I was watching Rocky's post about a missile launch and it got me to wondering. How good are we at intercepting and terminating a missile flight, for example, one launched by North Korea aimed in our direction? I assume we have some capability but that it isn't doesn't have a high kill probability.
I was actually part of the ballistic missile defense project a few years ago as the Combat Systems Officer on a guided missile Cruiser. During that time, we launched 2 exo-atmospheric projective missile from our ship at Minuteman missiles. The issue with ship launch systems is the range. The best you can expect from a ship is a theater ballistic missile intercept, not an intercontinental ballistic missile intercept. The other limitation is that the ship would pretty much need to be at or near right under the path of the missile. Trying to hit a target going mach 5+ in a crossing or chasing geometry isn't going to happen.
Land based systems allow you to have a lot bigger and longer range intercepts, but the physics challenge of chasing down such a high altitude and high speed target doesn't go away. We may be able to guess where the source of launch is, but the land target could be anywhere in a 1,500 mile range. The other lesser understood challenge is that at the altitudes of intercept expected, the atmosphere is so thin that explosive destruction of the target is not reliable. There just isn't enough air to give the shock wave enough kinetic energy to kill a traget that so hardened it can survive orbit re-entry. So most of these weapons are designed with kinetic kill vehicles that are ejected and attempt a skin to skin hit- very difficult to do.
If I told you any more, I'd have to kill you
