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.

Bend over, kiss you azz goodbyeby

The Navy's Aegis ships have the capacity, but I can't say I place much reliance on it.

What ever happened to Reagan's Star Wars project?

Google 49th Missile Defense Battalion, Ft Greely AK. Ground based interceptor location.

Everything the general public knows about America's military capabilities is outdated.

The one in Israel is pretty good. And we give it to them.

Patriot Missile system.. Scud busters..

^^^^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^^

If they told us, they'd have to shoot us.

No system is going to stop them all. There isn't even a system that will stop all airplanes from getting through.

But it's better to stop all you can.

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

Excellent post..

I hope they are good. I smile every time we drive by the base!

I think the big problem is quantity. The intercontinental missiles that the major powers use these days are essentially nuclear cluster bombs. They have to be hit before they release their payload or instead of having one target, you've got 20.

Exactly right hence, the argument of building it, WHEN IT INVOLVED THE SOVIETS with thousands of warheads. For Rogue nations like N Korea and Iran, it's a very doable option. Personally I favor invasion..

Thanks guys, I knew if I asked here that there would be someone with real knowledge. That's why I keep coming to the fire.

Jorge, the moment you get all your troops on the ground in North Korea the mad bastards would let everything they have go at once just to get up your nose, and hang the consequence.

And the people there are so indoctrinated they would stand in line to watch the current dill in charge press the button.

As for Iran, we can only hope they are silly enough to press the wrong button on a test run when shewing obama what his dollar purchased.

Would it be possible to mobilize fighter jets to shoot one down?

Mach 5+ in the stratosphere - ummm, no on the fighter jets. Best just blow them to hell on the launch pad.

I'm encouraged by the laser systems they just deployed on some Navy vessels. Pinpoint accurate, rapid fire, and about $1.50 a shot. Gotta think they can (or have) scaled these up for missle defense as well.

I suspect that some of the launchpad failures by the Axis of Evil members might well have been "assisted" by similar devices, but we'll never know.

Some of these targets would be about 2-3x higher altitude than even a bomber aircraft can travel. Even if you could, by the time you found out one was inbound, you would have minutes to act, and there would be no way in hell of getting a plane into position to shoot.

That's correct, the multiple independent re-entry vehicles necessitate hitting the target in the exo-atmosphere while it's a single target. Hence my previous comments about the physics challenges of actually getting a weapon in position, up to that altitude, and still maneuverable with little to no use of aerodynamic control (ie wings/fins etc).

Well don't over look a shotgun loaded with a load of dried black eyed peas.

Or rock salt.Going fast enough they do hurt.

Takin' delivery on a .45-70 shortly, I'm willing to help.

Are the THEL systems still operational ?

Shooting down a terrestrial anti-ship cruise missile, coming straight at you at 1 nautical mile is worlds apart from shooting a mach 5, crossing geometry target, hardened to survive atmospheric re-entry, at 200-300,000 feet, and having to account for the refraction of the laser through a massive atmospheric gradient. So in short, that system wouldn't be the starting point. It would need to be a grid of systems that were all space based, and none of us has/had the clearance to know what's going on with that right now.

BeanMan: As a child and teenager I lived quite close to a Nike Missile "defense site".
About every three years the brass at the sites would allow the folks living near the sites to tour, inspect and learn about the Nike Missiles.
I went on a few of those tours.
I actually touched some Nike Missiles down in their shallow silos.
The tours espoused the fact that these Nike Missiles were fast and would fly out and home in on approaching Russian bombers and fly into them before they could get to our cities and our military bases and air fields in the Puget Sound area.
Decades later LONG after the Nike Missiles became obsolete and were removed I learned that those Nike Missiles did not need to "strike" anything!
They were all equipped with small nuclear (atomic?) warheads and once within 5 to 8 miles of Russian bombers they would detonate (over my house?) and the shock wave would shatter the Russkies bombers!
I hope my tax dollars have been spent to protect us from attacks of this nature nowadays.
I don't know, but I have positioned myself to live out the rest of my life far from any defense facilities - that gives me some peace of mind.
Where I previously lived not only were there many military bases and Air Force facilities but also U.S, Navy nuclear submarine bases nearby!
I moved away from that missile magnet area and am quite content to live where I am, protected from nuclear blasts by 7 mountain ranges that surround me and I have a quasi-bomb shelter built right in to my home.
Again I hope we have some kind of ballistic missile protection system but don't know for sure.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Would probably need to wait until January 20th before it would be allowed to be shot down.

I could tell you the answer, but then I'd have to kill ya.

