Was the T-2 Shot Down by the U.S. Missile Defense?

Originally posted by Simon666
Was the T-2 Shot Down by the U.S. Missile Defense? You wish. As many have pointed out, interception within 40 seconds is pretty much impossible and that laser doesn't have the range. It's not like North Korean missiles haven't failed like that before. The US would also be the first to boast if they shot it down.

Really? So, what would the profile of a shoot down by a SM-3 missile from a ship in nearby waters look like? And don't forget that there were U.S. Aegis warships in the area.

I would think you would fire the missile as soon as possible to try and knock down the T-2 in it's boost phase - while it's still low and slow. If this is how it really works, then to me you would see the ICBM "fail" soon (say 40 seconds?) after launch.

As far as why the U.S. (and everyone else) would keep quiet about it. For the U.S., it's pretty simple why - if they miss, no one knows and can make a big deal out of the failure. If they hit it, the U.S. can just sit back and know the missile defense works. And also know that all the others in the region, NK, China, Russia know it works. Nothing else needs to be said at that point.

HAARP is the secret weapon used by the airforce and navy as a advanced means of defense, thus people on this site (no offense) can only struglle to guess how or what a profile of this would look like since they are using lasers and electromagnetic manipulation of the ionisphere and so on in a very advanced revolutionary way

if the u.s caused this missle to fail (who knows) i beleive haarp was the reason

Originally posted by cpdaman

if the u.s caused this missle to fail (who knows) i beleive haarp was the reason

Do you mean that if I pump Snoop Dog into the ionosphere I can make things go ka-blooey? Too cool!

Acutally, the NRAO just repaired and refurbished one of their telescopes at Green Bank a few weeks ago to specifically study the ionosphere. Supposedly it was for use by UCLA, but now I wonder if it could be to monitor such results. Hmmmmmmm...

Is the T-2 and entirely NK thing, or do they ship parts in from elsewhere ?

Maybe it was buggy code on a chip somewhere, either an accidental programming fault, or a little easter-egg left from the supplier if it's not an entirely in-house fabrication?

I'm interested in China's potential here too, as has been posted elsewhere, it's somewhat unlikely that they'd want any increased tension in the region.
Where was the launch site, is it 35 seconds from the Chinese border ?

I'm going with good old fashioned failure here in the end I think, a little bit of me still wonders if it was sabotaged along the line tho'.

I think that either a design or quality control problem caused North Korea's bottle rocket to go BOOM. I doubt that it would have been shot down that close to the launch site. There would be no reason to shoot it down there. You can bet that the US, South Korea and Japan had ELINT aircraft all over the place. We wanted the NKs to launch that missile, so that intellegence could be gathered on its capabilities and the NKs command and control systems. The chances of there being a nuke on that missile were practically non-existant. It was a win-win situation for the US. If the missile performed like the NKs hoped then the US gets information on its capabilities and control systems and gets to turn up the heat on sanctions against NK. If the missile was a failure then that was learned as well.


One thing though, I find it hilarious that the US is supposed to have all of this top secret military hardware, is supposed to have a secret government bent on global domination and the capability of framing AlQuieda for 9-11, yet almost no one believes that they have the capability to knock down a SCUD on steroids.

Originally posted by Zaphod58

If the challenging technology can be developed as planned, the YAL-1A Airborne Laser will become USAF’s first operational airborne laser weapon. Plans call for the ABL to take its first realistic test shot at the end of 2008. The ABL is, essentially, a 747-type cargo aircraft equipped with a powerful chemical laser weapon, primed for shooting down ballistic missiles in their boost phase.

www.afa.org...

Even if ABL WAS there, it would have to be within 25 miles (max range of the laser is currently 23 miles), and would have to ID, track, lock on, and heat the missile IMMEDIATELY. There is no way that ANY human controlled system can shoot down a missile in 40 seconds.

Point of Correction:
The megawatt ABL has a range in the hundreds of miles.
The Laser which you are referring to in the Air Force Magazine article is the “kilowatt-class” laser that can be fitted into smaller aircraft spcifically the 100-kilowatt laser planned for the F-35 fighter. It is this laser that has the 23 mile range.

