Pentagon shoots down mock intercontinental missile in sea-based test
In a first for the Pentagon's push to develop defenses against intercontinental-range ballistic missiles capable of striking the United States, a missile interceptor launched from a U.S. Navy ship at sea hit and destroyed a mock ICBM in flight Tuesday, officials said.
Previous tests against ICBM targets had used interceptors launched from underground silos in the U.S. If further, more challenging tests prove successful, the ship-based approach could add to the credibility and reliability of the Pentagon's existing missile-defense system.
The success of Tuesday's test is likely to draw particular interest from North Korea, whose development of ICBMs and nuclear weapons is the main reason the Pentagon has sought to accelerate its building of missile-defense systems over the past decade.
Also at Bloomberg and DefenseNews.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 17 2020, @08:53PM (6 children)
Pretty soon the only viable option will be to nuke things from orbit.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Freeman on Tuesday November 17 2020, @10:22PM (3 children)
There's a reason why there are no Nuclear Weapons allowed in space. Given a big enough budget, some place like the USA could create a weapon that the opposing side couldn't respond to. Which would be the end of MAD and could lead to WWIII. In the event that the other side saw that happening and knew you didn't have the capability, yet. Even being able to send a giant asteroid at a specific target at a high enough velocity could go undetected, until it was too late. Hopefully there will be safeguards in place, before humanity has the ability to crack the planet in half. Even being a Christian and knowing God wouldn't let something like that happen, before the end. Doesn't mean I would want that kind of destruction to be at our disposal. Satan still has time to wreak havok, before God says enough is enough.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 17 2020, @10:29PM
God is a gamma ray burst.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 18 2020, @03:16AM (1 child)
WW3 is coming, or "great power conflict" as the MIC puts it.
The Christian god Yahweh, whose name can also be written as 666--a human number, war-aspected without love or liberty aspects--does not prevent genocide. He encourages it.
Yahweh does not prevent war. He encourages it.
Yahweh does not even prevent disease. He encourages it by promulgating lies about masks, laughing like Kefka every time one of his cultists dies from COVID.
Yahweh did not prevent First and Second Impact, and now we see the opening rituals of Third Impact. Why would Yahweh prevent it?
(Score: 4, Touché) by MostCynical on Wednesday November 18 2020, @07:13AM
for posts like this, we need a "+0 WTF" mod
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 18 2020, @02:05PM (1 child)
no need for that, subs are still better for quick nuke delivery.
Also, this is only useful for someone that have few ICBM, Russia would swarm USA anyway (thanks for the Reagan starwar program, USA already trained URSS/Russia that the best way to avoid having the ICBM neutralized is to swarm and over-saturate any protection system
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 18 2020, @02:10PM
Also, Russia have now ultrasonic missil (almost impossible to stop, probably only laser could do it), more to anti-ship missil, but could be adapt to take nukes too... but of course, a much shorter range than ICBM :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 17 2020, @09:04PM (1 child)
It must be pretty awesome to be an engineer working on that project. That is a VERY hard problem. Time will tell how consistent it can be done, but it had to have been a great jump out of your chair moment when it worked.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 18 2020, @01:36AM
What's so hard? I bet AI could do it if you put 2 Chinese grad students on it.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by dltaylor on Tuesday November 17 2020, @09:26PM (3 children)
Last time they "tested" an interceptor, it turned out that they already knew where it was coming from, and when. That make it much easier to get something into the general area and call it a "hit".
Even if you're at "tactical alert" and have your consoles all staffed, identifying a potential threat, discriminating that from a super sonic biz jet, such as the proposed Boeing/Aerion AS2, projecting its trajectory (assuming it doesn't have some form of terminal guidance), and selecting live warheads from decoys all takes time, even with computer assistance. Plus, if you're worried about rogue adversary, they could launch from somewhere other than their own country. Additionally, if, for example, North Korea does attack, are they really going to launch one, hoping to cover their ass with a "crazy commander" story, or launch half a dozen?
Then, you must have an interceptor platform in range, with sufficient stores to cover the threat.
I am not against the concept, but there's been so much "cheating" on these fat-cat weapons contracts, which seem to be driven more by Pentagon staff (military and civilian) looking for their post-retirement gig, and congress critters looking for bribes, I mean, campaign contributions, that I don't have any confidence that the testing will ever have any real-world relevance.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by NateMich on Tuesday November 17 2020, @11:59PM (1 child)
As someone who was in the Navy and directly involved in these sorts of exercises, I'd say that the main thing making this unrealistic is that everyone went out to try and shoot down an ICBM.
I can pretty much guarantee you that they are not out there looking for things like this on a regular basis. There may be situations where they are on alert and are looking for it, but that would be very unusual.
