"PENTAGON WORKING TO GIVE F-35 JSF NUCLEAR-STRIKE CAPABILITY"

Paul J. Adam wrote:

Ken S. Tucker wrote:
On May 10, 1:31 pm, "Paul J. Adam"
wrote:
It's dead by then: SM-3 is an exoatmospheric interceptor, capability
demonstrated at 133 miles up.

1st stage cheap solid, 2nd stage ditto, the ballistic
course is set, and the 3rd stage is lobbing, however,
when the 3rd stage separated, 5 decoys also blow
off.
"A saturation campaign my boy", 6 missiles is 30
inbound targets.

Only six of which are emitting and manoeuvering. The problem with making
decoys Really Convincing is that they end up as expensive as the
platform they're meant to be protecting...

Which, in fact, was the genesis of the U.S. Cruise Missile resurrection in
the 1960s. Both the Boeing ALCM and the Tomahawk had their roots in SCAD
(Subsonic Cruise Armed Decoy). The old Quails were no loner up to the job,
you see, and th idea was that even if the Bad Guys did figure out which
blips were decoys, you'd still have to intercept them if they had warheads
aboard.

The trouble is, a reusable ship can host a lot more sensor output and
processing power than a one-shot missile and its expendable decoys,
which makes discrimination that much easier. Or you throw a lot of money
at your decoys... at which point you're no longer launching a cheap
missile.

You're not going to get these missiles with the capability you describe
for a million dollars each. These are going to be expensive beasts...

Not really, mass production reduces cost.

No, it doesn't. It spreads the cost more thinly across more platforms,
but you don't get cheaper development from a longer run. The development
cost is what it takes: if it costs ten billion dollars to design the
system, then you need to produce ten thousand missiles to get the
per-unit development cost down below a million apiece - even before you
worry about any manufacturing and material costs. Halve the run and you
make each weapon appear to cost more - but the development costs don't
get any bigger, just the share heaped on each unit.

Okay - according to you these missiles can't be stopped, can't miss,
and are so cheap they can be fired in hundreds. We all die and nothing
can be done. So why worry?

It's like a game of chess. We're trying to discuss
the vulnerability of a CVN fleet to conventional
missile attack, especially going forward 20 years.

Well, if he's going to phrase it that way...
The idea is plausible only to the point of discussion if the ballistic
missiles are carrying large area-effect warheads. (For values of large
equal to several megatons. Conventional-warhead missiles will require
several direct hits, and given the flight times, which can't be changed
materially for a ballistic missile, you'd have to saturate an incredibly
huge area to have a reasonable chance,
Here's the upshot - the idea only works as a first shot - The results of
throwing a large number of your strategic nuclear weapons at a Carrier
Battlegroup has just raised the ante to where your country is a Trinitite
Mine, and any survivors are being hunted down by the folks who were
downwind. Trying it with conventional warheads means that you now have,
among other things, an extremely ****ed off Carrier Battle Group off your
shores, with the exact location of your launchers all dialed in. (And,
given ELINT vs. the sensors and Command and Control net, your eyes nd
brains, too.)
Either strategy accomplishes the demise of your regime, at best, and your
nation, at worst, in record time.

Paul, I just realized that we may know some of the same people.
Drop me an Email to see if that's so.

--
Pete Stickney
The better the Four Wheel Drive, the further out you get stuck.

On May 10, 8:37 pm, Bill Shatzer wrote:
Ken S. Tucker wrote:
On May 10, 4:24 pm, "Keith Willshaw"
wrote:

"Ken S. Tucker" wrote in ...

On May 10, 12:23 pm, "Keith Willshaw"

Name one missile that does so and the mechanism it uses for braking.

Sputnik, returned dogs safely in the 50's. They used
speed brakes, then parachutes.

No it didnt, Sputnik was not recoverable and the dog Laika died in space
And the other 24 dog missions ?
Please aquaint and get back to us.
Ken
[...]

Dunno, but the first Soviet canine passengers successfully returned from
orbit weren't in the 1950s.

The discussion involves sub-orbital, (IRBM's or MRBM's),
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_space_dogs
to prove sub-orbital re-entry capability, see it in 1951.
(Keith went off track with Laika).
Ken

On May 10, 5:00 pm, "Paul J. Adam"
wrote:
Ken S. Tucker wrote:
On May 10, 3:42 pm, "Paul J. Adam"
wrote:
I'm well acquainted with PROBABILITY. This is why you do
"shoot-look-shoot" - and suddenly your threatening track now only has a
4% chance of surviving. (And this assumes that you only have time for
one follow up) Note that any soft-kill countermeasures still get to play
with the surviving threat seekers

Hmm, I was generous enabling the 80%.
Paul you pushed to 96%...

Because you shoot once and get the 80% you credit us with. Then you
either do kill assessment and launch again, or you double-tap if time is
short and the protected unit valuable, and get another 80% shot. At that
point your Pk is 96%.

It's PROBABILITY, dear Ken, PROBABILITY. Reality is a little more
complicated but we're playing on your terms.

