ladajo wrote:10% intercept rate is brutal and crushing to the attacking planners.
5% is also brutal.
3% as well.
The entire point is that you do not need to be 100% effective to drastically impact the efforts of the other side. In fact, as it turns out, you can be less than 10% effective and dramatically impact the efforts of the other side.
Is 970 nuclear ballistic missiles successfully hitting targets from 1000 launched a good result? Brutal for offensive and giving advantage to defensive side? I think that such a result would be catastrophical total destruction of nation. Sorry.
3% of interseption rate was good for WW2 when bombers carried max 1 (may be 5) ton bomb.
And now one warhead is 50000 tons equivalent and even stronger.
Ok, returning to Navy missile defense. What intercept rate would be acceptable for you as commander? Not near 100%?
If not so what sense make those such expensive sytems. As one hit kills corvet and even destroyer and 4-5 hits kills aircraft carrier too.
If I am planning for a strategic strike. Let us say I must defeat 100 targets to achieve my goals.
Before missile defense, based on target types, target hardness, launch failure rates, flight failure rates, weapon accuracy, and detonation failure rates I conclude that I want to shoot 5 weapons per target for the target set. That would then say guarantee for my planning purposes that 3 weapons would make the target and create the effects I wanted for my 100 targets.
So that means that I am shooting 500 weapons to meet my engagement target set of 100 targets. That means I must aquire, maintain and defend for operational use at least 500 weapons.
Now introduce a defensive system. Let us say it 10% effective.
First I must understand that even for a limited system, I can not really know which targets of the 100 it will defend. So, I must assume it could defend any of them to a 10% level. So now, I add this in to my calculus.
so for each target, it will defeat .5 weapons. Since war does not function on .5 soldiers, I must add at least .5 weapons to each target. This in turn means that for our planning case, it will be 1 weapon plus up per target to beat the missile defense. So now I have to shoot 6 weapons per target to get my guaranteed 3 impacts. Now let us consider that these additional weapons will also incur the risk factors that the original 500 would incur. So of our 100 additional, we can assume that 40 of them will potentially fail for reasons other than missile defense. But we do not know which 40, as much as we do not know which targets will be defended. Which in turn means I will need to add an additional weapon per target again. Another 100. Now I recheck my inherent failure rates, and see that out of the 200 weapons added, up to 80 will fail. This now tells me that should expect slightly more than 4 weapons per target to arrive. And odds are, there will not be 2 plus up failures in the same package, so I must now decide to accept that risk, or add an additional weapon again too ensure I get my 4 weapons per target. So, this means that I will need to source, maintain and defend at least 700 weapons instead of 500 to succeed with the strike.
You can see that a 10% effective defensive system can easily translate into a 40% increase in attacker planned launch requirements. This also does not consider the costs and infrastructure demands required for the additional 200 or more weapons, which it turns out also results in an overall compounding "tax" function.
Now take these simple numbers and translate them into something more akin to real world numbers.
How many weapons would the Soviets have invested in a Strategic Strike on the US at the peak of the Cold War arsenal?
How many additional would they have needed to add to the strike package given someone told them to assume an additional 10% loss rate across the board for terminal impacts due to an active US missile defense system?
The numbers and costs become staggering quickly.
Now let us talk about ships. Say I am shooting at a Battle Group. I determine that I need 100 weapons to saturate the defenses and hit all 10 targets...
You may try to argue the ships point, but I ask of you, to guarantee the 1 hit on the warship, how many did you have to shoot? 2? 3? 4? More?
And if it was a larger ship, did you need to hit it with (1, 2, 3...) to guarantee effects?
Now, you have planned some numbers, and I tell you that the other force has made a defensive systems upgrade, and that you can assume to lose 10% more of your fired weapons. So if I am shooting 5 at a target to guarantee desired effects...2 hits, with 3 "mechanical" & existing defensive system defeats. I immediately start thinking to add at least 1 more weapon...if I am wanting at least the same risk levels for attack success...
A correlary to this discussion is the reasoning behind current US warfare models which rely on Precision Guided Munitions. The reason it is so successful is that precision guidance has drastically reduced the number of weapons per target to the point of essentially 1.0. So in WWII where one entire Bomber Wing could possibly engage 1 target with a good probability of a re-attack requirement, today, 1 Bomber can defeat 10 targets. Now cut the resource costs even further, when you use a single drone to defeat 2 or 4 targets.
Defensive math matters. Resource management math matters. If you want to go kinetic, the US is the absolute wrong country to do it with.
STS was effective and successful. It was cancelled in a flurry of political maneuvering where the loser was the short term US ability to have full access to LEO. The political arguments sought all sorts rational about STS to support objectives that were really seeking votes and campaign funding support, not national strategic rationality.
