On Thu, 18 Dec 2003 18:22:34 GMT, Kevin Brooks wrote:

I think that Phil is probably talking about weapons like the IAI Harpy. It
is a relatively inexpensive "CM" used in SEAD operations. The only
significant technology employed by this vehicle is in the sensor (and even
there, a "middle-ranking country" should not have a problem developing or
procuring).

The question really is if it is possible to integrate different sensors
(TV,
IR) on such vehicles, if you can accurately identify targets (based on
some
signature characteristics or library), and how effective it could be (at
not
killing your own or being easily defeated by the enemy).

And those questions are the kind that even the US, with its multi-billion
dollar R&D structure, is tangling with--do you really see some second/third
world potential foe solving that dilemma over the posited period of the next
ten years? I don't.

The problems listed above are information-processing problems, that
is, software problems. Does it really require billions of dollars to
solve these problems? I say no: a few small groups of really
competent programms can be many times more productive than how
software is traditionally written. I've worked as a programmer for
defense contractors (and for other large organisations), and believe
me, there is a *lot* of waste and inefficiency. If the software was
written right, it could probably be done with several orders of
magnitude more efficiency.

Those home on active emitters, keeping their last transmitting location in
their memory in case they drop off the air. That is a big difference from
going after targets that are purely passive and are not radiating (or not
radiating anything you can actually read with a system that could be placed
in such a small weapon--detecting the frequency agile signals from vehicle
FM radios is not going to work).

Most ground vehicles radiate visible lightr, at least during
daytime. At light they radiate IR, which can bre picked up with
similar sensors.

I disagree. On the one hand you are going to have to use a pretty complex CM
of sorts, as we have already seen from the discussion to this point, if you
are going to engage previously unlocated targets, so the idea that these
things will be cheaply turned out in some converted auto garage is not going
to cut it.

Wrong. The complexity is in the *software*. CM hardware can be --
and historically has been -- put together by unskilled slave labour
in squalid conditions.

They will also be expensive--the R&D effort is still required,

Yes. But once software has been written once (and we're talking
millions not billions of dollars) it can be duplicated at zero cost.

since what has been postulated is essentially an autonomous attack system
that does not currently exist even in the US. Third, the number of Patiots
that can be made available is not a trivial number--count the number of
missiles available in the uploaded canisters of a single battery, not to
mention the reminder of its ABL that is accompanying them.

Do you have actual numbers here?

Finally, we have
a rather substantial stock of Stingers, including ones mounted on Avengers
and BFV-Stinger, along with the regular MANPADS.

It would be quite easy for an attack by lots of cruise missiles to
overload the defences at a point.

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