Army Missile Defense Stretched Thin

The best defense is a good offense. Reagan was just blowing smoke up our arses. I witnessed a demonstration at White Sands a couple years ago where they tried to shoot down a missile with another missile. Missed it by th-i-i-i-i-s much. Actually, not even close.

 

You need to invest in a 36 foot sloop and become a yachtie and cruise the Central Pacific and witness the testing of the Navy's RIM-161. (SM-3)

http://www.raytheon.com/capabilities/products/sm-3/

http://www.redorbit.com/news/techno...ests-new-anti-ballistic-missile-over-pacific/

http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/sm3.htm

Thank you Ronnie, glad you were doing your job as CnC.

 

Jaysus, I hope you're not putting your faith in ABMs. For every defensive measure there are at least three offensive countermeasures. Once released, we're all going to be assuming the ambient atmospheric temperature about 20 minutes later.

 

No, there are theories of offensive countermeasures. Most have been rejected by both sides as ridiculous.

Like "dummy warheads", that is one of the funniest. It takes as much lifting power to raise a dummy warhead into a ballistic trajectory as it does to lift a real warhead, so why lift a dummy that does nothing? Lift 2 warheads instead and you get double the power if there are no defensive systems.

Oh, I can go on and on, but what is the point? Simple truth is, ABM offensive other then simply more ballistic missiles is a fantasy, since there are really no ABM systems in place anywhere in the first place.

And no, "we're all going to be assuming the ambient atmospheric temperature about 20 minutes later" is nice propaganda, but not really true. Unless you believe the tales of movies like The Day After Tomorrow or Threads.

Of course, you are also trying to discuss ICBMs, which are used exclusively in nuclear warheads. Ballistic Missiles are generally something completely different, and the only nation that still uses those in a nuclear capacity is China. Russia and the US destroyed their Short-Medium-Theatre ballistic missiles decades ago.

 

Then I have to ask. What missile was the target, what missile was fired to intercept, and what was the actual attempt in the exercise?

I spent a long time at White Sands myself, and have seen scores of tests. Not all are actually intended to do a hard intercept in the first place. Many times they are simply system-integration tests, tracking tests, even flight characteristic tests where no intercept is ever intended.

So please, which missile system was being tested, now I am curious.

Especially since the vast majority of live fire missile tests are not actually conducted at White Sands at all, but at McGregor Range. You see, generally White Sands is used only for test fires without an intercept (unless it involved the USS Desert Ship). This means they fire a test drone (commonly from Launch Complex 33) and is then used for tracking purposes by the targeting system. These almost never involve actual intercepts at all. Other times they sometimes do a test launch of an interceptor, once again to test tracking of the system-missile, not trying to do an actual "intercept" at all.

Actual "missile on target" tests are almost always conducted at the McGregor Range Complex. The reasons for this are many, but some of the largest is simply the space available. White Sands has cities of differing sizes all around it, especially since they generally have to close off Highway 70 to conduct tests. I myself have spent months working at Launch Complex 38, and can tell you some pretty interesting stories about it.

And nobody I have ever worked with in ADA has ever confused White Sands and McGregor Range. Knowing what I know of such tests, it raises serious questions in my mind. But if you were at White Sands, odds are that the test was never intended to be an intercept in the first place. Intercept tests at White Sands are rare-rare-rare-rare (with the exception of USS Desert Ship, which of course can not move to McGregor Range).

 

http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/ne...edented-Dual-Intercept-Success-For-MEADS.html

 

The ABM system is only able to deal with rogue nations who might think of launching one or two ICBM's against the USA, Japan or Europe.

May have some use against intermediate tactical ballistic missiles ?

Now if Russia were to launch a hundred ICBM's against the USA, those right wing wacko survivalist wont look so wacko will they ?

Like when President Reagan was observing a NORAD exercise and when the big screen showed a hundred Soviet ICBM's targeting the CONUS and Reagan asked the General, "What do we do now beside launching a nuclear retaliatory attack" ?

