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

That depends. How long is THAAD suppose to be in service? Who's to
say China wouldn't try to hit a staging area with an ICBM?

Where? You'd have to posit China lobbing an ICBM at a target being used by
the US during a third-party operation? I don't think that is realistic
enough to worry about--somewhere in the same category as say, "Protect
against RN Trident attack against US target". As to staging areas where we
would be operating against the PRC, maybe Australia? But that is in IRBM
range. Anything in their own periphery they could hit with a shorter range
missile. Which IMO takes you back to the "only US-proper targets have to be
defended from ICBM".

Hard to say. Let's not forget two things: 1. China isn't the only
country out there of questionable status who is trying to develope
ICBMs (Iran, India, etc.) and 2. THAAD isn't the result of a "we
need terminal defenses against ICBMs for the entire US" but a theater
defense missile *that happens to have some anti-ICBM capability*.








boost phase (i.e., ABL), but in many cases hitting an ICBM in the boost
phase is going to be kind of hard to accomplish (i.e., PRC).


There's an excellent report on that particular problem right he

http://www.xmission.com/~sferrin/BPI-Full_Report.pdf

(tried to find the original link but not too hard)



So yes, for all
intents and purposes, you are looking at a two-tier system against
ICBM's,
GBMI and terminal.

You might not be familair with this:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/kei.htm


http://www.orbital.com/MissileDefens...KEI/index.html



I don't do the "go to links" bit unless it looks like it is something worth
bothering with--a sysnopsis of the pertinent info is usually given with the
link.


Too good for it or does it strain your brain too much? My guess is
you want an abstract with the link so you can not go to it anyway and
still pretend like you did. Just on this thread there have been
numerous times in which you have missed what has been written or saw a
big paragraph so didn't read it at all. And it shows. My point in
providing those links (if you've read this far) is to enlighten you on
the BPI issue. Where's the harm in going to the link and reading? It
can only help you have a better undertanding of a subject you
apparently take an interest in.






And IMO THAAD in the anti-ICBM role is therefore a waste of spit; it is
too
short legged, and nobody is going to budget and support emplacing the
required sites to handle the coast.

Nobody has ever suggested that. What they ARE suggesting is that it
could be used as a MOBILE terminal ABM. That gives you more options
than if it had no ABM capability. Nobody has suggested deploying it
like the Nikes were in the 50's and 60's.

Which takes us back full circle to the "what targets would we want to
protect against ICBM threats other than those in the US" bit.


You're missing the point entirely. Anywhere you park a THAAD you're
going to have terminal ABM capability. You're going to have it
whether you use it or not. This isn't a case of "what targets do we
need to defend and if there are none we won't build the system".




I see great
utility in an anti-TBM capability to protect contingency forces in the
theater of operations, but I see danged little use for protecting them from
ICBM threats that would come from outside the T/O. If you change the focus
back to the US proper, then I still don't see a lot of gain in terms of
THAAD in the terminal defense role unless you want to build and deploy
enough of them to protect *every* target within the bad guy's range fan.


So essentially you're saying "since we arent' going to protect
everything we shouldn't protect anything"? Correct? And if not what
ARE you saying?









Protecting only SF, LA, and SEATAC merely means the bad guys hit Portland,
Monterey, and Eugene instead. Or maybe Sacramento. Or Phoenix (it is not as
if the PRC is going to limit their range of future systems to being able to
only strike the beach cities--witness that new SLBM they are developing with
a nearly 6K mile range).

Great. That means we dictate what they DON'T hit. Pretty simple
concept isn't it? As for the SLBM it's more like 5000 miles and they
are not even CLOSE to fielding it.








Your Son-of-THAAD versus TBM's is more
interesting, but again IMO is not very likely to see the the light of
day--we apparently have outr hands full just getting vanilla THAAD to
work
as advertised.

All of them had problems. The only one that's been mostly successful
from the get go is the FLAGE/ERINT/PAC-3. And I'd be more surprised
if the upgraded THAAD *didn't* see the light of day. It's cheaper to
upgrade what you've already got working than to start over from
scratch.

But from what I have read, we don't really have *THAAD* "working" (yet). As
of this past January, only two of the planned eight intercept tests were
successful. Not a great track record as of yet. Hopefully it will improve,
and it will turn out to be a bang-up anti-TBM system. Which would be great.
Until that time, however, I'd be wary of corporate-sponsored "we are ready
to stretch/enhance it so it can *also* do..." stuff.

The way it seems to be scheduled is that we'd know if things were
working right before changing things. I'm guessing it would be
similar to the way they've done AIM-120. It's "pre-planned product
improvements" have been public knowledge for years.










