US Missile Shield already Defeated?

Anonymous Coward writes "Forbes is reporting that although interest in the missile defense system has waned while the US military addresses more pressing matters of immediate concern, the Russians have already developed an anti-missile-defense missile designed to defeat the system. Were the US military to actually prove that the missile defense shield worked, the Russian rocket's "zig-zag" flightpath taken en route to it's target would render the shield useless. Russian President Vladimir Putin says that the non-ballistic trajectory would leave the projectile virtually impossible to down or divert. The author feels inclined to say that the missile defense shield was intended as a defense against rogue states such as North Korea that have not acquired this technology yet."

Anti-anti-missle defense

[AKAImBatman]

Were the US military to actually prove that the missile defense shield worked, the Russian rocket's "zig-zag" flightpath taken en route to it's target would render the shield useless.

Welcome to the game. If you build a better mousetrap, someone will come up with a better mouse. This will then force someone to come up with an even better mousetrap, and so repeats the cycle.

Personally, I'd much rather have the technology than not. As long as the technology exists, it can be improved upon. Perhaps to the level where the zig-zag isn't good enough. Perhaps we'll reach a parity whereby we'll be able to stop 50% or more of any anti-shield equipped missile. We won't know unless we try. And every bit of progress drops one more small threat out of the equation, leaving us free to concentrate of the big threats.

The alternative is to throw up your hands and give up.

What about an EMP?

[ShamusYoung]

What I've never been able to figure out, is why are we trying to get a missle that can hit another missle? That is HARD. Laying aside the question as to whether the entire system is a good idea or not, why not design an EMP-based weapon that will detonate NEAR the other missle? Nukes are complex and can't detonate without some sort of computer running the show. Instead of trying to detonate the missle (and spreading its radioactive payload all over the place) it seems like it would be better to kill the computer and keep the weapon confined to its impact crater.

Re:North Korea

[stevew]

No - but they have subs. Missle plus sub is a bad thing.

The simple fact is that the shield was NEVER built to defend against the Russians. When it is finally completely deployed, it MIGHT be sufficient to give some protection against the Chineese because they don't have 5000 warheads... And they had something like 18 missles - though I think they are building that number up some as the US proceeds with buliding it's defense.

So - it is mostly against the "rogue" state.

The other thing that people don't realize is that this is a system of systems. There are several levels of defense that are being worked on.

The Aegis cruiser now can be upgraded for theater missle defense (and it has a fair test record.) this is a fielded system.

Then there is the Airborne Laser sytem (big 747 with BIG laser) that is used to knock out things in the buster phase. (Still very much a technology under development.)

Finally - Patriots have been upgraded to do a better job than they did during Desert Storm, and actually also have a decent test record.

This is no surprise

[johndierks]

Shooting down a ballistic missile that you fire is hard enough. The scale of the problems is immense. They're trying to shoot down an object that is somewhere in 10 billion cubic miles of space, that's going as fast as 15,000 miles per hour. The physics of the problem are near impossible for graceful newtonian arcs, let alone the engineering of such a feat. The solution to the problem is such a tenuous single state solution that adding any other factors (zig-zagging missiles, decoy missiles, or something as expected as slight shift in air density) make the task functionally impossible, given the little or no warning that a nuclear missile attack tends to arrive with.

Rogue state?

[Anonymous Coward]

So where have North Korea invaded lately? They don't seem very "rogue" compared with another certain country who has invaded two other countries in the past few years with no justification, and is building up to invading another.

Missiles are so 20th Century.

[tinrobot]

I doubt a rogue state would use missiles. Why spend a few billion on a fancy missile system when you can drive the nuke over the border, fly it over in a cargo jet, or float it over in a shipping container?

Besides, missiles are very visible and give away the country of origin. If North Korea fires a nuclear tipped missile, we'll know exactly where it took off and respond accordingly. If it comes over quietly, we really won't know exactly who sent it.

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up. The missile shield is pure propaganda, it doesn't work. In desert storm, the western media hyped up how patriot missiles were stopping Iraqi missiles from bombing Isreal, in fact later reports showed that they stopped none, that's right 0. And, there was no evidence that the Patriot ever hit a missile in testing either. A lot of the technology from that era is used in the current proposed shield with the same lack of success in test. but yet again, the current day media hypes it up and leads people to falsely beleive it works.

