Matthew Yglesias » Everything You Wanted to Know About Sea-Based Missile Defense But Were Afraid to Ask

Sep 8th, 2008 at 5:34 pm

Everything You Wanted to Know About Sea-Based Missile Defense But Were Afraid to Ask

Admittedly, if you’re normal you haven’t had a ton of such questions. But sea-based missile defense systems are the thinking person’s missile defense — less provocative and less grandiose than National Missile Defense schemes, but they actually work. Andrew Grotto and Rebecca Grant can fill you in.

Comments
47

Filed under: defense, navy,

47 Responses to “Everything You Wanted to Know About Sea-Based Missile Defense But Were Afraid to Ask”

Grumpy Says:
September 8th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
I know all about sea-based missile defense. I live near the coast, therefore I’ve learned about it by osmosis, like Sarah Palin.
Aleks Says:
September 8th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Will this elitist missile defense protect normal white people, like John McCain and me?
Warren Terra Says:
September 8th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
My recollection from previous sea-based-missile-defense stories, not addressed by the linked story, is that they might be effective against countries that can’t put their missiles too far from the shore, i.e. Korea, but they’re not effective against China or Russia. If my recollection is right (and I don’t know which category Iran would fall in, although given that it’s mentioned in the story maybe either my recollection is moot or all of Oran is close enough to blue water) they’re obviously not useful for the NeoCons and their fixation on planting missiles in Poland.
Warren Terra Says:
September 8th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Oran S/B Iran. All of Oran is, of course, very close to the water indeed.
PT&S Says:
September 8th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Sorry, I skimmed the report, but I’m not picking up on why sea-based missile defense is technically workable when we’ve heard land-based defense described as such an unrealistic failure. Is someone in a position to straighten this out? Thanks.
Mixner Says:
September 8th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
I’m not picking up on why sea-based missile defense is technically workable when we’ve heard land-based defense described as such an unrealistic failure.

You’ve heard land-based missile defense described as such, have you? That settles it, then.
daveNYC Says:
September 8th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
It’s less provocative to Russia than a bunch of interceptors in Poland, but if you park a couple of Aegis equipped cruisers off someone’s coastline, I think they’ll take notice.
cmholm Says:
September 8th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
It’s technically workable because years of tests and development have gradually built up to the point where it’s been shown to be workable.

Politically, it doesn’t catch as much flak as land-based systems because its core rationale is to protect 1) US expeditionary forces near coastlines (think SA & Kuwait in GWI), and 2) protect Japan and S. Korea against the realistic threat of NK missiles.

It doesn’t (yet) scale up to defend against a major attack, and so doesn’t upset the strategic balance with anyone who really matters. Ergo, it doesn’t cause much heat and discontent from the Russians or Chinese.

In the more general sense, there’s no reason to think of sea-based as in any way morally superior to land-based.
Don Williams Says:
September 8th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
1) Before Matthew says that sea-based missile defense systems “actually work” he might want to Google “typhoon”.
Or “Sea State 8″.

2) I was going to suggest that he also think about each of the tasks that a missile defense system must handle — alert, locate, track , calculate intercept, launch, intercept — and ask if there are any countermeasures the enemy might take to prevent the ship from carrying out the task. But I collapsed with helpless laughter at the idea of Matthew doing engineering analysis and decided to desist.

3) Oh yes — the ship has to actually survive . Don’t forget that. One thing to hit a bullet when its passing overhead on the way to CONUS. Something else when the bullet is screeching right toward you.

4) PS The enemy can also launch AWAY from you — i.e, to circle around the earth and come at you — or CONUS — from behind.
Don Williams Says:
September 8th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
If I might move off-topic for a moment, heads up to Richard: Chronicles of Sarah Connor start in a few minutes. If we’re going to discuss US Government’s Science Fiction, let’s at least discuss the interesting kind.
Kolohe Says:
September 8th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
jiminy criminey Williams, you’re being pretty dense today.

As it has been said the whole point of *theater* missle defense is to take out something like a Taepodong. Something that can’t be launched “backwards,” can’t be targeted as a moving object like a battlegroup, and can’t be launched if there’s crappy weather. And isn’t designed for stuff launched at CONUS anyway, and not even Hawaii. (Guam, OTOH)
Kolohe Says:
September 8th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
“And (theater missle defense) isn’t designed for stuff launched at CONUS anyway..”
Cranky Observer Says:
September 8th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
> but I’m not picking up on why sea-based missile
> defense is technically workable when we’ve heard
> land-based defense described as such an unrealistic failure.