What I'm saying is, if someone suddenly shot something at us, I would not expect them to respond in time unless there was plenty of warning about the threat ahead of time.
(Score: 2) by pdfernhout on Wednesday November 18 2020, @02:57PM
Thank you for your service. I have little doubt you are correct about a potentially problematical initial quick response to an unexpected attack (even as the USA has multiple ways to retaliate afterwards).
Beyond that, the whole idea of deterrence via "MAD" (Mutually Assured Destruction) relies on the other party being *sane* and not some crazy leader (or rogue individual) who does not care about the consequences of retaliation -- or even maybe intentionally is inviting the consequences for whatever ideological reason (whether to rain down destruction on internal enemies via the retaliatory strike or to rain down destruction on external enemies via misdirection about who actually attacked). Bioweapons (COVID-19 either now or an engineered variant someday?) have some similar properties of lots of collateral damage which some leaders might find acceptable (e.g. are millions of deaths worldwide acceptable if they cause a certain change in political leadership in a certain country?). So, it makes sense to think about defense against WMDs while at the same time such defenses undermine MAD which creates its own risks...
And even beyond the limits of MAD, there is a deeper issue here which is rarely discussed -- the one in my sig of: "The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity."
Expanding on that irony:
https://pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html [pdfernhout.net]
"Nuclear weapons are ironic because they are about using space age systems to fight over oil and land. Why not just use advanced materials as found in nuclear missiles to make renewable energy sources (like windmills or solar panels) to replace oil, or why not use rocketry to move into space by building space habitats for more land? ... There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all. ... We the people need to redefine security in a sustainable and resilient way. Much current US military doctrine is based around unilateral security ("I'm safe because you are nervous") and extrinsic security ("I'm safe despite long supply lines because I have a bunch of soldiers to defend them"), which both lead to expensive arms races. We need as a society to move to other paradigms like Morton Deutsch's mutual security ("We're all looking out for each other's safety") and Amory Lovin's intrinsic security ("Our redundant decentralized local systems can take a lot of pounding whether from storm, earthquake, or bombs and would still would keep working")."
Anyway, a bit of good news (even though the Heritage Foundation paints it as bad news) is that the total number of nuclear weapons the USA has deployed has reduced considerably from around 30,000 the peak of the Cold War to now about 3,800 (or about the level of around 1957) -- see the chart "A Smaller and Less Diverse Nuclear Arsenal":
https://www.heritage.org/military-strength/assessment-us-military-power/us-nuclear-weapons-capability [heritage.org]
Ted Taylor would be happy to hear that news (about weapons help helped design) if he was still alive...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Taylor_(physicist) [wikipedia.org]
One thing I remember Ted Taylor mentioned was how backpacked-sized nuclear landmines stopped being produced when some started going missing...
See also my SN post here:
"Missing some of bigger picture on social change"
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=37776&cid=1001737 [soylentnews.org]
"We -- as a society -- desperately need to figure out overall how to do much more good and healthful things with all this high technology (and wealth we can produce with it) instead of doing much more bad and unhealthy things with all that... As if all the previous social challenge was not enough, there is now increasing knowledge among thousands of scientists about what makes the new coronavirus so contagious and so deadly. And the new virus has been recently shown to be create-able from scratch in the lab in yeast starting from just a genetic sequence (which presumably could then be altered by knowledgeable scientists in nefarious ways)... That possibility of tailored bioweapons has all sorts of implications for social organization that we as a society have not yet come to grips with. And then those concerns may be even deeper in the context of possible massive permanent job loss to AI, Robotics, other automation, voluntary social networks, cheaper energy, better design, and so on... As Bucky Fuller said, humanity is getting its final exam in the universe..."
Not that I agree with everything in the book "Retrotopia" by John Greer, but it raises the important issue of "Progress in what direction?" and speculates about how we can build on the best ideas from our technological and political past while avoiding some of the worst diminishing returns of our technological/political present. Ironically, it may be groups like the Amish who may be having the most productive discussions about the effects of high technology on human happiness and local (economic) security...
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday November 18 2020, @01:38AM
Yup, it's the modern equivalent of this event [youtu.be] as depicted by Messrs.Chapman, Cleese, Gilliam, etc.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday November 17 2020, @09:53PM (7 children)
Ship based ICBM interception. Wow, that would really be impressive if we had thousands, or tens of thousands of ships. Alas - we don't have thousands. Not even a thousand. Depending on which source you look at, we might have 500 combat ships. At any given time, maybe 100 to 120 of those ships are at sea, or ready to put to sea. (that could be increased considerably, with advance warning) Somehow, that doesn't suggest very thorough coverage or potential approaches to the continental United States.