Re:Mouse or Food?

[AKAImBatman]

And yet the vast majority of Russia lives in poverty.

Considering that my wife is from Russia, I'm well aware of the situation.

Anyone find any numbers on what these "zig-zagging" missiles cost to develop? Anyone else sick of seeing countries burn money on defense while their people starve?

According to Putin, the missiles already have this capability. It's just a matter of reprogramming their trajectory.

That being said, it's up to the Russian government to decide how it spends its money. The missile shield is currently being developed as a general defense. I don't see any reason why Putin wants to go toe to toe with a current ally. Rather, he's just whipping out some nonsense to make himself feel better. Remember, this is the same guy who pocketed a Superbowl ring, and nearly caused an international incident by declaring that no libraries are needed since they can fit the entire contents on microfilm. Trust me, this guy has more gaffes than President Bush, and isn't even as smart to boot. (Which is saying something.)

Putting Russia back together is a hard job, but I don't believe for a minute that he's the one weilding the real power. He's just the face they put on it. (And not a very good one, at that.)

Re:What about an EMP?

[Erich]

Nukes are complex and can't detonate without some sort of computer running the show.

Incorrect. There was no computer in either of the nuclear weapons used in the field. Most of what you need is a supercritical mass of highly fissile material. The two nuclear weapons used against Japan in WWII used a small, regular explosion to combine two sub-critical masses of fissile material together.

This is incorrect

[j. andrew rogers]

This all makes a lot of assumptions about the nature of the new ABM systems that are incorrect. First, the "zig-zag" trajectory is definitely NOT a problem for the terminal guidance package, which was designed to track and destroy agile and evasive targets and is currently deployed in other very successful weapon systems. A ballistic missile has nowhere near the maneuverability and agility of other types of targets this guidance package has a 90+% kill rate on. The primary failure in the ABM tests is in a brand spanking new rocket design that has had numerous problems getting the guidance system where it wants to go due in large part to its extreme performance envelope. It is worth noting that the sensor and discrimination characteristics of the terminal guidance package are much, much better than most people are assuming and is largely impervious to spoofing and decoys. Again, this is well-tested in other weapon systems that use the same underlying terminal guidance technology (e.g. AIM-9X), or in anti-ballistic missile tests on more reliable rockets.

Regardless of whether it is a good idea to have an effective ABM system in place, the technology will work. The rocket problems (which are a decade past due) are eventually being worked out, as several unrelated weapon systems are dependent on the same rocket technology working correctly. The question is not whether it can work (it can) but whether or not deploying and maintaining a comprehensive ABM system is worth the expenditure, which it may not be. The money spent on the guidance package is widely reused, and the rocket technology is slated to replace many existing rocket powered systems, once they work out the kinks. In that respect, the military research has not been a waste as the primary components are or will be used in many other places. The new ABM systems they are testing have very little relation, either in design or technology, to the old existing systems; most of current "ABM missiles" like the Patriot are anti-aircraft systems where they hacked the software to hopefully hit missiles outside the original design envelope.

This really should be a policy and fiscal argument, not a technology argument, as the technology will eventually work as originally designed. The argument that there is something fundamentally wrong with the design is a loser and poorly informed, but a much stronger argument can be made about the mission of such a weapon system.

US will _not_ Nuke an enemy

[Kefaa]

We can retaliate, but this idea that we can "glass their a$$" if they nuke us is just false. We may, and may is really strong word, be able to drop a tactical nuke. But that is about it.

Why would we not just wipe them out, you ask? Because we do not have "limited theater nuclear weapons." That's the fancy term for "we cannot stop the fallout from moving." So if NK attacks and we just send in one ICBM, we will spread fallout over NK, Japan and China. NK - well they got what they asked for. Japan - they are an ally and we would be really sorry. China -- well they are going to look at this about the way we would if China nuked Mexico (assuming Mexico deserved it), and Texas became a wasteland.

