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From: swilliam@dtoa1.dt.navy.mil (Williams)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Anti-Balistic Missiles Now
Message-ID: <1990Dec15.013721.15822@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 15 Dec 90 01:37:21 GMT
References: <1990Dec7.011307.474@cbnews.att.com> <1990Dec13.032732.18386@cbnews.att.com>
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From: swilliam@dtoa1.dt.navy.mil (Williams)

>My impression is that the cruisers shoot down the incomming missiles rather
>than the bombers.  

I'm sure that it is a lot better, easier, and cheaper to shoot down 
a bomber carrying 1, 2, 3 or 4 missiles than to shoot down individual 
missiles.

>>Of course, the best defense is to destroy the airfields where the bombers
>>are based.  This is the strategy that Japan used in the Pearl Harbor
>>attack; the first targets were the airfields.
>
>Hard to do...the range of the carrier based aircraft is much shorter than for
>Backfires.  

Yeah, and Pearl Harbor had B-17s and other bombers that had greater
range than the Japanese carrier planes.  The key here is the element
of surprise.  The Japanese achieved this.

>Also those bases are pretty well protected by SAMs, Migs and distance.

Yes, all of these makes it more difficult today.  Yet, the Israeli had
great success against the Syrian SAMs and MiGs a few years ago.