Yes, more complicated, like no second chance.

You (Paul & Keith) are pushin' our BS detector off scale!!!
Have either of you ever designed and fired a missile?

Er....
Yes.
Next question?

Would you provide us with a brief overview of your
experience designing missiles?
(an online ref is fine)
Ken

On May 10, 11:51*pm, frank wrote:
On May 10, 5:57*pm, "Paul J. Adam"



wrote:
Ken S. Tucker wrote:
On May 10, 1:31 pm, "Paul J. Adam"
wrote:
It's dead by then: SM-3 is an exoatmospheric interceptor, capability
demonstrated at 133 miles up.

1st stage cheap solid, 2nd stage ditto, the ballistic
course is set, and the 3rd stage is lobbing, however,
when the 3rd stage separated, 5 decoys also blow
off.
"A saturation campaign my boy", 6 missiles is 30
inbound targets.

Only six of which are emitting and manoeuvering. The problem with making
decoys Really Convincing is that they end up as expensive as the
platform they're meant to be protecting...

The trouble is, a reusable ship can host a lot more sensor output and
processing power than a one-shot missile and its expendable decoys,
which makes discrimination that much easier. Or you throw a lot of money
at your decoys... at which point you're no longer launching a cheap missile.

You're not going to get these missiles with the capability you describe
for a million dollars each. These are going to be expensive beasts....

Not really, mass production reduces cost.

No, it doesn't. It spreads the cost more thinly across more platforms,
but you don't get cheaper development from a longer run. The development
cost is what it takes: if it costs ten billion dollars to design the
system, then you need to produce ten thousand missiles to get the
per-unit development cost down below a million apiece - even before you
worry about any manufacturing and material costs. Halve the run and you
make each weapon appear to cost more - but the development costs don't
get any bigger, just the share heaped on each unit.

Okay - according to you *these missiles can't be stopped, can't miss,
and are so cheap they can be fired in hundreds. We all die and nothing
can be done. So why worry?

It's like a game of chess. We're trying to discuss
the vulnerability of a CVN fleet to conventional
missile attack, especially going forward 20 years.

Which requires realistic assumptions going in, rather than simply giving
Red implausible capabilities and unrealistic budgets.

So instead of firing dozens of missiles at *one* aimpoint, you're now
trying to saturate a whole ocean? Just how many of these missiles do you
have anyway?

One with a real time update is likely sufficient.

What if the real-time update is spoofed?

What if the "one" missile is shot down by a SM-3 while still outside the
atmosphere?

Please keep those goalposts in one place. Are the enemy firing massive
salvoes to saturate wide areas, or targeting precisely and firing aimed
singles?

I think Red have their own rose-coloured lenses welded firmly to their
face here...

Do you agree a CVN is slower and less maneuveurable
than a Blimp?

In what weather?

Same issues, often more so. If you're running a bespoke R&D project to
produce special-purpose components, you can completely forget a $1
million price tag per missile...

You should buy a digital camera, they are amazing.

My mobile phone has a five-megapixel camera built into it and that's now
routine rather than exciting. But that particular handset sold its
millionth unit (just in the UK) six months after it launched.

Military hardware lags because civilian kit is where the sales and the
profits are.

--
He thinks too much, such men are dangerous.

Not to mention once design is put in place for military its pretty
much set in stone. I remember in the 80s, B-52 CTF spent a ton of
money upgrading B-52s so they could quit using vaccuum tubes. Might be
current when designed, I wouldn't be surprised if F-22 is still loaded
with electronics with 90s technology. Look at the Space Shuttle, even
when upgraded, still behind civil aviation.

Late 80s worked on the F-111 was trying to get digital flight control
system bought by USAF or RAAF. neither bought it, Cheney killed F-111
in the Peace Dividend.

One thing is its hard to retrofit an airframe with say new technology
such as fly by wire. sometimes easier to just build a new airplane.
And with F-22 designed in late 80s........

Actually I believe there was an F-111 avionics upgrade program in the
90s, but the F-111
was retired in 96 I think, with the EF Spark Varks going in 98.

On May 10, 7:55*pm, "Ken S. Tucker" wrote:
On May 10, 3:42 pm, "Paul J. Adam"

wrote:
Ken S. Tucker wrote:
On May 10, 12:23 pm, "Keith Willshaw"
wrote:
standards) to search, select, aim and fire.
And be shot down by a Standard 2 missile - oops

Maybe 80% of the time, but you forget PROBABILTY.

I'm well acquainted with PROBABILITY. This is why you do
"shoot-look-shoot" - and suddenly your threatening track now only has a
4% chance of surviving. (And this assumes that you only have time for
one follow up) Note that any soft-kill countermeasures still get to play
with the surviving threat seekers

Hmm, I was generous enabling the 80%.
Paul you pushed to 96%...

You (Paul & Keith) are pushin' our BS detector off scale!!!
Have either of you ever designed and fired a missile?