Spartan was also a "terminal" system, albeit one with a longer reach than
the lower tier Sprint. It only had a max engagement range of less than
500
miles, which kind of rules it out in the midcourse role,

Depends how you define "midcourse". Since GBI and Spartan both go
after the RVs in space the only real difference is that Spartan
couldn't reach out as far. Distance isn't what determines what
"phase" a missile is in. You have the boost phase which is
self-explanitory but midcourse is considered the entire time the RV is
in space. That's where both GBI and Spartan were designed to kill
their targets. It doesn't become "terminal" phase until the RV is
reentering the atmosphere. That's pretty much how the "phases" have
been differentiated from day one.

Take a gander at the max altitude that the *existing* THAAD acheives (at
least some 150 km), and by that reasoning it is a mid-course interceptor,
right? I don't think so.

I was thinking the same thing when I wrote that. The fact remains
though that Spartan has NEVER been considered a terminal phase
missile.









especially as it
was based nextdoor to the Sprints at the defended location.

The Spartans and *some* of the Sprints were colocated mainly out of
convenience. If you check out this aerial if the Stanley R. Mickelson
Complex you'll see there are only 16 of the 70 Sprint silos located
there with the Spartans.

http://www.paineless.id.au/missiles/HSafeguard.html



The Sprints were spread out somewhat. How much I don't know. Miles
or tens of miles would be my guess. Since the ABM site was only
allowed to defend one location by treaty you'd WANT the Spartans near
the defended target for best coverage.

The Spartan's were tasked with "area" defense, the Sprints with point
defense. IMO, Spartan did not rise to what could be considered mid-course
intercept status.


That's fine. There are those who think the earth is flat and that the
moon landing was staged. Everyone's entitled to their opinion.








Look at it
another way--the USN has two "terminal" defense systems against anti-ship
mi
ssiles, ESSM and Phalanx--one outreaches the other by quite some
distance,
but it is still a terminal defense system.

You find it's going to be an either/or in most situations. ESSM is
*replacing* Phalanx in some instances. RAM is replacing Phalanx in
others.

OK, my bad example; consider Sea Sparrow and Phalanx, from the near
past--plenty of vessels had *both*.


Sea Sparrow has a minimum range and that's the area Phalanx covers.
In that situation Phalanx is the terminal defense. Let's not forget
that Sea Sparrow is also great for smacking small ships in close. The
reasons Phalanx is being replaced and CAN be replaced by RAM and ESSM
are because the minimum range of RAM and ESSM is less than that of
Sparrow (admittedly that's pure speculation on my part), missile
reliability is getting better, and with today's faster missiles
Phalanx's utility is going down.








Vanilla THAAD will have a very
small range against ICBM's, making it of minimal use in the role.


But still better than none at all. If all it does is make an
adversary think twice then it's worth it.

But it won't, unless we deploy them around virtually every target set he
could strike! As I pointed out earlier, take SF from his list and he
replaces it with Sacramento. Are you willing to give up one but not the
other? I doubt you are.

Am I willing to give up SF to protect the Trident base up the coast?
HELL yeah. Atlanta over Washinton DC? Damn straight. You'd prefer
to lose both Atlanta AND Washington DC correct?








There are only two places we really have to worry about ICBM's--Hawaii,
and
the West coast.

Yeah, for now.

For the forseeable future, with the caveat that "West Coast" extends inland
through the depth that the DF-31 can strike, which just about gets them to
Phoenix. There are a *lot* of major urban areas west of that longitudinal
line.

Yeah. And?






Could THAAD play a role in Hawaii, where the defended area
is finite? Yep. Could it play such a role on the West coast? Not really.
Is
anybody going to argue to deploy THAAD along the coast to defend against
ship-launched TBM's? Very doubtful, to say the least. This has all the
earmarks of some LMCO guy feeding a line to AvLeak in an effort to pump
up
THAAD, and little to offer in terms of real usefulness.

Well yeah, but five years ago if someone had tried to sell the idea of
shooting down airliners over the US it would have been met with
similar scorn.

Two successes out of eight intercept attempts, and that does not include the
earlier non-intercept goal failures. But they are ready to already start
*expanding* its capabilities? I don't think so.


*Planning*. As I mentioned earlier AMRAAM's improvements were laid
down before it even entered service (I remember reading about them in
the 80's) too. I don't see what the problem is. It's business as
usual in just about every area of manufacturing/ product developement.
How successful do you think Intel would be if they didn't plan what
would come after the Pentium 4 until AFTER they'd decided they
wouldn't make anymore Pentium 4s? Same thing.









