41 ms·

I was under the impression that "shoot the missile down with another missile" style ICBM defence doesnt work, and that everyone already knows this. Or rather, i

by ohazi 7y ago

I was under the impression that "shoot the missile down with another missile" style ICBM defence doesnt work, and that everyone already knows this. Or rather, it has a ~50% success rate, which is essentially the same thing if your adversary can launch multiple rockets or if any of them have MIRV capabilities. Does this hypersonic maneuverability thing actually change anything or is it just sabre rattling?

will4274 7y ago
It reached a 50% success rate in 2005 and since then, hard data has been hard to come by. We are talking about classified military projects. It wouldn't surprise me if what "everyone already knows" based on 90s news stories is wrong in 2019.
- nradov 7y ago
  The Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system has conducted 9 live fire tests since it became operational in 2005 and 6 were successful (67% success rate). The data is publicly released and easy to find. https://www.mda.mil/global/documents/pdf/testrecord.pdf https://www.mda.mil/global/documents/pdf/testrecord.pdf
  - jackpirate 7y ago
    Those tests are also highly contrived and do not match real world scenarios. Experts mostly agree that ICBM intercept capabilities remain essentially untested, and are likely to fail in the real world. The armscontrolwonk.com blog site has tons of relevant articles from defense experts explaining the limitations of current missile defense: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aarmscontrolwonk.com+missile+defense https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aarmscontrolwonk.com+m... The tl;dr is that it's all advertising.
    - nradov 7y ago
      It doesn't have to actually work reliably. It just has to present the appearance of possibly working some of the time in order to complicate an adversary's targeting plan and act as an effective deterrent.
      - phkahler 7y ago
        >> It just has to present the appearance of possibly working some of the time in order to... I though that was going to say "... ensure continued funding." Why would I think that?
    - will4274 7y ago
      From what I can see from your link, the agreement seems to be that intercept capabilities are useful for outlier adversaries like Iran and North Korea, but not for major adversaries like Russia or China. Fwiw, I tend to think that linking to a page of Google results rather than a specific article doesn't contribute much to the conversation. A specific link would be a better contribution. You might also make some argument as to why this blog and its authors are credible sources.
  - nabla9 7y ago
    GMD is only against small attack with limited warheads. North Korea or Iran type scenario. It's also the official purpose of the program. Russians and Chinese have multiple ways to counter GMD. - Countermeasures that are indistinguishable from warheads during mid-course. Extremely light with same temperature as the warhead can't be distinguished from real warhead in vacuum. The number of interceptors required becomes prohibitively expensive. - R-36 has 8000 kg throw weight, it can launch 4000 kg to LEO. Reducing the number of warheads enables Russian use trajectories where GMD don't reach. Latest versions carry just one.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
nabla9 7y ago
The new thing in these hypersonic missiles is the ability to target small moving point targets like ships. The ability to steer, fly complex low profile trajectory and possibly some sensors in the vehicle make them new development. These are weapons for conventional conflicts and for limited nuclear conflicts. ICBM warheads are already hypersonic weapons, but they can hit only stationary targets. Ballistic missile defense programs don't even attempt to counter them after they enter the atmosphere 6 km/second. Only the low end of Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBM's) can be intercepted during re-entry. Adding small asymmetries in the IDBM warhead makes them wobbly and impossible to hit even if targeting would be exact. Additional simple ICBM counter-countermeasure is to send 2-3 nuclear warheads toward same target in close sequence (single missile can deliver them all). First explodes in the upper atmosphere creating ionized and hot fireball that is impenetrable to radar and IR sensors. Following warheads enter trough the the previous fireball and only the final warhead hits the target.
elil17 7y ago
So what you’re talking about is probably the midcourse defense system in Alaska, which targets missiles in the middle of their flight path and hopefully protects the entire US from ICBMs (although we don’t have enough interceptor missiles defend against a Russian attack and it’s not clear that they could actually hit the incoming ICBMs). There’s another kind of missile defense system, which targets the missile payloads as they are falling (in their terminal phase). These systems are highly effective, but they can only defend a small area. We have them around military bases, Washington D.C., etc. They won’t work against Avangard.
- nabla9 7y ago
  Terminal phase intercepts don't work against ICBM's. They work only against SRBM's and some IRBM's with slower terminal speeds. Even small intentional wobbly in a fast warhead requires so fast mid-course corrections that it becomes physically impossible for a missile to do. Sprint missiles used nuclear explosions and neutron flux to disable incoming nuclear warheads from distance but even they have to get relatively close and they probably don't work against conventional warheads.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago
    Wouldn't the missile itself be a warhead for conventional use? Depending on its mass, at hypersonic impapct speeds?
- jessriedel 7y ago
  > There’s another kind of missile defense system, which targets the missile payloads as they are falling (in their terminal phase). These systems are highly effective, but they can only defend a small area. We have them around military bases, Washington D.C., etc. Do you think "highly effective" is fair? The article I read about THAAD suggest it's probably effective against short-, medium-, and intermediate-range ballastic missles; marginally effective against a limited number of ICBMs; and essentially ineffective against a large number of ICBMs. Against an adversary like Russia that has a ton of ICBMs, I don't think THAAD systems can protect even a small geographic area like DC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_High_Altitude_Area_Defense https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_High_Altitude_Area_De... https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/usmissiledefense https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/usmissiledefense
