CC wrote:Compared to over a thousand ICBMs with four thousand warheads and another thousand SLBMs, yeah, it is pretty small and irrelevant.
Not really. The Bombers are actually more useful than the ICBMs and SLBMs, which are only useful in "OH MY GOD ITS ARMAGEDDON!" scenarios.
Actually I assume it will start with some fun on the East/West German border, and that the strategic nuclear portion will involve ICBMs and SLBMs being sent to knock out critical air defense radars and bases before they can pose a threat to incoming cruise missiles.
Nope. It will start out with bombers. Because ICBMs can't be recalled or blown up in flight. Bombers are much more superior for sabre rattling, to force an early war termination to your advantage.
Really? Chaff and other countermeasures weren't a problem for the Hercules radar system? Might want to inform the former Hercules crewman who runs that site that he's full of it, for the Great Shep has spoken! Really, one would have expected a lot more from a man who worked with the radars
Chaff and decoys don't work to confuse ABM. The only thing that can fool the system is something the size, shape and weight of a real warhead; and if that's what its' going to take, why not make it a real warhead instead of a decoy?
The bigger gem is how you completely ignored the fact that he presented a completely unrealistic (and possibly physically impossible) best case scenario
Oh, the old "ABM is impossible because everything must go all right, and there's no time to respond!" line tossed up by anti-ABM people. Because it's so hard to track an incoming ballistic vehicle -- once you've got a radar paint, and done some calculations, you know where it's going to be at all points up to the moment it initates.
The only problem is guiding the missile to a pre-set point in time/space; and Nike-Hercules is actually better for this, since it's command guided.
A three mile radius of effectiveness against a Soviet ICBM (in other words, if the RV is coming down anywhere other than within three miles of your launcher, you can't do jack).
That's actually good enough, considering that if you slapped a NIKE down onto the Mall in DC, it would be able to protect a pretty good percentage of DC. Likewise, if you did it with Baltimore, you'd be able to get a decent coverage of the place.
And we actually DID have NIKE sites deployed/built in major urban areas.
By doing this, Congratulations, you've just made the job of Comrade Sladeski much harder.
Instead of being able to laugh manicacally as he places Piecutterskis over DC or Baltimore, and be assured of destroying the place, with x warheads (got to take into account launch failures and RVs going off course); he now has to figure out just how effective the NIKE system is going to be. Even if it only diverts 2 warheads, that's two targets which won't be hit thanks to the NIKE system.
He states that even if you do manage to intercept the RV, you'll knock out the installation's equipment and have a nuclear explosion far closer than you'd want.
Because of course, we never shockhardened our radars or various electronics.
Oh, and EMP doesn't work.
In his words, a big nuclear initation at 2,000 feet is just as bad as a nuclear initation at 21,000 feet with a much smaller warhead, in that they both score mission kills.
Nevermind that quite a lot of the NIKE sites were underground.
Command guidance is a good deal easier to jam, much less accurate, and has poor low altitude capabilities.
Really? If it's so much less accurate, why were we routinely getting skin-to-skin hits with it in every system we used it with? It's funny you speak of jamming, because with a TVM system, there's far more data being passed between the missile and the launch site; while with command guidance, you just need to transmit simple commands to the missile. As for low altitude capabilities; that's easily solved with networking the multiple sites together, which was something that you know, we actually had with SAGE -- something which was torn down along with the NIKE sites.
TVM was by far the better choice.
Far far more expensive.
Additionally, TVM appeared to always be planned and a proof of principle intercept with TVM was made in 1975, scarcely a delay of many years.
And it took from 1980 to 1984 to debug TVM which was much more complex than command guidance; there's a four year gap between production beginning and IOC.
I'm looking at the
timeline and seeing no mention of slow downs, but indeed, a series of speedups.
Considering that you know, SAM-D was originally intended to
Begin Engineering Development in FY70 (it was achieved in April 1973)
and for
Production to Begin in FY74 of 84 Firing Units (production began in 1980)
Yes, I would say that SAM-D was horribly delayed.
You mean just like AIM-120C-5 couldn't have twice the range of AIM-120A, and AIM-120D another 50% of C-5?
Lets see now:
AIM-120
AIM-120A: 30-45 mile range (37.5 average)
AIM-120C-5: 65~ mile range (50% greater range than AIM-120A average).
Plus, the warhead on the AIM-120C-5 is 10 pounds smaller than the AIM-120A's, and the rocket motor has been lengthened, with an accompanying reduction in the guidance section's length to maintain overall missile length at that of the -120A's.
There have been no real published specs on the -120D; which makes me wonder what they did to trade off to get more range....
Have you been there to time how long it takes a fixed site, low to no threat peacetime posture, SAM battery to go operational from the moment the alert is given? If not, then it's quite irrelevant.
Considering that the TOR-M1 can go from a road march posture to firing posture in 3 minutes; with missile launch taking only 5 to 8 seconds from target detection, yeah; I'd expect so. Remember, this is not the 1960s; solid propellant and advanced thermal batteries plus new gyros means that spin up times for the missiles are dramatically reduced.
; and says this gem:
It also hurt that SAM-D was kept on a low development budget in the 1970s, as part of the entire lean years post-vietnam.
