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I may be mistaken somewhere, but to me the implication is that anti-missile defense should be much cheaper than ICBMs. If you send a flak projectile to meet an
by credit_guy 3y ago
I may be mistaken somewhere, but to me the implication is that anti-missile defense should be much cheaper than ICBMs. If you send a flak projectile to meet an incoming nuke, and some of the flak fragments produce that type of damage, the reentry vehicle will be ripped apart when entering the atmosphere. The flak projectile does not need to travel intercontinental distances, so it most likely can be launched with a single stage rocket, making it infinitely cheaper than a two-stage ICBM.
- geor9e 3y agoYes, hitting a 15,000 mph ICBM warhead, with a 15,000 mph pellet of tiny 0.5 oz plastic you shot out of a cannon from 5,000 miles away, would be enough to disable it. The roadblock here is hiring a good sniper in this economy. Everyone they hired missed.
- credit_guy 3y agoNot at all. They are regularly testing interceptors, and more often then not they hit (e.g. test from December '23 [1]) And they don't use flak (an exploding projectile that produces a small cloud of shrapnel), they use a solid kill vehicle, so they achieve the proverbial bullet on bullet thing. [1] https://www.defensenews.com/land/2023/12/11/homeland-defense-interceptor-defeats-ballistic-missile-in-test/ https://www.defensenews.com/land/2023/12/11/homeland-defense...
- geor9e 3y agoThe comment I replied to appears to have completely changed. I replied to a comment that, at face value, asked why don't we shoot 0.5 plastic pellets 5000 miles. Must be a glitch. So ignore my comment, it was in reply to someone else.