MARK INDIA - GBI sees through decoys, kills target

[MKSheppard]

Link

The Missile Defense Agency announced today it has completed an important exercise and flight test involving a successful intercept by a ground-based interceptor missile designed to protect the United States against a limited long-range ballistic missile attack. The flight test results will help to further refine the performance of numerous Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) elements able to provide a defense against the type of long-range ballistic missile that could be used to attack the nation with a weapon of mass destruction.

For this exercise, a threat-representative target missile was launched from Kodiak, Alaska at 3:04pm (EST). This long-range ballistic target was tracked by several land- and sea-based radars, which sent targeting information to the interceptor missile. At 3:23pm (EST)the Ground-Based Interceptor was launched from the Ronald W. Reagan Missile Defense Site, located at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. The interceptor’s exoatmospheric kill vehicle was carried into the target’s predicted trajectory in space, maneuvered to the target, performed discrimination, and intercepted the threat warhead.

This was the first time an operational crew located at the alternate fire control center at Ft. Greely, Alaska remotely launched the interceptor from Vandenberg AFB. In previous interceptor launches from Vandenberg, military crews at the fire control center at Schriever AFB, Colo. remotely launched the interceptor.

The target was successfully tracked by a transportable AN/TPY-2 radar located in Juneau, Alaska, a U.S. Navy Aegis BMD ship with SPY-1 radar, the Upgraded Early Warning Radar at Beale Air Force Base, Calif., and the Sea-Based X-band radar. Each sensor sent information to the fire control system, which integrated the data together to provide the most accurate target trajectory for the interceptor.

The interceptor’s exoatmospheric kill vehicle is the component that collides directly with a target warhead in space to perform a “hit to kill” intercept using only the force of the collision to totally destroy the target warhead.

Initial indications are that all components performed as designed. Program officials will evaluate system performance based upon telemetry and other data obtained during the test.

This was the 37th successful hit-to-kill intercept out of 47 attempts against missiles of all ranges since 2001. Operational Ground-Based Interceptors are currently deployed at Ft. Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg AFB, protecting the nation, our friends, and allies against ballistic missile attack.

Post Event video feed will come to DoD Pool (CNN) at approximately 8:00pm (EST) via Streambox from VAFB.

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What's important about this one, is that the threat ICBM was also carrying decoys. Which of course did not work.

[Kanastrous]

Maybe I shouldn't be so pessimistic, but reports like this just remind me of the heavily-choreographed 'demonstrations' from the Phoenix program.

Not that I don't respect the extra skill, inventiveness and technology that might be required, to choreograph something like this.

[MKSheppard]

Maybe I shouldn't be so pessimistic, but reports like this just remind me of the heavily-choreographed 'demonstrations' from the Phoenix program.

Um, once you've performed a few radar paints on a ballistic missile, within a few seconds you'll know where it'll be at all times up to impact, in a continuously tightening cone of probability as further paints come in, allowing you to refine it's trajectory.

[Starglider]

Um, once you've performed a few radar paints on a ballistic missile, within a few seconds you'll know where it'll be at all times up to impact, in a continuously tightening cone of probability as further paints come in, allowing you to refine it's trajectory.

Could someone explain why it isn't feasible to make a stealth ballistic missile? Obviously there isn't anything you can do about the massive infrared signature during the boost phase. But what about the radar return and the IR signature of the warhead bus?

[Sea Skimmer]

Maybe I shouldn't be so pessimistic, but reports like this just remind me of the heavily-choreographed 'demonstrations' from the Phoenix program.

Or all the Abrams, Patriot, Bradley, E-3 Sentry, AMRAAM, Apache and Blackhawk tests people said were rigged in the systems favor, causing the US to buy a ‘highly expensive’ system which was clearly inferior to the latest Soviet toys? Yeah, reminds me of the same bullshit too. A lot of people just insist that every weapon must be a failure and it just gets retarded very quickly. You can't fucking test a weapon in a manner which is not choreographed without FIGHTING A WAR with it. That doesn't mean a planned test doesn't work.

[Kanastrous]

Maybe I shouldn't be so pessimistic, but reports like this just remind me of the heavily-choreographed 'demonstrations' from the Phoenix program.

Um, once you've performed a few radar paints on a ballistic missile, within a few seconds you'll know where it'll be at all times up to impact, in a continuously tightening cone of probability as further paints come in, allowing you to refine it's trajectory.