My thoughts on it are this. The radar has a 600 mile range they say
so I'd think you'd need at least a couple radars with the coverage
overlapping enough so there isn't a spot they could come in close to
the coast and shoot off a SCUD-type. There's no reason the missiles
have to be colocated with the radar so you could have launchers up and
down the coast. You're not talking about defending against barrages
of barge launched missiles so it's more a matter of deploying five or
ten launch vehicles and spreading them out enough to get the coverage
you want.

It is a heck of a lot easier to just take down the barges before they
ever
get close enough.


Come up with a way to determine which one has a missile before launch
and I'm sure you'll have everybody's attention.

It would be a lot easier to set up an exclusion zone than it would be to set
up terminal defenses around all of the potential targets.


Factor in the necessary ships and infrastructure to intercept, detain,
and inspect probably THOUSANDS of ships and barges EVERY DAY and
you'll see how impractical that idea is.





You said we'd be
able to deploy these systems to protect these areas *when they are needed*,
right? So that rules out protecting against the "bolt from the blue"
scenario.

You're mixing and matching ICBM and TBM defense without any thought to
CONTEXT. The TBM defense one-battery-per-coast idea is an always-on
type of thing. The "let's move some THAADs to DC for a while to
protect against ICBMs" idea is a crisis thing. AFAIK there is no (and
has never been any) plan to deploy THAAD as a perminant ICBM terminal
defense system in any location.





If the threat is some scow launching a TBM, then taking out the
launcher is a heck of a lot more sensible than trying to take out the
missile after it is launched.

Great. So what are you going to do, start sinking every ship off the
coast? Great idea.









Look at the size. Current THAAD is a pretty small missile, and getting it
to
the range mentioned is going to take some pretty serious size increase.

Not really. Compare the dimensions of THAAD and SM-3 and SM-3 ranges
270+ miles. And according to the article they'll get a threefold
increase in coverage from software improvements alone with THAAD. As
far as size, even just a bump from 13" to 15" on the booster diameter
will give you a 33% increase in volume of propellant you can carry.

But aren't they talking about a three or four fold increase in range?

No. If you'd read what I wrote instead of saying "whatever" you'd see
they're not even looking at a TWO fold increase in range. They're
talking 223 miles vs 125.





You
are not going to get that by increasing the booster by 3 inches.

True, but they're not looking at increase in range of three or four
times. And BTW 15-13 is 2 not 3.



As to the
software bit, that may refer to improving the radar and its capabilities,
for all we know.

No kidding?







Compare MLRS, at twelve rounds per, to ATACMS, at two per; MLRS can reach
out to around 60 or more klicks, IIRC in its latest GMLRS form, while
ATACMS
covers the 200-300 km gamut. One sixth the number of missiles.

Not even remotely similar comparison. A more accurate would be
Sparrow and ESSM. Similar front end, bigger booster, same launcher,
double the range.

But you are not talking about doubling the range here.

You're right. I'm talking about LESS than doubling the range.



And why does the
MLRS/ATACMS comparison not meet the same criteria, or at least come darned
close?

Because ATACMs carries four times the payload five times the range.
We're talking about carrying the SAME payload maybe 80% further.






Why *bother* doing the math when the critter has yet to prove that it can
reliably acheive the *lesser* requirements already in place?!

Because then you wouldn't look like an idiot when you go off about
increasing the range by three or four times when that's never been
suggested.




And why bother
when protecting only against TBM's, and only when you think they *might* be
used against you (I assume you are still saying that this would be a nifty
"deploy it only when you need to" system) is pretty much worthless?


????






That's absurd. That's like saying if an F-35 can't outperform an F-22
in the air to air role it's an utter waste.

No, that is not the same thing. The F-35 is intended to perform a somewhat
different set of missions, at a cheaper cost.


Well DUH. The THAAD is intended to fulfill a different mission than
GBI. Just as the F-35 has some air-to-air capability, the THAAD would
have some anti-ICBM capability.





OTOH, what you seem to be
saying (using your F-35/F-22 model) is, "Hey, we should go ahead and plan on
giving the F-35 the same exact mission requirements we have set up for the
F-22--forget about the fact that it is a program that has yet to prove
itself capable of doing its current, more limited roles...expand the
envelope!

Nope. What I'm saying is that just because the F-35 isn't as good as
the F-22 in air-to-air doesn't mean it should be cancelled.





You're telling me there aren't four or five active military bases on
each coast?

Let's see, AFAIK Fort Ord is largely being passed over to the local
community as we speak, and there is nothing I know of between that location
and the Trident base up off the Puget Sound that meets your criteria. We
gave up those coastal artillery sites in between to the Park Service some
decades back... :-)



Go he

http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...lity/conus.htm








No, we have obviously been talking about two different things. I fixated
on
your initial ICBM post--mea culpa. That said, I see little use in
fielding
anything in that area that *can't* provide a relaiable defense against
ICBM's.