A friend that's an old hand with Raytheon was commenting about as close to the edge of "classified" as he could, after the second or third successful test of an anti missile system that nailed a missile fired by the USN offshore, and targeting the Barry Goldwater range.
His call out was that it equated to hitting a bullet in flight, with another bullet.
When you start creating clouds of high velocity debris for the target to fly through, you're shooting at a bullet with a shotgun.

Outlaw, thanks for the savvy commentary today.

GTC

Having taken place in an invasion in '03, I would prefer a first strike.

Invasions are over rated, and they suck for those involved.

Please spend money when you drive through!

Fascinating. Thanks for posting!

Thank you for your service and sacrifice(s).

I think we'll need the lasers for the Hypersonic Maneuverables.

Absent space based lasers, I always wonder why they don't upsize the shotgun concept. Launch a cloud of steel ball bearings at the incoming missiles. Say 500 lbs of 1" steel balls, mounted on top of the interceptor missile. This of course is for high altitude intercepts, where air resistance is nil. A hit by one ball at that speed is going to wreck the incoming weapon.

So long as we do it while we still have more stealth bombers then the Norks have nukes.

A few years back there was a lot of noise about mounting those anti-missile lasers on a big multiengine jet.

Followup reports have been scarce with the present tenant of the Executive Office.

The Strategic Defense Initiative, aka Star Wars, was incredibly successful. An ICBM fired from Vandenburg and aimed at Kwajelein Atoll was struck by a laser fired from the NTS near Las Vegas. SDI also produced huge "black " budgets that financed other rarely discussed projects.


mike r

The least talked about facet of SDI is that it was mostly imaginary, yet was one of Reagans greatest triumphs.

Reagan managed to convince the Soviets we were developing the most outrageous technology, and the Soviets, tyring to counter, spent their nation into bankruptcy decades earlier than they might have. Thus ending the cold war.

IS, you are correct regarding the strategy being intended to disrupt an already failing soviet economy. However, the budgets and resulting high priority projects were very real and produced huge results.

A large percentage of space shuttle flights launched a new generation of sensor satellites. the Cruise missile program was hugely upgraded and deployed over multiple platforms ahead of schedule then deployed in Europe despite huge communist led protests.The MX system of launching ICBMs from mobile sites was prototyped and a full scale working model was built and tested at the NTS where it was seen by Soviet satellites creating great consternation in their govt.

The entire weapons development complex in the US was invigorated and, aided by new computer and material technologies, advanced our defense capabilities exponentially leading to the fall of communism.


mike r

I suspect a missile defense system is mostly placebo.

That has been looked at in detail, as part of a category called kinetic weapons. It would have to be space based as well so those small objects can travel at high speed for extended distances with very limited atmospheric friction.

When I was at the Naval Academy I was in the Physics degree program and our Department head was an old school German PHD we used to call "Herr Doktor" because he kind of reminded you of some genius German mad scientist LOL. He was actually working on the raw, theoretical math associated with some of this stuff. One day I looked at some of his notes but after about page 3 of 78 pages of hand written calculus and differential equations, I tapped out.

I won't get into specifics but I have a pretty high confidence level in the interceptor program now. Of course there were quite a few set backs in the original design (which is to be expected) but the program is a long ways from the original prototype.Just think about this for a minute, we track certain actions in certain parts of the world like a hawk 24/7, It's gonna take a large projectile to exit the atmosphere and re enter the atmosphere to target the US from the suspect nations that would do so.More than likely more than 1 kill vehicle (interceptor) is going to be launched to target said projectile. If you look at the accuracy of some of the smaller systems we use to protect bases around the world , the larger projectile should be pretty easy to kill. There's some pretty damn smart fellas designing this chit, I've had some first hand conversations with a few.

Some boys in Tennessee working on their own solution. They went home when the hot wings run out.

Mike, did you work on that project? I worked on Star wars and Brilliant pebbles , fielding our experiments at NTS from 1982 to 1993, and I continued to do work with some of the intercept projects after that. I have never heard of any ground based lasers deployed at NTS, but would be interested to read about it.

I did work with one of the many companies that developed airplane based laser intercept vehicles, and none were successful in their attempts to destroy a launch vehicle, to my knowledge. LLNL also had a tow behind laser system, but I do not know if it was fieldable or a concept when I saw it published. We did have a direct hit of an ICBM launched from Kodiak island, the kill vehicle was launched from Vandenberg, but it was test #12, and the only one that succeeded. We recorded an infrared imaging system that recorded the intercept, based in a chase plane.

