WTF Are the North Koreans Smoking Now?

[Alyeska]

Each B-2 costs a whopping $3bn.

B-2 bombers - capable of dropping 30,000 pound, bunker-busting MOABs (Mother of All Bombs)

I have two problems with these statements:
One: the B-2 Spirit costs $929 mill per aircraft (1997 dollars)
Two: B-2s can't carry MOABs. These bombs are only deployed from transport planes like the C-130.

Eh, he made several enthusiastic mistakes with his facts.

[TimothyC]

It's rather obvious that the author conflated the GBU-43 Massive Ordinance Air Burst (MOAB) with the GBU-57 Massive Ordinance Perpetrator (MOP). The GBU-57 is the one that weighs in at 30klbs and can be carried by the B-2 and the B-52. It's also obvious that the cost differences stem from using the unit cost of each airframe verses take the total program cost divided by the total number of airframes.

[Sea Skimmer]

Actually, Japan has THREE anti-missile batteries to defend Tokyo.

Its more then that because the Patriot sites in Tokyo, as well as several other major urban centers, are only the lower tier of defense below the SM-3 equipped destroyers offshore. Also more then three Patriot batteries exist into the Tokyo defense area, but not all have PAC-3 interceptors at the moment and some are collocated at the same sites. As it is two destroyers have been specified as in position to protect Tokyo proper. What the rest are doing, or how many are in a state to be operational at all, unknown.

Some rather large Japanese cities though have no lower tier of defense, and are rather vulnerable to any missile attack.

[Sea Skimmer]

It's rather obvious that the author conflated the GBU-43 Massive Ordinance Air Burst (MOAB) with the GBU-57 Massive Ordinance Perpetrator (MOP). The GBU-57 is the one that weighs in at 30klbs and can be carried by the B-2 and the B-52. It's also obvious that the cost differences stem from using the unit cost of each airframe verses take the total program cost divided by the total number of airframes.

To be clear, GBU-57 is only integrated with some of the B-2 bombers. A B-52 was used for some test drops, but operational hardware does not exist to use the thing from that aircraft. Wouldn't be worth the bother anyway since under two dozen of them have actually been built and its going to be replaced sooner then later by a much lighter rocket boosted weapon. MOP was designed simply because it was by far the quickest, easiest way to do things.

3 billion is never an accurate cost for the B-2, no matter how you count it. 2.13 billion is the total program cost per plane, and that's counting money spent on some major modifications made not long after the planes were built to make them capable of dropping more then iron bombs and nuclear weapons. Even counting only the 16 B-2s combat coded at any given time doesn't get you all the way to 3 billion.

[Stark]

What phase does SM-3 target missiles in? It's a 'proper' ABM unlike Patriot, right? How relevant is position for launching platforms?

[Alyeska]

What phase does SM-3 target missiles in? It's a 'proper' ABM unlike Patriot, right? How relevant is position for launching platforms?

SM-3 can reach targets in low earth orbit. But thats pretty much a direct shot up. Theoretically the SM3 could take down some missiles mid flight. But on reading what altitudes ballistic missiles are capable of, it would seem the SM-3 is primarily designed for the re-entry phase.

[TimothyC]

What phase does SM-3 target missiles in? It's a 'proper' ABM unlike Patriot, right? How relevant is position for launching platforms?

It depends on the target it's intercepting. It can do mid-course intercepts for IRBMs and terminal intercepts for ICBMs (from what I remember seeing a while back). This means that it's got some good cross-range (ie being able to shoot down missiles that are not targeted at the SM-3 launcher) for a lot of the missiles that would be used against Japan. THAAD (deployed to Guam) is limited to terminal work (again, from what I remember reading a few years back), but Guam isn't that big so that's acceptable there.

[Coop D'etat]

Well, OK, talking about how awful/untrustworthy the government is is all-American. I tell you, though, to an American hearing it for the first time the European practice of requiring people to register their locations and national ID cards it's freaky. I am, of course, aware these aren't inherently sinister practices and indeed much good can come of them I'm just saying a lot of less-informed Americans would find that threatening whether they should or not.

At best Americans are cultural conditioned to mistrust their government's intentions towards them.

The idea that they should be mistrustful of their government's intentions towards those not in the tribe (i.e. foreigners) is not an idea that has any appearance of getting all that much traction there.

[Broomstick]

If you can't trust your own government you sure as hell won't be able to trust anyone else's... which could account for some forms of paranoia.

