US Antimissile Defense Steps Up a Notch

Forums: I C B Ms, Ground Based Midcourse Defense, North Korea
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Pentagon successfully tests ICBM defense system for first time

What with North Korea being close to developing an ICBM, the US has successfully tested its Ground-based Midcourse Defense.

Quote:

The U.S. military on Tuesday cheered a successful, first-ever missile defense test involving a simulated attack by an intercontinental ballistic missile, in a major milestone for a program meant to defend against a mounting North Korean threat.

The U.S. military fired an ICBM-type missile from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. It then fired a missile to intercept it from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

The Missile Defense Agency said it was the first live-fire test against a simulated ICBM for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) and hailed it as an "incredible accomplishment."

Apparently, the US has more than one way to shoot down a missile.

Quote:

"This is one element of a broader missile defense strategy that we can use to employ against potential threats," Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told reporters.

Prior to Tuesday's launch, the GMD system had successfully hit its target in only nine of 17 tests since 1999. The last test was in 2014.

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Type: Discussion • Score: 6 • Views: 1,299 • Replies: 7

[+3] - izzythepush - 05/31/2017Funny how this sort of thing has been going on for a long time, but it's only under Trump that there's a need for this publicity. He might be making up for something.

#1! #1! #1!

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@InfraBlue,

InfraBlue wrote:

Apparently, the US has more than one way to shoot down a missile.

If you are wondering about the discrepancy between this being the first success, despite the earlier successes, I suspect people concluded that the earlier tests were too easy and not real world, whereas this latest success was a test against what would be encountered in an actual attack against the US.

Regardless, I think North Korea will try to nuke the west coast of the US in the near future. I hope this system manages to protect us.

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@oralloy,

Might work if we've got enough missiles in the right place.

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Funny how this sort of thing has been going on for a long time, but it's only under Trump that there's a need for this publicity. He might be making up for something.

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@izzythepush,

We still hve a challenge to discriminate the warhead from chaf or decoys.

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@farmerman,

It strikes me that the decoy problem is most reliably solved by having a large number of interceptors and striking each and every decoy as if it were the actual warhead.

This is not going to work against Russia of course (they could launch too many decoys). But it isn't meant to work against Russia. How many decoys could North Korea launch to protect their warheads?

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@oralloy,

That seems to be the way were heading. We can only hope that we have enough ammo to get the job done.
As far as decoys, I heard a talk the other day on a PBS show about Mmetallized "balloons" can become decent decoys because in space, theyd travel at 17 K or whatever they dont even have to be blown up, just strong enough so they dont "blow up real good"

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