GMD Intercept Success

Ed Kyle wrote:
Once operational, the greatest rouge threat might be the use
of conventionally-armed missiles against the U.S., something
like the rain of missiles that fell on Israel recently. Such an
attack would quickly deplete an anit-missile system and it
would be politically impossible to respond to it with nuclear
weapons.

ICBMs cost a lot of money - apparently much more than their warheads.
Even the US can't justify putting conventional warheads on them because
it's too damn expensive. Who else is going to be able to afford to do
it. And in a world where ICBMs are only used to carry nuclear
warheads, who is going to take the risk of launching a bunch of them at
the US, hoping that we sit and take it?

Then, avoiding the issue of what parts of the US one could threaten
with 50-mile-range artillery rockets, we certainly wouldn't use the NMD
against them.

And finally, artillery rockets are easy and cheap to make and hard to
trace. ICBMs (or even IRBMs) get made in expensive factories and are
pretty simple to identify. Launching a bunch of them at the US would
certainly justify having said expensive ICBM factory blown to bits, and
probably a bunch of other military production facilities as well.

-jake

Ed Kyle wrote:
Jordan wrote:
Ed Kyle wrote:

First of all, if any Power chose to launch a "rain of missiles" at
American cities, we would certainly respond at least with a
counterattack on the enemy's strategic targets including their missile
launchers; we might respond with unrestricted conventional bombardment
of their cities, if sufficiently provoked.

I would only point out that Israel was unable to stop the attacks,
despite total control of the air, just as the U.S. was unable to
stop the Scud attacks during the first "Gulf War".

Both Israel and America in both those cases was able to greatly reduce
the frequency of the attacks, and you will note that Scud attacks
proved impossible from territories America _overran_ during the second
"Gulf War."

The use of
mobile launchers to perform "shoot and scoot" attacks makes
it nearly impossible to stop such attacks. Even if the launcher
positions are known, it may prove impossible to take them out.

Given the removal of political inhibitions against using whatever level
of firepower might be required to take the launchers out or to
disproportionately retaliate against the launches, I find this hard to
believe. An America suffering such bombardment against civilian
targets would not be under such political restraints; the political
pressure would instead be on the President to retaliate against the
attackers with as much force required, and indeed under such
circumstances additional casualties inflicted upon the enemy _beyond_
those required would be popularly applauded rather than criticized.

The U.S. was, for example, never able to "take out"
(or even locate) the mortar and rocket positions that pounded
Khe Sanh for weeks during the Vietnam War even though the
positions were all within relatively short range of the base.

Mortars and rocket-launchers are much smaller weapons, and given the
technology of the 1960's it was impossible to track mortar shells in
flight. In general, it is easier to hide a smaller weapon than a
larger one.

Secondly, I don't believe that it _would_ be "politically impossible"
to respond to such an attack with nuclear weapons.

It depends on the circumstances. A nuke-armed China or Iran
threatening retaliation might limit the response options, for
example. I sincerely hope we never have to find out for sure.

Actually, under those circumstances, even conventional ICBM launches
might very well lead to total thermonuclear war. For one thing, we
would not be able to verify that a given launch was conventional until
_after_ it either hit or was intercepted. For another thing, our
leadership would be well aware of the possibility of the tactic you
have just described; they could neutralize this tactic by deciding and
announcing ahead of time that _any_ such missile attack, _regardless of
payload_, would be treated as an escalation to total strategic warfare,
and responded to as such.

This is not some right-wing fantasy, it is the actual doctrine we
operated under during the Cold War.

I hope we check Iran's nuclear ambitions before they try any such
aggression; China is (I believe) too sane to try the experiment.

Sincerely Yours,
Jordan

Jake McGuire wrote:
Ed Kyle wrote:
Once operational, the greatest rouge threat might be the use
of conventionally-armed missiles against the U.S., something
like the rain of missiles that fell on Israel recently. Such an
attack would quickly deplete an anit-missile system and it
would be politically impossible to respond to it with nuclear
weapons.

ICBMs cost a lot of money - apparently much more than their warheads.
Even the US can't justify putting conventional warheads on them because
it's too damn expensive. Who else is going to be able to afford to do
it. And in a world where ICBMs are only used to carry nuclear
warheads, who is going to take the risk of launching a bunch of them at
the US, hoping that we sit and take it?

This is the biggest problem with the strategy ... the image of a last
gasp of "We wuz only kidding" coming out of the smoking ruins of a
command bunker as mushroom clouds rose over every city of the aggressor
state.

This might not deter a Terrorist State, though, which is why we must
make sure not to let Iran acquire atomic weapons.

Then, avoiding the issue of what parts of the US one could threaten
with 50-mile-range artillery rockets, we certainly wouldn't use the NMD
against them.