The General said "Nothing"

Reagan said there's nothing we can do to intercept these Soviet missiles ?

Nope said the General.

So Reagan's "Star Wars" was born.

Better to be nuked while standing on your feet than to be cowering while kissing your ass goodbye.

 

*nods*

And I did not say they never happen, just that they are rare. That is why I was trying to find out what system was being tested.

MEADS is currently the only exception other then those at USS Desert Ship (and any other in-development and prototype phase systems). PATRIOT and THAAD at White Sands doing "full intercept live fire" is something I have not heard of in years (PATRIOT in over a decade). MEADS is still very much a testing system, and since it has only become an actually working system in the last year and a half, I would not consider any test of that system "a couple of years ago" to have never been intended to be an intercept attempt in the first place.

The last time I was at White Sands (3 months mid-late 2011), we were doing the system integration testing for PATRIOT upgrades at Launch Site 38. We even did some tracking exercises where they had to close Highway 70 as they fired missiles around our site so we could track them. But we did not have any live missiles loaded on the launchers, only testing canisters which had dummy missiles with live seeker heads.

When the testing at WSMR was complete, the systems were all moved to McGregor Range for the actual life fire intercept testing phase. Yes we had "missiles fired at us" at White Sands, but there was no way to intercept because we did not have live missiles (damned good thing, since myself and multiple other crewmen and Raytheon employees were actually sitting on the launcher at the time).

MEADS will probably be US testing at White Sands only for the next 4+ years, unless the budget to expand the scope of testing is ever increased. At that point they will probably create the first "provisional" crew and move testing to McGregor so they can initiate the next phase, which is actual field testing. But testing like this at White Sands typically goes on for 4-8 years before it gets that far along.

And in checking, I am really wanting to know what this system is. THAAD left White Sands almost a decade ago and since then has tested at the Pacific Range Facility. MEADS in the time frame specified was not doing intercept tests yet. I know they are still testing various C-RAM systems at White sands with live fire exercises, but those are not what was claimed here.

 

The poster claimed he witnessed a complete failure, and apparently this MEADS test at White Sands was successful against a target drone QF-4 and a Lance missile... so we still don't know what system he saw being tested or what the target was.

 

Hence, President Reagan worked hard to remove entire classes of weapons from both the US and USSR inventory. No more nuclear missiles of medium range or lower (in fact the US eliminated all ballistic non-nuclear missiles). Ground launched tomahawk missiles all eliminated, all nuclear Tomahawk missiles removed from inventory over 20 years ago(with the exception of the 109A submarine launched version).

This went a long ways in reducing the danger that a conventional war could accidentally go nuclear. With nuclear and conventional Pershing II and Tomahawk missiles it would be far to easy to respond to a conventional attack as it if was nuclear. By removing all conventional and medium-short range ballistic missiles, that means that this confusion could no longer happen. By removing nuclear Tomahawks from all but submarines, it means that if the missile comes from an aircraft or Battleship, it is going to be conventional.

And we are still seeing systems developed from Star Wars. Anybody that thinks that such systems could have been developed in the 1980's is fooling themselves. SDI was always a long term project, and today we are seeing multiple systems based in SDI research.

 

*nods again*

And at a time frame apparently after his "failed launch" event. I am sure there had been launches for MEADS going back almost a decade. But none of those were intended to be "intercept tests". Simply launching a missile to see if the RADAR and other tracking systems can detect and track it, and missile firing tests to see how well the missile performs. It also might have incorporated "intercept tracking" live fire tests, where an interceptor is indeed fired at the target drone, but an intercept is not wanted, just a "fly-by" to get more precise tracking data from the seeker head in the missile.

Notice I did not entirely discard the claim, but I do want more information to at least include year and system tested.

 

My best guess is what he witnessed was the testing of the QF-16 target drones that was conducted at White Sands...probably a year or so ago. Missiles were fired that intentionally missed, and based on the coordinates and speed it was determined if they were kills or not. It evaluates weapons systems without actually being shot out of the sky. To an observer it would appear as a near miss, but this was intentional...and maybe from a long distance a QF-16 could resemple a missile. I would assume he saw this as a civilian observer outside of the perimeter of the missile range itself.

