Originally posted by mfsheldon

Originally posted by Daedalus3

How local is 'local'?
Also how exactly is this EM burst generated? There aren't many sources by which a strong enough EM burst can be created for such purposes..

Really? I see you are a bit short on your physics. There are many ways to generate an small EMP effect over a short range. How far away would a missile really need to be? There are conventional bursts that will propagate over a mile or so, and that is enough to have the desired effect.

All of the posters on this site want to believe Russian weapons actually work. They do well enough to get a submarine to complete a cruise without sinking itself. Every battle between modern US designed weapons and Russian weapons has been a very one-sided affair.

Pick any Arab-Israeli conflict
Iraq (round I and II)
Serbia
Libya (multiple occasions)

Even in Korea and Vietnam, before US technological supremacy really took hold the US held very lopsided kill ratios vs Russian aircraft. The only difference is that US aircraft are 500% more capable now and Russian aircraft just have not kept up.

There is a fundamental difference in philosophy among US and Russian designers. US designers expect performance at 125-200% of specification if the engine is rated at 1500hp, it better be able to peak at 1800. If crush depth is 3000m, it will do 4000 in a pinch.

On the Russian side it has been the exact opposite. If it hit a target once at 2000 yards under perfect test conditions, it was rated at 2000 yards.

Once you throw the elements at the system, including untrained operators and unexpected combat situations, the US systems perform admirably. Russian systems simply do not.

You can yell and scream all you want, but serious observers know this.

Go ahead and get yourselves into a frenzy about another useless superweapon, you are exactly who the propaganda is aimed at....

Originally posted by Zaphod58
The Stark was sailing with her Phalanx turned off. Not to mention that at the ranges Phalanx engages it still would have done damage to the ship, even if it was turned on.

Originally posted by corruptioninvestigator
The Starks Phalanx system was not 'turned off'-thats ridiculous, why would they possibly be in such hostile waters, with any system turned off. US Navy captains are not morons..see below excerpt from article.

[The Stark was endowed with an impressive array of defenses -- an MK92 fire control system that could intercept incoming aircraft at a range of 90 miles; an OTO gun that could fire three-inch anti-aircraft shells at a rate of 90 per minute; electronic defenses that could produce bogus radar images to deceive attackers; and the Phalanx, a six-barreled gun that could fire 3,000 uranium rounds a minute at incoming missiles.

Brindel insisted that his ship's combat system was fully operational, but Navy technicians in Bahrain said the Stark's Phalanx system had not been working properly when the frigate put out to sea.]

I beleive the captain when he says the ship was fully operational not the unnamed navy technicians..in maritime history low level sailors have a tradition of stabbing the captain in the back after tragedy occurs.. there is no way he would have set sail with the system down, and there are warning systems that tell the crew if the systems are off-line.

at best these anti-missile systems are a crap shoot, they literally have NO real time record of success, they only work in 'tests' in the desert somewhere, but weather in the falklands or the gulf, everytime these antiship missiles have been launched, they have hit, and against the sunburn or sizzler..forget it.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
The Stark was sailing with her Phalanx turned off. Not to mention that at the ranges Phalanx engages it still would have done damage to the ship, even if it was turned on.

Originally posted by corruptioninvestigator
Excuse me if I do not buy the standard line that there was something wrong with the ships defense system, of all times to not have the defense systems functioning correctly is when they are in the most hostile waters in the world and just happens to be when they come under attack. Supposedly it's not that the ships defenses were simply beat by the exocet, they want to tell you that the system just happened to be broken that day.

I believe what the captain said-that the defense systems were operating normally..the system clearly failed to detect the launching of the exocets in the first place, which made them immpossible to track. The radar only detected the planes, not the missiles. The problem is that in such narrow waters, potential enemy planes and boats are already too close, and in fireing range at the onset of hostilities, and once they let loose one of these sophesticated anti-ship missiles, it's a crap shoot at best to down it.

I don't think we're on the same page here, anyone just looking at the picture of the sunburn and the data posted can conclude that the sunburn or sizzler cannot be stopped under any circumstance.