"PENTAGON WORKING TO GIVE F-35 JSF NUCLEAR-STRIKE CAPABILITY"

On May 10, 12:21 pm, "Paul J. Adam"
wrote:
Ken S. Tucker wrote:
On May 10, 4:13 am, "Keith Willshaw"
wrote:
Its not simple stuff, a MRBM is doing anything up to 4,000 m/sec
on rentry. The plasma around the reentry vehicle is going to make
most sensors useless while also making radical manoeveurs next
to impossible.

It's a sub-orbital ballistic missile that breaks to subsonic
at high altitude, then it has a lot of time (by electronic
standards) to search, select, aim and fire.

Making itself a marvellous TBMD target for a SM-3... and suddenly much
of the attraction of an anti-ship ballistic missile is gone.

((what's TBMD?)), anyway, I'll play this game a bit more.
The inbound is changing velocity rapidly and unpredictably,
reducing interception probability. It's subsonic at 80k feet,
strips, and fires at 75k, (consider 1960's ASROC).
Suppose they fire 10 $1million missiles at an asset (CVN)
with a value of $10Billion, then successive vollies.
We need to understand the problem before we can solve
it, and *rose-colored* glasses won't work.

Note that while Pershing II used a synthetic aperture radar system
for terminal guidance this was an ancillary to the INS and compared
radar maps of the terrain with the on board maps. Its inclusion
was simply to reduce the CEP from the 400m of the Pershing I to
30m. This system did not have the capability to search for, locate and
guide the warhead to a moving target that may be 30 miles from the aim
point.
Keith

Things haved changed. A missile can shoot down a satellite
going 15,000 mph, yet you Keith steadfastly hold to the idea
that hitting a huge CVN doing 30 mph is very difficult.

The satellite's location is known and its ability to change speed and
direction very limited. A carrier can cover thirty miles in an hour, in
any direction it chooses: this gets you not only the physics problem of
manoevering to hit it, but the target identification issue.

So the enemy peppers the region.

Keith, a young fella like yourself has probably never seen a
Telex machine.

Keith's older than I am and we had a Telex in Registry until relatively
recently.

Well I always enjoy youthful optimistic exuberance.

Classified military electronics is likely 10-15 years ahead of
what is publically known.

Having worked on the stuff, fielded military electronics is a few years
behind civilian. Back in the 1970s, the military took something like 25%
of all integrated-circuit production and could set standards and lead
technology: now it's probably not even one per cent and the innovation
is pushed from the civilian sector. Hence the demise of MILSPEC
components... manufacturers weren't interested in getting the
certification for the size of orders available.

When you want a few thousand ruggedised CPUs for your guided weapon
(total production run over several years) you get in the queue behind
the motor manufacturers who are buying that many every *week*. You
design to the planned "next best thing" and keep options open, because
when you start the design process Intel are talking about possibly
taking the 486 CPU to fifty megahertz and memory costs forty pounds a
megabyte.

By the time you've got a frozen design it's getting hard to source a
ruggedised 486 and nobody sells SDRAMs smaller than eight megabytes.

By the time the production contract gets placed the 486 is a distant
memory and the question now is "dual or quad core, and how many
gigabytes of RAM would Sir like with that today"?

And that's to get stuff off the drawing board and into service. Once
it's fielded and frozen, you'll find logos of long-lost companies on
mission critical kit (the Ferranti logos scattered around the Radar 911
tracker office, for example).

What you wrote is correct, (in my experience),
but there is much more to it than the CPU!
Consider imagers and transducers that feed CPU.
Ken

Ken S. Tucker wrote:
On May 10, 12:21 pm, "Paul J. Adam"
wrote:
Making itself a marvellous TBMD target for a SM-3... and suddenly much
of the attraction of an anti-ship ballistic missile is gone.

((what's TBMD?)),

Theatre Ballistic Missile Defence.

anyway, I'll play this game a bit more.
The inbound is changing velocity rapidly and unpredictably,
reducing interception probability. It's subsonic at 80k feet,
strips, and fires at 75k, (consider 1960's ASROC).