nradov 7y ago
Even a low success rate forces an adversary to allocate many more ICBMs to each target in order to ensure destruction, and thus maintain a credible strategic deterrent. Or they need to develop alternative strategic weapons like this new missile. Russia can only barely afford to do that and every ruble they spend on those weapons is a ruble not available for invading their neighbors.
- ben_w 7y ago
  Russia and the USA already have more than enough for 50%, and will continue to have more than enough for that even after the next round of nuclear weapon disarmament. I think the big deterrent is still that the nuclear submarines will probably survive and be able to retaliate — even with 50% defence — so MAD still applies. Although, part of me has been wondering for a while now: could the USA/USSR have put nukes into their embassies in everyone else’s cites? Or does everyone put spies into the embassies which are physically in their own borders (even if that’s not something anyone would admit to) so putting nukes in those embassies would get spotted?
  - sgt101 7y ago
    Material comes into embassies in diplomatic bags, these have to pass through security measures at ports and airports. Nuclear material would be easily detected and you could expect the immediate end of diplomatic relations between any states where this kind of event took place. I think that any state that discovered this could only interpret it as an act of war.
    - baybal2 7y ago
      USSR had no problem smuggling in conventional explosives and rather bulky spy gear into the US
      - sgt101 7y ago
        I have no problem milking my cow, or goat, so obviously lions can do ballet.
jandrewrogers 7y ago
Kinetic intercept has been reliable since (at least) the 1990s, it is why virtually all new weapon systems for the last decade or so are designed around it. They don't need to test the concept, just the implementation. Similar for decoy discrimination. Many people conflate kinetic intercept with an unrelated design problem: at hypersonic velocities, material ablation limits both the speed and precision of maneuvering. An ordinary missile can easily intercept a hyperkinetic missile, due to the former having much more operational maneuverability and precision, but not the reverse. Over the last few decades, the research has been figuring out how to reliably deliver similar precision on hyperkinetic intercept platforms across all operational environments. Maneuverability in the atmosphere at hypersonic velocities is significantly constrained by the limits of material physics. What you gain by reducing reaction times you give up in agility.
- LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago
  They don't have to dogfight, flying loops or barrel rolls. Just widening the cone of ballistic trajectories, deforming the cone of possible trajectories into something else make them harder to intercept, by requiring more defense sites over a larger area, which have to react in less time.
Tuna-Fish 7y ago
The actual reason why Russia (and others) are going for maneuverable hypersonic missiles is that everyone believes that Brilliant Pebbles would work, if it was ever deployed. And the reason why Brilliant Pebbles suddenly became more relevant was that the reason it was considered unworkable in the 80's was high launch costs. SpaceX has already seriously cut those, and they openly talk about future plans that cut them by an order of magnitude or more. Starship will probably take a lot longer to bring to service than SpaceX says it will, but if it ever reaches the kind of capability Musk talks about, it will be possible for a person to go to sleep in a world where ICBMs work and wake up in a world where one power has a five-nines capable shield against them.
- ridewinter 7y ago
  How is Starship related to Brilliant Pebbles? It's Starlink that seems to prove that you can put a constellation of satellites in the tens of thousands affordably. That's the type of coverage that Brilliant Pebbles needs to succeed, right?
  - Tuna-Fish 7y ago
    Starlink launched by F9 proves that it can be done in principle, but it would take long enough to deploy that a response can be formulated before it's actually online. The reason Starship is the threat is that the kind of launch capability needed for a mars colonial fleet, and the turnaround times advertised by Musk, mean that such a missile shield could be manufactured in secret and then deployed in a few hours.
- credit_guy 7y ago
  > it will be possible for a person to go to sleep in a world where ICBMs work and wake up in a world where one power has a five-nines capable shield against them. The only rational thing to do if you have a 99.999% capable ABM shield is to perform a decapitation strike, since you know this advantage cannot be permanent. And therefore a rational opponent will perceive such a shield as a mortal danger, and will need to perform a pre-emptive strike before the shield is in place. From their point of view, once the shield is up, they'll be hit anyway, better strike first. SpaceX does not enter this picture, as they use liquid fuel rockets, not solid fuel. But from Russia's point of view, it's hard to truly believe the US is not secretly seeking such a shield, no matter what assurances they receive that the US missile defense is only limited in scope. The ABM defense is a matter of capability first, and quantity after. Once the capability is properly tuned up (and the US appears to be close to that point), the quantity could be built in a sprint of 12 months. This is not a likely scenario, but it's a plausible one, and Russia needs to plan for it.
reaperducer 7y ago
I was under the impression that "shoot the missile down with another missile" style ICBM defence doesnt work, and that everyone already knows this. Doesn't Israel shoot down incoming missiles with other missiles all the time? Or are you speaking specifically of ICBM-only scenarios?
- Synaesthesia 7y ago
  Yeah ICBM’s, which are hypersonic. Pretty much nothing can reliably guard against a first strike. Maybe a retaliatory strike.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    And that's the only reason MAD work. If one side was even about to be able to reliably defend itself against a first strike, the other would have no choice but to strike while they still can.
  - baybal2 7y ago
    With enough mid course interceptors, you can. That's simple math
- crdoconnor 7y ago
  Even Israel's system is really poor (240/690 in may) and it doesn't try to shoot down hypersonic missiles.
  - lm28469 7y ago
    If one of these 240 was aimed at your family house you'd be glad it was intercepted though.