One tends to wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that any random Admiral below the level of CNO could find himself on a ship sailing into a combat zone at any time, and therefore is a bit more invested in making sure that the weapons he signs checks for actually work as advertised?

Cranky
Kolohe Says:
September 8th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
And as for Terminator. I never caught last season, and I loved Glau in firefly, but all I can say is ‘meh’ for the episode I just watched.
buzz79 Says:
September 8th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
I’m not picking up on why sea-based missile defense is technically workable when we’ve heard land-based defense described as such an unrealistic failure

I don’t have time to read the report but I assume that it has to do with attacking the missiles during the boost phase rather than in free flight. In the boost phase, not only are the missiles traveling slower but they are both easier to destroy (because a rocket is an inherently fragile device) and easier to target (because missiles have a very obvious heat signature which is nearly impossible to either disguise or mimic cheaply). You also eliminate the possibility of effective, cheap decoys.
Warren Terra Says:
September 8th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
buzz, you might think so, but flipping through the report the authors appear to denigrate boost-phase and terminal-phase. They are stressing intermediate-phase, i.e. low detectability and easy decoys, but easy targeting solution if you think you’ve successfully identified your target, because it’s ballistic and has a constant speed and course.

Of course, if that’s what they’re describing they’re also cheating by saying that 4 of the last 5 official tests were successes, because reasonable decoys weren’t allowed, and the trajectories were announced ahead of time.
John Henninger Says:
September 8th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
A potential sea based ABM system will fail because coutermeasures, such as more missiles or warheads, can easily be made. So a potentailly armed nuclear Iran or Pakistan will just make more warheads and missiles, and Israel feeling threatened will increase their stockpile. So the end result could be a arms race in South Asia and the Middle East. The Russsians will probably modernize and increase their arsenal as well. Misssile Defense sea based or land based is a bad idea.
Don Williams Says:
September 8th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Re Kolohe’s comment “As it has been said the whole point of *theater* missle defense is to take out something like a Taepodong. Something that can’t be launched “backwards,” can’t be targeted as a moving object like a battlegroup, and can’t be launched if there’s crappy weather. And isn’t designed for stuff launched at CONUS anyway ”
————–
Well, the article was definitely arguing that SBMD could be scaled up to defend CONUS.

And it works only if you INTERDICT ALL launches from other countries on this planet. Including launches of comms satellites, research missions,etc. Because you don’t know what is really on foreign payloads. Which means you have to embargo space.
Don Williams Says:
September 8th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Re Warren Terra’s comment that the intermediate phase allows ” easy targeting solution if you think you’ve successfully identified your target, because it’s ballistic and has a constant speed and course.”
————
Not exactly. Once an object is in orbit (or suborbit), it has enormous rotational inertia and it takes a relatively large amount of fuel to change its orbital plane (i.e., the angle between the plane of its orbit relative to the plane of earth’s equator.)

It takes less fuel to simply speed up the object (which increases the objects altitude above the earth) or to slow the object down (making it drop in altitude.). And of course, a thruster burn at apogee in a Molniya orbit changes that orbit’s elongated shape into a circular one.

In the boost phase, the payload is more maneuverable since orbital inertia and speed hasn’t built up and steering surfaces can be applied against the earth’s atmosphere.
Don Williams Says:
September 8th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
Strategically, a sea-based missile defense is at a disadvantage against a land adversary.

He can stack a hundred missiles at hidden locations on land — you have to match each of his missiles but have the much harder/more expensive task of deploying your interceptors at sea.

Plus you have to have two interceptors for his one — because you have to rotate ships deployed at sea back to port.

And your missiles have to be much more robust — to handle being tossed around at sea for months on end.

What does SBMD do to intercept cruise missiles?

The USA has the world’s largest economy so it can handle some asymmetrical options available to much small countries like Iran and Korea. So long as China and Russia stay aloof and don’t sell countermeasures to US systems to their proxies.
E. O'Neal Says:
September 8th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Sea-based systems are great where there’s a sea between the aggressor and the target. They won’t protect Israel or Europe from Iranian missiles. Land-based, sea-based, who cares? Screw the Russians.
Mixner Says:
September 8th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Matthew,

But sea-based missile defense systems are the thinking person’s missile defense — less provocative and less grandiose than National Missile Defense schemes, but they actually work.

