4 ms·

They're going very fast and even small errors in the estimate of their position and velocity will be enough to miss. Also, the motion is less predictable if th

They're going very fast and even small errors in the estimate of their position and velocity will be enough to miss. Also, the motion is less predictable if they're in the atmosphere.

agumonkey 9y ago
Sure if you try to catch a bullet with a bullet you're making your life harder. Anyway to increase the interception surface/volume ?
- trisimix 9y ago
  Explode the interceptor?
  - olympus 9y ago
    This doesn't work well for ballistic missiles. A few ounces of shrapnel doesn't knock the missile very far from it's trajectory. You'd have to get lucky to break the fuse, and even then you'd have a big hunk of explosives heading toward the target and making a big crater. Plus a lot of old missiles have such simple fusing systems that you probably won't break them with just a bit of shrapnel anyway.
    - Bartweiss 9y ago
      As I understand it, the only serious "explode the interceptor" proposal was to use nuclear interceptors against ICBMs. That provides a modest radius of non-projectile destruction, and more importantly provides a large radius of fuse/control-disrupting radiation. So when it comes to "shooting down a Scud near the ground over a city", you're exactly right. Blowing up your interceptor only works when you've got a high-tech target and are willing to make quite a mess yourself to stop the thing.
      - blattimwind 9y ago
        Well detonating nuclear warheads (literally) near some important asset of yours is probably always some kind of last ditch effort.
        bigiain 9y ago
        I did a tour of the Nike missile site in the Marin Headlands / Golden Gate Park once. They were very careful to "neither confirm nor deny" whether the site ever had nuclear payloads, but they _did_ make a point to tell everyone that the beautiful mechanical targeting computers had Sacramento programmed in as a target, "just in case"...
        Bartweiss 9y ago
        Yeah, probably not the sort of thing you go and do to stop a 5-kiloton conventional warhead.
        Symmetry 9y ago
        Not necessarily, it would be going off pretty high. Much higher than in this video with people directly underneath. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlE1BdOAfVc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlE1BdOAfVc
  - agumonkey 9y ago
    having something deployed near encounter ... damaging flare/shrapnel, a flock of timed explosive ...
- orclev 9y ago
  Not really, I mean, your opponent is the one controlling the size of the thing you're trying to intercept and they're not going to be trying to make things easier on you. The only viable option given that is to go for area saturation and basically play the odds, but that's really expensive because not only do you need lots of interceptors in that case, but each one needs to be capable of getting a kinetic kill since there's no guarantee which one (if any) will actually hit. At some point I imagine the interceptors become a bigger danger to each other than they are to the thing you're trying to intercept.
  - agumonkey 9y ago
    I see. Were there research into non destructive interception ? a missile catching up another one and binding to it to divert it ?
    - khuey 9y ago
      That would be even harder because now you need to match position and velocity instead of just position.
      - agumonkey 9y ago
        I understand but I'm still curious..
- liotier 9y ago
  > Any way to increase the interception surface/volume ? Yes - the usual way is to fit the interceptor with a nuclear warhead (see Sprint, Spartan and Nike Zeus on the US side - Fakel 51T6, Novator 53T6 and S-300PS/S-300PM on the Soviet side)... But it has sort of fallen out of fashion...
  - nabla9 9y ago
    These weapons used enhanced radiation warhead (neutron bomb). The mechanism was use of neutron flux to disable incoming nuclear warhead. Radiation hardening the warhead against this type of attack would make it less effective.
    - rdtsc 9y ago
      Wouldn't the neutron flux mess with the properties of the nuclear payload? Shielding against a neutron flux from nuclear explosion probably not practical given the sizes warheads.
      - jhayward 9y ago
        If I recall correctly the case of the re-entry vehicle tends to be stuff like depleted uranium, which is pretty good protection against neutron flux up until the point where it begins significant breeder contributions. You'd basically have the hit the vehicle anyway to get close enough for that.
        rdtsc 9y ago
        Uranium or lead, heavy nuclei that shield well against gamma radiation would do little for neutrons. Neutrons needs something with light atom like hydrogen - water or maybe polyethylene and lots of it to slow down. So a small nuclear explosion which emits a neutron pulse might work pretty well. It would hellish if it somehow exploded over a population center, though. Didn't get hit by the ICBM (good). Everyone's bones melted (bad).
      - nabla9 9y ago