I did get to see the B-1 bomber do a fly-over of NTS the day it was announced to the world, we were in Area 20 preparing for an experiment.

Allen

I was the Tactical Action Officer for one of the launches from our ship so I was coordinating the intercept from the combat center. Unfortunately I didn't get to see the physical launch on that one. The intercept took a LONG time just because of the sheer altitude the missile had to achieve. So on the 2nd launch, I talked the Captain into letting me watch from the weather deck and then run back down to combat to track the progress on the system. That missile was the fastest thing I've ever seen (or not seen LOL) in my life. Supposedly, it reached mach 2.5+ by the time the end of the missile left the rail. In other words, 0 to mach 2.5 in like 20 feet. I would estimate the visibility was around 3,000 feet and the missile was visible for less than a second. Just to get an idea of the incredible altitudes we're talking about, I watched the missile launch, walked back into the skin of the ship, went down 2 decks and walked down a passageway into combat, and the missile was only like 20% of the way there.

This is what we shot, for your reading pleasure. Basically, one of the following devices replaced the warhead on the end of a 2 stage missile launched from our ship:

The Lightweight Exoatmospheric Projectile (LEAP) is a miniaturized kinetic kill vehicle that, once delivered on a path towards the ballistic missile target, detects, acquires, and homes in on that target. LEAP destroys the target missile by force of impact. Efforts to pursue advanced, lightweight, low-cost components for space-based and ground-based ballistic missile defense interceptors have generated significant progress in the LEAP program in the early 1990s. The LEAP program succeeded in developing several miniature kill vehicles all weighing under 20 kilograms. These LEAP vehicles have undergone a series of hover tests to demonstrate their abilities to "fly" and, using optical seekers, acquire and track ballistic missile targets.

The Lightweight Exoatmospheric Projectile (LEAP) interceptor is a highly modular, lightweight, space tested kinetic kill vehicle (KKV) designed to defend against medium- and long-range ballistic missile attacks. Raytheon began development of the LEAP Kinetic Kill Vehicle (KKV) in 1985. The LEAP KKV had been validated in over a thousand simulation runs, over a hundred ground tests, several hover tests and several space flight tests.

The goal of the LEAP program, as originally conceived in 1985, was to develop and integrate the world's first advanced, miniature kinetic energy interceptors and associated technologies; and then to demonstrate their capabilities through extensive ground testing. The technologies were intended to enable development of ground-and space-based systems in support of the then-proposed Strategic Defense System architecture.

In 1985, the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) began the LEAP program, pioneering the development of small, miniaturized kill vehicle technology. At that time, the program's focus was to drive down weight and size of a kill vehicle for application in electromagnetic gun and rocket interceptor weapons. A year earlier, the U.S. Army demonstrated a successful exoatmospheric kinetic energy kill vehicle in the Homing Overlay Experiment. The kill vehicle in that experiment weighed over 200 kilograms and was about the size of a refrigerator. The challenge the LEAP team accepted was to drive down that weight by more than an order of magnitude to roughly ten kilograms.

Although aggressive design objectives were established, the original design goals did not necessarily evolve from stringent system requirements. Instead, near-term vehicles were developed to demonstrate the validity of fully integrated miniature interceptors and to represent a step on the path towards an operational KKV system. Because of this flexible development approach, even though the missile defense architecture has changed in response to the changing global environment, the LEAP program has been able to maintain a robust, supporting technology focus.

The LEAP program had progressed from a series of highly successful hover tests at BMDO's National Hover Testing Facility at Edwards Air Force Base, California. In June 1991 the LEAP 2 Integrated Vehicle Strapdown and Free Flight Hover tests were successfully completed. These hover tests allowed the completely integrated LEAP vehicle to lift itself off of a test stand and hover autonomously in free flight using its divert and attitude control system propulsion systems. While in unencumbered free flight, the LEAP acquired and tracked a scaled infrared target and performed a series of maneuvers as dictated by the particular objectives of specific tests.

hemiallen, I was in CP-1 during the test as an advisor to the Test Director and DOE Manager, for emergency response. I toured the event site prior to, and following the test. I served in various capacities based at the NTS from 1978-1990. I spent lots of time in areas 19 and 20 during site prep and re entries.


mike r

hemiallen, did you stay in Mercury or area 12 housing? I imagine you have enjoyed some fine dining at The Steakhouse. I spent many nights in LLNL and LANL accomodations. I have seen more Mt. Lions in areas 19 and 20 then anywhere else in my life.

Those were some interesting times.


mike r

Spent more than a few nights at Area 10 but often flew in the middle of the night so we could go back "home" to China Lake to work data and didn't have to stay in that garden spot.