I understand; I didn't mean to make a point-to-point comparison. I was thinking more of the broader sort of set-up of test conditions to promote success, like hanging reflectors on targets to make a DIVAD prototype spot them as anticipated, or establishing just-right-so-it-will-work AIM-54 test parameters that aren't representative of what the systems' operators are likely to face in a real fight.

You can't fucking test a weapon in a manner which is not choreographed without FIGHTING A WAR with it. That doesn't mean a planned test doesn't work.

There seems to be a difference between a test which is optimised in every possible way to play to a system's strengths and minimize its weaknesses, and a test based upon battlefield experience.

But sure, the fact that this equipment works to this degree - even if the tests are in any way sweetened - is very, very impressive.

[Sea Skimmer]

Could someone explain why it isn't feasible to make a stealth ballistic missile? Obviously there isn't anything you can do about the massive infrared signature during the boost phase. But what about the radar return and the IR signature of the warhead bus?

Radar returns can be reduced, the Pershing II RV was stealthy back in the early 1980s. Stealth however doesn’t work nearly so well in a vacuum as it does in the atmosphere and the tracking radars we use are absolutely colossal both in antenna size and power output. Tracking a steel marble (so like .0001 meter square RCS, similar to an F-35) at 3000 miles as I recall was the performance quote for Sea Based X-Band.

You can do nothing about the IR signature in flight. Nuclear weapons are hot. Space is absurdly cold as a background; the RV is always going to be a bright IR target. Missiles with biological or chemical payloads aren’t a very serious threat to start with, and would still present a significant IR signature.

Also, any kind of stealth features or IR suppression will gobble up weight very quickly, greatly reducing the throw weight of the ballistic missile and thus the threat it presents before its even launched. ABM wins without firing a shot.

[Sea Skimmer]

Could someone explain why it isn't feasible to make a stealth ballistic missile? Obviously there isn't anything you can do about the massive infrared signature during the boost phase. But what about the radar return and the IR signature of the warhead bus?

Radar returns can be reduced, the Pershing II RV was stealthy back in the early 1980s. Stealth however doesn’t work nearly so well in a vacuum as it does in the atmosphere and the tracking radars we use are absolutely colossal both in antenna size and power output. Tracking a steel marble (so like .0001 meter square RCS, similar to an F-35) at 3000 miles as I recall was the performance quote for Sea Based X-Band.

You can do nothing about the IR signature in flight. Nuclear weapons are hot. Space is absurdly cold as a background; the RV is always going to be a bright IR target. Missiles with biological or chemical payloads aren’t a very serious threat to start with, and would still present a significant IR signature.

Also, any kind of stealth features or IR suppression will gobble up weight very quickly, greatly reducing the throw weight of the ballistic missile and thus the threat it presents before its even launched. ABM wins without firing a shot.

I understand; I didn't mean to make a point-to-point comparison. I was thinking more of the broader sort of set-up of test conditions to promote success, like hanging reflectors on targets to make a DIVAD prototype spot them as anticipated, or establishing just-right-so-it-will-work AIM-54 test parameters that aren't representative of what the systems' operators are likely to face in a real fight.

If anything many AIM-54 tests didn’t represent the actual threat in that they were MORE demanding, like the tests against an QF-86 entering a seven G spiraling dive…. What Soviet missile or bomber was going to be able to do that?

[Kanastrous]

What Soviet missile or bomber was going to be able to do that?

Pretty much any of them, I should think - for a couple of seconds before disintegrating

[MKSheppard]

Could someone explain why it isn't feasible to make a stealth ballistic missile? Obviously there isn't anything you can do about the massive infrared signature during the boost phase. But what about the radar return and the IR signature of the warhead bus?

Um. All you need to do to find a stealthy warhead or PBV is train your radars at the cone of space where the warheads/PBV is going to be. They can't manouver THAT far; and if they executed a high delta vee burn to get out of the cone of space; it would really eat up any delta vee on the post boost bus, making the "footprint" of the PBV's warheads shrink dramatically.

[Kanastrous]

Does their re-entry friction heat them up enough (even if stealthed) to increase their conspicuity?

[MKSheppard]

Does their re-entry friction heat them up enough (even if stealthed) to increase their conspicuity?

Something going like Mach 18-24 is not going to be stealthy.