The middle east? Just as bad. Nuke Syria and you are going to glass a bunch of desert and poison a lot of people. These will then become terrorists of tomorrow (or freedom fighters depending on your view). On top of which Israel would be drawn in, they would use a nuke or two and suddenly you can get all the oil for free but you need a lead suit to fill up at the pump.

In reality, if they get one to us, they would hurt us big. Not because they would win the war (the knew that would not happen), but they would ruin the economy. Look at post 9-11 economics, four buildings and 2600 people die (very bad). It took two years to get the economy back and we could go to ground zero that afternoon. Now imagine 9-11b where Los Angeles is uninhabitable for even 5 years and having to move 7 million people to other areas of the country.

As someone said on the Sunday talk show circuit, we have to be right 100% of the time, without creating a prison for our population. They only have to get it right once.

Re:Mouse or Food?

[mahmud]

Do you speak Russian? How many Putin's speaches have you read? Have you ever listened to his interviews?

Putin might not be saint, but he is definitely not stupid.

And Putin being a marionette?

You sir are one of the most original thinkers of 21st century!

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong

[TripMaster Monkey]

You must be joking if you're trying to pass off United Press International [upi.com] as an unbiased, objective source. The mere title of their current front page story, Analysis: Bush -- Never surrender to evil [upi.com], is enough to raise serious doubts...doubts that are confirmed within the first two paragraphs of the story.

How about we instead rely upon a less partisan, more respected source....say, Reuters [reuters.com]?

From the Reuters article:

The missile defense system, which has not staged any intercept tests for almost a year following two failures, has faced criticism from some lawmakers and government watchdogs, who worry the system has not been adequately tested.

  Lehner said the agency planned four tests of the system this year, including two intercept tests in the second half of 2006, fulfilling another recommendation in the new Pentagon report.

The report said the battle management system was "making progress, but has not yet demonstrated engagement control."

In short, it doesn't work, and noone knows when it will, if ever. Any claims to the contrary are pure astroturf.

Topol SS 27 and SS-N-22 aka sunburn aka Brahmos...

[InfinityEdge]

Read up on where the Ruskies have been spending their defense dollars. Functional anti-ABM missiles is very possible.

Sunburn/moskit/Brahmos http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russi a/moskit.htm [globalsecurity.org]

The 3M82 "Mosquito" missiles have the fastest flying speed among all antiship missiles in today's world. It reaches Mach 3 at a high altitude and its maximum low-altitude speed is M2.2, triple the speed of the American Harpoon. The missile takes only 2 minutes to cover its full range and manufacturers state that 1-2 missiles could incapacitate a destroyer while 1-5 missiles could sink a 20000 ton merchantman. An extended range missile, 9M80E is now available.

http://www.sinodefence.com/missile/antiship/3m80.a sp [sinodefence.com]The missile is armed with a conventional 300 kg penetrating warhead containing 150 kg of high explosive, or (in the Russian Navy) a 200 kiloton nuclear warhead. Even with a conventional warhead, 3M-80E missile is large enough so that one hit from a single missile could seriously damage or possibly even sink a U.S. Navy major surface combatant, a hit from one or possibly even a few conventionally-armed Moskit missiles might not be enough to halt flight operations on a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier because of the carrier's much larger size and its high degree of compartmentalization. A nuclear-armed 3M-80E Moskit, however, could easily destroy a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier (and any other nearby ships), even if the warhead detonates at some distance from the carrier.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/india /brahmos.htm [globalsecurity.org]India expects to significantly enhance its long-range strike abilities with the BrahMos cruise missile, jointly developed by New Delhi and Moscow. The supersonic missile -- which derives its name from the Brahmaputra and Moscow rivers in both countries - has a range of almost 300 km and is designed for use with land, sea and aerial platforms. The Indian Air Force (IAF) is reportedly considering the possibility of fitting the BrahMos on its Su-30 combat jets. The production will commence by end of 2003 for induction in the year 2004.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/2005/04/16/stories/20050 41602941400.htm [hinduonnet.com]BrahMos is essentially an anti-ship supersonic cruise missile that flies at a speed of 2.8 to 3 Mach (2.8 to three times the speed of sound). It can take out targets 290 km away.

