Challenge: how to deploy an anti-ballistic missile shield in 1985

[giobastia]

?? Could you explain me what system? Was it Project Defender (canceled in 1963)?

[giobastia]

@Asnys: in order to make X-ray Pin-down tactic work, you need a spy (human or electronic intelligence or both) inside the enemy's command and control structure and then launch a preemptive or simultaneos strike against the bases. Simultaneous strike is better, because you can try to hit missiles when they have just leaved their armoured silos.
It's a difficult tactic indeed, because the attacker need a quite perfect organization: quick informations, quick decision making, very well trained and quick reacting missile crews.

[Asnys]

Originally Posted by giobastia

@Asnys: in order to make X-ray Pin-down tactic work, you need a spy (human or electronic intelligence or both) inside the enemy's command and control structure and then launch a preemptive or simultaneos strike against the bases. Simultaneous strike is better, because you can try to hit missiles when they have just leaved their armoured silos.
It's a difficult tactic indeed, because the attacker need a quite perfect organization: quick informations, quick decision making, very well trained and quick reacting missile crews.

If you've got advance warning that the enemy is going to escalate to a strategic exchange, you first strike them. Simpler and more effective - it's easier to hit a missile on the ground, even one that's inside a hardened silo, than one that's in flight.

As for Stuart Slade, he's ideologically committed to ABM. He may well be right - one of the big problems with the ABM debate is that the actual facts needed to have an informed opinion are mostly classified. But he's no more credible than plenty of other insiders who assure us that it won't work. And the economics of ABM make it very difficult for missile-based ABM to reach "MIRV-proof" levels of effectiveness against peer competitors.

[giobastia]

"If you've got advance warning that the enemy is going to escalate to a strategic exchange, you first strike them". Indeed... the right answer is always the simplest :-)

I don't know the version of Stuart Slade, but I can't think to a feasible ABM technology MIRV proof. I read also another strange theory about a "BHB system" secretly developed in the early 80s by Usa, Israel and some European countries. Maybe it was true. I hope so: I would feel more secure. But I don't know what kind of technology is necessary. The only thing I can think is a secret development of BAMBI satellite system, designed in 1958 and terminated in 1963. It consisted in armed satellite, with both conventional and nuclear weapons. It's actually MIRV-proof (even before the creation of MIRV) because it could intercept missiles in their boost phase. I don't know if it's possible, but maybe all the current satellites in space are secretly armed?

[Asnys]

Originally Posted by giobastia

I don't know the version of Stuart Slade, but I can't think to a feasible ABM technology MIRV proof.

Against a peer competitor, the economics pretty much only work if you've got a beam-based defense system, and maybe not even then. Otherwise it's always going to be cheaper for the enemy to throw more warheads at you than it is for you to shoot them down. And having operational beam-based ABM in the 80s requires a very deep point of divergence.

Now, against a non-peer competitor, somebody like 80s China who's only got a handful of ICBMs, something might be possible. Maybe. But not against Russia.

Originally Posted by giobastia

I read also another strange theory about a "BHB system" secretly developed in the early 80s by Usa, Israel and some European countries. Maybe it was true. I hope so: I would feel more secure. But I don't know what kind of technology is necessary. The only thing I can think is a secret development of BAMBI satellite system, designed in 1958 and terminated in 1963. It consisted in armed satellite, with both conventional and nuclear weapons. It's actually MIRV-proof (even before the creation of MIRV) because it could intercept missiles in their boost phase. I don't know if it's possible, but maybe all the current satellites in space are secretly armed?

Do you have a link? I Googled it but didn't find anything. I'm 99% sure that's not possible - even if you have the tech, there's no way you could hide a black budget that big. You need more than one interceptor for every warhead the enemy throws at you, AND if you're basing in orbit you need many times the nominal requirement because most of them won't be in position to fire at any given time. But I'm always interested in that kind of story even if it's just atomic apocrypha.

[giobastia]

The only source on BHB secret program is this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame..._War_on_Terror

I nevere believed in it, seriously. A 30 years secret program is a bit "difficult" to be kept.
There is no reason, nor documents, on a possible continuation of BAMBI. You can find something interesting here, about that program: http://www.nytimes.com/1986/10/28/sc...l?pagewanted=1

[lukedalton]

Originally Posted by Winston Smith

Stuart Slade says that the US was well on the way to building a full blown, MIRV proof ABM system in the late 50s.