by ohazi 7y ago

will4274 7y ago

It reached a 50% success rate in 2005 and since then, hard data has been hard to come by. We are talking about classified military projects. It wouldn't surprise me if what "everyone already knows" based on 90s news stories is wrong in 2019.

nradov 7y ago
The Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system has conducted 9 live fire tests since it became operational in 2005 and 6 were successful (67% success rate). The data is publicly released and easy to find. https://www.mda.mil/global/documents/pdf/testrecord.pdf https://www.mda.mil/global/documents/pdf/testrecord.pdf
- jackpirate 7y ago
  Those tests are also highly contrived and do not match real world scenarios. Experts mostly agree that ICBM intercept capabilities remain essentially untested, and are likely to fail in the real world. The armscontrolwonk.com blog site has tons of relevant articles from defense experts explaining the limitations of current missile defense: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aarmscontrolwonk.com+missile+defense https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aarmscontrolwonk.com+m... The tl;dr is that it's all advertising.
  - nradov 7y ago
    It doesn't have to actually work reliably. It just has to present the appearance of possibly working some of the time in order to complicate an adversary's targeting plan and act as an effective deterrent.
    - phkahler 7y ago
      >> It just has to present the appearance of possibly working some of the time in order to... I though that was going to say "... ensure continued funding." Why would I think that?
  - will4274 7y ago
    From what I can see from your link, the agreement seems to be that intercept capabilities are useful for outlier adversaries like Iran and North Korea, but not for major adversaries like Russia or China. Fwiw, I tend to think that linking to a page of Google results rather than a specific article doesn't contribute much to the conversation. A specific link would be a better contribution. You might also make some argument as to why this blog and its authors are credible sources.
- nabla9 7y ago
  GMD is only against small attack with limited warheads. North Korea or Iran type scenario. It's also the official purpose of the program. Russians and Chinese have multiple ways to counter GMD. - Countermeasures that are indistinguishable from warheads during mid-course. Extremely light with same temperature as the warhead can't be distinguished from real warhead in vacuum. The number of interceptors required becomes prohibitively expensive. - R-36 has 8000 kg throw weight, it can launch 4000 kg to LEO. Reducing the number of warheads enables Russian use trajectories where GMD don't reach. Latest versions carry just one.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

