NationStates Jolt Archive

The Airborne Laser (ABL) will play a vital role in a nation's theater missile defense (TMD) strategy. The ABL will be the primary weapon used to attack TBMs during their boost phase, destroying them early in flight before their warheads have an opportunity to separate from the boost vehicle. Under this scheme, the warheads and destroyed missile components fall on enemy territory, making the aggressor's nation vulnerable to the effects of whatever warhead they employed. As such, the ABL will provide a strong deterrence against the use of weapons of mass destruction. ABL offers revolutionary warfighting capability, taking advantage of existing high energy laser and adaptive optics technology to field a flexible, robust, long-range, and affordable weapon system.


http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/bmdolink/images/27a.jpg

Prototype ABL-747 during take-off.

We are currently taking orders for the ABL-747 at $100 000 000 per aircraft.

"The Steel Empire of Mekanta has one question..."

"As most missiles used for mass destruction weapons tend to move faster than most jets, and the launch site of the weapon would most likely be quite far away, isn't this a useless attempt?"

The ABL is a Theatre Ballistic Missile System that one would use, for instance, when the U.S. invaded Iraq and the Iraqi military began shooting off Scud missiles at Israel, Saudi Arabia, etc. When one or two are used in conjunction in a theater of operations, they can be used to destroy missiles in their terminal boost phase while they are more or less climbing to their cruise altitude, not traveling lateraly.

It is not designed to be used as an inter-continental anti missle defense, if, for instance, it was positioned 1000s of miles away from the launch site while the missile is travelling at its cruise speed.