Pugs, area 10 has an interesting history, did you fly an F 89 perchance?


mike r

Are you guy talking about that place north of Vegas?




Dave

I'm getting old but not that old! No, FME in EA-6B Prowlers for that work.

Yes, a true garden spot where great things occurred on a regular basis. Ironically we are discussing this on Dec. 7. The japs used to have massive protest demonstrations at the Site.

REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR



MIKE R

Gotcha. I was there for a couple weeks for training in 2000 or so. It was fugking awesome. The last day some Major took it upon himself to give tours to anybody that was interested.

It was cool as schit. The amount of stuff that was abandoned out there was insane.




Dave

Pugs, not recalling FME designator would you clarify. I didn't think you were real old even if you did fly prowlers. Did you ever log the Paiute Mesa airstrip or were those missions not logged?

Fun days, bless Ronald Reagan


mike r

FME = Foreign Material Exploitation. Paiute Mesa was too short for us. If there were issues that needed an immediate landing it was Groom Lake or back to Tonapah Test. Standard flying for logging purposes. The real mission and the results were a different issue.

I did some other work out there in post-Navy career but that's different stuff.

I was lucky enough to be able to work w/ some of the Nuclear Weapons pioneers and heard some great stories. They had no idea of what the limits were and were frequently surprised. I once looked in to an old building in Area 25 and saw what appeared to be a Lunar Rover and immediately donned my tinfoil hat. I later learned that much of the testing and training for the moon missions was done at the NTS.

One day I was forward of Area 6 and saw an Ideco2500 drill rig[very large] floating across the dry lake bed. When I got closer I saw that the rig had been placed on tracks while erected and pushed/pulled by bulldozers to an new site.

working there was rarely boring.



mike r

Gotcha, most of my FME experience was assisting in getting materials out of Afghanistan while based in Peshawar, Pakistan. When you were at Tonopah you probably saw a lot of it and air defense stuff "donated" by Israel. Did you perchance participate in any of the EWCAS exercises?


mike r

Several. I really enjoyed that type of work. I'd have to go back and look at about 18 years of logbooks but I suspect that I did north of 20 dets for that type of work plus at least a dozen Red Flags. As far as where it came from. Well, not the time or place.

The other stuff and places you mentioned is my post Navy life.

Cool Mike.

Did you get to see Pluto? One of our engineers worked on it there at NTS.

The large ring crane made it to Livermore from NTS to lift the chamber for NIF.

I built Xray diagnostics assemblies specifically to verify the efficiency and energies of the Nuke during detonation. I got to be at CP-1 for one test out of the dozen I worked on, lots of time at the blue building, old block housing and later the LLNL dorms, and once the REECO housing, WW11 barracks buildings. From 1981 fall to Greenwater, 1992.

I probably logged close to 200 flights on AMI, and many commercial flights to Vegas/ NLV facility to test fit our diagnostics packages before the can was shipped to the hole at NTS. Many hours cruising Buckboard Mesa, area 12 tunnels, Mine mountain, a few trips down to Climax mine. A lot of History on that place, and a lot of it required an old timer to know it existed ( or a REECO worker, they seem to know a lot of the history).

Allen

It appears many of us have been involved in some kind of missile defense or ballistic missile program. I spent 18 months at a Nike site just outside of Anchorage in the 1970's. This place.

http://nikealaska.org/summit/SiteSUMMIT.html

http://www.nikesitesummit.net/

Agree on all counts.

Cool thread bump.

Great thread.
The sinews behind it all, the stuff and the men that get it done and make it go, Absolutely too cool.

hemiallen you were certainly there during exciting times and probably get a chuckle when people call SDI bogus. Pluto took place before my time but I spent a lot of time in Area 25 and the E-Mad and R-Mad facilities which were then operated by Westinghouse. I got to watch the operation of the remote handling equipment in E-Mad where the tools were manipulated w/ incredibly complex devices while viewed through 6' thick optical glass. The locomotive that transported the rocket engines were also based and maintained there.

I frequently was a liason w/ various military units at the NTS including the army parachute test team, Task Force 160 and other SOF units that share the anti-proliferation mission which was my primary focus. The Mighty Derringer FTX was partially based in A-25 and at the time was one of the largest multi-agency counter terror projects.

Good times were had by all, did you hear about the USAF General who took an unauthorized spin in a Mig and crashed it?


mike r

Pugs, there were a lot of Vietnam era jet jocks and other warriors in those "other places" doing the lord's work and other stuff.


mike r