The ABL's range, worst case scenario is 300 kilometers or approximately 190 miles. The best case scenario puts the range further than that.

Regarding whether the missile was shot down or not - if it was downed intentionally it was not from an anti-ballistic missile system but rather a DEW of some sort - as the world would know if an SM-3 missile had been fired from a US Aegis destroyer.

Word on the street however is that the US intel community wanted the missile to fire so they could update their assesments of North Korea's ICBM capabilities.

Is it just me, or is everyone overlooking Batman? He has a lot of neat stuff on his belt.

Serious question: What is the possiblility that the missles were duds on purpose so that China could gather intel on our anti-satellite weapons tracking capability without the NKs giving up their goodies? I didn't know if there was any new tracking technology involved. Anyone know?

Let’s just assume that there is some sort of technology that shot the missile down.

Why would the U.S. use it on a missile test? All technologies leave traces and signatures. This is right in Russia’s and China’s back yards.

Why would we use this “technology” and risk it being reverse engineered and countered?

Frankly, I bet the military guys were watching to see just how far NK’s technology has gotten, now they won’t know.

I don't think anything America has could shoot a missle down in 40 seconds. Could be wrong and I'm sure a lot of people out there will tell me so. However, 40 seconds is over right now!

Did I get shot down yet?

Kidding aside, the news is saying that US didn't shoot it down and I'm thinking, as another poster already said, that we'd have no difficulty in saying so if we did, since NK is firing them against the protests of at least 6 nations, and supposedly it was aimed at us.

Ill is a nut case, imho, just the way he walks with that swagger and his nose in the air looks to me like he is madly in love with himself, and arrogant on top of it.

There is a documentary out by chinese students who took a video camera into NK illegally and with a lot of dangers to themselves, they walked thorugh a crowded market and showed very small children they said were orphans eating rice out of the thickly mudded walkway. The children looked so lost and scared, it was pathetic!

I saw only a portion of the documentary and don't remember the name of it but saw it on TV. Anyone else see it and know the name?

Thanks for your info.

Always look forward to your posts and pretty much take what you write as 'gospel'.

Originally posted by intelgurl
Word on the street however is that the US intel community wanted the missile to fire so they could update their assesments of North Korea's ICBM capabilities.

Well done, Intelgurl. It is always good to see that there are those with open minds and a finger on the pulse of high tech. So many people miss things because they are behind the times when it comes to military tech.

Just because they couldn't do it 10 years ago, doesn't mean that it is impossible now. To assume so is a major flaw in logic when so many are at the vangard and developing things now which were only a dream 5 years ago, much less ten. A net connection and google will not always illuminate these areas. Are stovepipes any better? I guess it depends which side of the hallway you are on.

Keep them coming!

U.S. Readies System For Missile Detection
By Thomas E. Ricks and Joohee Cho
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, June 21, 2006; Page A15

There are nine interceptor missiles based in Alaska and two in California. They are at the core of a complex system that connects launch data from satellites and radars on land and aboard ships, and transmits the data to command-and-control facilities, where senior commanders make decisions about whether to launch interceptors. The system has not successfully intercepted a missile in its current configuration.

U.S. government officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, played down the likelihood of the new anti-missile system being used in this situation because, they said, it is not yet clear whether North Korea will send a missile aloft -- or if it does, whether it would head anywhere near U.S. territory. Nor would the U.S. government want to risk an embarrassing failure of its system, they said, and it is possible that the missile could carry a satellite into space, rather than arc back to earth.

In Seoul, a South Korean official said his government is skeptical of U.S. intelligence indicating that North Korea is preparing to launch a new, larger version of the Taepodong-2 missile capable of hitting the West Coast of the United States. He said his government is not particularly alarmed by the situation and "doesn't understand why there is such fuss in other countries on this."
Source.

The original Washington Post article. Again you can see, the system has never successfully intercepted a missile.

Agenda?