[The Dark]

You can't fucking test a weapon in a manner which is not choreographed without FIGHTING A WAR with it. That doesn't mean a planned test doesn't work.

There seems to be a difference between a test which is optimised in every possible way to play to a system's strengths and minimize its weaknesses, and a test based upon battlefield experience.

But sure, the fact that this equipment works to this degree - even if the tests are in any way sweetened - is very, very impressive.

Often, they'll start with easy tests to make sure systems work partially before upping the difficulty. For the JASSM cruise missile, they started with simple drop tests and flight tests before aiming for big honking targets, and then setting up tests with pre-set turning points and small targets. You don't test the entire system the first time out, because it makes it harder to determine the point of failure when it doesn't work (and there's almost always a modification between the first test and the first full test to fix problems).

[K. A. Pital]

Tracking a steel marble (so like .0001 meter square RCS, similar to an F-35) at 3000 miles as I recall was the performance quote for Sea Based X-Band.

And Soviet ABM radars are yet more powerful, the Don-2NP fire control radar managed to catch steel marbles which all other world radars failed to, and it has an effective EW range versus a ballistic head of 5000 km. Yeah, it's certain you cannot hide stuff in space from EW radars. The problem may be tracking resolution for guidance radars, though.

[Colonel Olrik]

One major reasons behind these live fire tests is the further validation of thousands of computer simulations of different theoretical models, simulations which obviously cover a wide range of scenarios.

[AMX]

News over here say that there were "technical problems" during the test - apparently, the decoys weren't triggered.
So, while Shep is right that they didn't work, the test didn't actually demonstrate that decoys don't work.

[Lonestar]

News over here say that there were "technical problems" during the test - apparently, the decoys weren't triggered.
So, while Shep is right that they didn't work, the test didn't actually demonstrate that decoys don't work.

Reuters Agrees

[MKSheppard]

Early indiciations had the decoys working successfully. Oh well.

It's awesome though. Missile Defense Opponents say that turd world nations like North Korea, etc can somehow successfully deploy a reliable decoy system, when it took Britain many many years and a LOT of money to develop a reliable decoy release system (Chevaline), which turned out to not work after all, oh well.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

It does kind of suck, because a malfunction in the system supposedly used to defeat ABM, which in fact shows how that system (the decoys) are themselves a quick tricky thing to implement, will still nonetheless be seized upon as proof that the tests were not genuinely realistic. I hope it at least sinks the idea that this thing was stage-managed; in real operational conditions, the missile and decoys can fail as easily as the interceptor.

[Ace Pace]

The decoys were somewhat present since the last stage of the test missile was still in the radar picture.

Military Launches Most Complex Missile Defense Test to Date

By Fred W. Baker III
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Dec. 5, 2008 – The military today shot down a mock enemy missile, employing a synchronized network of sensors in what officials called the largest and most complex test of the missile defense system to date.

A mock target missile was fired from Kodiak, Alaska, at 3:04 p.m. Eastern Time. An interceptor missile was fired about 30 minutes later from a silo at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., with its launch directed by soldiers based at Fort Greely, Alaska. The two successfully collided off the coast of California minutes later.

This is the first time the Defense Missile Agency has synchronized its network of varied sensor types and frequencies to successfully track, report and intercept a single target, the agency’s top officer said.

If the multiple radars did not work together, each would have reported a different target to the system.

“Overall, I’m extremely pleased, because … the core of our missile defense system is the fact that we can operate in layers and have multiple systems working together,” Army Lt. Gen. Patrick J. O'Reilly said. “The key to our protection and the effectiveness of the systems is to have all of these different sensors simultaneously tracking, and the system [knowing] exactly that it’s not multiple objects, it’s one object up there.”

The test combined an early warning radar system south of Sacramento, Calif., a mobile radar system temporarily posted in Juneau, Alaska, two AEGIS ballistic missile defense ships off the Pacific coast and a sea-based radar system.

The test also marked the first time soldiers from the 49th Missile Defense Battalion based at Fort Greely were in control of the launch. On previous tests, a Colorado Springs-based unit was used.

Each of the systems was networked together, despite their varied sizes and frequencies, to form an accurate, single-target track, O’Reilly said.

Soldiers, airmen and sailors operated all parts of the system, and the USS Benfold, a Navy guided-missile destroyer equipped with the AEGIS air-defense system, went through all of the motions of a simulated intercept successfully, O’Reilly said.