[Sea Skimmer]

What phase does SM-3 target missiles in? It's a 'proper' ABM unlike Patriot, right? How relevant is position for launching platforms?

Mid course, it can only engage targets in space and is actually incapable of hitting short range tactical ballistic missiles as a result, though these are not a threat to Japan. Range is about 270nm for present weapons, and because of the long warning time you get for a medium range missile it should be able to fly out and hit a missile that is going to impact almost anywhere within that range. But with ABM a lot depends on geometry. For example if the threat missile is going to impact way behind the ship (say an IRBM), then the ship may still be able to hit that missile, but only if the ship is almost directly under the flight path and the SM-3 flies straight up at it. That's also subject to ceiling limitations, SM-3 wont hit an ICBM arcing far overhead for example, its just too high no matter what warning time you have. Parking the ship right under the flight path is how the thing managed to shoot down that satellite, which would otherwise be too fast and high to be engaged in a more realistic situation.

On the other hand if the missile is going to impact in between the firing ship and the launch site, the intercept range starts to drop off rapidly because the need to race out and get ahead of the incoming weapon. In any event, it takes multiple SM-3 ships parked between Japan and North Korea to cover all of Japan from North Korean missiles. Japan has six AEGIS destroyers, so keeping several at sea and in position is feasible.

Japan is currently working on SM-3 Block II with a much bigger rocket motor setup with the US, that thing will have several times the range and allow a single ship to cover all of Japan against North Korean threats, but that doesn't necessarily mean the single ship could engage all the incoming missiles at once sucessfully. SM-3 Block II wont be combat ready until 2018 or so. It will have broad capabilities against even IRBMs. Some work has been done on a follow on missile notionally SM-3 Block III but actually all new, which would have some capability against an ICBM, but its kind of stuck in political and development hell.

As for Patriot, PAC-3 ERINT is designed from the ground up as an ABM weapon. It can hit planes and cruise missiles, but that's a very secondary capability. Its almost certainly the most effective ABM missile, missile for missile, in the world today but it has very limited range and ceiling. It physically has nothing to do with earlier Patriot missiles at all. In fact the range is so limited, 20-30km depending on the target, (side effect of being so small and damn fast) is what you do is take some of the launchers and disperse them around the radar site, rather then grouping everything together as with a normal SAM site. This is what Japan seems to be doing now, taking some launchers away from the fixed sites they are always deployed at, and spreading them around for better coverage. Because of explosive hazards and Japanese politics, plus other factors like security, they don't keep them spread around like this full time in such a dense urban area.

The earlier big PAC-2 missiles Japan has are the ones that didn't work well in the Gulf War, though they and the guidance system have been improved since. They aren't likely to be effective against North Korean missiles fired at Japan, as they would be a fair bit faster then the enhanced SCUDs fired at Saudi and Israel. South Korea has PAC-2 missiles only, though not very many, four batteries total bought surplus from the GERMANS, which should give them some coverage against missile attacks but only for one or two areas. US Patriot batteries in South Korea have PAC-3, but only are deployed to protect a few US air bases.

[Sea Skimmer]

It depends on the target it's intercepting. It can do mid-course intercepts for IRBMs and terminal intercepts for ICBMs (from what I remember seeing a while back). This means that it's got some good cross-range (ie being able to shoot down missiles that are not targeted at the SM-3 launcher) for a lot of the missiles that would be used against Japan. THAAD (deployed to Guam) is limited to terminal work (again, from what I remember reading a few years back), but Guam isn't that big so that's acceptable there.

Terminal intercept against an ICBM is not really a realistic capability. The ICBM is just too fast in the narrow window SM-3 would have to engage sucks. Its not really a good weapon against more then the top end of MRBMs with a limited anti IRBM capability. Block 1B will improve on the IRBM bit while keeping the 13.5in motor, but its 2015 deployment. Physics says it can hit faster/higher stuff in principle, but tests have never been conducted to validate it and it just wasn't a design requirement for SM-3 Block 1A as is deployed now. Radar power is also a serious problem for higher speed threats, even the most super upgraded SPY-1 isn't that great for finding IRBMs, though ships off Japan are supported by big land based FPS-5 (Japanese made, silly looking, has monster mascot) radar and US TPY-2 radars. Terminal vs mid course terms can get a bit.. blurry as in some cases terminal is used only to mean within the air, while in other cases its just any point after the middle third of missile flight.