Stuart even think that was a mistake leave Massive Retaliation, that the bomber is always superior to a ICBM, that LeMay is the reincarnation of Jesus and McNamara is the antichrist. Sarcasm aside using a Nike nuclear - tipped against what? First generation ICBM or an handfull of bomber is one things, try something similar with the kind of arsenal of the 80's is an economical suicide plus that number of nuclear explosion over your head will not be much healthy and this considering if what he propose is feasible, thing that i doubt, he always speak of that as a religious mantra more than a effective thing and frankly after 60's years if that kind of system is possible, someone else will have thinked about it.

[FlyingDutchman]

Originally Posted by Winston Smith

Stuart Slade says that the US was well on the way to building a full blown, MIRV proof ABM system in the late 50s.

IIRC he's got a FAQ on that on his site somewhere in which he refutes the ABM = worthless against decoys/MIRVs mantra.

His argument that ABM cancellation was for political reasons seems plausible, considering that India managed skin-to-skin hits pretty quickly.

Originally Posted by giobastia

"If you've got advance warning that the enemy is going to escalate to a strategic exchange, you first strike them". Indeed... the right answer is always the simplest :-)

I don't know the version of Stuart Slade, but I can't think to a feasible ABM technology MIRV proof.

If this was correct, there wouldn't be a dozen plus nations investing in ABM.
They can't all be doing that as defence against a rogue nation.

[lukedalton]

If this was correct, there wouldn't be a dozen plus nations investing in ABM.
They can't all be doing that as defence against a rogue nation.

The enemy who must fight have limited amount of missile, nuclear warhead, and no or very few ICBM like China, North Korea, Iran etc. etc. is still feasible try the ABM way, at least you lessen the damage and force your enemy to create countemeasure The URSS is another type of beast.

[Asnys]

Originally Posted by giobastia

The only source on BHB secret program is this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame..._War_on_Terror

I nevere believed in it, seriously. A 30 years secret program is a bit "difficult" to be kept.
There is no reason, nor documents, on a possible continuation of BAMBI. You can find something interesting here, about that program: http://www.nytimes.com/1986/10/28/sc...l?pagewanted=1

Thanks for the link. I find this kind of atomic apocrypha fascinating even when I know it isn't true.

Originally Posted by FlyingDutchman

If this was correct, there wouldn't be a dozen plus nations investing in ABM.
They can't all be doing that as defence against a rogue nation.

There's an aspect to ABM that maybe hasn't been considered. ABM may not be able to protect you from a first strike - but it might be able to protect you from a second strike, after your attack has destroyed 50%-90% of the enemy's weapons.

[FlyingDutchman]

Originally Posted by lukedalton

The enemy who must fight have limited amount of missile, nuclear warhead, and no or very few ICBM like China, North Korea, Iran etc. etc. is still feasible try the ABM way, at least you lessen the damage and force your enemy to create countemeasure The URSS is another type of beast.

Not really.

Otherwise the Soviets wouldn't have had an ABM shield up in Western Russia from 1966 onwards, which has been kept running/improved and expanded ever since.
That ABM shield was mostly directed towards a massive strike by the US; at that time the US had about a 1000 Minuteman (I/II) ICBM's around.

[lukedalton]

Originally Posted by FlyingDutchman

Not really.

Otherwise the Soviets wouldn't have had an ABM shield up in Western Russia from 1966 onwards, which has been kept running/improved and expanded ever since.
That ABM shield was mostly directed towards a massive strike by the US; at that time the US had about a 1000 Minuteman (I/II) ICBM's around.

The one in Moscow was a mix of cool but impratical/just for show/try to dissuade any though of decapitation strike or at least try to give the politburo enough time for retaliate and so of very limited scope.