“What we showed today is all those sensors working together,” he said. “At any one time, the system knew which sensor was reporting … and tracking it and it gave the warfighter a presentation of the target. It is the first time we have ever done that in an actual test and with our soldiers [and sailors and airmen] operating it.”

Officials had hoped to deploy countermeasures during the flight that would test the system’s reaction to multiple objects. Countermeasures could include the missile deploying chaff, decoys or replicas. The countermeasures did not deploy, however.

“Countermeasures are very difficult to deploy,” O’Reilly said. “We have had trouble deploying them in the past.”

Even though countermeasures didn’t deploy, the upper stage of the mock enemy missile was still in the area. The interceptor saw two objects and had to understand the data sent from the sensors to discern which object to hit, O’Reilly said.

Pentagon officials said this test was “very realistic” and followed a trajectory and mimicked a launch similar to one the U.S. military believes could be a threat.

This test cost $120 million to $150 million. Thirteen similar tests have been conducted since 1999, seven successfully hitting their targets. The last previous test, in September 2007, was successful.

The ground-based midcourse defense program is designed to defend the United States against intermediate- and long-range ballistic missile attacks in the midcourse phase of flight, or while they are arching in the “exoatmosphere” -- the region of space just outside the Earth's atmosphere.

The 54-foot-6-inch interceptors look like missiles, but no explosive warheads are attached. The main body acts as a booster vehicle to propel into space the embedded kill vehicle, a 152-pound “smart bullet” that basically steers itself into the path of the oncoming warhead, causing an explosion on impact.

The U.S. military has 24 ground-interceptors in silos in Alaska and California, and 21 sea-based interceptors.

The Defense Department has spent about $100 billion on missile defense since 1999, officials said. Iran’s pursuit of ballistic missiles and the recent nuclear and long-range missile tests by North Korea create an evolving threat to the United States, according to military reports.

In the last 20 years, the number of countries interested in having or actually having intercontinental ballistic missile capability has increased from six to more than 20, military officials said. The number of test launches has increased every year.

[Kane Starkiller]

The U.S. military has 24 ground-interceptors in silos in Alaska and California, and 21 sea-based interceptors.

So at this point US already has the capability to shoot down every single Chinese ICBM? Meanwhile US can load up it's 4 Ohio SSGN's with 616 nuclear tipped Tomahawks and blow up eastern China whether the Chinese have ABM or not.

[Sea Skimmer]

So at this point US already has the capability to shoot down every single Chinese ICBM? Meanwhile US can load up it's 4 Ohio SSGN's with 616 nuclear tipped Tomahawks and blow up eastern China whether the Chinese have ABM or not.

All nuclear Tomahawks have been withdrawn from service and converted into conventional missiles. The US does still have about 500 of the AGM-86 air launched cruise missiles with nuclear warheads, but that’s it for weapons of this sort.

[Kanastrous]

All nuclear Tomahawks have been withdrawn from service and converted into conventional missiles. The US does still have about 500 of the AGM-86 air launched cruise missiles with nuclear warheads, but that’s it for weapons of this sort.

Was that decision based upon security needs, or maintenance/support costs, or loss of role, or something else?

[Illuminatus Primus]

All nuclear Tomahawks have been withdrawn from service and converted into conventional missiles. The US does still have about 500 of the AGM-86 air launched cruise missiles with nuclear warheads, but that’s it for weapons of this sort.

Was that decision based upon security needs, or maintenance/support costs, or loss of role, or something else?

Well once there are nuclear weapons in a magazine (like the VLS or ABLs), you need to treat all the weapons aboard the ship like nuclear weapons for security and assurance purposes; an accidental launch is totally unacceptable. Simply not loading them substantially reduces the handling costs and risks.

[Kane Starkiller]

All nuclear Tomahawks have been withdrawn from service and converted into conventional missiles. The US does still have about 500 of the AGM-86 air launched cruise missiles with nuclear warheads, but that’s it for weapons of this sort.

This is due to INF treaty right? W84 warheads are still maintained I believe so when Russians make good on their threat to terminate INF Tomahawks could be converted back.


On an unrelated note I wonder why GBI bases are located only in Alaska and California. Shouldn't there be one somewhere in Maine? Or would that destroy any credibility of "not directed at Russia" mantra?