THAAD is the one and only modern ABM capable of both endo and exo atmospheric intercepts (IIRC ZEUS of the olden years could do it too, nuclear warhead helped), but its kinetic performance is not much different then SM-3. In fact originally the two were the same project and THAAD and SM-3 share some pieces. But since THAAD can do an endo intercept, it gains an extra chance to engage an incoming threat over what SM-3 is capable of doing which is very valuable, all the more so if you have a lot of incoming missiles and a limited stock of interceptors. The air slows down the threat missile a lot, strips away clutter like debris and decoys, and makes it a much hotter, and thus easier to see target. However the lowest intercept ceiling for THAAD is still 40km up, rather high, so it still greatly benefits from PAC-3 as a lower tier of defense. PAC-3 ceiling is around 15-20km. THAAD was originally supposed to work that low, so the ceilings would meet up perfectly, but it proved impossible, or at least impossible within the budget limitations of the program in the early 1990s.

[Alyeska]

What sort of performance does the GBI missile have? That thing looks seriously like a space missile. And being housed in a silo and all. The location in Fort Greely looks ideal to intercept mid flight ICBMs from North Korea targeting mainland US.

[Sea Skimmer]

In fact the early tests of the kill vehicle for GBI were launched on PLV boosters, which was a space booster built from surplus Minuteman II rocket motors.

Typical burnout velocity of the new built operational GBI booster stack has been reported at 8.3km/s, but that vary with the flight profile. This is beyond LEO velocity. Vague reports exist that the kill vehicle itself could reach 15km/s if launched on a profile utterly optimized for velocity and went more or less straight up, but I am very skeptical it could be so high. The amount of fuel on the kill vehicle is fairly limited, but it isn't impossible that at least with a different paper KV, as the present kill vehicle is undersized, that a much higher velocity would be possible. Effective intercept range is supposedly in the 3000nm class, intercept ceilings over 1000nm. The thing does weigh 28,000lb. SM-3 Bock 1 is more like 3,300lb or so.

The GBIs in Alaska can intercept an ICBM from North Korea impacting at any point in the United States, though coverage of the east coast is very iffy particularly if a missile was fired from Iran. That's why a third site was supposed to be in Europe, covering that land mass, the Atlantic and the eastern US all in one go. The plan is now SM-3 Block III in the eastern US, but that program is FUBAR for various reasons, and Congress has directed that a site study be made for a third GBI site somewhere on the eastern US coastline, most likely somewhere in New York State. So far this is an environmental study only. No plans or funding exists for actual design work on the site or anything like that.

In comparison SM-3 Block 1 burnout is around 3km/s, while the big booster SM-3 Block II is estimated in the 4.5-5.5km range depending on how big of a KV is actually fitted in the end, very little has been said on it. In all cases exact burnout velocity with vary with flight profile, in some cases to a considerable degree, and effective range depends on the ceiling of burnout, of which much less information is known or easily estimated for these weapons. Obviously the lower you burnout, the more drag you'll suffer, and drag matters even at LEO when you go this fast. On the other hand that drag also helps warm up the enemy missile and warhead, making them better targets.

In general the rule of thumb with ABM can be taken to be, you need to be much faster then the missile you want to hit to have a decent capability against it. If you are slower your defended area will drop off dramatically until you are only capable of a head on shot, a true bullet hitting a bullet situation, except much faster. Hits from the side are more typical and easier, the kill vehicles are often basically flying sideways into the threat which is where fun space physics of orientation vs direction of travel come into play.

[ChaserGrey]

When considering matters ABM-related it's actually better to think in terms of delta-V budgets rather than ranges. The SM-3 was used to shoot down a satellite, but that was with the ship more or less shooting straight "up" at the target. The more of your energy budget you use for horizontal displacement to get to your intercept point, the less is available to send you upwards, so you have to wait until the target's lower. Meanwhile there's the minimum range aspect Skimmer mentioned, where the missile might theoretically have an intercept point it could reach with its delta-V budget but can't get there in time.

Dunno how visual you are, but what you end up with is a sort of narrow lemon shape centered on the launch site that defines your possible intercept zone. Anything that passes through that volume of space can be intercepted so long as you have adequate warning, good enough tracking data, no systems buttfuckery going on, and the creek don't rise. And naturally, anyone on the Internet who says they can associate actual numbers with this is almost certainly lying.