http://www.brahmos.com/ [brahmos.com]Brahmos web page SS-27 / Topol-M / RS-12M(1|2) http://www.missilethreat.com/missiles/ss-27_russia .html [missilethreat.com]he Russian SS-27, or Topol-M, is an intercontinental-range, ground-based, solid propellant ballistic missile. It represents the pinnacle of ballistic missile technology, incorporating modern fuel and warhead designs, as well as being capable of being launched from both missile silos and Transporter-Erector-Launcher (TEL) vehicles. Current Russian accounts stress that the SS-27 is invulnerable to any modern anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defenses. Yuriy Solomonov, director of the Moscow Institute of Heat Technology and designer-general of the Topol family of missiles, has stated that the SS-27 will be the foundation of the Russian strategic nuclear arsenal by 2015.

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/icbm/rt-2pmu. htm [fas.org]The single-warhead RT-2UTTH Topol-M is an advanced version of the silo-based and mobile Topol intercontinental ballistic missile. The SS-25 Topol is generally similar to the American Minuteman-2, while the more sophisticated SS-27 Topol-M is comparabl

Re:North Korea

[Chokai]

North Korea's subs are based on technology from the mid to late 1950s, specifically the Soviet Romeo and Whiskey classes and some possibly from the Foxtrot. These were in turn derived from the German type XXI u-boat which was deployed in the last days of WWII. The basic design is over 50 years old. How many of these subs are even capable of operating is a matter of some conjecture but that they lack fuel for even basic training operations is well known. Add to the fact that the North Koreans have no experience whatsoever at handling missiles on a sub at sea. Although they could of course if it was "Hollywood Style", but whether that would work even as a one off is debatable.

To put just how far the US is ahead, even China's "top of the line" subs which are nuclear are on technology from the 1960s are so far behind the US that we apparently do not assign attack subs to follow them full time as we did to Russian subs during the cold war. They can be found easily at any time, case in point: US subs have followed Soviet/Russian SSBNs for thier entire patrols (90+ days without being detected), read Blind Man's Bluff for a fascinating overview of US Sub operations & espionage.

You're not wrong

[jd]

Personally, I'm not enthused with the methods used, anyway. The annual robot table tennis championships have proven time and again that striking moving objects is an extremely difficult problem. And they have the advantage that the bat can be large, relatively speaking, and doesn't have to move very much.

The methods are only good against specific types of target, so any kind of cruise missile is going to get straight through an anti ballistic missile system. Drones and "intelligent" self-controlling vehicles will also go right through. Of course, this all assumes anyone would use a missile. Why bother, when a robot with tracks - dropped near the coast - could drive itself to its target? The DARPA contest proved quite nicely that robots can handle just about any terrain and go from A to B without the need for human intervention.

The "correct" design needs a combination of mechanisms. I would put a visible light camera, thermal camera and RADAR on the anti-missile missile, as the combination will defeat just about any jamming mechanism and - because you're tracking directly - would not rely on guesswork on trajectory, would not be specific to a type of target. I'd also have two airborne tracking systems, which the missile could direct, to maximise information available and minimise the risk of failure in any one component.

Such a system would need to also be designed with maximum manoeverability in mind. Winglets, steering jets, whatever it took to be able to turn the thing quickly in any direction. You'd also need to take a lot of space up with the computer needed to be able to handle all of the navigation and prediction. For that reason, I'd probably go with a ramjet over a rocket, to reduce the space needed for fuel. (To start the ramjet, you'd use a gas cannon to give you the initial velocity needed.)

If you designed a system this way, it should be fairly effective against any kind of attack - EXCEPT ones involving EMP (as it would wipe the computer systems) OR ones that were travelling so fast that convergence was impossible within the range of the sensors (hydrogen-fuelled ramjets can go up to mach 6, but the hypersonic system being tested by the USAF is supposed to do mach 20 and the Australian scramjet status is completely unknown - other than it works).

"But our enemies don't have US-built systems!" Uhh, a certain Osama Bin Laden was supplied with US weapon systems, as was Saddam Hussein. Not all US allies are terribly careful with who they sell to, either. It is not sane to assume the best possible case for a system that is designed specifically for the worst possible scenario. If you are already assuming that you're in the worst of all possible worlds, don't deliberately weaken the scenario for the sole purpose of artificially reducing the problem to something that looks good to the ignorant but won't do anything for you in practice.