The development of atomic power, though it could confer unimaginable blessings on mankind, is something that is dreaded by the owners of coal mines and oil wells. (Hazlitt)
What I want to do is to look up C. . . . I call him the Forgotten Man. (Sumner)
ladajo wrote:You may try to argue the ships point, but I ask of you, to guarantee the 1 hit on the warship, how many did you have to shoot? 2? 3? 4? More?
I think that if attacking US warships order defended with AEGIS I should shoot many missiles simultaneously.
Do not know how many but how many missiles has e.g. Russian missile cruiser Peter the Great? And their strategic bomber Tu-85 (may be 95 do not remember)?
If talking about ICBM attacking USA territory, I think that Russian missile have reliability not less than 90% and taking into account enormous lethal area of nuke warhead enough accuracy for destroying any target (e.g. one not a small city). How you can defend nation with a system effectiveness of which is even only 10%? But I am sure that in case of saturation attack effectiveness will be much less than 10%. Recall that according to claim of Russians their TOPOL does not move at ballistic trajectory at terminal phase but makes maneuvers with high-g.
Recall September 11 and compare damage of destruction of two very large buildings with destruction of entire city.
Joseph,
Yes, I think all accept that to gaurantee a hit on an AEGIS platform takes a good number of weapons. And you must now realize that adding an additional 10% loss rate due to a "defensive improvement" means more missiles must be fired than originally thought.
Soviet/russian ships do not carry a large number of ASCMs. Soviet/Russian bombers can carry a few, and the old tactic was to mass them in a large raid. They no longer have sufficient reliabel bombers or weapons to do it the old way.
90% Accuracy is suspect at best and certainly does not translate into anything meaningful like CEP. It also does not translate to total failure rate from button to impact. CEP is one thing, mechanicals and targeting support another.
Another problem you fail to recognize repeatedly is about goals. If your goal is to hit a city, that is different than a goal to make a strike against launchers. yes, hitting a city could produce more effects with less weapons than trying to take out silos with missiles. Also realize that US silos are noted as very hard. This also ups the requirements for a strike.
If your goal is simply to eliminate US cities, then yes, the weapon count could be lower per target. But not really if you consider that if you allocate one weapon per silo, and one weapon per city... But remember that cities are large, and encompass surrounding areas. Those must be hit as well. Again, there are also many cities...
If your goal is to strike cities and reduce or attempt to eliminate a counter-strike, well then that now adds up to many more weapons.
If you are arguing that one single weapon detonating over a large city is severe, well then of course I agree. But that is not what I am talking about.
I am talking about what it takes to get that weapon over the city, and detonate.
I am also talking about the idea that it would NEVER happen as a single launch event. That would be incredibly stupid on anyone's part. But, none-the-less, in the smoking ruin of their country afterwards, the few survivors can write songs and epics about how stupid an idea it was to end their nation and way of life.
The US counterstrike would enjoy a much lower failure rate, and higher accuracies, as well as less weapons required to reach desired effects. The Soviets/Russians built "big pop" weapons because they knew accuracy was shyte and CEP did not support direct silo hits. So they hoped that alot and big was good enough. Now back to telling them that they have to factor in another 10% in loss rates...
Speaking of failure rates, what was the failure rate for soviet/russian space missions? What was the failure rate for US? How many people died in the Russian space program accidents, verses the US program?
The development of atomic power, though it could confer unimaginable blessings on mankind, is something that is dreaded by the owners of coal mines and oil wells. (Hazlitt)
What I want to do is to look up C. . . . I call him the Forgotten Man. (Sumner)
ladajo wrote:If your goal is to strike cities and reduce or attempt to eliminate a counter-strike, well then that now adds up to many more weapons.
eliminate a counter-strike? I am afraid that attemting to do that you will destroy empty silo as ICBM flys about half an hour and counter-strike goes earlier. TOPOL is not based in silos but is based on mobile launchers: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... %9C%29.jpg
How you can destroy their significant quantity.
Do you speak that more aged USA missiles have lower CEP? I doubt.
As for ballistic missile CEP is dependend only on inertial block's perfomance (assembly of 3 gyros and 3 accelerometers) and on nothing else. And now commercially available much compact and precise inertial sensors at very resonable price.
RAnd Russian have their own production facilities of PIGA accelerometers and FOG gyros. Do not sure that they have ring-laser gyros production but even mechanical gyros can make job well but are bigger and heavier. And this is less critical for big missiles.
Ok, thanks but let's stop as I (not you received reproach from Mr. GIThruster for offtopic. Was I speaking with myself?