Forgive me if I don't get all excited at the idea of ships intercepting ICBMs.
Best use for this, is if/when tensions start escalating with $antagonist, you picket a couple of ships offshore of that antagonist, and wait. Maybe you'll get lucky.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Freeman on Tuesday November 17 2020, @10:26PM (2 children)
Get lucky, that they fired ICBMs? Yeah, I wouldn't call that lucky. Actually shooting down all of the ICBMs fired, one might call that a miracle. Or just "lucky" / well planned, depending on the number of missiles fired. Some place like North Korea, one would hope you could take out their one or two ICBMs fired. Some place like Russia, sending a major volley of ICBMs, yeah, that might take a miracle to intercept them all.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 18 2020, @01:38AM (1 child)
Prayer warriors on standby.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday November 18 2020, @04:56PM
Don't knock it until you've tried it.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8424184-prayer-warriors [goodreads.com]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday November 17 2020, @10:57PM (3 children)
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/36004/china-tests-long-range-anti-ship-ballistic-missiles-as-u-s-spy-plane-watches-it-all
These are very long range ballistic missiles used to strike ships. Xi calls them 'carrier killers' and it's easy to understand why the US Navy would like to have a proven defense against them.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday November 17 2020, @11:02PM (1 child)
True, but those aren't the same as ICBMs. They are moving at a much higher velocity and have a much lower altitude than an ICBM.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday November 17 2020, @11:21PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 18 2020, @09:19AM
I expect that in modern war carriers would become an anachronism. A giant, isolated, slow moving target worth potentially hundreds of billions of dollars, to say nothing of its tactical value? Even if you can manage to deal with ICBMs it seems like something that's probably an unsolvable problem. There are so many possible angles of attack for something that has too high of a value. For instance another recently declassified weapon from Russia was 'tsunami bombs.' Nuclear torpedoes that can create artificial 500 meter high tsunamis. While the main purpose of these would be to annihilate coastal cities while sidestepping anti-missile defenses, it seems something similar would also be more than sufficient to devastate naval fleets.
Like in many tactical games, it's simply magnitudes easier to attack than to defend. To accurately defend you need to anticipate every single possible angle of attack and create effective defenses against them all. And you need to do that with absolute perfection. To successfully attack all you need is a single mistake, or a single angle of attack that was not properly guarded. This is why, for instance, insurgent groups in the Mideast have been able to effect tens of thousands of causalities on our troops primarily using 70 year old rifle technology and some home-made bombs. It's a sort of David vs Goliath scenario, except in this case David gets to hide wherever he wants, use whatever weapons he can come up with, and Goliath gets to stand in the middle of a stadium with his thumb up his ass, just hoping he can stop whatever's coming.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Wednesday November 18 2020, @07:16AM
if I remember correctly, last time they managed to "intercept" something inbound, they had heated the 'warhead', so it glowed on the instruments... and still didn't actually hit it..
What did they do to *this* ICBM?
Was it even travelling at its full operational height and speed?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 18 2020, @08:52AM
The goal here is obviously to destroy nuclear weapons as a threat. And there are few who would claim such an idea is a bad thing. Yet it's paradoxical.
Throughout history we were constantly killing and conquering each other in ever more violent and disruptive wars, wars which were growing ever more chaotic and deadly until 1945. After 1945 major disruptions started to become mostly political in nature such as the reunification of Germany or the collapse of the USSR. The era of super powers attacking each other in unrestrained force was over. What happened in 1945? That was the year we dropped two nuclear weapons on Japan killing hundreds of thousands immediately and an untold number over time. And so the era of outright war between "developed" nations had come to an end - "developed" being a euphemism for nuclear capable. With such power, there could be no victors in a war - only two countries turned to ruins.
As we inevitably reach the technological era where we manage to pacify the threat of nuclear weapons - we return to 1944, before the era of nuclear weapons: full scale war is back on the menu. It will be nothing like old wars since tactical nukes could eliminate any clumped gathering of force. But, whatever the exact form it takes, it will no doubt be a return to the age of war where you have millions of civilians being killed alongside extreme international instability. It's all so paradoxical. The weapon developed to gain absolute military domination instead led to demise of military domination as a thing. And now the defense being developed against weapons of mass devastation will instead be exactly what enables wars of mass devastation to resume.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 18 2020, @10:56AM (2 children)
Where do Soylentils sit when Trump refuses to leave office in January? Time to exercise constitutional rights?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 18 2020, @08:01PM
> Where do Soylentils sit...?
Duh! In their basements - same as ever.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 27 2020, @06:48AM
Preparing fourth box...