NationStates Jolt Archive

I will send the first poster 5$ if the US shoots the NK missile down while it's inflight. NO joke, the only way it could get better is if it gets zapped while launching :)

Yes, Kim jun il must be getting sooo ronery...oh so ronery :p

Successful missile intercept reported in US sea-based defense test
Jun 22 9:24 PM US/Eastern

A US warship successfully shot down a target missile warhead over the Pacific in a test of a sea-based missile defense system, the US military said.

A Japanese destroyer performed surveillance and tracking exercises during the test, marking the first time any US ally has taken part in a US missile defense intercept test, the US Missile Defense Agency said.

The test came amid a confrontation with North Korea over its preparations to launch a long-range missile.

The sea-based system tested off Hawaii is designed to counter only short or medium range missiles, but the cruisers and destroyers that took part are capable of tracking long-range missiles as well.

The mock warhead was launched over the Pacific atop a medium range missile and destroyed in a direct hit six minutes later with an SM-3 missile fired by the Aegis cruiser USS Shiloh, the agency said.

"The missile successfully intercepted the target warhead outside the earths atmosphere more than 100 miles above the Pacific Ocean and 250 miles northwest of Kauai," the agency said in a statement.

"We are continuing to see great success with the very challenging technology of hit-to-kill, a technology that is used for all of our missile defense ground- and sea-based interceptor missiles," Lieutenant General Trey Obering, the agency chief, said in the statement.

He said it was the seventh successful intercept using the sea-based missile defense system out of eight tries.

The test came as the United States said Thursday that North Korea would have to pay a "cost" if it launched a long range missile.

The US has said that North Korea is preparing to launch a multi-stage Taepodong-2 ballistic missile with a range of up to 6,700 kilometers (4,200 miles). US reports have said a launch was imminent.

US defense officials said the United States was ready to use its missile defense system if necessary against any threatening launch.

A North Korean missile test "would be a provocation and a dangerous action which would have to have some consequences." He told lawmakers "there would be a reaction, and it would be a mistake for North Korea to do it."

South Korea's Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung said in Seoul that he did not believe a missile operation was imminent, but North Korea has received new warnings against making a launch.

Missile Defense Agency officials have said the missile interceptor test was long-planned and had nothing to do with North Korea's long-range missile launch plans.

But the agency's statement highlighted the role of the Japanese Aegis destroyer.

"This event marked the first time that an allied military unit participated in a US Aegis missile defense intercept test," it said.

It said the Japanese destroyer and a US Navy Aegis destroyer performed surveillance and tracking exercises during the test.

"This data can also be used to provide targeting information for other missile defense systems, including the ground-based long-range interceptor missiles now deployed in Alaska and California to protect all 50 states from a limited ballistic missile attack," the agency said.

A third Aegis destroyer used in the test linked up with a land-based missile defense radar to evaluate the ship's ability to receive and use target cueing data from missile defense command centers.

The mock warhead separated from the three-stage target missile. The direct hit marked only the second time a separating warhead has been successfully intercepted by a missile fired from an Aegis cruiser.

The cruisers use their modified Spy-1 radars and a shipboard battle management system to detect, track and target the warheads in space.

The SM-3 Block IA interceptor missile fired in Thursday's test is slated for deployment in the US Navy and had never been used before in an intercept test.

me me me
Easist money I ever made.:)

Okay, "tracking" is not the same as shooting down. In other words, these cruisers could watch the missile all the way, but they couldn't get it down.

Secondly, these exercises have been going on for decades. Unless you finally get a surprise test with a missile that you don't know where it comes from, when it is launched and where you have to calculate the vectors - and then potentially deal with a warhead that is capable of changing directions, you're just wasting money.

These staged exercises are artificial experiments.

its destroyed on launch, before it gets too high, and we know where NK's launch facilities are.

If most of the tech-geeks I know are right, we're probably still years away from an effective Balistic-Missile defense network.

That said, we can probably take out the NK missile at launch.

Or thay stick a real nuke on it and then target Russia or some other enemy of thares.

its destroyed on launch, before it gets too high, and we know where NK's launch facilities are.
Right. And you have these ships along the coast, do you?

Quite apart from all the flag-waving, the Standard 3 has a range of somewhere around 500 km tops. So unless you have all the ships ready in the Sea of Japan...

And if that's how you were going to play it, you might as well attack the launch site and start a war.

And just on the side...why is it the US' business whether the DPRK tests that missile? They signed treaties, they can't test it anyways without breaking them. And China will be all over them if they do.

Right. And you have these ships along the coast, do you?

Yes, we have been in South Korea since the 50's

Yes, we have been in South Korea since the 50's
You read the story, yes?

It's not in service yet. They are testing them in controlled experiments to see whether the technology works. The forces in the ROK do not have access to these things.

Right. And you have these ships along the coast, do you?

Quite apart from all the flag-waving, the Standard 3 has a range of somewhere around 500 km tops. So unless you have all the ships ready in the Sea of Japan...

And if that's how you were going to play it, you might as well attack the launch site and start a war.

And just on the side...why is it the US' business whether the DPRK tests that missile? They signed treaties, they can't test it anyways without breaking them. And China will be all over them if they do.

Not to make to fine a point on it, but we do have a number of bases in Japan where we keep military forces. While I don't claim to be an expert, I expect that we could have anti-missile technology active there in the blink of an eye (after all, we're watching Chinese Launch Sites with much more interest than those of NK, because China has historically been the larger threat).

You read the story, yes?

It's not in service yet. They are testing them in controlled experiments to see whether the technology works. The forces in the ROK do not have access to these things.
No they are testing them to scare NK into not firing thier long range missile

While I don't claim to be an expert, I expect that we could have anti-missile technology active there in the blink of an eye.
We're talking weeks at the maximum. If what those spy planes spotted really was the missile being pumped full of fuel, then time is running out. The fuel of the TPII is corrosive and can't be left in the missile indefinitely.

And then you get to transfer experimental technology into a combat-type situation at short notice - and be embarassed if things go wrong as they invariably will.

Or you can just watch them fire the missile into the sea somewhere, track it all the way, learn more about it than you have been able to for a decade in just an hour or two, and then use the international outrage to do whatever it is you want to do.

But then, dickswinging can be fun too.

No they are testing them to scare NK into not firing thier long range missile
You still haven't read the article?
Missile Defense Agency officials have said the missile interceptor test was long-planned and had nothing to do with North Korea's long-range missile launch plans.

Near real-time spy satellites exist and are no doubt used over North Korea^


And I read it, and that's the standard line they always feed us !