No, instead we would advance and seize the territory from which the
rockets were being fired from. And, unlike Israel, we would probably
keep it.

And finally, artillery rockets are easy and cheap to make and hard to
trace. ICBMs (or even IRBMs) get made in expensive factories and are
pretty simple to identify. Launching a bunch of them at the US would
certainly justify having said expensive ICBM factory blown to bits, and
probably a bunch of other military production facilities as well.

Based on our Cold War doctrine, possibly the aggressor state's
_cities_, too.

- Jordan

Jordan wrote:
Ed Kyle wrote:
I would only point out that Israel was unable to stop the attacks,
despite total control of the air, just as the U.S. was unable to
stop the Scud attacks during the first "Gulf War".

Both Israel and America in both those cases was able to greatly reduce
the frequency of the attacks, and you will note that Scud attacks
proved impossible from territories America _overran_ during the second
"Gulf War."

According to the following site

"http://www.jcpa.org/brief/brief006-10.htm"

There were 4,228 rocket impacts inside Israel from July 13 to
August 13, 2006. "During the first two weeks, rocket attacks
averaged about 100 per day. Then in early August, Hizballah
proceeded to double its rate of fire to a daily average of
200 rocket attacks. There was a decline during the final week,
but on August 13, the day before the cease-fire, 250 rockets
landed in Israel. Israeli counterattacks apparently had no
serious influence on Hizballah's rate of fire..."


Israel's losses and damage from Hizballah rocket attacks include 53
fatalities, 250 severely wounded, and 2,000 lightly wounded. There was
extensive damage to hundreds of dwellings, several public utilities,
and dozens of industrial plants. One million Israelis lived near or in
shelters or security rooms, with some 250,000 civilians evacuating the
north and relocating to other areas of the country.

The use of
mobile launchers to perform "shoot and scoot" attacks makes
it nearly impossible to stop such attacks. Even if the launcher
positions are known, it may prove impossible to take them out.

Given the removal of political inhibitions against using whatever level
of firepower might be required to take the launchers out or to
disproportionately retaliate against the launches, I find this hard to
believe. An America suffering such bombardment against civilian
targets would not be under such political restraints;

The Hizballah war provides a telling example of this problem.
As you can see from the images in the above link, it is easy
to see how the launchers might be hidden within trailers or
tarps to look like commercial transport trucks. Once the
missles were fired, the simple launchers became relatively
expendable, so were not much of a loss if the Israelis were
able to find and destroy them. And the bad guys set up
their launchers among civilians, whose bodies would be
paraded across TV screens whenever Israel did manage to
get off a "counter battery" response. As you note, the only
way to really stop such attacks is to occupy, and hold, the
ground with foot soldiers.

Of course it is hard to image how such an attack with short
range missiles could be carried out against the U.S. as long
as we keep our adjacent neighbors on relatively friendly
terms.

The U.S. was, for example, never able to "take out"
(or even locate) the mortar and rocket positions that pounded
Khe Sanh for weeks during the Vietnam War even though the
positions were all within relatively short range of the base.

Mortars and rocket-launchers are much smaller weapons, and given the
technology of the 1960's it was impossible to track mortar shells in
flight. In general, it is easier to hide a smaller weapon than a
larger one.

The deal with mortars is that their can be a lot of them, they
can be very mobile, and they can be set up to fire a brief mission
en-masse and then be moved or hidden. As for artillery,
the NVA possessed some 130mm pieces that had a range of
31 km, double the range of U.S. artillery. Some of these were
fired from seriously dug-in and hidden positions across the border
in Laos. The NVA would pre-dig artillary hiding places, complete
with reinforced underground bunkers, etc. They would move the
guns out to one of several dug-in positions that would be hidden
under a leafy camoflage, fire a mission, and then move the guns
back into the underground bunkers before the U.S. could find
them from the air. The same type of system can work against
a radar-tracking counter-battery system today, except that the
number of shots fired might have to be reduced.

BTW, most Americans don't really know how throughly the NVA
outfought the U.S. over in Vietnam. The recent Hizballah fight
reminded me a lot of some of the NVA tactics. They dug in
deep, they used lots of long-range indirect fire, they used
surprisingly modern weapons that Israel didn't expect, they
were heavily supplied and supported by outside forces, etc.

- Ed Kyle

Rand Simberg wrote:
On 1 Sep 2006 13:38:47 -0700, in a place far, far away, "Ed Kyle"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

Today's 9-1-06 Ground Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) test appears to
have succeeded.

"http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060901/us_nm/arms_missile_usa_dc"
"http://www.mda.mil/mdalink/html/mdalink.html"

A good day for Orbital Science's Pegasus-based Orbital Boost Vehicle
(OBV) Ground Based Interceptor (GBI).

