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Actually no, there is lots of tech to stop ICBMs, in launch, orbital and re-entry phase. Hypersonic flight basically avoids all the weaknesses exploited by thi

Actually no, there is lots of tech to stop ICBMs, in launch, orbital and re-entry phase. Hypersonic flight basically avoids all the weaknesses exploited by this older anti-ICBM tech.

gruez 7y ago
>Actually no, there is lots of tech to stop ICBMs, in launch, orbital and re-entry phase. what's the success rate on those? afaik they're irrelevant, at least to russia/us because you can evade them by simply launching enough missiles (you only need a few missiles to take out all major population centers).
- garmaine 7y ago
  Classified. But the story of nuclear war is a bit more complicated than that. Sadly, city destruction doesn't usually fall into core considerations of win/loss.
  - oAlbe 7y ago
    > Sadly, city destruction doesn't usually fall into core considerations of win/loss. What does? Acts of occupation?
    - chipsa 7y ago
      Destroying their ability or willingness to make war. Doesn't need to be occupation, but if they can still fight, you haven't won yet. And destroying cities usually doesn't do much for stopping them from fighting. It mostly just makes them want to fight harder. The US lost the Vietnam War because we lost the willingness to fight. We can't effectively end the Afghanistan war because we can neither keep them from fighting, nor keep them from wanting to fight.
- chipsa 7y ago
  The problem is launching enough missiles. Interceptors are expensive to develop, but cheap to make more of, and have relatively low cost of command and control (it doesn't matter if one gets launched by accident, right now). ICBMs are expensive to develop, expensive to make more of, and are expensive for command and control (because if one gets launched by accident, the world ends). So it's always going to be cheaper to make more interceptors than ICBMs. But beyond that, interceptors make the entire targeting situation more complex. If you've got 1000 warheads, and no defenses, you can hit 1000 targets (not actually true, because you have a certain amount of failure rate, but anyway). If you're facing 10 interceptors, and some of your targets must be destroyed, then you have to launch enough warheads at each target that must be destroyed to still go through even if all of them are intercepted. So now you have ~90 must destroy targets you can actually hit with your 1000 warheads, even though you're only facing 10 interceptors. Those 10 interceptors have effectively negated 900 enemy warheads.
  - gruez 7y ago
    >So it's always going to be cheaper to make more interceptors than ICBMs. What's the source for this? Because I've also heard the opposite. Also, given that interceptors have to travel faster and more accurate than warhead ICBMs, you'd think they're more expensive to develop and have a higher unit cost. >Those 10 interceptors have effectively negated 900 enemy warheads. * The calculation you presented only really makes sense for very high intercept success rates. If the intercept rate is (conservatively) 80%, if the enemy sends 10 missiles, and you use all 10 interceptors on each, there's still a 91% chance of at least one missile coming through (1-0.8^10). The odds get better if you have double the number of interceptors (34%), but it's still unacceptably high. You'd need overwhelmingly more interceptors. * I doubt there's 90 "must destroy" targets. If you spend all your interceptors protecting one target, even if that survives, your country is still utterly devastated that there's 0 hope of a counter attack. Does it really matter that washington, DC survived but the rest of the us is reduced to rubble?
    - garmaine 7y ago
      Nukes are expensive.

Actually no, there is lots of tech to stop ICBMs, in launch, orbital and re-entry phase. Hypersonic flight basically avoids all the weaknesses exploited by this older anti-ICBM tech.

gruez 7y ago

>Actually no, there is lots of tech to stop ICBMs, in launch, orbital and re-entry phase. what's the success rate on those? afaik they're irrelevant, at least to russia/us because you can evade them by simply launching enough missiles (you only need a few missiles to take out all major population centers).

garmaine 7y ago
Classified. But the story of nuclear war is a bit more complicated than that. Sadly, city destruction doesn't usually fall into core considerations of win/loss.
- oAlbe 7y ago
  > Sadly, city destruction doesn't usually fall into core considerations of win/loss. What does? Acts of occupation?
  - chipsa 7y ago
    Destroying their ability or willingness to make war. Doesn't need to be occupation, but if they can still fight, you haven't won yet. And destroying cities usually doesn't do much for stopping them from fighting. It mostly just makes them want to fight harder. The US lost the Vietnam War because we lost the willingness to fight. We can't effectively end the Afghanistan war because we can neither keep them from fighting, nor keep them from wanting to fight.
chipsa 7y ago
The problem is launching enough missiles. Interceptors are expensive to develop, but cheap to make more of, and have relatively low cost of command and control (it doesn't matter if one gets launched by accident, right now). ICBMs are expensive to develop, expensive to make more of, and are expensive for command and control (because if one gets launched by accident, the world ends). So it's always going to be cheaper to make more interceptors than ICBMs. But beyond that, interceptors make the entire targeting situation more complex. If you've got 1000 warheads, and no defenses, you can hit 1000 targets (not actually true, because you have a certain amount of failure rate, but anyway). If you're facing 10 interceptors, and some of your targets must be destroyed, then you have to launch enough warheads at each target that must be destroyed to still go through even if all of them are intercepted. So now you have ~90 must destroy targets you can actually hit with your 1000 warheads, even though you're only facing 10 interceptors. Those 10 interceptors have effectively negated 900 enemy warheads.
- gruez 7y ago
  >So it's always going to be cheaper to make more interceptors than ICBMs. What's the source for this? Because I've also heard the opposite. Also, given that interceptors have to travel faster and more accurate than warhead ICBMs, you'd think they're more expensive to develop and have a higher unit cost. >Those 10 interceptors have effectively negated 900 enemy warheads. * The calculation you presented only really makes sense for very high intercept success rates. If the intercept rate is (conservatively) 80%, if the enemy sends 10 missiles, and you use all 10 interceptors on each, there's still a 91% chance of at least one missile coming through (1-0.8^10). The odds get better if you have double the number of interceptors (34%), but it's still unacceptably high. You'd need overwhelmingly more interceptors. * I doubt there's 90 "must destroy" targets. If you spend all your interceptors protecting one target, even if that survives, your country is still utterly devastated that there's 0 hope of a counter attack. Does it really matter that washington, DC survived but the rest of the us is reduced to rubble?
  - garmaine 7y ago
    Nukes are expensive.