFAIK means As Far As I Know.
While it is very possible to keep aircraft development secret, it is nigh impossible to develop a real missile/reentry body defense in secret. You need assets to test against, places to launch from and a significant enterprise to make it all happen.

http://www.army-technology.com/projects/thaad/ is not ready and is the forefront of the technology.

Steve is right. ICBMs and cruise missiles are diffrerent animals with different methods of defense. ICBMs a destroyed in boost and regular missiles at terminal phase (Steve is right. ICBMs and cruise missiles are diffrerent animals with different methods of defense. All are best destroyed prior to launch, but if that is not possible...current wisdom is that ICBMs are best destroyed in boost (ABL/etc) and regular missiles/cruise missiles at terminal phase (Phalanx/PATRIOT/etc). Since these are current public programs, you can assume much more advanced technologies are in development. Does anyone remember the many "star wars" programs that were started by the Gipper?

Fint - supposedly most of those - if not all - never made it past concept when bubba clinton got into oriface. Not sure I believe they ever died. I do remember a clip of a segment on a silly UFO show on Discovery where a craft was fired upon by a Laser sat in orbit. Most likly a hoax but having done work many many years ago on a few DARPA projects while with Grace Chemical and Rohm & Haas, there are many things we worked on that the public didn't even hear about for at least 10 years and these were not even the real hush hush stuff. I am sure that there is technology that exceeds the publics understanding.

I know for a fact that the laser weapons programs are over 35 years old. So what you know is somewhat stale, very, very stale.

Actually, the whole star wars stuff was premature and fanciful. At the time, teams at the Labs were pitted against each other in computer simulations with the blue defense trying to use the star wars stuff. The red attack team could easily change a parameter that the blue defense could not keep up with.

LOL! I was too lazy to research, plus in a hurry to see "Superman." :D

What is useless against hundreds...or even thousands of ICBMs launched by a near peer from a wide spread area could be pretty effective against a nation with only a dozen or so...launched from a relatively small area. Especially after almost 20 more years of development.

Well, yes and no. Some of the early applications are probably 35 years old, but the current weapons-based lasers are all using current technology. The program I am working on is essentially brand new. It's laser is even more advanced than ABL's, but in a slightly different way. Plus, these new lasers are higher output COIL lasers than what has ever been tried before...

Mike

Lazy is my call sign! :cool:

For more info, do a search on Aegis Cruisers and Theater Ballistic Missile Defence. Also, Aegis and the term 'linebacker'.

Hope, 'Superman' was worth it...my kids want to go.

I am skeptical that after the simulation reports that much was done on these devices. Following your logic, it woiuld have taken a very far reaching mind with substantail political power to pursuade DOD to spend money in case we could use them on a limited basis against a small country of limited assets. I don't think with all the other priorities that any one of those far fetched weapon ideas would have gotten very far. But that's just my opinion.

We used to call it, "R2D2 with a H@rd on"!

Yeah, I like that, sort of like Puff with a brain.

Not sure what exciting PR footage of CWIS has to do with ICBMs.

The Aegis-based applications shown are defensive weapons against subsonic missiles.

ICBMs are not subsonic, and are not targeted on cruisers.

Heck according to Tech we can't even track a missile that was launched from North Korea and hit Alaska, much less shoot one down...

You need to look some more...they are moving some cruisers into the Sea of Japan as we type, for TBMD. The cruisers provide a shield, not a target.

Tech, I have witnessed skin to skin hits on supersonic targets from Aegis class cruisers. I have flown off the f'ing things on two six month deployments.

I like reading your posts Steven, they always have a lot of thought behind them, why exactly would we be limited in the ways you describe, aside from the small number of people shooting off ICBM's?

So I guess the answer to the question is, "Yes we have the capability to shoot down some missles, but the media has not reported the capability to shoot down the long dong eu or whatever the multistage missile is called"(I do like the name, sounds like a sex toy from Thailand or something.)

I have no doubt whatsoever that our government has capabilities beyond what you read about. 10 million conspiracy theorists could not be wrong(well maybe, but I like the 10 million to one odds)

Tobra, as far as I know, we do not have a working defense for real ballistic threats. The competition for money is intense and back then the likelihood of needing a defense against a NK ICBM would have been dismissed out of hand.

Does anyone know if the Taepodong had destruct capabilities, either command or self destruct? Or could this have been a major engineering mistake.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/05/AR2006070501551.html

If it does not have self or command destruct, I think we are very prudent putting assets near by to attempt to destroy an errant missle.

Did anyone hear of a target zone and any NK assets in the area to monitor the test?

Silly boys... don't you know we have a group of brainiacs in a bunker twenty miles underground that can knock anything out of the air with telekinesis?

Oh no... here come the helicopters!

