A Navy first ...

[tflash]

... casts some doubts about missile defenses in Lockon.

 

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/US/05/24/missile.defense.ap/index.html

 

They are happy they managed for the first time to intercept a long-range missile in the end-game.

 

By contrast, in Lockon Russian air-defense gear manages to shoot down mavericks, harpoons, and even Moskit missiles as if they where some lame ducks.

 

I think the latter is somewhat overdone.

[Alfa]

... casts some doubts about missile defenses in Lockon.

 

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/US/05/24/missile.defense.ap/index.html

 

They are happy they managed for the first time to intercept a long-range missile in the end-game.

 

By contrast, in Lockon Russian air-defense gear manages to shoot down mavericks, harpoons, and even Moskit missiles as if they where some lame ducks.

 

I think the latter is somewhat overdone.

 

Tflash,

 

The article talks about interception of ballistic missiles in final stage of flight.....there are no such weapons in Lock-on ;) .

 

Cheers,

- JJ.

[tflash]

Yes, I understood that, but I reckon a ballistic missile in final stage of flight has a much more predictable flight course than an incoming supersonic Moskit, or a Harpoon, a missile specifilcally designed to evade missile defenses?

 

I saw a BUK site consistently intercept a Moskit in Lockon. I think that is a little over the hill. Not that I find it an annoyance or something, quite on nthe contrary it makes things very playable, but I find it very optimistic, no?

[Force_Feedback]

Here we go again 25 pages, 23 of which wonderful flame. If you really don't believe that certain SAM systems can't shoot down missiles/bombs, do some research before screaming all over saying "Well, in lomac they're too good" or "Wow, those <fill in waepon/plane/SAM/Ship/Vehicle> really suck in lomac". All the sam systems are quite different in capabilities, there is no way you can say "well, if the SM-2 can't do that then the S-300 shouldn't do that too" or the other way around.

 

I understand your post was to show that final stage ASM interception by medium range missiles is very hard, and thanks for the heads up, but this doesn't mean that CIWS can't do their job effectively. And the US ships don't have a short range missile (except the sea sparrow, but that's for the Vinnie only), so they are forced to use the SM-2/Phalanx combo.

One very major thing is missing in lomac, chaff and flares lanched by ships.

 

Oh, and ASMs in lomac don't have evasive final stages.

[Dudikoff]

Yes, I understood that, but I reckon a ballistic missile in final stage of flight has a much more predictable flight course than an incoming supersonic Moskit, or a Harpoon, a missile specifilcally designed to evade missile defenses?

 

What do you reckon about the fact that only in the recent times *SOME* SAM systems are capable of shooting down balistic missiles?

[Alfa]

Yes, I understood that, but I reckon a ballistic missile in final stage of flight has a much more predictable flight course than an incoming supersonic Moskit, or a Harpoon, a missile specifilcally designed to evade missile defenses?

 

It's an entirely different ball game tflash ;) . Intercontinental ballistic missiles as the ones refered to in the article go into orbit after launch and re-enter earth's atmosphere at insane speeds - IIRC up to Mach 17 or so.

 

I saw a BUK site consistently intercept a Moskit in Lockon. I think that is a little over the hill. Not that I find it an annoyance or something, quite on nthe contrary it makes things very playable, but I find it very optimistic, no?

 

Well the naval version of the Buk(Shtil) was installed onboard Sovremenny class destroyers exactly due to its anti-SSM as well as anti-aircraft capabilities....so who knows :) . But I would agree that consistently intercepting a Moskit may be a little too optimistic - apart from making it diffficult to hit, the supersonic speed also cuts down on the reaction time available to the defender......and of course this sitiuation is agrevated by the fact that these weapons were intended to be launched in series with a very short interval between each missile launch.

 

Cheers,

- JJ.

[Alfa]

Calm down FF :blink: .....no need for the :badmood:

 

Cheers,

- JJ.

[Force_Feedback]

Calm down FF :blink: .....no need for the :badmood:

 

Cheers,

- JJ.

 

I was calm, just pointed out that this will go on a very predictable path.

 

So the SM-2 interpecpted an intercontinental ballistic warhead on its final stage, wow, that's pretty impressive, and dull at the same moment, as they already tested extra atmospheric interceptors, with much higher closing speeds.

[GGTharos]

Yes, I understood that, but I reckon a ballistic missile in final stage of flight has a much more predictable flight course than an incoming supersonic Moskit, or a Harpoon, a missile specifilcally designed to evade missile defenses?

 

I saw a BUK site consistently intercept a Moskit in Lockon. I think that is a little over the hill. Not that I find it an annoyance or something, quite on nthe contrary it makes things very playable, but I find it very optimistic, no?

 

Look up interceptions of SCUDs ... they go to LEO ... hitting a missile with a missile has never been 'too optimistic' ... until you run into ICBMs which, well, you saw what Alfa said.

 

In any case, the SCUDs were so poorly constructed that they certainly weren't flying straight, and the PAtriots still scored hits consistently.

[Vati]

GGTharos, please state sources where it is written that Patriots hit 'consistently'.

[GGTharos]

I recall a certain patriot operator posting so. That was a while ago though.