It's not *designed* to fill that role. Any ABM capability is a BONUS.

No, it was designed from the outset as an ABM system, just not one aimed at
the longer ranged/faster missiles in the ICBM class.



That's part of your problem. ABM refers to missiles designed to take
out ICBMs. Thus the A-B-M Treaty. The ABM treaty didn't give a rat's
ass about missiles designed to take out tactical or theater missiles
as long as they couldn't hit an ICBM. In the literal sense a
catcher's mitt is an ABM. It stops ballistic missiles. (Go look up
the word "missile" if you're lost). "ABM" as it's used in the rocket
sense means a system designed to take out an ICBM.








There's no sense in not using it in an emergency just because it
wasn't designed in from the beginning. Nobody would suggest taking
out helicopters with LGBs as a matter of course but it's been done.
If the ability is there it would be foolish not to take advantage of
it.

So you are saying it is a great system to have available if we get intel
that says Johnny Jihad is planning on putting up towards the coast in a dhow
with a Scud under a tarp, at which point we would presumable deploy our
THAAD systems around each and every possible target he could stike in that
manner? Sorry, but I still find that pretty lame.


I would too. However if you had any reading skills at all you'd see
that's never been suggested. What's been suggested is that with that
bigger booster it'd ALWAYS be online against that kind of threat.






It is not going to be
worth spit against the unplanned-for launch, and it is not going to be worth
much against the more lethal (and just as likely) PLA DF-31 orPLAN JL-2 that
could threaten the region.

Just as likely? How many terrorist attacks have their been in the
last five years? How many missiles has China launched at other
countries in the last five years?




IMO, let THAAD mature such that it can do what it
was intended to do--protect deployed forces from enemy TBM attacks. Anything
further is just buying into the contractor's change-order-yielded-profit
plan.

Those who fail to plan. . .






That's not at all what they're talking about. One battery does not
constitute a "major missile system". All they're saying is "hey this
bigger THAAD will be able to cover a coast with one battery. Since
we're going to have the systems ANYWAY let's cover that potential
threat (the TBMs launched from ships) and kill two birds with one
stone".

Well, we also have to worry about the possibility that they could send it
*into* the US via cargo container, and launch it from *within* our borders,
right?


So we shouldn't defend against a threat that we CAN defend against
because a different threat is more difficult? Great plan. That's
like saying you're not going to put a smoke alarm in your house
because it wouldn't help if it got hit by a hurricane. Great plan.



yes, I know that is a bit fascetious, but the point is that we can't
*afford* to dump the inevitable few billion bucks it would take to turn
THAAD into Son-of-THAAD on the basis of wanting to protect against an
*extremely* unlikely threat category.

If you'd been reading (and retaining the words) you'd see that the
"few billion bucks" are going to be spent ANYWAY. As I've said before
(AISB from here on out) improvements to THAAD are going to happen to
make it function in it's ATBM role better regardless. The coastal
defence/ terminal ABM capability is a bonus result of those
improvemnts. If you make improvements to your car engine that are
designed to improve fuel economy are you going to complain if it
happens to make the engine more powerful in the process?





Develop vanilla THAAD such that it
actually reliably works as it is supposed to, deploy it as required to
protect US forces in threat areas, let GBMI handle the ICBM threat, and take
those extra billions you saved by NOT developing THAAD into son-of-THAAD and
use them to enahnce our targetring capabilities, or our countermine
capabilities, or our ISR capabilites...the things that we DO need to do, and
for which plenty of threats do actually exist.

Apparently the US military doesn't share your assessment of the
threats.









What I'm talking about is think Patriot launchers at the end of an
airbase in the middle east instead of dedicated missile sites that are
bases in and of themselves as the Nike bases were.

But we have been talking about defending the Left Coast, not an airbase
in
the Middle East.


Are you telling me you REALLY can't follow that analogy?

See my earlier comments. Against a TBM threat to CONUS, either you have them
in place 24/7, or you are better off just planning on setting up that
exclusion zone while saving all of that additional R&D money.

AISB. . .






So you'd rather park the missiles in a garage instead of using them?
Brilliant plan.

No, I am saying that you have not shown where there is, or is likely to be,
a sufficient threat of that nature (TBM's versus CONUS) that can't be more
easily addressed with other means.


Describe those means.




Brooks (Who, while he has historically has been pro-BMD, is getting a bit
tired of it turning into an endless money pit that sucks funding away from
more readily available and vitally needed requirements, and sees this
contractor-initiated ploy as just another attempt to pad the corporate
nest).