Airborne lasers

Pat Flannery wrote:
Or Russia or China obviously...now, you've hit upon a interesting legal
point- can you legally shoot down a missile if it's still in its
launching country's airspace? For all you know, the sucker might change
course, or be destroyed before it hits the presumed target that its
trajectory indicates it's heading toward...in wartime, this is obviously
no problem...but assuming that this is some sort of _possible_ first
strike, nailing it while it's still over its launching country might be
considered a hostile act.

Better tied up in litigation than dead.

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
...


Neil Gerace wrote:

Hundreds of miles would still be inside enemy territory if the enemy were
large ... like Canada or Australia.


Or Russia or China obviously...now, you've hit upon a interesting legal
point- can you legally shoot down a missile if it's still in its launching
country's airspace? For all you know, the sucker might change course, or
be destroyed before it hits the presumed target that its trajectory
indicates it's heading toward...in wartime, this is obviously no
problem...but assuming that this is some sort of _possible_ first strike,
nailing it while it's still over its launching country might be considered
a hostile act.

I think you'd be on much firmer legal ground shooting down a missile that's
not being fired at you than, say, a civil airliner that you thought was a
fighter.

Damon Hill wrote:

As if Canada and/or Australia were going to launch missiles at us?
(Well, we hope not!)


I don't know about the Aussies...but we can nail those Canucks before
our Minutemen III's are even done with their second-stage burns.
Hell....we wouldn't even need a reason!
But if we did....thanks to National Lampoon Magazine:


CANADIANS

Racial Characteristics:
Hard to tell a Canadian from an extremely boring regular white person
unless he's dressed to go outdoors. Very little is known of the Canadian
country since it is rarely visited by anyone but the Queen and
illiterate sport fishermen. It is thought to resemble a sort of arctic
Nebraska. It's reported that Canadians keep pet French people. If true,
this is their only interesting trait. At any rate, they are apparently
able to train Frenchmen to play hockey, which is more than any European
has ever been able to do.

Good Points:
Still have plenty of Indians to abuse.

Proper Forms of Address:
Bud, mac, mister, hey you.

Some Examples of Canadian Repartee:
Two Canadians are talking in a bar. One Canadian says, "Who was that
lady I saw you with last night?"
"That was my wife." replies the other.

A lady is shopping in a Toronto drugstore and accidentally leaves the
bottle of aspirins that she bought on the counter. She gets on a bus and
the minute the bus has pulled away from the curb remembers leaving her
purchase behind. "My aspirins! My aspirins!" she yells.
And the bus driver says, "Maybe you left them in the drugstore."

A little Canadian boy named Johnny ****erfaster is screwing a little
girl under the porch of his house. His mother comes out the door and
yells for him, "Johnny! Johnny ****erfaster!"
"I'll be there in a minute," he says.


Pat
North Dakota :-P

Christopher M. Jones wrote:


Better tied up in litigation than dead.


Actually, better to let it clear the airspace- the higher the missile's
elevation in the sky in regards to the laser firing anti-missile
aircraft, the less atmosphere to pierce- and therefore the less
atmospheric blooming of the beam and distortion to the targeting optics
view of the target via air turbulence; plus, a warhead on a ballistic
trajectory is going to be a lot easier to track than one accelerating
and maneuvering during its boost phase.
The ideal time to hit it would be by firing virtually straight up at it
as it reaches the apex of its trajectory...and its lowest velocity.

Pat

"Neil Gerace" wrote:

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
...
Two points:
1.) The idea is to hit the ascending missile from a very good distance
away- as in hundreds of miles IIRC- from outside of the country who is
launching the missile's SAM screen.

Hundreds of miles would still be inside enemy territory if the enemy were
large ... like Canada or Australia.


And if the TBM launchers were so far inside enemy territory... They
wouldn't be launching, and thus of no interest to the ABL.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

Chuck Stewart wrote:


http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/...abl/flash.html



It looks like the Boeing proposal keys in on the heat of the missile's
exhaust. Doesn't seem like it'd work very well for, say, zapping Kim
Jong-Il while walking to his limo.

--
Hop David
http://clowder.net/hop/index.html

In article ,
Hop David writes:


Chuck Stewart wrote:


http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/...abl/flash.html



It looks like the Boeing proposal keys in on the heat of the missile's
exhaust. Doesn't seem like it'd work very well for, say, zapping Kim
Jong-Il while walking to his limo.

It depends on the Kimche he had for lunch.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

Peter Stickney wrote:

It looks like the Boeing proposal keys in on the heat of the missile's
exhaust. Doesn't seem like it'd work very well for, say, zapping Kim
Jong-Il while walking to his limo.



It depends on the Kimche he had for lunch.


Good one, Centurion! :-D

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote

The ideal time to hit it would be by firing virtually straight up at it
as it reaches the apex of its trajectory...and its lowest velocity.


The present version of the ABL has a fairly specific CONOPS and
damage mechanism in mind. See slide 5 in
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jul2...-6570C-001.pdf .

Allen Thomson wrote:

Pat Flannery wrote



The ideal time to hit it would be by firing virtually straight up at it
as it reaches the apex of its trajectory...and its lowest velocity.




The present version of the ABL has a fairly specific CONOPS and
damage mechanism in mind. See slide 5 in
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jul2...-6570C-001.pdf .


Now that's interesting...it implies that they assume that the missiles
they are going to be shooting at are liquid-fueled.
I wonder how long of a laser illumination they need to destroy a
solid-fueled one?
Also, this technology would be hard pressed to defeat a High G
Acceleration/Short Burn Time solid-fueled missile (like a
surface-to-surface variant of the Sprint), as the motor burn would be
over before the aircraft could detect, target, and engage it effectively.
The thick motor casing of a solid-fuel missile of any sort would mean
that the laser would have a hard time heating its contents in comparison
to the thin tank walls of a liquid-fueled missile.

Pat