 

Pretty much those who dispute Patriot's effectiveness now (that I have seen) are not using 'hit' as a measure of success. These are no doubt sources you've already read, and you likely already know all of this anyway ;)

 

So which point, again, are you trying to dispute, just to be sure: That the Patriots weren't hitting, or that the SCUDs were reaching their target -despite- being hit?

 

Here ... a lot of argument regarding their performance in GF1:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/weapons/patriot.html

 

http://www.turnerhome.org/jct/patriot.html

 

There are other sources, but right at this moment I'm not able to go looking for them.

 

Edit: And another one

 

http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1992_h/h920407p.htm

 

And ...

 

http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/library/report/2004/patriot-shot-friendly_20apr2004_apps3-4.pdf

[tflash]

It's an entirely different ball game tflash ;) . Intercontinental ballistic missiles as the ones refered to in the article go into orbit after launch and re-enter earth's atmosphere at insane speeds - IIRC up to Mach 17 or so.

 

- JJ.

 

Seems I missed a very important aspect of the matter, oops! Never realized they would indeed have extreme speeds when re-entering.

[nscode]

Pretty much those who dispute Patriot's effectiveness now (that I have seen) are not using 'hit' as a measure of success. These are no doubt sources you've already read, and you likely already know all of this anyway

Just like they used 'engaged' and not 'destroyed' for tanks in Kosovo and then 99% of them came out unharmed..

 

All they could do to scuds was to proximity detonate and knock of track an already not-so-precise missile. And when you think that they thought those scuds were carrying chemical warheads (doesn't matter if you miss a few km), I call that a 100% failure rate.

[GGTharos]

You can call it whatever you like - those patriots were still hitting their targets.

 

The difficulty of destroying the warhead itself is a well known problem, ever since attempts to create anti-missile defenses with the NIKE Hercules, or even before.

 

There was a good reason why those things had nuclear capability - in the absence of using that, you have to contend with conventional explosives.

 

From there on, lessons were learned and PAC3 was built and deployed for the second Gulf War. Result: Eight out of nine missiles launched into Patriot-defended territory never reached their targets.

 

One, as I recall, was intercepted late and hit but not destroyed, missing its target but landing nearby.

[Kula66]

Remember guys, years ago a Seawolf missile shot down a 4.5" shell in flight!!!

[Force_Feedback]

And an A-10 gun is shooting down missiles happily, actually, which gun is more precise, the GAU-8 or the M-61?

Oh well, until we get some realistic final stage behaviour of ASMs in lomac, there is no point in upgrading the missile defense logic.

[Alfa]

Seems I missed a very important aspect of the matter, oops! Never realized they would indeed have extreme speeds when re-entering.

 

Yeah and those speeds are rather difficult to comprehend - e.g. when the Columbia space shuttle broke up on re-entry it was travelling at around 5.6 km/s!......that's ~ 20,000 km/h :blink: .

 

Cheers,

- JJ.

[GGTharos]

And an A-10 gun is shooting down missiles happily, actually, which gun is more precise, the GAU-8 or the M-61?

Oh well, until we get some realistic final stage behaviour of ASMs in lomac, there is no point in upgrading the missile defense logic.

 

Whaddya mean 'realistic'?

 

And yes, missile defense logic needs help (it always has needed help)

 

The GAU-8 is more accurate ... longer barrel.

[Vati]

So which point, again, are you trying to dispute, just to be sure: That the Patriots weren't hitting, or that the SCUDs were reaching their target -despite- being hit?

None actually, just wanted to see if there is something new in public that I might had missed. And by what you had written, I guess nothing new is out.

However, I can say that word like "consistently" is a bit on the optimistic side for '91 performance. ;)

[GGTharos]

There is, FYI a bunch of declassified/FOIA documents that showed up in relation to the friendly fire incidents that revealed some interesting details (Just FYI - nothing to do with the '91 war)

[Groove]

Shooting down a RV ( Reentering Vehicle ) aka Warhead coming straight down to you with more than 20000 km/h is much harder then shooting down a incoming maveric.

 

One of the bigegst problems on this is that you need a ultra sophisticated warhead on the intercept missile. Why ? Because if you detonate the Interceptor warhead in the same nanosecond as the RV is flying by you wont do any harm to it because the RV is flying faster than the explosion speed of your interceptor warhead...

[GGTharos]

We're aware ...

 

But shooting down a Mav isn't a whole lot easier - it's a pretty small fuze target.

 

In addition you can do things like detonating the warhead in the RV's flight path via command signal (Patriot can do) or using a nuclear warhead (no longer used). The PAC-3 does the hit-to-kill thing.

[Force_Feedback]

And even with the most sophisticated ABM system you can shoot down pre-1990ies warheads, that weren't hardened against nuclear interceptors or do evasive maneuvers, combined with the nuclear bomb hardening.

 

By realistic I meant that AMSs such as the Harpoon, Kh-41, Kh-31A, P-500/700 would do evasive maneuvers in the last 20km to target (zigzagging flight paths for the P00ns and other slow flying missiles, and wobbly paths for the Kh-22/41/31 and such.)

Guess the TASM/Kh-35/59/"Penguin killer" has it too given their terminal speed.

 

After that no more complaining about missiles beind shot down, then the whining about CIWS and other defensive systems will start.