Paul J. Adam wrote:

Ken S. Tucker wrote:
On May 10, 1:31 pm, "Paul J. Adam"
wrote:
It's dead by then: SM-3 is an exoatmospheric interceptor, capability
demonstrated at 133 miles up.

1st stage cheap solid, 2nd stage ditto, the ballistic
course is set, and the 3rd stage is lobbing, however,
when the 3rd stage separated, 5 decoys also blow
off.
"A saturation campaign my boy", 6 missiles is 30
inbound targets.

Only six of which are emitting and manoeuvering. The problem with making
decoys Really Convincing is that they end up as expensive as the
platform they're meant to be protecting...

Which, in fact, was the genesis of the U.S. Cruise Missile resurrection in
the 1960s. Both the Boeing ALCM and the Tomahawk had their roots in SCAD
(Subsonic Cruise Armed Decoy). The old Quails were no loner up to the job,
you see, and th idea was that even if the Bad Guys did figure out which
blips were decoys, you'd still have to intercept them if they had warheads
aboard.

The trouble is, a reusable ship can host a lot more sensor output and
processing power than a one-shot missile and its expendable decoys,
which makes discrimination that much easier. Or you throw a lot of money
at your decoys... at which point you're no longer launching a cheap
missile.

You're not going to get these missiles with the capability you describe
for a million dollars each. These are going to be expensive beasts...

Not really, mass production reduces cost.

No, it doesn't. It spreads the cost more thinly across more platforms,
but you don't get cheaper development from a longer run. The development
cost is what it takes: if it costs ten billion dollars to design the
system, then you need to produce ten thousand missiles to get the
per-unit development cost down below a million apiece - even before you
worry about any manufacturing and material costs. Halve the run and you
make each weapon appear to cost more - but the development costs don't
get any bigger, just the share heaped on each unit.

Okay - according to you these missiles can't be stopped, can't miss,
and are so cheap they can be fired in hundreds. We all die and nothing
can be done. So why worry?

It's like a game of chess. We're trying to discuss
the vulnerability of a CVN fleet to conventional
missile attack, especially going forward 20 years.

Well, if he's going to phrase it that way...
The idea is plausible only to the point of discussion if the ballistic
missiles are carrying large area-effect warheads. (For values of large
equal to several megatons. Conventional-warhead missiles will require
several direct hits, and given the flight times, which can't be changed
materially for a ballistic missile, you'd have to saturate an incredibly
huge area to have a reasonable chance,
Here's the upshot - the idea only works as a first shot - The results of
throwing a large number of your strategic nuclear weapons at a Carrier
Battlegroup has just raised the ante to where your country is a Trinitite
Mine, and any survivors are being hunted down by the folks who were
downwind. Trying it with conventional warheads means that you now have,
among other things, an extremely ****ed off Carrier Battle Group off your
shores, with the exact location of your launchers all dialed in. (And,
given ELINT vs. the sensors and Command and Control net, your eyes nd
brains, too.)
Either strategy accomplishes the demise of your regime, at best, and your
nation, at worst, in record time.

Paul, I just realized that we may know some of the same people.
Drop me an Email to see if that's so.

--
Pete Stickney
The better the Four Wheel Drive, the further out you get stuck.