nabla9 7y ago

The new thing in these hypersonic missiles is the ability to target small moving point targets like ships. The ability to steer, fly complex low profile trajectory and possibly some sensors in the vehicle make them new development. These are weapons for conventional conflicts and for limited nuclear conflicts. ICBM warheads are already hypersonic weapons, but they can hit only stationary targets. Ballistic missile defense programs don't even attempt to counter them after they enter the atmosphere 6 km/second. Only the low end of Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBM's) can be intercepted during re-entry. Adding small asymmetries in the IDBM warhead makes them wobbly and impossible to hit even if targeting would be exact. Additional simple ICBM counter-countermeasure is to send 2-3 nuclear warheads toward same target in close sequence (single missile can deliver them all). First explodes in the upper atmosphere creating ionized and hot fireball that is impenetrable to radar and IR sensors. Following warheads enter trough the the previous fireball and only the final warhead hits the target.

elil17 7y ago

So what you’re talking about is probably the midcourse defense system in Alaska, which targets missiles in the middle of their flight path and hopefully protects the entire US from ICBMs (although we don’t have enough interceptor missiles defend against a Russian attack and it’s not clear that they could actually hit the incoming ICBMs). There’s another kind of missile defense system, which targets the missile payloads as they are falling (in their terminal phase). These systems are highly effective, but they can only defend a small area. We have them around military bases, Washington D.C., etc. They won’t work against Avangard.

nabla9 7y ago
Terminal phase intercepts don't work against ICBM's. They work only against SRBM's and some IRBM's with slower terminal speeds. Even small intentional wobbly in a fast warhead requires so fast mid-course corrections that it becomes physically impossible for a missile to do. Sprint missiles used nuclear explosions and neutron flux to disable incoming nuclear warheads from distance but even they have to get relatively close and they probably don't work against conventional warheads.
- LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago
  Wouldn't the missile itself be a warhead for conventional use? Depending on its mass, at hypersonic impapct speeds?
jessriedel 7y ago
> There’s another kind of missile defense system, which targets the missile payloads as they are falling (in their terminal phase). These systems are highly effective, but they can only defend a small area. We have them around military bases, Washington D.C., etc. Do you think "highly effective" is fair? The article I read about THAAD suggest it's probably effective against short-, medium-, and intermediate-range ballastic missles; marginally effective against a limited number of ICBMs; and essentially ineffective against a large number of ICBMs. Against an adversary like Russia that has a ton of ICBMs, I don't think THAAD systems can protect even a small geographic area like DC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_High_Altitude_Area_Defense https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_High_Altitude_Area_De... https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/usmissiledefense https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/usmissiledefense

nradov 7y ago

Even a low success rate forces an adversary to allocate many more ICBMs to each target in order to ensure destruction, and thus maintain a credible strategic deterrent. Or they need to develop alternative strategic weapons like this new missile. Russia can only barely afford to do that and every ruble they spend on those weapons is a ruble not available for invading their neighbors.

ben_w 7y ago
Russia and the USA already have more than enough for 50%, and will continue to have more than enough for that even after the next round of nuclear weapon disarmament. I think the big deterrent is still that the nuclear submarines will probably survive and be able to retaliate — even with 50% defence — so MAD still applies. Although, part of me has been wondering for a while now: could the USA/USSR have put nukes into their embassies in everyone else’s cites? Or does everyone put spies into the embassies which are physically in their own borders (even if that’s not something anyone would admit to) so putting nukes in those embassies would get spotted?
- sgt101 7y ago
  Material comes into embassies in diplomatic bags, these have to pass through security measures at ports and airports. Nuclear material would be easily detected and you could expect the immediate end of diplomatic relations between any states where this kind of event took place. I think that any state that discovered this could only interpret it as an act of war.
  - baybal2 7y ago
    USSR had no problem smuggling in conventional explosives and rather bulky spy gear into the US
    - sgt101 7y ago
      I have no problem milking my cow, or goat, so obviously lions can do ballet.