BTW Nike-Zeus was getting a classified number of skin to skin hits in 1960. It'll take some digging to find the source on that, it was a while ago.
Anyway, if they can do that, including significant ability to defeat decoys and such, and they classified the number of skin-skin hits on a system using a nuclear warhead, it speaks more of the failure of the AF system. The Standard block III is doing just fine in testing, multiple countries have well advanced programs, even Russia is continuing. They deployed Galosh around Moscow, and have continued to update that missile family for that use, among others.
Ballistic missile defense is basic calculus. If you need more than that, you don't have a "ballistic" missile.
Almost EVERYBODY who counts either has an ABM program, or is planning on buying/piggybacking on someone else's. Go figure.
Even? What is better their S-300 or Patriot or SAMP-T? I do not know. And you? Why "even"? ladajo said that Russian are famous in anti ship cruise missiles without any "even". He knows what he speaks as I feel that he is high rank Navy Officer – acting or retried.
I can add that Russians are famous also in air defense systems as well. Now I will use "even". Even NATO member Greece uses those system (TOR and Buk if I recall correctly) and (again) even Finland.
Does Greece not can to buy USA, French-British or Israeli systems? I think that there would not be any licensing problems for Greece. But they bought Russian.
(Hawthorne, CA) – Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) today won a $440 million contract with NASA to develop the successor to the Space Shuttle and transport American astronauts into space.
“This is a decisive milestone in human spaceflight and sets an exciting course for the next phase of American space exploration,” said SpaceX CEO and Chief Designer Elon Musk. “SpaceX, along with our partners at NASA, will continue to push the boundaries of space technology to develop the safest, most advanced crew vehicle ever flown.”
SpaceX expects to undertake its first manned flight by 2015 – a timetable that capitalizes on the proven success of the company’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft combination. While Dragon is initially being used to transport cargo to the International Space Station, both Dragon and Falcon 9 were designed from the beginning to carry crew.
Under the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) initiative’s base period, SpaceX will make the final modifications necessary to prepare Dragon to safely transport astronauts into space. These include:
· Seats for seven astronauts.
· The most technically advanced launch escape system ever developed, with powered abort possibilities from launch pad to orbit. SpaceX will demonstrate that Dragon will be able to escape a launch-pad emergency by firing integrated SuperDraco engines to carry the spacecraft safely to the ocean. SpaceX will also conduct an in-flight abort test that allows Dragon to escape at the moment of maximum aerodynamic drag, again by firing the SuperDraco thrusters to carry the spacecraft a safe distance from the rocket.
· A breakthrough propulsive landing system for gentle ground touchdowns on legs.
· Refinements and rigorous testing of essential aspects of Dragon’s design, including life-support systems and an advanced cockpit design complete with modern human interfaces.
SpaceX will perform stringent safety and mission-assurance analyses to demonstrate that all these systems meet NASA requirements.
With a minimal number of stage separations, all-liquid rocket engines that can be throttled and turned off in an emergency, engine-out capability during ascent, and powered abort capability all the way to orbit, the Falcon 9-Dragon combination will be the safest spacecraft ever developed.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis
Does anyone know why N-G's CEV design from back in 2005 wasn't considered for CCDev? From what I recall, it was the botched presentation that sunk it and the craft itself was better than the Lock-Mart version that was adopted. Strange they're out of the running now, or is CST-100 what's let over? As I recall N-G collaborated with Boeing for that contract.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis
I think NG is not in the spacecraft business anymore?
IIRC they were rather hurting.
Anyway, IIRC, they never applied for CCDev.
I am somewhat confused as to the point that the AtlasV did not get any funding. There are two spacecraft depending on it after all.
Maybe NASA is assuming that Boeing will fund the AtlasV dev with their full money. Then the way they spread it makes sense. The full package (launcher plus spacecraft) gets full funding. The spacecraft only SNC gets half.
But I am not sure whether they thought like that...
I seriously doubt N-G is somehow hurting. They usually have several multi-billion dollar contracts running at a time. I now they are dedicated to working DOD and the CEV project was an anomaly for them. I'm just curious after all the work they did on it that they wouldn't have a CCDev entry. If anything it seems likely they decided they can't compete with SpaceX so decided to focus attention somewhere else.
I'm pretty sure Atlas has the funding necessary to man rate it, with some of it's own funds and some not. Might be under another program since it's primarily a DOD launcher.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis
NASA has an unfunded SAA with ULA to finish manrating Atlas V. They already gave them $6.7M a while back to come up with an Emergency Detection System, which is all it really needs.
received reproach from Mr. GIThruster for offtopic. Was I speaking with myself?