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

Scott, it is getting sort of hard to tell exactly *what* you are saying.


Not to anyone with even a passing understanding of the English
language. Let's take it step-by-step and see where you went galloping
off into the sunset.


I made my first post stating that AvWeek mentioned terminal ABM
capability for the THAAD. I made no mention of any other missile.


In YOUR first post in reply

"but its engagement footprint in that role is supposed to be
pretty small"


to THAT I said

" As for the footprint, terminal defenses
have never really had all that long of range anyway. Sprint was about
25 miles (although it could cover those miles a hell of a lot faster
than THAAD :-) ) and HIBEX was less than that."


Meaning essentially "so what, we're talking about TERMINAL
defense".

To which you wrote "Yes, but Sprint was merely the lower tier of a
two-tier system; Spartan had a significantly longer reach. "

Which is where you seem to have gotten lost. Who gives a **** about
Spartan? Spartan wasn't a terminal defense missile. We're talking
about terminal defenses.





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?).

Ponting out that THAAD would ALSO be part of a tiered system. If me
saying "Well yeah. And NMD has a longer reach than THAAD *and*
Spartan." wasn't specific enough for you to follow well, that's not
really my problem. Maybe when I said "NMD" that's what threw you.
God knows they're are enough acronyms being tossed around about it.
For simplicity's sake I'm referring to
big-missile-in-hole-in-ground-in-Alaska."





To keep it simple--yes, THAAD can apparently engage an ICBM,
but only at reduced range


Hence the statement T-E-R-M-I-N-A-L. On numerous occasions.




, which means you need a fair number of systems to
make it work.


Which is what I've been saying. Which is why I was wondering how they
think ONE battery could defend an entire coast.





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).

Of course I'm talking about THAAD. An SM-2MR Block I and SM-3 could
hardly be more different but they're both Standards and they're both
associated with the Aegis weapon system.







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.


I wanted to talk about THAAD but apparently you wanted to talk about
Spartan.







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?

Here you're just stating whatever the hell you feel like apparently.
That or you don't know what the hell "terminal phase" means. *I*
said that *AW&ST* said THAAD as it is RIGHT NOW (not the test vehicles
of years back but the ones being built NOW) has *some* anti-ICBM
capability in their terminal phase, and they will be tested against
ICBMs.

My specific words we "According to
the article the data on THAAD in it's current incarnation indicates
that it may have some terminal-phase ABM capability."








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?

Here's where your reading comprehension, such as it is, breaks down
again. What I said was,

"They also mentioned in the article that THAAD may reveive a "kick
motor" and larger booster and would be able to defend the entire east
or west coast against barge-launched (or sub-launched I suppose) TBMs
with one battery. "


You do know the difference between a TBM and ICBM don't you? Even
the old version of THAAD had a 125+ mile range against TBMs. That 125
mile kill was at an altitude of 93 miles. So drop a 250 mile diameter
circle over LA and you'll see that even a battery of old model THAADs
would EASILY defend much more than the LA metro.







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.

So you ARE sayning a "dedicated" missile site is just a couple
launchers sitting at the end of an airbase?



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).

EXACTLY. That's my point.




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.



Not so. Read above (many times if you need to).





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?


Get off the crack. That or learn some math. Even with the old THAAD
you'd have 50 miles of overlapping coverage if you stationed launchers
two HUNDRED MILES (over three times the distance you mention) apart.





THAAD ain't gonna cut it as a metro defense
system covering the west coast;


Well certainly not in the world *you* live in. For those of us who
can add and read it's EASILY a "metro defense system" (whatever the
hell THAT is).



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?).


Maybe you need to stay out of the sugar. It's not MY "Great big son
of THAAD".







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.

(Damn, I just sprayed my keyboard with Pepsi). We were arguing the
need for dedicated sites. And the Hercules use the same launch rails
and sites the Ajax did.




Compare Ajax and THAAD and
then get back to me, OK?

Let's see:

Ajax THAAD

Fixed site. 10 missiles on a mobile launcher
Mach 2.3 Mach 9.5
Range 30 miles 125+ miles (old THAAD- not today's)
Altitude 70,000 ft 93+ MILES

Yep, you're right. Exactly the same.



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.


LOL. You haven't even been able to follow your *OWN* comments let
alone mine.





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?


I never said it was. I said *they* seem to think so and *I* want to
know what they're basing that assertion on.










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.


How so? Perhaps a better example would have been the AA-10/ AA-10
"long burn". It's still the same basic missile.