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Explode the interceptor?
by trisimix 9y ago
Explode the interceptor?
- olympus 9y agoThis 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 agoAs 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 agoWell detonating nuclear warheads (literally) near some important asset of yours is probably always some kind of last ditch effort.
- bigiain 9y agoI 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 agoYeah, probably not the sort of thing you go and do to stop a 5-kiloton conventional warhead.
- Symmetry 9y agoNot 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 agohaving something deployed near encounter ... damaging flare/shrapnel, a flock of timed explosive ...