It's dead by then: SM-3 is an exoatmospheric interceptor, capability
demonstrated at 133 miles up.

Suppose they fire 10 $1million missiles at an asset (CVN)

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...

with a value of $10Billion, then successive vollies.
We need to understand the problem before we can solve
it, and *rose-colored* glasses won't work.

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?

The satellite's location is known and its ability to change speed and
direction very limited. A carrier can cover thirty miles in an hour, in
any direction it chooses: this gets you not only the physics problem of
manoevering to hit it, but the target identification issue.

So the enemy peppers the region.

So instead of firing dozens of missiles at *one* aimpoint, you're now
trying to saturate a whole ocean? Just how many of these missiles do you
have anyway?

I think Red have their own rose-coloured lenses welded firmly to their
face here...

Having worked on the stuff, fielded military electronics is a few years
behind civilian.

What you wrote is correct, (in my experience),
but there is much more to it than the CPU!
Consider imagers and transducers that feed CPU.

Same issues, often more so. If you're running a bespoke R&D project to
produce special-purpose components, you can completely forget a $1
million price tag per missile...


--
He thinks too much, such men are dangerous.

On May 10, 1:31 pm, "Paul J. Adam"
wrote:
Ken S. Tucker wrote:
On May 10, 12:21 pm, "Paul J. Adam"
wrote:
Making itself a marvellous TBMD target for a SM-3... and suddenly much
of the attraction of an anti-ship ballistic missile is gone.

((what's TBMD?)),

Theatre Ballistic Missile Defence.

anyway, I'll play this game a bit more.

The inbound is changing velocity rapidly and unpredictably,
reducing interception probability. It's subsonic at 80k feet,
strips, and fires at 75k, (consider 1960's ASROC).

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.

Suppose they fire 10 $1million missiles at an asset (CVN)

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.

with a value of $10Billion, then successive vollies.
We need to understand the problem before we can solve
it, and *rose-colored* glasses won't work.

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.
Ed covered the fighter attack scenario.

The satellite's location is known and its ability to change speed and
direction very limited. A carrier can cover thirty miles in an hour, in
any direction it chooses: this gets you not only the physics problem of
manoevering to hit it, but the target identification issue.

So the enemy peppers the region.

So instead of firing dozens of missiles at *one* aimpoint, you're now
trying to saturate a whole ocean? Just how many of these missiles do you
have anyway?

One with a real time update is likely sufficient.

I think Red have their own rose-coloured lenses welded firmly to their
face here...

Do you agree a CVN is slower and less maneuveurable
than a Blimp?

Having worked on the stuff, fielded military electronics is a few years
behind civilian.
What you wrote is correct, (in my experience),
but there is much more to it than the CPU!
Consider imagers and transducers that feed CPU.

Same issues, often more so. If you're running a bespoke R&D project to
produce special-purpose components, you can completely forget a $1
million price tag per missile...

You should buy a digital camera, they are amazing.
Ken




--
He thinks too much, such men are dangerous.

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...

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.

Which requires realistic assumptions going in, rather than simply giving
Red implausible capabilities and unrealistic budgets.

So instead of firing dozens of missiles at *one* aimpoint, you're now
trying to saturate a whole ocean? Just how many of these missiles do you
have anyway?

One with a real time update is likely sufficient.

What if the real-time update is spoofed?

What if the "one" missile is shot down by a SM-3 while still outside the
atmosphere?

Please keep those goalposts in one place. Are the enemy firing massive
salvoes to saturate wide areas, or targeting precisely and firing aimed
singles?

I think Red have their own rose-coloured lenses welded firmly to their
face here...

Do you agree a CVN is slower and less maneuveurable
than a Blimp?

In what weather?

Same issues, often more so. If you're running a bespoke R&D project to
produce special-purpose components, you can completely forget a $1
million price tag per missile...

You should buy a digital camera, they are amazing.

My mobile phone has a five-megapixel camera built into it and that's now
routine rather than exciting. But that particular handset sold its
millionth unit (just in the UK) six months after it launched.