 

Or it could be an MQM-107 Streaker, something that is very familiar with those who work in White Sands.

http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/m-107.html

These reusable target drones are constantly used for various forms of testing, but actually rarely shot down because they can be used again. Most of the time in live fire tests the drone itself is not the target, but a towed target they drag behind them. This also would give the impression that the missile "missed" because they see the drone continue to fly. But the target itself being towed behind the drone actually was hit (this is what I mean when I talk about a "no hit" or "fly-by" test).

The drone itself contains sensors which show if the target was hit or not and is then recovered and reused. A successful "hit" is recorded and there is not even an explosion because they are trying for a hit, not to destroy the target or drone.

 

That makes the most sense as the QF-16 test was actually fairly recent. Target drones are not so cheap they can afford to waste them all as equivalent to clay pigeons.

 

There are plenty of non-theoretical measures that make ballistic missile defense untenable. Let's just start with FOBS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_Orbital_Bombardment_System

- - - Updated - - -

So the illusion of being able to do something is preferable to the truth that you are dead either way?

 

Ronnie didn't think that way.

 

Ronnie didn't succeed in doing anything. We were no more safe from nuclear destruction when he left office than when he entered it.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIM-161_Standard_Missile_3

Better than the old "Bert" wouldn't you say ?

[video=youtube_share;IKqXu-5jw60]http://youtu.be/IKqXu-5jw60[/video]

 

Not really. The AEGIS cruiser in order to intercept an ICBM warhead or anything else in space needs to be basically right under and perfectly propositioned to hit it.

It wouldn't prevent the nuclear destruction of the US against an opponent like the Soviets.

 

AEGIS destroyers armed with the ABM Standard-3 M RIM-161 are deployed to deal with rouge countries (North Korea or some Muslim country) who have nukes, who would only be launching one or a few nukes.

Not every AEGIS ship is capable of being armed with the RIM-161.

I'm not that concerned that Russia would launch a first strike strategic nuclear attack against the CONUS. But a tactical nuclear attack isn't out of the question but I only see it happening if NATO or the USA were to use tactical nukes first. But with a tactical nuclear strike you are only dealing with a few warheads not a hundred that would be used during a strategic nuclear attack.

But the topic is "Army missile defense is stretched thin" but it should be that the CONUS has no air defense from ICBM's or enemy aircraft like the Russians cruise missile Bear bombers. The Army doesn't have enough SAM's to defend the CONUS and with the huge drawdown of the states Air National Guard during the over down sizing that took place during the Clinton administration, there is no air defense.

It's the Air National Guard who's responsaable for the CONUS air defense. Look what happened on 9-11-01, California's ANG has only one F-16 squadron to defend the entire state air space. The squadron is based in north central California and was unable to put a combat air patrol (CAP) over Southern California. From what I've heard and read, most states had the same problem on 9-11. The Air National Guard took a big hit during the 1990's with the over downsizing of our military.

Now Russia takes it's continental air defense seriously, so seriously that it has a separate branch of the military with it's own SAM regiments and it's own air force flying air superiority fighters and interceptors. America has nothing comparable.

The Soviet Air Defence Forces (Russian: войска ПВО, voyska protivovozdushnoy oborony, voyska PVO, V-PVO

Inventory: (1990)

A Sukhoi Su-15 Flagon
The PVO inventory of 1990 was:
2,410 interceptors
210 Su-27 Flanker
850 MiG-23 Flogger
350 MiG-25 Foxbat
360 MiG-31 Foxhound
500 Su-15 Flagon
90 Yak-28 Firebar
50 Tu-128 Fiddler
AWACS aircraft
7 Tupolev Tu-126 Moss
1 Beriev A-50 Mainstay
Surface-to-air missiles in service in 1990 included:
1,400 S-25 Berkut
2,400 Lavochkin S-75 Dvina
1,000 Isayev S-125 Neva\Pechora – 300+ sites, 2 or 4 missile launchers and rails
1,950 Almaz S-200 Angara\Vega\Dubna – 130 sites
1,700 Almaz S-300 – 850[32] sites, 15 more building
ABM-1 Galosh Anti-Ballistic Missile, part of the A-35 missile defence system