Originally posted by intelgurl
Point of Correction:
The megawatt ABL has a range in the hundreds of miles.
The Laser which you are referring to in the Air Force Magazine article is the “kilowatt-class” laser that can be fitted into smaller aircraft spcifically the 100-kilowatt laser planned for the F-35 fighter. It is this laser that has the 23 mile range.

The ABL's range, worst case scenario is 300 kilometers or approximately 190 miles. The best case scenario puts the range further than that.

Yes in good weather, without atmospheric noise or distortion, the MEGAWATT ABL has a good range. I'm certain it is possible to fit the M-ABL on a ship.

On another note, does anyone have a good idea of the altitude the NK ICBM was at when it failed? 40 seconds is a long time for a missile. On a shuttle launch after 40 seconds of flight, the it is already 16,700 feet in the air. I'm sure a much smaller missile would be a bit faster and go a bit higher. I would like to know the altitude of the failure.



[edit on 5-7-2006 by LAES YVAN]

Don't get tricked by cleverly worded newspaper articles, the GBI has had roughly a 50 % successful test rating however the last couple of tests were failures so the Pentagon modified the missile and launch silos to correct the errors, and that's what the newspaper means. So your statement is wrong the GBI has indeed intercepted ballistic missiles before. And do not omit the fact that GBI is only a part of a multi-layered ABM shield, as such other more successful systems such as the SM-3 should not be ignored.

All I can say is I doubt they would waste a missle unless it arched over and was heading toward the U.S. Then George would have an excuse to attack N. Korea.

Originally posted by nsanavy
All I can say is I doubt they would waste a missle unless it arched over and was heading toward the U.S. Then George would have an excuse to attack N. Korea.

I dont think King George wants another war. Hell he doesnt know what to do with the ones we got right now(Iraq,Afghanistan,War on terror).

I guess this will give the military a free pass to work on new defense systems they have in mind....

After trying for years to develop an interceptor that could discriminate between warheads and decoys — and kill only the warhead — it has given up on that goal. Instead, it wants to spend $2.4 billion through 2011 developing a "Multiple Kill Vehicle" that will unleash a dozen or more mini-interceptors to destroy all potential warheads. "This reduces the burden on sensors and algorithms, which no longer need to be programmed to select one, best target," the Pentagon says.

www.time.com...

I think this action by NK is like an early Christmas present for the Pentagon, they can see what NK's got and at the same time get the go ahead to step up their missile defense plans in the midst of all the fear that's been generated.

Originally posted by Ivanova



Recently there was a rumor that Kim Jong made a secret trip to the Kremlin.

www.foxnews.com...




I can see it all now...

There stands Russia's Tsar complete with Navy hat... poised and ready to shoot...

He yells at Kim Jong...

PULL !!

The NK missiles were launched towards Russia, not Japan.

The launched missiles fell down on the territory which is closer to Russia than to Japan.

**

They all fell down in the north-western part of the Sea of Japan. The missiles went down to the sea floor inside Russia’s 200-mile economic area. One of the missiles hit the sea surface only several dozens of kilometers far from the town of Nakhodka, the Far East of Russia.

english.pravda.ru...





It's obvious what happened...

Tsar Vladimir & Kim Jong were playing skeet


In other words...

What a shock to NORAD and the Pentagon when someone else...
with amazing new technology... shot down the missiles.

Originally posted by centurion1211
Really? So, what would the profile of a shoot down by a SM-3 missile from a ship in nearby waters look like? And don't forget that there were U.S. Aegis warships in the area.

The SM-3 is exo-atmospheric hit-to-kill vehicle. In the tests that have been conducted, it intercepts its target at about 90 miles in altitude. It's simply not designed to be able to track and intercept a missile in boost phase. The ABL is the only missile defense system that is designed to take out the target while in boost.

Actually the SM-3 can take out a missile in its boost/ascend phase if it is very close to the launch site, although even then 40 seconds still seems like a bit too fast. That’s why we have to know the altitude and range the missile failed to make more precise judgments.