Posts by Chris Taylor

US raygun jumbo jet now firing live blasts in flight

Lewis, relax a little

The ABL + terminal example was just that, an example. I was not picking on something you didn't say. I was pointing out that all ABM solutions don't provide the same services.

And if you read your own rebuttal carefully, you will see that MDA claims the RIM-161 is useful for midcourse. The "boost and terminal" aspects of midcourse are the front and back end of midcourse; they don't magically extent to the boost and terminal phases proper. But more instructive than any MDA PR junk are the capabilities of the platforms themselves.

To be blunt, a RIM-161's max speed is about Mach 10 with a maximum (estimated) range of about 300nm. Hell let's be generous and give it 500nm range. A Minuteman III ICBM in boost will accelerate to about 8000-9000 m/s, (roughly Mach 23) with a maximum range of about 5200nm. Even the Taepodong-2 can make 8,000 m/s in boost.

The Shuttle, which is much slower than an ICBM, hits mach 1 in 45 seconds, and at two minutes post-launch has already accelerated to Mach 5. An ICBM will be able to climb faster than the shuttle (and subsequently get to thinner altitudes faster, where max q danger recedes). The AEGIS ships would have to be prepared to launch on warning to have a hope of a boost kill.

This is why SM-3 is ineffective in the actual boost phase, unless it is right next door to the launch site and can hit the booster while it's still under Mach 10. Most ICBMs can outrun RIM-161 rather easily. When they start slowing down in midcourse, then RIM-161 has a *much* better chance of picking them off.

To be fair, Korea is a narrow peninsula and you could probably get a CG or DDG close enough to make a Hail Mary boost intercept possible before the Taepodong accelerates beyond Mach 10. But for other customers whose launch sites are not so close to the sea (i.e. Iran) the RIM-161 would have no hope in hell of making a boost-phase intercept. You still need something like the ABL that could tackle boost intercepts in the hundreds of nm range, regardless of proximity to the sea.

All missile defense platforms aren't the same...

You fellas at the Reg do realise that there are several different flavours of missile defense, each of them targeting the missile in a different phase of flight?

For example the ABL is meant to be used to rupture the propellant tank when the missile is in the very first (a.k.a. launch/boost) phase of flight. It will be of no help whatsoever trying to shoot down warheads in the terminal phase.

Similarly the AEGIS RIM-161 SM-3 is meant to be used against missiles in the final (a.k.a. terminal) phase. They are not designed to kill ballistic missiles in the boost phase. So stationing CGs or DDGs outside North Korean waters will only be effective if NK is launching ballistic missiles against itself.

Personally I would rather have the option to kill the missile in boost, midcourse and terminal phases. If you only fund AEGIS SM-3, your only kill option is terminal, and who wants to find out at the last minute that you need a Plan B?