This comment doesn’t make much sense. A sea-based missile defense system could function as, or as a major component of, a “National Missile Defense scheme” just as a land- or air- or space-based system could. The report you cite indicates that by 2015 the Aegis BMD system is expected to be capable of intercepting ballistic missiles of short, medium, intermediate and long ranges, including ICBMs in the 10,000-km range.
novakant Says:
September 9th, 2008 at 6:35 am
So Matt is now regurgitating CAP talking points developed in cooperation with the Lexington Institute, a group lobbyists of lobbyists funded by defense contractors – great!
novakant Says:
September 9th, 2008 at 6:38 am
forgot the link
Kellie Strøm Says:
September 9th, 2008 at 7:44 am
According to this BBC News story from last month, the planned deployment of 10 interceptors in Poland is part of a larger deployment that includes 44 land based interceptors in Alaska and California, and 130 interceptors on ships, so the sea-based element would already seem larger just in terms of numbers.

If Russia’s given reasons for objecting to Polish based interceptors were genuine, wouldn’t one expect Russia to be even more concerned about the sea based system? There is quite a lot of sea around Europe, with no locals to object, so the potential for a sea based system to scale up to the point where it might pose some strategic challenge to Russia’s nuclear deterrence of 4,000 warheads would seem to be greater than the couple of handfuls of interceptors destined for Poland.

All of this casts further doubt on Russia’s objections on Poland, and indicates that what they dislike is not the physical abilities of the actual interceptors, but what they represent in terms of further integrating Poland with the west, and the implications of that integration for other Eastern European countries.
Richard Rolsen Says:
September 9th, 2008 at 8:53 am
Complete and utter bull. Read the PDF carefully, the tests that they have been successful in doing is that they can track the missles. There has never been a succesful launch of an interceptor that took down a ballistic missle. Not from our land based, or our sea based. This article wants you to believe that we can’t get a land based system to work, but a moving ship, with smaller missles can?

When they say there have been successful tests, they mean they have had successful computer similations.

Missle defense does not work, but they need to keep selling it because it is worth Billions of dollars.
Mixner Says:
September 9th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Richard Rolsen

There has never been a succesful launch of an interceptor that took down a ballistic missle.

Complete and utter bull.

A partial list of successful Aegis flight tests, from Wikipedia:

FM-2
On January 25, 2002, an SM-3 launched from the USS Lake Erie collided with a test target northeast of the island of Kauai. This mission marked the first intercept of a ballistic missile from a sea-based platform.

FM-4
On November 21, 2002 Aegis BMD intercepted a unitary ballistic missile during FM-4 (Codename: Stellar Viper).

FM-6
…once again featured a successful intercept. The USS Lake Erie was the firing ship.

FM-7
On February 24, 2005, FM-7, or FTM 04-1, demonstrated yet again the system’s ability to destroy an enemy ballistic missile. The USS Lake Erie was the firing ship.

FTM-11
On April 26, 2007, Aegis BMD successfully intercepted its eighth target in ten attempts. This test marked the 27th successful “Hit-to-Kill” intercept (for all MDA systems) since 2001. The USS Lake Erie was the firing ship and utilized the Aegis 3.6 Weapon System. The interceptor was the SM-3 Block-Ia. This test not only demonstrated the ability of ABMD to intercept a ballistic missile but also demonstrated the Lake Erie’s ability to simultaneously track and intercept antiship missiles.

FTM-12
On June 22, 2007, the USS Decatur, using the operationally-certified Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense Weapon System (BMD 3.6) and the Standard Missile – 3 (SM-3) Block IA missile, successfully performed a “Hit To Kill” intercept of a separating, medium range, ballistic missile.

JFTM-1
On 17 December 2007, the JDS Kongō successfully intercepted a ballistic missile with SM-3 Block IA and Aegis System.
Bloix Says:
September 9th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
“they actually work.”
This is, in technical terms, false. AEGIS has never been tested under conditions that remotely resemble a true ballistic missile attack – even a pathetic one-missile attack launched by a “rogue state” like North Korea. And AEGIS can probably be spoofed by “chaff” — that is, AEGIS has not been shown to be able to pick a real missile out of a cloud of tin foil confetti.
Bloix Says:
September 9th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
In each of those interceptions the operators knew when and from where the missile was being launched, knew its trajectory, and knew the type of missile that was being launched. These are not realistic tests.
Mixner Says:
September 9th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
bloix,

In each of those interceptions the operators knew when and from where the missile was being launched, knew its trajectory, and knew the type of missile that was being launched. These are not realistic tests.

Are you guessing, or can you substantiate these claims? In any case, the claim I was rebutting is “There has never been a succesful launch of an interceptor that took down a ballistic missle.” That claim is most definitely false.