EDIT: It's also worth noting that Aegis ships can also carry the SM-2 Block IV, which has at least a theoretical capability against warheads in the atmosphere. Not that I'd bet my life on it.

[Sea Skimmer]

Thinking in terms of delta V creates its own problem, as the missiles ability to maneuver outside the atmosphere is completely dependent on thrust, and yet since most of the motors involved are solid fuel its a use it or loose it situation. Once the motor burns out that's, you aren't hitting anything. Future booster stacks and kill vehicles will considerably improve on this, via restartable thrusters and multiple pulse booster motors, but for the moment SM-3 Block 1 runs out of thrust options pretty quickly. One side issue is the USN doesn't like liquid fuel, so they can't just put liquid rockets on everything.

SM-2ER Block IV was tested against SCUD class targets. Problem is only about 75 of these missiles were ever produced. The proper terminal defense ABM version was Block IVA which had sideways looking IR sensors while retaining all AAW capabilities and semi active radar in the nose, but it was cancelled without production for various reasons in late 2001. It was intended to knock down roughly 1000km class range MRBMs as well as shorter ranged stuff. SM-3 is the Block IV booster stack with an extra stage and a hit to kill vehicle instead of a much heavier duel mode guidance system and explosive warhead. SM-6 with active radar homing was launched after IVA died and SM-5 was given up on as too expensive, but its never had a specific ABM goal and would need modifications to do a good job of it.

[Sea Skimmer]

http://img688.imageshack.us/img688/5449/japansam.jpg

Above is map. It will ruin formatting if inlined, but it’s a chart of air defense positions in Japan as found on google earth so far, well found as of some time last year anyway. Red triangle = Patriot Site except for two in Tokyo which are Chu-SAM, a rather less important system in this content, Orange Triangle is a HAWK site. White is empty position. Squares are garrison sites for respective type of SAM. Blue Diamonds are radar sites not capable of fire control, some are purely air search, some are ABM and some capable of both. The red oval you can kind of make out in northern Japan is the location of the US TPY-2 ABM radar which can do fire control. This site now also has some Patriot sites guarding it directly with no major city around. North Korean air attacks on a coastal location are not out of the question and not all North Korean missiles are inaccurate.

Basically Japan has four main defense areas, around Tokyo, Aichi, Fukuoka and Hokkaido. Another big cluster exists on Okinawa, likely the most heavily defended site in the world in terms of US made SAMs. The northern defense area around Hokkaido is a bit cut off this screencap, but also being phased out in the latest Japanese defense plan and may be less capable then presently marked anyway. Its unclear if that means they give up the local ABM capability too (if it ever even got PAC-3), or just the smaller and mainly air defense SAMs like HAWK will be removed.

Some of these place marks are out of date, some known sites are certainly missing around Fukuoka, but the defense regions have not shifted significantly (its actually big public law/policy kind of thing in Japan about where they are). Basically anywhere not in close proximity to a red triangle has no terminal protection. The 'missing' sites wouldn't be radically different positions.

[Sea Skimmer]

http://imageshack.us/content_round.php? ... oksams.jpg
This is South Korea, same color code except many of the red triangles are NIKE-Hercules sites that refuse to die. Nike-Herk has a very realistic ABM capability against SCUD type missiles, if a low rate of fire. Most of the ROK is defended only by HAWK, which might wing a SCUD-C/D on a good day. It did shoot down Lance in trials and thus can well defend against the shorter range North Korean missiles and SCUD-B, though those are also very numerous.

North Korea and the ROK side of the DMZ are marked up rather differently, I don't feel like turnng off all the relevant placemarks this late, but suffice to say both places are crawling with military sites.

[Broomstick]

Apparently the DPRK isn't just bluster and threat

South Korea blames the North for cyberattacks that hit banks, broadcasters

(CNN) -- South Korea accused North Korea Wednesday of carrying out a wave of cyberattacks that paralyzed the networks of major South Korean banks and broadcasters last month.

An official investigation found that many of the malignant codes employed in the attacks were similar to ones used by the North previously, said Lee Seung-won, an official at the South Korean science ministry.

Although some observers said at the time of the computer crashes that they suspected North Korean involvement, this is the first time that Seoul has formally pointed the finger at Pyongyang.

The allegations coincide with a tense situation on the Korean Peninsula, with the North making repeated threats of war. South Korean and U.S. officials have warned that a North Korean missile test could take place at any moment.

