These tests are gamed in a dozen different ways to give the interepting missiles an advantage they’d never possess in a real world confrontation. This is welfare for defense contractors, and it only serves to accelerate the nuclear arms race.
In a world with Putin and Kim this is a better expenditure of money than building a wall on the Southern border. Of course, the best course would be to promote economic and political freedom in both Russian and North Korea. People just don’t want to nuke their partners and customers.
Yes. Before we do any victory laps on this, we need to know details so that we can understand the functionality in an actual situation. G*d, as they say, is in the details.
Yes, often what they don’t say is that the target had a gps in the tip of the nosecone giving real time telemetry to the test system.
If you dig deep into the defense industry literature the entire test system provides intercept missiles a list of advantages that would require a legal pad to itemize. It’s all a fraud designed to keep getting appropriations through committee.
Better than nothing, but oddly they haven’t yet done multiple interceptors vs multiple incoming missiles.
They’ve been able to get this to work in testing for about 10 years now, but I’d hate to rely on it.
Joy. Now the Pentagon is 1 for 8 on ABM tests.
Not a very good percentage, especially when the test targets contain no more than 1 warhead and 1 decoy.
REAL ICBMs contain up to 16 warheads and 24 decoys PER MISSILE and would be launched in 100’s of ICBMs at a time.
Also, this kind of ABM is completely useless against the REAL THREAT: Sub-launched cruise missiles that reach their targets within 10 min. of launch and never go over 3000 ft. in altitude (also launched in salvos of up to 20 at a time.)
Hundreds of Billions of dollars have been spent on the ABM system and it is by any objective review a colossal FAILURE.
Exactly right.
There is a long and unsightly record of dishonesty on this topic.