Path: utzoo!attcan!telly!lethe!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!emory!att!cbnews!cbnews!military
From: budden@trout.nosc.mil (Rex A. Buddenberg)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Ballistic Missile defense
Message-ID: <1990Dec15.011719.12728@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 15 Dec 90 01:17:19 GMT
References: <1990Dec7.011307.474@cbnews.att.com> <1990Dec8.221641.27118@cbnews.att.com> <1990Dec12.030935.9815@cbnews.att.com> <1990Dec13.032943.18680@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego
Lines: 49
Approved: military@att.att.com



From: budden@trout.nosc.mil (Rex A. Buddenberg)

Too much snake oil to pass these by further.

A ballistic missile trajectory is in a high arc -- the warhead
rains down on you, near vertically.  Tactical units, fleets included,
don't have much that can stop that.

Scud-B's are not ballistic missiles, though, they are cruise missiles.
Anti-cruise missile defense is much like anti-aircraft defense
or anti-kamikaze defense.  Since Scud's are ground launched,
the references to shooting down the bomber are irrelevant.  The
layered CVBG defense is, however relevant for shooting down cruise
missiles.

But a good share of the problem got left out.  Scud's take time to
fuel and ready for launch.  Plus a fair amount of travel time from
launch to impact.  A battle group has a lot of time to get lost
(and how's Saddam gonna fine it in the first place?) in the interim.

Assuming Saddam gets decent targeting data and successfully launches
a Scud, it's got to terminally engage, else it blows a big hole
in empty ocean.  If you know what the missile's homing mechanism
is (in Scud's, it's nil, I believe, making the problem rather
easy), you can defeat it.  Optical detectors can be confused with
smoke; radars with chaff and some other EW (electronic warfare)
things I'd rather not go into.  Infrared homers can be fooled by
IR flares and stack cooling -- all requires preparation, you
can't get caught flat-footed.

Finally, regarding Phalanx (aka Close In Warfare System - CIWS),
all the ammunition is depleted uranium, not just selected rounds.
Truly a hairy event (the Brits can speak from similar experiences
in the Falklands, their CIWS is called Goalkeeper) resulting in
missile pieces raining all over you if successful.  The MV remains
more or less the same -- what changes is that instead of an incoming
missile, you have a whole lot of incoming missile parts
flying in close formation.

USS Stark (of the FFG-7, Perry class) did have a Phalanx system, as
do all the ships of that class.  Stark's was placed in manual, vice
automatic operation at the time.  Reason was twofold: there was no
indication that an attack was imminent and if left in auto, the 
CIWS does predictable but not terribly desirable things like engage 
your own helicopter.  

Rex Buddenberg