Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Anti-missile progress

With the recent launch of a North Korean missile in the news, it's a bit reassuring to know that Israel had a successful test of the Arrow anti-ballistic missile rocket.

The test was conducted jointly by the IAF and the US Missile Defense Agency. The Arrow is a project developed in cooperation by the IAI and Boeing.

The defensive missile was launched around 11 a.m. from the army's Palmahim base near Ashdod, and intercepted a Blue Sparrow missile fired by a fighter jet and impersonating a Shihab 3.


In other anti-missile news, the United States recently had a successful test of an Airborne Laser (ABL.) Here's a video explaining how it works.



Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

7 comments:

  1. Probably a coincidence, but President Obama will be cutting funds for further research and dedvelopment of missile defense. No doubt his position is that we won't need this means of defense if we just sit down and talk with our enemies.

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  2. Good point Alex. Elder of Ziyon and Israel Matzav pointed that aspect of the story out.

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  3. That's an interesting video clip, Soccer Dad. I know nothing about current methods of command and control, but I can't help wondering what would happen if the enemy launched not 1, 5 or 20 missiles simultaneously, but 50 or even 100. They wouldn't all have to be armed with nuclear warheads. Most could be decoys. Would any current system be able to cope with a large number of targets simultaneously? I assume that the answer to my question is classified, but I wonder, nonetheless.

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  4. Well Anon, if the current generation of CCCI for antimissile defense can't do it the next generation probably will. At the rate computers and electronics develop that could be only a few years away, maybe only two, if we continue development. If we scrap antimissile defense, and I believe the Airborne laser is one of the systems Obama wants the Pentagon to scrap, we won't have any capability to defend against nuclear-armed missiles, now will we? So then North Korea and Iran will be able to hold us up to nuclear threats if we did not give them free run.

    The first radar chain in Britain could not deal with low flying aircraft. The next one could. Later ones had even more capabilities. You must start somewhere and deploy something in order to get experience on which you can build the more capable systems in the future. And you need experience operating them in a real-world environment.

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  5. Pardon, the second anonymous was me.
    Michael Lonie

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  6. LOL I was the first anonymous commenter. I'm not used to this format. Thanks for your reply, Michael.

    Hugh

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  7. Don't worry, the format won't be around much longer. My friend and I have made a date for bringing back the WordPress blog.

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