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Air_Defence_Forces

http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-Rus-SAM-AAA-Footage.html

 

The Air Force has F-22's in Alaska and Virginia. The Air Force and Air National guard have F-16's and F-15's stationed all over the US. We have missile interceptor bases with several dozen missile interceptors in Alaska and California.

Your claim that we have no air defense in CONUS is utter bull(*)(*)(*)(*).

 

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/usaf/1af.htm

First Air Force provides operational control of alert Air National Guard air defense fighter units:
119th Wing (119 WG), Fargo Airport, North Dakota, MQ-1 Predator, C-21A
Detachment 1, 119 FW, Langley AFB, Virginia
120th Fighter Wing (120 FW), Great Falls IAP, Montana, F-16 Fighting Falcon
125th Fighter Wing (125 FW), Jacksonville IAP, Florida, F-15 Eagle
Detachment 1, 125 FW, Homestead ARS, Florida
142d Fighter Wing (142 FW), Portland IAP, Oregon, F-15 Eagle
144th Fighter Wing (144 FW), Fresno AP California, F-16 Fighting Falcon
Detachment 1, 144 FW, March ARB, California
147th Reconnaissance Wing (147 RW), Ellington ANG Base, Texas, MQ-1 Predator, C-26 Metroliner
148th Fighter Wing (148 FW), Duluth IAP, Minnesota, F-16 Fighting Falcon
158th Fighter Wing (158 FW), Burlington AP, Vermont, F-16 Fighting Falcon
177th Fighter Wing (177 FW), Atlantic City AP, New Jersey, F-16 Fighting Falcon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Air_Force

(When you go to the Wiki link above, click on to each ANG air wing link and start counting the number of aircraft.)

>" First Air Force plans, conducts, controls, coordinates and ensures air sovereignty and provides for the unilateral defense
of the United States. It is comprised of 10 Air National Guard fighter wings and three air defense sectors for the
Northeast, Western and Southeast regions of the country. The best of America's fighter inventory, the F-15 Eagle and the
F-16 Fighting Falcon, are its primary weapons systems. In its role as the CONUS NORAD Region, First Air Force also
performs counterdrug surveillance operations..."<
http://www.carmachicago.com/profiles/norad.pdf

http://www.1af.acc.af.mil/main/welcome.asp

file:///home/chronos/u-b0705d1faf56c6f81959b1f472cf69a4c1462df0/Downloads/ADA563006.pdf

 

Those ten wings comprise more aircraft than Russia has of every bomber model it owns.

 

Look at the 144th Fighter Wing, just 21 F-16's. Sounds like a hollow air wing doesn't it ?

The Russians have over 2,000 fighter interceptors just for Russia's air defense.

Look at how many Air Force and ANG F-15's, (254 ac) F-16's (983 ac) and F-22's (186ac) Only the F-15 C/D and F-22's are air superiority fighters.

Now go to this link and click on each of the Russian fighters and interceptors and start counting the numbers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_currently_active_Russian_military_aircraft

Mikoyan MiG-31 Interceptor = 400/500 ac

Russian fighters:

Mikoyan MiG-29 = 1,600 (+) ac built

Sukhoi Su-35 = 34 ac

Sukhoi Su-33 = 24 ac

Sukhoi Su-30 = 500 (+) ac

Sukhoi Su-27 = 809 ac

 

Russia is also surrounded by other countries who can reach them with tactical fighter aircraft.

The same isn't true for America. The only way Russia can reach us is with their bomber aircraft. They only have a few dozen of those. We don't have to have enough aircraft to defeat the entire Chinese Air Force like Russia does.