Ballistic Missile Defense

[Llarry]

The world is an unsettled place, with a bellicose North Korea, with China rapidly developing advanced military capabilities, with an aggressive Russia apparently determined to reconstruct the Soviet Union and with unrest in the Middle East. Add into the mix the proliferation of ballistic missile technology -- much of it exported from North Korea -- and you have a potential for disaster. In fact, U.S. Navy destroyers have shot down several short- or medium-range ballistic missiles fired from Yemen in recent days.

The Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency oversees U.S. missile defenses and cooperates with a number of allies to minimize the danger. Here's an overview:

-- The first problem in defending against ballistic missile is detecting the launch of a threat missile. This is an intelligence effort, as well as warning from space-based sensors.

-- The U.S. Missile Defense Agency has a number of long-range radars to detect incoming missiles. One fixed site (Cobra Dane) is in the Aleutians at Shemya (Photo). Another is a large sea-based X-band radar on a self-propelled oil drilling-like platform that is normally active in the Pacific (Photo). Others are strategically placed around the world.

-- The U.S. has 44 ground-based interceptors based in Alaska and California. (Photo)

-- The U.S. Navy has 30+ cruisers and destroyers with advanced AEGIS radar systems and armed with RIM-161 Standard SM-3 missiles that can intercept shorter-range and some intercontinental ballistic missiles. These are on watch in the Western Pacific and based in Rota, Spain. The same shipboard systems have been installed ashore in Poland and Romania (Photo) to protect NATO allies. Japanese destroyers also use this system and South Korea and the Netherlands are adopting it as well.

-- The Army has THAAD (terminal high altitude area defense) missile batteries in a number of locations (Photo), including the relatively vulnerable island of Guam in the Pacific. One THAAD battery is in South Korea.

-- The Army also has MIM-104 Patriot missile batteries that are highly mobile; these are less capable than the above systems but still useful. They have been provided to a number of allies as well and have been promised to Ukraine (Photo).

Tests have shown that virtually none of these systems is 100% effective at destroying incoming missiles, but firing multiple interceptors at a threat works well. Still, when dealing with a nuclear or chemical/biological warfare threat, it only takes one getting through the defensive umbrella to cause disaster.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_m...defense_system

[Mason Hatcher]

Your point or question?

[Llarry]

Originally Posted by Mason Hatcher

Your point or question?

Just informational. Feel free to ignore the thread/post if you are not interested.

[iminhell1]

I worked with a soldier that worked at the ND facility.
He, along with a few others, received dishonorable discharges for smoking pot on the job (continually).


While the equipment and technology is there, it requires always competent operators. Frankly I'm not sure I trust kids with such things.

[M-technik-3]

There are the Pave Paws locations that have new radar systems.

[Llarry]

Originally Posted by iminhell1

I worked with a soldier that worked at the ND facility.
He, along with a few others, received dishonorable discharges for smoking pot on the job (continually).

While the equipment and technology is there, it requires always competent operators. Frankly I'm not sure I trust kids with such things.

I'm sure this has been a problem for many years. I remember the DEW (Distant Early Warning) Line of radar stations, mostly in Canada, manned by U.S. Air Force (and Canadian) people during the Cold War. Searching to detect an attack by the Soviet Union that never came. Lots of boredom, I suspect, and I'd guess the drug of choice at that time was beer or whiskey.

[Lady Jane]

Originally Posted by Llarry

I'm sure this has been a problem for many years. I remember the DEW (Distant Early Warning) Line of radar stations, mostly in Canada, manned by U.S. Air Force (and Canadian?) people during the Cold War.

Both the DEW and Pine Tree Stations were manned by both Forces. I was born on a Pine Tree Radar Station.

[dradernh]

After 9/11, I met a group of Air Force officers working on a number of projects. One was to both detect and defeat ICBMs ASAP after launch and before they reached midcourse phase. To this day, this remains the principal problem, as by the time an ICBM is in terminal phase, it is a challenge to effectively defeat it.

Despite this issue having been worked-on since at least 1984 (see: Reagan, "Star Wars", etc.), it remains a distinct threat from an ever-growing list of increasingly capable actors. If you want something existential to worry about, this issue should certainly be on your list.

In terms of the proliferation of ICBM technology, I don't see a way to stop it without first stopping the regimes that have in recent decades promoted it. They are: Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea. The NKs are under the protection of the Chinese, the Iranians continue to run free, and the Pakis continue to exist in a zone of their own creation.

[Llarry]

Originally Posted by Lady Jane

Both the DEW and Pine Tree Stations were manned by both Forces. I was born on a Pine Tree Radar Station.

Well then a bit of history is in order, isn't it?

The Pinetree Line was a group of 33 main radar stations plus 6 gap fillers that was the southernmost line of warning radars. @Lady Jane can fill us in on the particulars of her birthplace if desired.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinetree_Line

The Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line was much further North. There is some interesting reading on the social impact of the DEW line in the Wikipedia article.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distan...y_Warning_Line

As LJ states, both the RCAF and the USAF manned the sites. Overall command lay with the combined North American Air Defense Command (NORAD), which included both nations. This was an excellent example of international security cooperation.

[GuidoK]

Originally Posted by iminhell1

Frankly I'm not sure I trust kids with such things.

The rest of the world had that same feeling with some recent world leaders...