Who do you mean by "our"? What they're saying is perfectly valid, and
probably even understating the actual use. Operationally, I would
expect a USN carrier group's guided missile ships to loft multiples
EACH if an inbound ballistic was detected. What does the Pk for a half-
dozen SM-3 guiding on a target that's mid-apex and not maneuvering
look like? And assuming that nothing even gets a mission kill on the
target, you're still tracking it and the battle group's got dozens
more SM-3 in the cells ready to go.

On May 10, 8:40 pm, Bill Shatzer wrote:
Ken S. Tucker wrote:
....
Hmm, I was generous enabling the 80%.
Paul you pushed to 96%...

He said "shoot-look-shoot". If you fire two 80% missiles, you've got an
94% chance of obtaining a kill.

That's not the way it works. If the 1st fails, the chances
for the 2nd is ~20%, also recall the inbound is -delta v,
followed by image=lock then +delta v to target.
Also account for multiple conventional warheads from
the same missile.

Do the math.

OK, (4/5)*(1/5) ~ 20%,

When I was a tiny punk, a Vet gave me a model of a
destroyer ship, bristling with guns, and I asked if any
thing could kill it, even airplanes, well yes.
Same thing for the Limey Lancs and Flying Fortress.

Consider 1 Me-109 vs 1 Lanc, VFRules, which do you
want to be in?
What was the name of the Marginot line?
Ken

Ken S. Tucker wrote:
Would you provide us with a brief overview of your
experience designing missiles?
(an online ref is fine)

Fourteen years with GEC-Marconi, topping out as acting Systems
Engineering Manager for a guided weapon's mid-life upgrade. Currently up
to my eyeballs getting HMS Daring into service (primarily, gripping Sea
Viper) and providing some advice on FLAADS(M) and the Common Airframe
Modular Missile that's the currently preferred solution.

--
He thinks too much, such men are dangerous.

On May 11, 9:11 am, "Paul J. Adam"
wrote:
Ken S. Tucker wrote:
Would you provide us with a brief overview of your
experience designing missiles?
(an online ref is fine)

Fourteen years with GEC-Marconi, topping out as acting Systems
Engineering Manager for a guided weapon's mid-life upgrade. Currently up
to my eyeballs getting HMS Daring into service (primarily, gripping Sea
Viper) and providing some advice on FLAADS(M) and the Common Airframe
Modular Missile that's the currently preferred solution.

Hi Mr. Adams.
Had to look up,
http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/newshome...per.4926226.jp
((I did some business with those companies you mentioned,
very respectable, I'd rank them A+, naturally we're bound by
commercial level confidentiality, so naturally I forget why)).

The "Common Airframe Modular Missile" concept is very much
a desirable SOP, and you being an "Engineering Manager" you
know the value of a *Block Diagram*, and so as primitive as it
sounds, use Lego blocks, even if you glue them together to
form the modules, and it may be instructive to field personel,
like me.
Cheers
Ken

"Ken S. Tucker" wrote in message
...
On May 10, 8:37 pm, Bill Shatzer wrote:
Ken S. Tucker wrote:
On May 10, 4:24 pm, "Keith Willshaw"
wrote:

"Ken S. Tucker" wrote in
...

On May 10, 12:23 pm, "Keith Willshaw"

Name one missile that does so and the mechanism it uses for braking.

Sputnik, returned dogs safely in the 50's. They used
speed brakes, then parachutes.

No it didnt, Sputnik was not recoverable and the dog Laika died in
space
And the other 24 dog missions ?
Please aquaint and get back to us.
Ken
[...]

Dunno, but the first Soviet canine passengers successfully returned from
orbit weren't in the 1950s.

The discussion involves sub-orbital, (IRBM's or MRBM's),
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_space_dogs
to prove sub-orbital re-entry capability, see it in 1951.
(Keith went off track with Laika).
Ken


Actually the person who raised the issue of dogs in Sputnik
was you. Laika was the ONLY dog to fly in a sputnik
in the 1950's.

Keith

In my opinion, every fighter plane ,like the F-35, needs a choice of 2
engines, to keep costs down and avoid any politics on it, it's a no-
brainer, the USA cannot end up depending on just one source, in this
case P&W, for such an important line of product, 2 sources will make
sure that later , when new ram/scramjet/etc. solutions come on line,
there are options and fair competition , and the one billion dollar
needed to deliver that second engine ( in this case a G.E. / RR ) can
easily come from the absurdly expensive and un-needed ( and never
asked for ) new subs, destroyers, FCS that so far is just a
contractor's kid wish list ( the trucks were bottom-flat , still !!! )
and other missile bunga-lungas that were designed so that the
Contractor's chairman and Board members could get a new 200 foot boat
with helicopter, what a criminal shame ! another massive corrupt
hole just discovered is that even when for the last 3 years, steel,
alloys and other key materials have come down in price, the Pentagon
never demanded from the contractors to adjust the price, they paid
always the same old top price !!!! who is in charge ? the
contractor's kid.

There are 50 billion dollars a year in the Pentagon budget that must
be taken out from the waste basket.