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From: daver!cypress!murf@decwrl.dec.com (Colin Murphy)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: WHat happened to USS Stark (was Re: Anti-Balistic Missiles Now)
Summary: I did read the IEEE Spectrum Article...a long time ago.
Message-ID: <1990Dec19.010704.25797@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 19 Dec 90 01:07:04 GMT
References: <1990Dec7.011307.474@cbnews.att.com> <1990Dec17.051322.29553@cbnews.att.com>
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From: daver!cypress!murf@decwrl.dec.com (Colin Murphy)

In article <1990Dec17.051322.29553@cbnews.att.com>, deichman@cod.nosc.mil
(Shane D. Deichman) writes:
> 
>
> 5)  Since the plane had been illuminated with the longer-wavelength surface
> search radar, the separation of the Exocet with the Mirage was not detected.
>
A mark 1 eyeball picked up a little bright dot as separation occured, the 
lookout did not report it in a timely fashion, as he wasn't sure what he
was looking at.
 
Question: Was it a Super Etenard (sp?), or a mirage F1?
>
> 6)  The actual detection of the missile didn't occur until about six seconds
> before impact, when the Exocet active radar engages.  This radar would be
> detected by the ESM aboard the ship -- and probably was....
  
Well actually it was worse than that, Iraqi weapon systems were not
programmed into the ESM (SLQ-32, if memory serves), and so may have not
been detected or perceived as a threat if detected.  Remember that the plane
had to illuminate the Stark before letting go his missile.  The Stark should
have come to some kind of higher degree of alertness when this occured, and
the lookouts alerted.  If this had occured the lookout would most likely
have reported smartly when he saw the dot.
   
> That last point is conjecture on my part.  The systems on STARK are fully
> capable of dealing with such a threat; the crews are similarly proficient.
	
As usual, humans fail when the writers of specs and the designers of systems 
set them up to fail.  The system that required only specific, pre-programmed
threats to be monitored, would seem to me to be the root cause.

On CIWS, I remember an article about this systems test results.  It did get
strikes on an incoming cruise missle, unfortunately the missile impacted 
the ship, (or the area where a ship carrying the Phalanx would have been,
don't remember which) anyway.  The test was counted as a success, the
scorers determined that the warhead fusing would have been destroyed or some
such nonsense.  Of course this was before the exocets had hit British ships
or the Stark, and the effect of unburned fuel in the missile was not taken
into account.

Colin Murphy  -  ROSS Technology Inc. - (408) 943-2887 - daver!cypress!murf