jandrewrogers 7y ago

Kinetic intercept has been reliable since (at least) the 1990s, it is why virtually all new weapon systems for the last decade or so are designed around it. They don't need to test the concept, just the implementation. Similar for decoy discrimination. Many people conflate kinetic intercept with an unrelated design problem: at hypersonic velocities, material ablation limits both the speed and precision of maneuvering. An ordinary missile can easily intercept a hyperkinetic missile, due to the former having much more operational maneuverability and precision, but not the reverse. Over the last few decades, the research has been figuring out how to reliably deliver similar precision on hyperkinetic intercept platforms across all operational environments. Maneuverability in the atmosphere at hypersonic velocities is significantly constrained by the limits of material physics. What you gain by reducing reaction times you give up in agility.

LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago
They don't have to dogfight, flying loops or barrel rolls. Just widening the cone of ballistic trajectories, deforming the cone of possible trajectories into something else make them harder to intercept, by requiring more defense sites over a larger area, which have to react in less time.

Tuna-Fish 7y ago

The actual reason why Russia (and others) are going for maneuverable hypersonic missiles is that everyone believes that Brilliant Pebbles would work, if it was ever deployed. And the reason why Brilliant Pebbles suddenly became more relevant was that the reason it was considered unworkable in the 80's was high launch costs. SpaceX has already seriously cut those, and they openly talk about future plans that cut them by an order of magnitude or more. Starship will probably take a lot longer to bring to service than SpaceX says it will, but if it ever reaches the kind of capability Musk talks about, it will be possible for a person to go to sleep in a world where ICBMs work and wake up in a world where one power has a five-nines capable shield against them.

ridewinter 7y ago
How is Starship related to Brilliant Pebbles? It's Starlink that seems to prove that you can put a constellation of satellites in the tens of thousands affordably. That's the type of coverage that Brilliant Pebbles needs to succeed, right?
- Tuna-Fish 7y ago
  Starlink launched by F9 proves that it can be done in principle, but it would take long enough to deploy that a response can be formulated before it's actually online. The reason Starship is the threat is that the kind of launch capability needed for a mars colonial fleet, and the turnaround times advertised by Musk, mean that such a missile shield could be manufactured in secret and then deployed in a few hours.
credit_guy 7y ago
> it will be possible for a person to go to sleep in a world where ICBMs work and wake up in a world where one power has a five-nines capable shield against them. The only rational thing to do if you have a 99.999% capable ABM shield is to perform a decapitation strike, since you know this advantage cannot be permanent. And therefore a rational opponent will perceive such a shield as a mortal danger, and will need to perform a pre-emptive strike before the shield is in place. From their point of view, once the shield is up, they'll be hit anyway, better strike first. SpaceX does not enter this picture, as they use liquid fuel rockets, not solid fuel. But from Russia's point of view, it's hard to truly believe the US is not secretly seeking such a shield, no matter what assurances they receive that the US missile defense is only limited in scope. The ABM defense is a matter of capability first, and quantity after. Once the capability is properly tuned up (and the US appears to be close to that point), the quantity could be built in a sprint of 12 months. This is not a likely scenario, but it's a plausible one, and Russia needs to plan for it.

reaperducer 7y ago

I was under the impression that "shoot the missile down with another missile" style ICBM defence doesnt work, and that everyone already knows this. Doesn't Israel shoot down incoming missiles with other missiles all the time? Or are you speaking specifically of ICBM-only scenarios?

Synaesthesia 7y ago
Yeah ICBM’s, which are hypersonic. Pretty much nothing can reliably guard against a first strike. Maybe a retaliatory strike.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  And that's the only reason MAD work. If one side was even about to be able to reliably defend itself against a first strike, the other would have no choice but to strike while they still can.
- baybal2 7y ago
  With enough mid course interceptors, you can. That's simple math
crdoconnor 7y ago
Even Israel's system is really poor (240/690 in may) and it doesn't try to shoot down hypersonic missiles.
- lm28469 7y ago
  If one of these 240 was aimed at your family house you'd be glad it was intercepted though.