Groovy. How many ICBMs have you seen or heard of being intercepted?

Most of the tests are done out here from Vandenburg. I believe there was a successful test 7/15/01 against a missile over Kwajalein. Another was reported 6/22/06 -- this one from a ship.

These tests, I believe, involved an anticipated launch and anticipated trajectory, with known defensive system deployment.

Even the Bush administration states that the likelihood of an interception is "high." When you're dealing with nuclear ICBMs, the probability of a shootdown has to be higher than that.

The point is that the task is near enough to impossible that 20+ years of development and billions given to defense contractors have not made us appreciably safer -- primarily because the threat has shifted from symmetrical to asymmetrical.

Oh, man. Now you're off to join Art Bell in exile.

:-/

Brings up a interesting point. Why all this "defence" issue? We just hack into their self destruct system and send our own signal to destruct their missile after it launches... Cheaper and easier by a long shot.

While this is true, the object of these tests was to incrementally test different subsystems, etc., so the "orchestrated" nature of the testing was somewhat of a necessity.


The point is that the task is near enough to impossible that 20+ years of development and billions given to defense contractors have not made us appreciably safer -- primarily because the threat has shifted from symmetrical to asymmetrical.

FWIW, I have seen the documents and read the reviews (and worked on the program) and the technology is impressive and it *does* work. Is it 100% reliable? Maybe not. There are ways to confuse the EKV. There has been alot of money spent on this program that might have been better spent elsewhere, but that's another discussion. Does it work? Yes. Are we completely safe? Never.

Mike

Mike,

Please do not say things like this! Weenie is now an expert on missle defence (among other things, its getting to be a very long list) and he just knows that THIS DOES NOT WORK, so telling him that you worked on the program and know it works depresses him...

There are many things that we in the field know works. Glad the public had not had everything leaked to them by the news media just yet.

Well, that's reassuring, assuming everything remains static. AFAIK, several years ago, it was "brilliant pebbles" that were to confuse defense systems. Today, NK may have progressed past that point. And tomorrow?

The thing with weapons systems is that they are not static.

And yes, its foolish to think 'completely safe' is a practical goal. But even a 5% chance of a thermonuclear device hitting a major US city is a bit tough to swallow.

was Jack Bauer in NK?

He was on that Chinese Freighter being tortured at the end of Season 2...maybe they took him to NK...

Good googly moogly...


1. Cruise missiles. There are point defense solutions against these subsonic weapons. As a matter of fact, I have CHASED these weapons during test flights. You can fly form on these pigs. Is Los Angelas equipped to fend them off? No.

2. Supersonic threats. There are systems that work against these threats. Is Los Angelas equipped? No.

3. TBM's. There are systems that can intercept these weapons, phase dependent. Is LA...no.

4. ICBMS. Also phase dependent. And, yes, LA is out of brea on this one, too.

I love Huntsville, btw...

Joe, if the NK engineers did their job correctly, then falsifying a command destruct signal is nigh impossible. However, judging by their success rate, they might not be as thorough as we are and there might be an avenue there.

dont' you mean season 5? I'm in the middle of season 4, having watched the show for the first time this year at the insistence of my g/f. now I'm working my way backwards...

I have no doubt that season 6 will have some China/NK action...

hey, maybe he'll get a new female sidekick :p

Ah, you're right. I have the early seasons on the brain...my wife watched season 5 with me this year and decided to get caught up. I had already seen seasons 1 and 2, she watched those on DVD in like 2 weeks. Now we are on season 3.

Yeah, we do lots of neat stuff here and nobody really knows it.... :>)

Mike

HA!
We are working on a impenetrable layer of smog that will beat any of those attacks!
Almost done too cough cough...

Reflections off of all the whitened teeth wreak havoc with missle control systems, and our SSS (silicone safety system) is designed such that when a warning goes out, all of the bleached blonde waitresses, um, I mean actesses, gather at the point of impact to provide a boobie-rebound layer (BRL) for protection.

That is exactly what the systems I am familiar with are for. Mutually Assured Destruction seems to be a good deterrent for the (somewhat) reasonable folks with huge nuclear arsenals that have managed to control themselves all these years.

Obviously we would like a shield that would prevent any threat, but the systems that we are really interested in developing first are those that will take out a terrorist launch by a madman...Elvis, Saddam, and the Kooky Iranian President come to mind.

Fortunately,or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, the people in the "know" about this stuff, even 30 year old stuff, cannot talk about it. Needless to say Techweenie is 100 percent wrong about our development and capability. I wouldn't breath easy, but I wouldn't worry to much about Korea either.

Couldn't and shouldn't are close, folks talking about things they were sworn to secrecy about is what they NYT is in hot water about now

Interesting system:

http://www.afrl.af.mil/articles/032006_ARM3System.asp