Of course, we know what types of missiles Iran, North Korea, etc. possess, and we know, at least approximately, where those missiles would be launched from, so I’m not sure your “not realistic” judgment would be plausible even if your factual claims are correct.
novakant Says:
September 9th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Hey Mixner, you wanna buy a home alarm system? It’s only $50.000 (+ $5000 maintenance & upgrades per year) and it’s been tested extensively by experts at our model house using our patented simulated burglary methodology.
Mixner Says:
September 9th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
I guess if Novakant were a soldier confronted with enemy combatants firing their guns at him, and he had his own gun that had been successfully tested against “simulated” combatants on a firing range but never used before in actual combat, he would simply refuse to use the gun on the grounds that it had only ever been used in “simulated” combat and therefore wasn’t even worth having.
Don Williams Says:
September 9th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Re novakant’s comment “Hey Mixner, you wanna buy a home alarm system? ”
————-
That’s actually a very funny response. 10 million middle class Republican dumbshits out there have bought $5000+ home security systems without ever realizing that what they are buying is not security — it’s the ILLUSION of security.

That, for example, Hannibal Lechter could walk past their infrared motion sensors without triggering them simply by using a golf umbrella to shield his body heat. The sensor reads SURFACE temperature –and the umbrella’s surface is the same as the walls.

The link between that and spending tens of $Billions for a the ballistic missile interceptor that homes in on a dummy aluminum balloon is left as an exercise for Mixner.

The logic of the BMD contractors has a certain elegance — if their system is ever put to a real test and fails, the American people won’t be around to ask for their money back.
heh heh heh
Don Williams Says:
September 9th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Maybe Mixner would like to go pick on Ted Postol? See
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2005/10/23/going_postol/?page=1
Mixner Says:
September 9th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
The link between that and spending tens of $Billions for a the ballistic missile interceptor that homes in on a dummy aluminum balloon is left as an exercise for Mixner.

Since your post seems to be the usual mixture of incoherence, irrelevance, and “facts” that you have made up out of thin air, Mixner will decline.
Don Williams Says:
September 9th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
Re Mixner’s comment “Since your post seems to be the usual mixture of incoherence, irrelevance, and “facts” that you have made up out of thin air, Mixner will decline.”
————
Hey, go ahead and see if my comment re the unadvertised weakness in security systems is wrong. Do like Galileo and do the experiment.

The only engineering assumption I made was that a golf umbrella would be wide enought to cover your fat ass.
Bloix Says:
September 9th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
Mixner – see
http://www.armscontrolcenter.org/policy/missiledefense/articles/scripted_missile_defense_not_success/
and
http://www.armscontrolcenter.org/policy/missiledefense/articles/star_wars_turns_25/

And the claim I was rebutting was the one made in the brochure that Yglesias dignifies with the name “report:” that these systems “actually work.” Maybe they can be made to work against a real ballistic attack, but they haven’t been shown to work yet, and the deployment of them is for political not military reasons.
Mixner Says:
September 10th, 2008 at 12:33 am
Bloix,

Mixner – see …

Laughable. Two essays from an anti-BMD political lobbying organization in Washington with no recognized technical expertise. The first essay, written by a “research intern,” is especially amateurish. And neither piece even so much as mentions the AEGIS BMD system anyway, let alone provides any evidence to support either your factual claims about the conditions of the AEGIS flight tests or your opinion about the “realism” of the tests. Do you have any evidence or don’t you? Any studies by professional scientists published in peer-reviewed journals that support your claims? Any government documents describing the test conditions? Anything relevant at all?
Mixner Says:
September 10th, 2008 at 12:44 am
Maybe they can be made to work against a real ballistic attack, but they haven’t been shown to work yet, and the deployment of them is for political not military reasons.

I just love the circular argument. Let’s see: There are no “military reasons” to deploy the AEGIS system until it has been shown to be effective against a “real ballistic attack.” But until it has been deployed, it can’t be shown to be effective against a “real ballistic attack,” only against a “simulated” ballistic attack. Therefore, the conditions that would justify deployment can never be satisfied. QED.
Don Williams Says:
September 10th, 2008 at 1:05 am
Re Mixner’s comment “Any studies by professional scientists published in peer-reviewed journals that support your claims?”
————-
a) As was noted in the Boston Globe article I cited to you above, Ted Postol at MIT has tried to challenge the BMD claims but the US government responds by classifying his criticisms in order to bury them. I think the Inquisition took a similar line with Galileo when Galileo tried to point out that the Earth revolves around the sun.
b) There is also the pattern that Ted Postol and other whistleblowers suffer personal attacks and retaliation from employers apparently more intent upon keeping the federal funds flowing than in scientific and engineering integrity.
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