What's amusing is that the Boeing press release buried the lede.

http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/...60901a_nr.html

"Although not a primary objective of the test, the kill vehicle
intercepted the warhead and destroyed it."

Yes, just an inadvertent side effect of a test of a *missile defense
system*.

Yes, because its one of those outcomes of the test they are not going
to promise to repeat, especially not apparently not having finished
the kill vechicle software. Working once through luck in a particular
situation is no guarantee of repeatability.

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

Jake McGuire wrote:
Ed Kyle wrote:
Once operational, the greatest rouge threat might be the use
of conventionally-armed missiles against the U.S., something
like the rain of missiles that fell on Israel recently. Such an
attack would quickly deplete an anit-missile system and it
would be politically impossible to respond to it with nuclear
weapons.

ICBMs cost a lot of money - apparently much more than their warheads.
Even the US can't justify putting conventional warheads on them because
it's too damn expensive. Who else is going to be able to afford to do
it. And in a world where ICBMs are only used to carry nuclear
warheads, who is going to take the risk of launching a bunch of them at
the US, hoping that we sit and take it?

Wrong. The US did look at puting conventional warheads on SLBM-s,
however, it was abandoned as the only safe way ( from the POV of
definitely not escalating to a nuclear war) would have been converting
all of the missiles. It is only in conventional non-wisdom where
strikes by ICBM-s with conventional warheads are not worth it. The
cost is not the problem and never was.


Then, avoiding the issue of what parts of the US one could threaten
with 50-mile-range artillery rockets, we certainly wouldn't use the NMD
against them.

You can threaten pretty much all of the US with them. Its a question
of placement.


And finally, artillery rockets are easy and cheap to make and hard to
trace. ICBMs (or even IRBMs) get made in expensive factories and are
pretty simple to identify. Launching a bunch of them at the US would
certainly justify having said expensive ICBM factory blown to bits, and
probably a bunch of other military production facilities as well.

IRBM-s with reaonable accuracy have been made in cheap factories in
bulk in the past. Doing so becomes easier each year.


-jake


--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

Jake McGuire wrote:
Ed Kyle wrote:
Once operational, the greatest rouge threat might be the use
of conventionally-armed missiles against the U.S., something
like the rain of missiles that fell on Israel recently. Such an
attack would quickly deplete an anit-missile system and it
would be politically impossible to respond to it with nuclear
weapons.

ICBMs cost a lot of money - apparently much more than their warheads.
Even the US can't justify putting conventional warheads on them because
it's too damn expensive. Who else is going to be able to afford to do
it. And in a world where ICBMs are only used to carry nuclear
warheads, who is going to take the risk of launching a bunch of them at
the US, hoping that we sit and take it?

Conventionally armed ICBMs are being debated these
days. See, for example:

"http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/index.php?id=556"

I would look at it this way. If I were an North Korean-type
enemy of the U.S. who wanted a deterrent that I might
actually be able to use if I had to (realizing that I could
never hope to use a nuke and have my country survive),
I might be willing to spend an enormous amount of
money on said deterrent. With a quiver of conventioally
armed ICBMs, I would at least be able to make U.S.
civilians pay whenever a U.S. bomber dropped a load
of bombs on my country, if it ever came to war.

If U.S. civilians suddenly discovered that war was real
and not something just to watch on TV, they might not
be so eager to continue attacking me. During the next
"Korean-ish War" I would be able to demonstrate to
them how powerless their Pentagon really was when it
came to protecting *their* lives. The U.S. government
might come under a lot of internal pressure to negotiate
a settlement rather than continue the fight.

- Ed Kyle

http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/...60901a_nr.html
"Although not a primary objective of the test, the kill vehicle
intercepted the warhead and destroyed it."

Heh. It looks like they are trying *way* too hard to minimize
expectations.

Well, given the history of public (and more importantly Congressional)
reactions to missle defense tests, it is understandable that they are
trying to spin it this way.

Still, it is amusing, yes.

If U.S. civilians suddenly discovered that war was real
and not something just to watch on TV, they might not
be so eager to continue attacking me. During the next
"Korean-ish War" I would be able to demonstrate to
them how powerless their Pentagon really was when it
came to protecting *their* lives. The U.S. government
might come under a lot of internal pressure to negotiate
a settlement rather than continue the fight.

Right. Since killing small numbers of civilians to convince a country
that it needs to abandon some military venture has ALWAYS worked in the
past.

-jake

"Jake McGuire" wrote:

:ICBMs cost a lot of money - apparently much more than their warheads.
:Even the US can't justify putting conventional warheads on them because
:it's too damn expensive.

And yet we're talking about doing PRECISELY that very thing. The
problem isn't just the expense of the things. It's the accuracy at
the terminal end. When the best you can do is hundreds of meters, you
want to be throwing BIG bombs.

--
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
-- Charles Pinckney