This week's AW&ST: apparently THAAD will have some ABM (as in anti- *ICBM*) capability.

"Scott Ferrin" wrote in message
...

Well yeah. And NMD has a longer reach than THAAD *and* Spartan.

How do you know what the engagement footprint is for THAAD in terms of
ICBM's? It apparently is NOT the advertised "more than 200 km" range/150
km
altitude advertised for it in the role of theater TBM killer.

Where did I say it was? Also I did mention NEW BOOSTER.

Scott, it is getting sort of hard to tell exactly *what* you are saying. You
started this thread about THAAD and its ICBM intercept capability. When the
fact that THAAD will have a reduced range when/if it engages an ICBM was
pointed out, you brought Sprint into the equation, and when it was pointed
out that Sprint was however part of a two-tier system, you launched into NMD
(as a whole?). To keep it simple--yes, THAAD can apparently engage an ICBM,
but only at reduced range, which means you need a fair number of systems to
make it work. You mention new booster--great. But you are really not talking
about THAAD anymore when you do that (saying you are going to give it new
boosters and presumably new radars would leave you with a system that shares
rather little with THAAD, IMO).


Spartan had a
reported max range of some 740 km!

Great. NMD is several THOUSAND *miles*.

Do you want to talk about GBMI or THAAD? Make up your mind.


THAAD comes in at about *on-third* the
size of Spartan (6.2 meter length bversus some 16 meters, diameter of
0.34
meters versus over one meter for Spartan. If you think THAAD is gonna
outreach Spartan, think again.

Where did I say that? I've said "terminal" and Sprint all along.
I've never once mentioned Spartan. You did. I don't think THAAD
would have any trouble at all reaching Sprint's 25 mile range.

Which makes it (THAAD, not your postulated "Great Big Son of THAAD") a
pretty lousy ICBM protection system, right? How many 25-mile range missile
sites would you need just to cover the greater LA metropolitan area, much
less every other metro area along the coast?



Trying to defend a large urban area (like you
find on the Left Coast) against ICBM attack with THAAD would require
sprinkling launch sites around like the old Nike Ajax did...and that
ain't
gonna happen.


Well not quite. Those were dedicated missile bases,

And if you are going to try and protect the urban areas on the Left Coast
with THAAD, don't you think you'd *need* dedicated basing?

Nope. Do you even know what a dedicated missile site is? Do a Google
on "Nike Hercules" and you'll get back two million hits with lots on
info. A dedicated missile site is NOT and Airforce or Army base with
a few missile launchers living there.

Bullpoopie. I lived just down the street from both a Bomarc and a Nike Herc
site as a kid; crap, my brother's first job in the Army was Nike Herc
crewman, for gosh sakes. The Nike herc site even included *housing* (the
Bomarc site did not because it was able to use nearby Langley AFB). Now, if
you are going to use THAAD in this role, you WILL need dedicated launch
sites, and dedicated radar sites, and you will need a lot of them to cover
the metropolitan areas on the west coast.


The crews would
get kind of tired of eating at the Golden Arches every meal (thought they
might like the TDY pay....).


Why would they have to? Is there something inherently impossible
about stationing a couple THAAD launchers on an air base?

Gee, and I guess you are going to conveniently have an airbase located every
100 km or so along the coast? THAAD ain't gonna cut it as a metro defense
system covering the west coast; whether or not your Great Big Son of THAAD
will is another issue (maybe we ought to worry about getting the kinks
ironed out of vanilla THAAD first?).


each with a dozen
or two launchers for LARGE missiles with quite a bit shorter range.

Those "LARGE" missiles were not much bigger than THAAD


10,000 pounds and 41 feet (Hercules) vs 2000 pounds and 20 feet for
THAAD. You're right, they're damn near identical. How many Nike
Hercules you think they could squeeze onto a THAAD launcher? Ten?
Five? One?

I said AJAX! You were arguing about AJAX sites. Compare Ajax and THAAD and
then get back to me, OK?



; about the same
diameter, and a 10 meter length versus a six-plus meter length. Max range
was about 50 km--and since we don't know *what* the max range is for
THAAD
in an anti-ICBM role (but we do know it would probably be quite a bit
less
than 200 km), your hypothesis seems to be a bit lacking.


It seems your reading comprehension is nonexistant. Why don't you go
back and reread everything I've written and then come back for
discussion. I don't know what the hell you're on but you apparently
misread something and ran with it. Off the deep end.

Well, being as you have bounced from a question about THAAD to GBMI, from
comparing Ajax siting requirements to hercules, etc., it appears my reading
comprehension may not be the problem here.


Quite different than say, three or four radars total and a launcher or
two per location operating out of military bases up and down the
coast.

OK, take a gander at the distribution of coastal military bases, and tell
me
if they have a seperation of between one and one hundred fifty hundred
klicks, which is about as good as you can expect to get with THAAD
against
an ICBM target.


Hey I didn't write the article. In fact if you had any reading skills
at all you'd see I was wondering about it myself.

Then why are you so hellfire determined to argue that deploying THAAD to
cover west coast metro areas would really be 'no big deal', so to speak?



Once you have done that, I think you will see where your
holes are, and they will be large ones. That is a LONG coast line along
the
Pacific, with a lot of population centers distributed along it.

They said that with the different booster THAAD could cover an
entire coast with one battery. Last I heard a THAAD battery was
suppose to be something like ONE radar and 32 missiles or so.

That will be one hell of a booster, and it will no longer be a THAAD.


A Titan IV isn't a Titan I but it's still a Titan. An SM-3 isn't an
SM-1 MR but it's still a Standard. An AIM-9X isn't an AIM-9B but it's
still a Sidewinder. Need I go on?

No. As you have plainly lost the bubble already.

Brooks




Not to
mention that the radar would likely not be powerful enough to handle
coverage of the entire coast...

Drop a 1200 mile diameter circle on the Pacific coast and that's your
coverage. And again *I'm* not the one claiming ONE battery could do
it. AW&ST is. I'd mention them needing three or four radars to do
it.