[giobastia]

The Moscow ABM system was improved in the early 80s with a two-layered shield: Gorgon missiles for area defense and Gazelle for point defense, while the Galosh missiles (mid-range) were still in service. But it was still limited to Moscow, very useful against a limited strikes from China, France or UK, not from a massive strike.
In my opinion, in case of limited war in Europe, if you know that it would easily escalate to a global exchange of nukes, you don't just sit down and stay idle. Soviets would, at least, begin to deploy their ABM system to other strategic locations. I don't have accurate estimates on their industrial power of the time. Cia estimated that they could produce and deploy up to 500 ABM missiles in a relatively short period of time. It could be enough to protect Leningrad and other 4 locations other than Moscow (which was already protected).
There was a very big problem for Soviet ABM: their nukes were very "dirty". The Gazelle had a 10 kt warhead. If you launch 50 of them over your city, you'll have a huge contamination problem for your people. It's just like a tactical nuclear battle at the gates. The Gorgon's 1 Mt warhead is not so dangerous for contamination (if it has to be used for very high altitude explosions), but for the EMP it could create on the ground. Last but not least, the Soviet ABM system could be not only overwhelmed, but also bypassed by nuclear Tomahawks and/or SLBMs launched in a depressed trajectory. Both could be hardly detected by Soviet surveillance systems of the time.

[giobastia]

[QUOTE=Asnys;6733057]Thanks for the link. I find this kind of atomic apocrypha fascinating even when I know it isn't true.


You're welcome Me too I'm very fascinated by this kind of stuff. When I read it, my mind couldn't stop to think what kind of "miracle weapon" could have been (with early 80s technology). Laser? Kinetic Energy? X-Rays? Bah?

[giobastia]

Here is the most realistic ABM defense ever (IMHO): the Sentinel program. http://www.nuclearabms.info/HSentinel.html It was intended as a defense against a limited Chinese strike. But this aim remains a mistery to me: if you want to protect USA from China, why the largest part of the system faces North and East (i.e.: faces Ussr)?
Any site had to protected by, at least, 30 Spartan missiles. Those site which required also a second line of point-defense, should add also 70 Sprint missiles.
It was not enough to provide a total protection agaisnt a massive Soviet strike, but, if it works, it could have shot down nearly 1000 incoming warheads (my estimate). Not bad, indeed.

[Asnys]

Originally Posted by giobastia

Here is the most realistic ABM defense ever (IMHO): the Sentinel program. http://www.nuclearabms.info/HSentinel.html It was intended as a defense against a limited Chinese strike. But this aim remains a mistery to me: if you want to protect USA from China, why the largest part of the system faces North and East (i.e.: faces Ussr)?

IIRC, the project was originally intended to be aimed at the USSR. But McNamara didn't want the thing, and when he was finally pressured into giving it the go ahead, he called it an anti-China defensive measure - possibly because he'd been insisting it was worthless as an anti-Russia measure, I'm not sure of the details.

Originally Posted by giobastia

Any site had to protected by, at least, 30 Spartan missiles. Those site which required also a second line of point-defense, should add also 70 Sprint missiles.
It was not enough to provide a total protection agaisnt a massive Soviet strike, but, if it works, it could have shot down nearly 1000 incoming warheads (my estimate). Not bad, indeed.

To be honest, I find the anti-Sentinel arguments more credible than the pro. It's possible they were able to solve some of the problems and just couldn't reveal that fact due to classification issues - we know stuff like that's happened with other projects that were subsequently declassified - but there doesn't seem to be any obvious way around, e.g., the Sprints blinding your RADARs, or the decoy problem, or the SLBM problem.

Originally Posted by giobastia

You're welcome Me too I'm very fascinated by this kind of stuff. When I read it, my mind couldn't stop to think what kind of "miracle weapon" could have been (with early 80s technology). Laser? Kinetic Energy? X-Rays? Bah?

I've ordered it from the library, so I'll see what they have to say for themselves.

[giobastia]

MSR radars were protected by EMP effect: http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=get...fier=AD0916445, then the Sprint problem could have been solved. Spartan was a worst problem, because of its very high altitude 5 Mt explosion, that could knock-out civilian and unprotected powerlines in United States and Canada. The problem could indeed be limited, if you launch it at long range over the Mid-Canada Line and Dew Line: over depopulated areas close to the Arctic region. Furthermore, the Spartan warhead was specifically designed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to minimize the EMP effect and debries: http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/w71.htm
The SLBMs problem remains, of course. Only Us attack submarines could prevent it, keeping Soviet SLBM submarines at the bay.