Re:Anti-anti-missle defense

[Anonymous Coward]

No no no, that was hardly a missle. More like a Volkswagon....

Seriously though, what has the US done recently that you _would_ consider "un-American"? I mean, it's not like we're:
* making up blatant lies so we have an excuse to invade other countires
* torture and kill bound captives
* ship our own citizens off to god knows where without charge or chance to defend themselves
* spy on our own citizens on our own soil without even a retroactive, laughably easy to get warrant
* spending billions on trillions of dollars on crap we neither need or want
* accepting millions in bribes and kickbacks... er, sorry "lobbying funds"
* whining about a free and fair democratic election resulting in someone we don't actually approve of getting elected (Palestine)
* rigging our own elections through Diebold, et. al.

Oh! You said "UN-american"! Silly me. :p
-Will

Re:Anti-anti-missle defense

[Damvan]

"However all of the american peace activists would like to see evil USA wiped off the map anyways."

Did some peace activist kick you in the balls or something? Show me one citation, anywhere, of an AMERICAN peace activist wanting to see the USA wiped off the map.

"Our enemys are aware that even many of our own citizens are anti-USA"

Let me guess, I am anti-USA because I don't like Bush? Are Republicans anti-USA because they didn't like Clinton?

Re:Anti-anti-missle defense

[Anonymous Coward]

"...attack on ANYONE from safely behind a missile shield is quite un-American" This the same America that attacks the poorest, weakest countries on Earth such as Afganistan or Iraq (which had weapons inspectors and spys making damm sure there were no WMD for 10 years), using long-range unmanned weapon systems like cruise missiles to ensure safety?

Given that the US doesn't seem to be too keen to bring 'freedom' to countries like North Korea, Saudi-Arabia or any country that might actually have WMD, I (and presumably others) can only assume that the USA would indeed use the
possibility of "attack with impunity" to hit other countries.

Just look at the cruise missile, or more recently UAV hits, over the last 10 years - because the US can 'safely' hurl a few missiles into somebodies backyard without the possibility of losing any US lives directly, they go ahead and do so without thinking about the long-term repercussion.

 

Re:What about an EMP?

[j. andrew rogers]

Some research was done in the 1980s on placing junk in the path of incoming warheads but was scrapped. The problem is that it is damn hard to generate a screen of junk of sufficient density that you will be guaranteed a high probability of a kill without making the screen footprint so small that it becomes a precision terminal guidance problem again.

Kinetic kill is the simplest and most reliable mechanism, and as it turns out it is not too hard either. Chasing down a slippery target is something that the we have almost half a century of research on, and many other precision weapon systems that work very well are required to track and impact evasive and agile targets. The primary difficulty is having the rocket do precisely what the computer tells it to. Building a rocket that is both extremely fast and which responds precisely to guidance commands is a non-trivial problem because the materials tend to start to lose their precision at the outer edges of their performance envelope or simply fail in unpredictable ways.

When the new ABM system was specified, it was also specified to use a new research rocket technology that has matured much more slowly than expected. In many ways it is a marvel of exotic materials science that it can do what it does, and they have had a hard time making it reliable. There are good technical reasons to use the new rocket system for ABM, but it has hindered the ABM program; the guidance package was basically finished more than a decade ago.

Re:All sorts of reasons

[DerekLyons]

There are too many easy ways to defeat the shield - another really easy choice is to drop dummies all over the place (like missle command, except only a few are live - and you don't know which ones). Balloons can be used to distract targetting too. I went to a pretty convincing talk about this at the Hopkins Physics department.

I've seen the presentation, or at least multiple one like it. There's a lot they don't tell you - mostly because their specialty is handwaving objections, not missile design. (I.E. it's not as simple as the eggheads suggest.) Another failing of theirs (a common actually) is that they insist on comparing yesterday shield against tommorows anti-shield tactics... And the tactics are allowed (in their handwaving) to evolve and mutate endlessly - but the shield is not.