[Llarry]

Originally Posted by dradernh

After 9/11, I met a group of Air Force officers working on a number of projects. One was to both detect and defeat ICBMs ASAP after launch and before they reached midcourse phase. To this day, this remains the principal problem, as by the time an ICBM is in terminal phase, it is a challenge to effectively defeat it.

One of the related Wikipedia articles gives the following numbers for the terminal velocity of ballistic missiles:
-- Short range: 3,400 mph or 1.5 km per second
-- Medium range: 6,700 mph or 3 km per second
-- ICBM: 15,700 mph or 7 km per second (!)
A challenge indeed!

[Llarry]

Slight threadjack here, but the original radar sites were really meant to detect Soviet bombers, not missiles. By 1957 -- thanks to the U-2 photo overflights of the USSR -- we realized that the Soviets did not have a huge bomber force as we had feared. But then with Sputnik came the ballistic missile threat, so the defensive effort continued.

The U.S. Navy contributed a seaward extension of the defensive radar effort in several forms:
-- Lockheed WV-2 Warning Star radar-equipped early warning aircraft. Based on the C-121 Constellation, over 140 WV-2 (later EC-121) aircraft were bought by the Navy to extend the "radar horizon" to sea. These initially flew from bases in Maryland and Hawaii, but then the main effort in the Atlantic was relocated to Argentia, Newfoundland and later would also fly to Keflavik, Iceland. The Hawaii-based WV-2s would refuel at Midway Island during their long missions.
-- Goodyear ZPG-2W and -3W radar equipped blimps were used on the Atlantic side, flying from Lakehurst, New Jersey. The Navy retired all the blimps in 1962.
-- Radar-equipped DERs (Destroyer Escort with radar mods) keeping station about 300 miles off both U.S. coasts. By 1957, there were 36 of these ships; they were leftover World War II ships that were converted with extensive electronics, including both long-range air search and height-finding radars.
-- By the late 1950s the DERs were supplemented by larger AGRs (radar picket auxiliary ships), converted from leftover cargo ships from WWII; 16 of these were active, evenly split between Atlantic and Pacific. The AGRs were even more elaborately equipped with electronics.

By the 1960s, the converted ships were showing their age and began to be retired and then the Vietnam war preoccupied the Americans and the barrier patrols just sort of petered out. The personnel who manned the ships and planes were dubious about the value of their efforts, which also involved patrols in the upper latitudes of the seas, with rough seas and generally poor weather conditions.

[Lady Jane]

Originally Posted by Llarry

@Lady Jane can fill us in on the particulars of her birthplace if desired.

CFS St-Margarets started construction in 1950 and was operational in 1953. The picture shows a CF-100 over the station. You can see under the left wing, the outline of the roads for the future married quarters. Early assigned members lived in trailers. The little church in the top right corner is where I was baptized. Still standing today. While my mother worked at the medical inspection room, my dad commuted to RCAF Chatham (416 Lynx Voodoo Sqn) a few miles away. The station closed in 1988.

[Lady Jane]

Hot on the heels of the Avro Arrow political fiasco, the government of the time decided that they would instead purchase Bomarc missiles to shore-up the Eastern part of North America as part of the NORAD commitment.

Canada ended up getting 56 non-nuclear missiles (That's another story) located on two bases in Quebec and Ontario as the West was already well protected.

During trials and exercises the missiles were often unable to even get into launching positions. The project was cancelled in 1972 and only two remained on static display. It only went downhill from there for the military when Trudeau (The father) decimated the Armed Services with massive cuts.

[Boomer 2019]

The EC-121 Constellations were still in use based at Patuxent River Naval Air Station in 1969. They were attached to the Naval Research Laboratory, and at that time were engaged mostly in weather research. Since I have always been a hopeless aircraft junkie I talked my way aboard a number of their flights. They were very long, about 8-10 hours usually ranging up to Newfoundland, Greenland, and Iceland. While I was stationed at PAX I also was able to get flight time aboard a number of Naval attack and fighter aircraft of the day including some stick time in dual control aircraft as I already held a commercial pilot rating at the time. The pilots were really friendly, laid back, and easy going for the most part. I doubt if this would be possible today.

[KevinC]

If you’re ever in the Tucson area and this topic interests you, this is a must-see …

https://titanmissilemuseum.org/

[Llarry]

Originally Posted by KevinC

If you’re ever in the Tucson area and this topic interests you, this is a must-see …

https://titanmissilemuseum.org/

In 2016, I took delivery of a new M3 at the Performance Center in South Carolina and drove it back to Oregon. We stopped for one night at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque and the base inn was right next to the Kirtland air museum. (Kirtland played a key role in the whole nuclear weapons thing.) We had lots of miles to drive yet so I couldn't visit but it killed me to see that it was right there and I didn't have the time to visit. That museum dedicated to the Titan sounds pretty interesting!

[KevinC]

[billnchristy]

There were 4 Nike missile sites in Maine near where we were vacationing. One of them was for sale, the other 3 appeared abandoned/derelict. We were so tempted to buy the one, they all had a missile repair building with small crane, a barracks/storage building with a small galley and underground silos. The abandoned ones were all concreted over, but you could see into the bunkers through holes. The one for sale actually had one operational clamshell and the other two were concreted over.

The sites were 15 acres or so and always had some obviously government housing nearby so if you saw the square houses you knew there was a nike site somewhere nearby.

Memory is foggy but I think each bunker was about 5000 sq ft. The place that was for sale also had a small 2 bedroom house built on it. It was a steal at 250k but we weren't ready to buy at the time.