[Asnys]

Originally Posted by giobastia

MSR radars were protected by EMP effect: http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=get...fier=AD0916445, then the Sprint problem could have been solved.

As I understand it, the problem wasn't that it would destroy the hardened RADARs, but that it would blind them temporarily while the second wave arrived a few minutes after the first.

Originally Posted by giobastia

Spartan was a worst problem, because of its very high altitude 5 Mt explosion, that could knock-out civilian and unprotected powerlines in United States and Canada. The problem could indeed be limited, if you launch it at long range over the Mid-Canada Line and Dew Line: over depopulated areas close to the Arctic region. Furthermore, the Spartan warhead was specifically designed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to minimize the EMP effect and debries: http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/w71.htm

If somebody's throwing nukes around, EMP effects on the civilian infrastructure are a deeply secondary problem.

Originally Posted by giobastia

The SLBMs problem remains, of course. Only Us attack submarines could prevent it, keeping Soviet SLBM submarines at the bay.

That assumes we're shooting first. There's also the decoy problem - maybe they found a way to solve that but can't tell us about it, but it's something that needs to be considered.

All in all, I can believe Sentinel would work for its nominal purpose, defending against a Chinese attack or accidental minor launch. The Chinese didn't have SLBMs, they didn't have the missiles for a multiple-wave attack against more than a handful of targets, and their arsenal was small enough we could potentially afford to throw Spartans at all the decoys they can launch. I'm not convinced it would work, but I can believe it might, although it's a very high cost for a capability we're unlikely to ever need.

But it doesn't seem like much help against Russia. Not entirely useless - it would complicate targeting, it might buy time for launch-under-attack, and it might be suitable for bastion city defense. But there are tons of simpler ways to complicate targeting, the whole point of the submarines is so that we don't have to launch-under-attack, and the enemy can hit our bastion cities with SLBMs without unduly complicating their war plan.

[FlyingDutchman]

Originally Posted by giobastia

Here is the most realistic ABM defense ever (IMHO): the Sentinel program. http://www.nuclearabms.info/HSentinel.html It was intended as a defense against a limited Chinese strike. But this aim remains a mistery to me: if you want to protect USA from China, why the largest part of the system faces North and East (i.e.: faces Ussr)?

I'd automatically assume that ICBM's from China would come over the Northpole.

Any US-China strike going either way would possibly trigger Russian early warning systems, considering that they would possibly overfly Russia.

see here f.ex: http://www.nukestrat.com/china/Book-173-196.pdf

Originally Posted by lukedalton

The one in Moscow was a mix of cool but impratical/just for show/try to dissuade any though of decapitation strike or at least try to give the politburo enough time for retaliate and so of very limited scope.

I doubt the SU kept things around for coolness if it cost them that much. Considering how much effort they put into the US not developing an ABM system - during the Cold War in the Continental US and recent years in Eastern Europe, they value it quite a lot.

Originally Posted by giobastia

The Moscow ABM system was improved in the early 80s with a two-layered shield: Gorgon missiles for area defense and Gazelle for point defense, while the Galosh missiles (mid-range) were still in service. But it was still limited to Moscow, very useful against a limited strikes from China, France or UK, not from a massive strike.

Thanks for the info. However, that still doesn't solve why the SU would have an ABM shield in a period in which only the US had ICBM's.

[lukedalton]

I doubt the SU kept things around for coolness if it cost them that much. Considering how much effort they put into the US not developing an ABM system - during the Cold War in the Continental US and recent years in Eastern Europe, they value it quite a lot.

The big motivation all their military-industrial complex, of all their construction project, of their space program was to make see to the world how cool aka powerfull they were. The principal motivation for try to stop any ABM developement was the idea that 'maybe' the USA get one succesfull enough to be a game changer or at least something who make the idea of a first strike more credible, second if one power has one system...the other need the same or something better (and the URSS prefer to keep her money). Regarding modern time, Russia bigger motivation for being considered a big power is her nuclear arsenal, anything who can possible make that less usefull will not make them really happy.

Thanks for the info. However, that still doesn't solve why the SU would have an ABM shield in a period in which only the US had ICBM's.

They deployed it around Moscow, the big motivation will probabably be to make a decapitation strike not an option, considering the soviet warning system not be optimal is a precaution