4 ms·

Can you elaborate on or source your claim about ERIS? I'm genuinely interested in the historical and scientific question of the viability of ABM at scale. I en

by rlucas 11y ago

Can you elaborate on or source your claim about ERIS? I'm genuinely interested in the historical and scientific question of the viability of ABM at scale. I enjoyed a course perhaps 15 years ago with a professor who asserted that the challenge was intractable due to the limits of physics. Yet, I have also heard from a former aerospace engineer on the Patriot system that such objections are poppycock. ERIS was not in the matters we studied, though THAAD and the then-recent midcourse interceptor tests were.

dogma1138 11y ago
Apperantly ERIS (Exoatmospheric Reentry-vehicle Interceptor Subsystem) wasn't deployed directly but transferred into THAAD and GMD. http://astronautix.com/lvs/eris.htm http://astronautix.com/lvs/eris.htm Scale is a different question, it's a matter of number of interceptors vs number of threats. Iron Dome and it's evolution Stunner/David's Sling(used the Radar, tracking and core interceptor form ID with an added booster stage) are quite capable of handling large salvos. HAMAS attempted to saturate the Iron Dome missile defense shield with large salvos of 30-60 launches but the system still continued to operate with a very good success rate. Now Iron Dome has an advantage over systems that would presumably be employed to counter mainly nuclear threats as it can ignore targets that will not directly hit populated areas which would be somewhat harder to ignore when nukes are in play. Any leakage of munitions is also not as huge of a threat as with nuclear warheads, but losing 2 cities instead of 40 is still worth every penny if it ever will come to a nuclear exchange, and with a rogue actor / single launch all of your interceptors can focus on a single target which gives you very good leakage protection. From my experience what scientists often miss is that a system doesn't have to be 100% effective, and you also can have multiple systems (which is the current doctrine, early/co-stage interception, exo-atmospheric interception, terminal stage interception, near target interception etc.) and depending on your target hit success rate use multiple interceptors. Missile defense is very real, systems like Iron Dome are bigger technological advancement than things like GMD they can intercept a target as small as a mortar shell in under 30 seconds which one would never thought would've been possible even 10 years ago. However considering that 15 years ago systems like Arrow (2) and Agies/SM-3 were already in advance testing or already deployed with quite a successful track record I'm not sure why a professor would argue that physics make it impossible, It was never a question of physics to some extent more about sensors, software, and the ability to actually terminally guide interceptors well enough to hit anything, but even during the years of SDI some branches of the program had successful intercepts.

by rlucas 11y ago

dogma1138 11y ago

Apperantly ERIS (Exoatmospheric Reentry-vehicle Interceptor Subsystem) wasn't deployed directly but transferred into THAAD and GMD. http://astronautix.com/lvs/eris.htm http://astronautix.com/lvs/eris.htm Scale is a different question, it's a matter of number of interceptors vs number of threats. Iron Dome and it's evolution Stunner/David's Sling(used the Radar, tracking and core interceptor form ID with an added booster stage) are quite capable of handling large salvos. HAMAS attempted to saturate the Iron Dome missile defense shield with large salvos of 30-60 launches but the system still continued to operate with a very good success rate. Now Iron Dome has an advantage over systems that would presumably be employed to counter mainly nuclear threats as it can ignore targets that will not directly hit populated areas which would be somewhat harder to ignore when nukes are in play. Any leakage of munitions is also not as huge of a threat as with nuclear warheads, but losing 2 cities instead of 40 is still worth every penny if it ever will come to a nuclear exchange, and with a rogue actor / single launch all of your interceptors can focus on a single target which gives you very good leakage protection. From my experience what scientists often miss is that a system doesn't have to be 100% effective, and you also can have multiple systems (which is the current doctrine, early/co-stage interception, exo-atmospheric interception, terminal stage interception, near target interception etc.) and depending on your target hit success rate use multiple interceptors. Missile defense is very real, systems like Iron Dome are bigger technological advancement than things like GMD they can intercept a target as small as a mortar shell in under 30 seconds which one would never thought would've been possible even 10 years ago. However considering that 15 years ago systems like Arrow (2) and Agies/SM-3 were already in advance testing or already deployed with quite a successful track record I'm not sure why a professor would argue that physics make it impossible, It was never a question of physics to some extent more about sensors, software, and the ability to actually terminally guide interceptors well enough to hit anything, but even during the years of SDI some branches of the program had successful intercepts.