South Korea believes North Korea had spent at least eight months preparing for the cyberattacks, which also affected hundreds of individual citizens' computers and websites that cover North Korea, Lee said at a news briefing Wednesday.

There didn't appear to be any immediate reaction on North Korean state-run media to the South Korean accusations.

The main hacking attack took place on March 20, hitting more than 48,000 computers at the South Korean banks and broadcasters, authorities said.

It infected the companies' computer networks with a malicious program, or malware, that slowed or shut down systems.

The South's investigation found evidence including IP addresses and other elements used in the cyberattacks that it said proved North Korean responsibility.

The hackers routed the attacks through more 10 different countries, Lee said.

South Korea has accused the North of similar hacking attacks before, including incidents in 2010 and 2012 that also targeted banks and media organizations. Pyongyang has rejected the allegations.

Though I wouldn't say a cyberattack, disruptive as it may be, approaches the level of exploding bombs (of any sort) this sort of works against the notion the DPRK is just talk.

[ChaserGrey]

Ack, I thought Block IV had made it into limited production. Thanks for the correction Skimmer.

And thanks for the maps. But you've gotta be kidding me- the ROK still has Nike Hercules in service?

[Sea Skimmer]

Sure, why not? Conscripts are cheap to man them. Italy had Nike deployed until 2007 or so least the dastardly Croatians unleash a mass air blitz on the Po valley. Turkey still has it active too along the Aegean though the sites around Istanbul are gone. ROK kept it around, and even built new sites to relocate it near the Inchon airport recently, because it can hit ballistic missiles and generally, if your only other big SAM is HAWK it doesn't actually look bad, just really clumsy to deploy. Hard to go wrong with a 1000lb bomb flying at mach 3.5 and absurdly powerful radars against an enemy who lacks a lot of advanced air weapons. The thing can shoot far into North Korean airspace, and the missiles can be expended as SSMs. I'd imagine the sites will last until that new domestic SAM they are working on is widely deployed, which uses the Russian 9M96 missile.

Fun side fact, instead of buying Patriot Japan considered Nike-Phoenix, as in Nike with the AIM-54 guidance system and other upgrades. This probably would have been a lot better for ABM then the PAC-1/2 Patriot, but it wasn't attractive at all for the general air defense role.

[ChaserGrey]

Found an interesting analysis at this site that suggests at least one of the sites is exclusively an SSM site. Point taken though. Granted, it's a primitive ABM capability, but the threat they're facing also has pretty primitive missiles, so I suppose it balances out. The Norks still have some H-5 bombers too, but I'd be skeptical of NH against anything more maneuverable.

I'm surprised they don't have Patriot. I thought they did, but now that I go back all the references are to deployed American units.

Edit: Fixed the link formatting.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Though I wouldn't say a cyberattack, disruptive as it may be, approaches the level of exploding bombs (of any sort) this sort of works against the notion the DPRK is just talk.

That depends on the cyberattack. What if it were, say, an attack on a nuclear plant? How about Fukushima. Render the thing inoperable and cause power disruption, or better yet, somehow make the whole thing meltdown. There are a LOT of ways you can critically maim a country by simply targeting computer systems in the infrastructure. A lot of faults have been found with major utilities in the US, such as gas powered plants. Some systems don't even have any actual protection from any malicious attacks from the net because such systems were never expected to have to deal with these things.

I'll take losing access to an ATM for a day over losing all my banking data or water and power any day, be that from cyberattack or old school bombing.

[Broomstick]

The Nork cyberattack basically fucked with the broadcasting media and banking in the South, or at least made an attempt to do so. I think (though obviously not a lot has been said) it was a denial of service style attack. No data lost. Also seemed to take down the Nork internet sites (such as they are) though whether that was an intentional smoke screen or accidental we'll probably never know.

So that particular attack, no, not terribly destructive, just disruptive, though you do raise valid points about more sophisticated approaches.

[Sea Skimmer]

I'm surprised they don't have Patriot. I thought they did, but now that I go back all the references are to deployed American units.

As I said before, they have four batteries recently bought from Germany with PAC-2 missiles. The cost of such systems even second hand are very high. None of the batteries have known operational sites so far, but the crews should be trained by now.

[cosmicalstorm]

All very informative Skimmer!

What would it take for Japan to make pre-emptive missile-strikes on North Korean missile positions?