They're going very fast and even small errors in the estimate of their position and velocity will be enough to miss. Also, the motion is less predictable if they're in the atmosphere.

agumonkey 9y ago

Sure if you try to catch a bullet with a bullet you're making your life harder. Anyway to increase the interception surface/volume ?

trisimix 9y ago
Explode the interceptor?
- olympus 9y ago
  This doesn't work well for ballistic missiles. A few ounces of shrapnel doesn't knock the missile very far from it's trajectory. You'd have to get lucky to break the fuse, and even then you'd have a big hunk of explosives heading toward the target and making a big crater. Plus a lot of old missiles have such simple fusing systems that you probably won't break them with just a bit of shrapnel anyway.
  - Bartweiss 9y ago
    As I understand it, the only serious "explode the interceptor" proposal was to use nuclear interceptors against ICBMs. That provides a modest radius of non-projectile destruction, and more importantly provides a large radius of fuse/control-disrupting radiation. So when it comes to "shooting down a Scud near the ground over a city", you're exactly right. Blowing up your interceptor only works when you've got a high-tech target and are willing to make quite a mess yourself to stop the thing.
    - blattimwind 9y ago
      Well detonating nuclear warheads (literally) near some important asset of yours is probably always some kind of last ditch effort.
      - bigiain 9y ago
        I did a tour of the Nike missile site in the Marin Headlands / Golden Gate Park once. They were very careful to "neither confirm nor deny" whether the site ever had nuclear payloads, but they _did_ make a point to tell everyone that the beautiful mechanical targeting computers had Sacramento programmed in as a target, "just in case"...
      - Bartweiss 9y ago
        Yeah, probably not the sort of thing you go and do to stop a 5-kiloton conventional warhead.
      - Symmetry 9y ago
        Not necessarily, it would be going off pretty high. Much higher than in this video with people directly underneath. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlE1BdOAfVc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlE1BdOAfVc
- agumonkey 9y ago
  having something deployed near encounter ... damaging flare/shrapnel, a flock of timed explosive ...
orclev 9y ago
Not really, I mean, your opponent is the one controlling the size of the thing you're trying to intercept and they're not going to be trying to make things easier on you. The only viable option given that is to go for area saturation and basically play the odds, but that's really expensive because not only do you need lots of interceptors in that case, but each one needs to be capable of getting a kinetic kill since there's no guarantee which one (if any) will actually hit. At some point I imagine the interceptors become a bigger danger to each other than they are to the thing you're trying to intercept.
- agumonkey 9y ago
  I see. Were there research into non destructive interception ? a missile catching up another one and binding to it to divert it ?
  - khuey 9y ago
    That would be even harder because now you need to match position and velocity instead of just position.
    - agumonkey 9y ago
      I understand but I'm still curious..
liotier 9y ago
> Any way to increase the interception surface/volume ? Yes - the usual way is to fit the interceptor with a nuclear warhead (see Sprint, Spartan and Nike Zeus on the US side - Fakel 51T6, Novator 53T6 and S-300PS/S-300PM on the Soviet side)... But it has sort of fallen out of fashion...
- nabla9 9y ago
  These weapons used enhanced radiation warhead (neutron bomb). The mechanism was use of neutron flux to disable incoming nuclear warhead. Radiation hardening the warhead against this type of attack would make it less effective.
  - rdtsc 9y ago
    Wouldn't the neutron flux mess with the properties of the nuclear payload? Shielding against a neutron flux from nuclear explosion probably not practical given the sizes warheads.
    - jhayward 9y ago
      If I recall correctly the case of the re-entry vehicle tends to be stuff like depleted uranium, which is pretty good protection against neutron flux up until the point where it begins significant breeder contributions. You'd basically have the hit the vehicle anyway to get close enough for that.
      - rdtsc 9y ago
        Uranium or lead, heavy nuclei that shield well against gamma radiation would do little for neutrons. Neutrons needs something with light atom like hydrogen - water or maybe polyethylene and lots of it to slow down. So a small nuclear explosion which emits a neutron pulse might work pretty well. It would hellish if it somehow exploded over a population center, though. Didn't get hit by the ICBM (good). Everyone's bones melted (bad).
    - nabla9 9y ago