Military hardware lags because civilian kit is where the sales and the
profits are.

--
He thinks too much, such men are dangerous.

On May 10, 5:57*pm, "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...

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.

Which requires realistic assumptions going in, rather than simply giving
Red implausible capabilities and unrealistic budgets.

So instead of firing dozens of missiles at *one* aimpoint, you're now
trying to saturate a whole ocean? Just how many of these missiles do you
have anyway?

One with a real time update is likely sufficient.

What if the real-time update is spoofed?

What if the "one" missile is shot down by a SM-3 while still outside the
atmosphere?

Please keep those goalposts in one place. Are the enemy firing massive
salvoes to saturate wide areas, or targeting precisely and firing aimed
singles?

I think Red have their own rose-coloured lenses welded firmly to their
face here...

Do you agree a CVN is slower and less maneuveurable
than a Blimp?

In what weather?

Same issues, often more so. If you're running a bespoke R&D project to
produce special-purpose components, you can completely forget a $1
million price tag per missile...

You should buy a digital camera, they are amazing.

My mobile phone has a five-megapixel camera built into it and that's now
routine rather than exciting. But that particular handset sold its
millionth unit (just in the UK) six months after it launched.

Military hardware lags because civilian kit is where the sales and the
profits are.

--
He thinks too much, such men are dangerous.

Not to mention once design is put in place for military its pretty
much set in stone. I remember in the 80s, B-52 CTF spent a ton of
money upgrading B-52s so they could quit using vaccuum tubes. Might be
current when designed, I wouldn't be surprised if F-22 is still loaded
with electronics with 90s technology. Look at the Space Shuttle, even
when upgraded, still behind civil aviation.

Late 80s worked on the F-111 was trying to get digital flight control
system bought by USAF or RAAF. neither bought it, Cheney killed F-111
in the Peace Dividend.

One thing is its hard to retrofit an airframe with say new technology
such as fly by wire. sometimes easier to just build a new airplane.
And with F-22 designed in late 80s........

On May 10, 11:51*pm, frank wrote:
On May 10, 5:57*pm, "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...

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.

Which requires realistic assumptions going in, rather than simply giving
Red implausible capabilities and unrealistic budgets.

So instead of firing dozens of missiles at *one* aimpoint, you're now
trying to saturate a whole ocean? Just how many of these missiles do you
have anyway?

One with a real time update is likely sufficient.

What if the real-time update is spoofed?

What if the "one" missile is shot down by a SM-3 while still outside the
atmosphere?

Please keep those goalposts in one place. Are the enemy firing massive
salvoes to saturate wide areas, or targeting precisely and firing aimed
singles?

I think Red have their own rose-coloured lenses welded firmly to their
face here...

Do you agree a CVN is slower and less maneuveurable
than a Blimp?

In what weather?

Same issues, often more so. If you're running a bespoke R&D project to
produce special-purpose components, you can completely forget a $1
million price tag per missile...

You should buy a digital camera, they are amazing.

My mobile phone has a five-megapixel camera built into it and that's now
routine rather than exciting. But that particular handset sold its
millionth unit (just in the UK) six months after it launched.

Military hardware lags because civilian kit is where the sales and the
profits are.

--
He thinks too much, such men are dangerous.

Not to mention once design is put in place for military its pretty
much set in stone. I remember in the 80s, B-52 CTF spent a ton of
money upgrading B-52s so they could quit using vaccuum tubes. Might be
current when designed, I wouldn't be surprised if F-22 is still loaded
with electronics with 90s technology. Look at the Space Shuttle, even
when upgraded, still behind civil aviation.

Late 80s worked on the F-111 was trying to get digital flight control
system bought by USAF or RAAF. neither bought it, Cheney killed F-111
in the Peace Dividend.

One thing is its hard to retrofit an airframe with say new technology
such as fly by wire. sometimes easier to just build a new airplane.
And with F-22 designed in late 80s........

Actually I believe there was an F-111 avionics upgrade program in the
90s, but the F-111
was retired in 96 I think, with the EF Spark Varks going in 98.

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.