Russians move SRBMs to Kaliningrad

[Bengalzona]

(12-16-2016, 04:05 AM)Dill Wrote: Yes, I remember the "Iron Dome." Ineffective against scuds. Even when the missiles were hit, the warheads didn't always detonate, just fell separately and exploded on impact.

I remember one afternoon one fired accidentally. It was controlled from a site twelve miles away. The story I got was that they were going through a training exercise and procedures weren't followed. Boom. They self destructed it in mid-air, but over an area lightly populated by civilians. No one was hurt, but quite a scandal, though never in the papers.

Trying to intercept a hypersonic missile in flight is dam complicated stuff. The average bullet from a gun flies at Mach 2.2. Hypersonic missiles travel at speeds in excess of Mach 5 or 6. Ballistic missiles (tactical, short-range, intermediate-range or strategic) reach hypersonic speeds upon re-entry. A Patriot missile battery can take out a combat aircraft (Mach 1-2) with relative ease. Intercepting hypersonic missiles is a whole other ballgame. We can do this, but we can't do it regularly. This is one of the reasons why countries like Iran and North Korea work feverishly on developing ballistic missiles. It is easier to build the missile than the anti-missile. If someone shoots 100 ballistic missiles at us and we shoot down 50, 50 still got through. 

(As you may be aware, Yemen has been firing SCUD missiles into Saudi Arabia. I've been meaning to post a thread about the Yemen Civil War, but just haven't had time.) 

This is one of the reasons why I mentioned taking the hype about anti-missile systems with a grain of salt. The hype serves some purposes, however. It helps to sell weapon systems to other countries, it makes people feel safe so they can carry on life, it intimidates enemies, etc. We have reasons for producing the hype. It is just that the technology still does not generally support all of the claims.