This week's AW&ST: apparently THAAD will have some ABM (as in anti- *ICBM*) capability.

On Sun, 29 Aug 2004 20:18:28 GMT, Orval Fairbairn
wrote:

I have been following this thread recently. As a retired Lockheed
engineer who did performance studies on THAAD, I can clear up a few
things.

1. THAAD is not currently an anti-ICBM system. It does not have the
performance (except on a lucky shot) to shoot down ICBMs consistently.
They travel too fast for THAAD's performance envelope. Specific numbers
would be classified.


So is it's residual ABM capability something like Hawk did - before
they made the modifications? The impression I'd gotten with Hawk is
they went "hey let's try it against a missile" and it worked. After
that they made some changes to the system to make it a little better
in the ATBM role.





2. THAAD had some development problems. They did not have even the
second team working on the original design. It appeared that a lot of
the design was made by people who had not taken "Missile Design 101." A
lot of the problems were simply stupid design and manufacturing errors.
We can only hope that those problems have been cleared up.

That would explain why AW&ST said the configuration of THAAD is quite
a bit different now than those test vehicles.







3. THAAD should be an effective TBM defense. That is what it is designed
for, and simulations show that it can hit a variety of targets.

4. An anti-ICBM missile would be a completely new, much larger design,
which would probably use only the basic interceptor technology, not the
same hardware.


I don't think the idea has ever been to have THAAD as a dedicated ABM.
It's more like a bonus. ATBM as you said is the role it was designed
for. All I've ever seen written suggested that they just not let that
residual capability go to waste.