Re: go interceptors!

From: John Clark (jonkc@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Tue Jul 24 2001 - 22:50:20 MDT


Mike Lorrey <mlorrey@datamann.com> Wrote:

> No. A conical shape will deflect a much greater amount of radar energy
> when it is coming from head on than from the side, while a balloon will
> have the exact same radar signature during the entire trajectory. Thus,
> the sig of the warhead will increase in strength as its angle of
> incidence to the radar signal increases, and decoys will be filtered out
> as that occurs.

A trivial problem that can be solved very cheaply of course as I pointed out more than
once, but you don't want it solved, star wars wouldn't work then, that's why you don't put
the real conical warhead in a round balloon in your scenario. The trouble is, an enemy
might do things differently, unlike you he just might want to do things that make it hard
for star wars not easy.

> the ephemerides of a heavy warhead versus a light decoy will show
> themselves by midcourse. [...] mass differences will show the greatest effect
> at the apogee point in the trajectory, long before it hits air.

Perhaps in some parallel universe things work that way but not in this one,
as any high school physics student would tell you, if not an eighth grade
science class.

>A Missile doesn't follow a circular orbit, it is elliptical [...]

Planets and most satellites are in elliptical orbits, missiles aren't in orbit at all and
their trajectory is not elliptical, it's parabolic.

> Again: What is the point of using decoys?

Again: They weigh almost nothing, they take up almost no room in the rocket,
they move just like the real warhead in a vacuum and are as cheap as toy balloons.

>you need to remove a real warhead to put in one or more decoys

Right, I'm sure it would never occur to an enemy to wait until the rocket was
in space to inflate the decoy balloons, the decoys would be at full size even
as the rocket sat on the launch pad.
 I will concede the a perfect ICBM defense is possible provided the enemy is
a gang of imbeciles.

> This was dealing with John's inane notion of having all IRV be spherical.

BALLOONS!! I NEVER SAID ONE WORD ABOUT A SPHERICAL REENTRY WARHEAD!
Not one fucking word.

                     John K Clark jonkc@att.net



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