What if project babylon was completed be4 desert storm

Could generating an enormous cloud of sand over Iraq be wiser than trying to use it as a direct-kill ASAT?

An orbital sandstorm could hide Iraq from satellite recon and, due to the velocities involved and sand getting into everything, could make the area a no-go area for satellites for awhile.

While there is a difference between directly targeting a satellite and blanketing an area with sand, I think we are still talking about a direct-kill weapon in the sense that you still know the trajectory of the satellite you want to hit in order to have an idea of where to aim. I think I'd also use ball berings instead of sand. The reason being that ball berings are bigger and heavier and will have a better chance of penetrating micrometeorite protection systems.
 
While there is a difference between directly targeting a satellite and blanketing an area with sand, I think we are still talking about a direct-kill weapon in the sense that you still know the trajectory of the satellite you want to hit in order to have an idea of where to aim. I think I'd also use ball berings instead of sand. The reason being that ball berings are bigger and heavier and will have a better chance of penetrating micrometeorite protection systems.

If the goal is to destroy satellites, ball-bearings would be better than sand.

The sand came from the scenario description where the goal of the attack was to foil orbital reconnaissance over the Persian Gulf. If this can be done without destroying the satellites in question (which would provoke American wrath over and above that which provoked the war in the first place), so much the better.
 
That is a good point.

However, what if it is completed but never used for explicitly military purposes?

Say Bull survives and it's completed as a satellite-launch platform in, say, 1989. In a major bit of irony, perhaps Ted Turner uses them to launch a few because they might be cheaper than piggybacking on a NASA shuttle. :)

It might be overlooked as a military target--until it's used to fire a giant shell at Tel Aviv or a trainload of sand into Earth orbit. Then goodbye. :)
No way they'll forget about it. If nothing else, the Israeli liason will be reminding Stormin Norman about it roughtly every five minutes.
 
If the goal is to destroy satellites, ball-bearings would be better than sand.

The sand came from the scenario description where the goal of the attack was to foil orbital reconnaissance over the Persian Gulf. If this can be done without destroying the satellites in question (which would provoke American wrath over and above that which provoked the war in the first place), so much the better.

It wouldn't really provoke that much wrath. The American public wouldn't care. But the Pentagon would be worried about other states building such guns to easily destroy American satellites.
 
I think that hundreds of thousands ball bearings in Earth's orbit would suit Saddams plans very well. If he haven't access any satellite data, then nobody does. Within couple of weeks Earth will have rings of its own. There's no need for nuclear weapons or something exotic "Star war"-weapons, or you need is to get enough small particles into orbit with high velocity, and there you have it. And when USA and others figure it out, it may be too late.
Eventually the coalition would destroy the cannon, but then it had fulfill its purpose. And btw, finding and destroy a well-hidden target is never been easy task, remember those Scud launching platforms. How many times the coalition told the press they have finally destroy all the platforms, and still later night the Iraqies launched more? Sorry, I have to ask this: Have you find those weapons of mass destruction yet, which was the "reason" the USA invade Iraq?
 

MacCaulay

Banned
How many uber-shells could the gun fire at Israel before it gets smoked?

If it does significant damage, keeping the Israelis from getting involved could prove difficult.

The shells it was firing weren't that much different in size from the warheads the Patriot batteries were shooting out of the sky over the Tel Aviv-Haifa megalopolis in '91.

I think it would've been a pretty thing for Coalition forces to have their picture taken in front of.
 
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Eventually the coalition would destroy the cannon, but then it had fulfill its purpose. And btw, finding and destroy a well-hidden target is never been easy task, remember those Scud launching platforms. How many times the coalition told the press they have finally destroy all the platforms, and still later night the Iraqies launched more? Sorry, I have to ask this: Have you find those weapons of mass destruction yet, which was the "reason" the USA invade Iraq?
Not comprable. This cannon would have been fixed in location. A simple radar track would enable a calculation of a shell's point of origin, and then it's curtains for the cannon.

And what the hell does WMDs have to do with this?
 

MacCaulay

Banned
Not comprable. This cannon would have been fixed in location. A simple radar track would enable a calculation of a shell's point of origin, and then it's curtains for the cannon.

I'm going to guess that he doesn't know what Fire Finder Radar is.

And what the hell does WMDs have to do with this?

I'm going to guess he's being a douchebag and thinks all Americans are the same.
 
I'm going to guess that he doesn't know what Fire Finder Radar is.
To be fair, it isn't a widely-known technology among those not interested in military affairs. I first learned of it when the Chinese used it to hammer the Russian artillery in The Bear and the Dragon.

I'm going to guess he's being a douchebag and thinks all Americans are the same.
I would not be surprised.
I mean, you could hide a small nuclear bomb in a shipping container, a canister of nerve gas in a truck, and biological weapons in a fucking suitcase, but how the hell are they going to hide a GIANT FRIGGING SUPERCANNON that's FIXED in location? Seriously, I want to know.
 
Sorry, I can't help myself...it's just that (you) Americans are so serious in some cases. And I think there's lots of smart people in US, unfortunately your former president was...
Anyway, back to basic, I think this so called "super-cannon" will be usefull only a few days when the war started, after that, it's just a huge pile of metal. They must conceal it very carefully, (inside of the mountain, if I remember right) or otherwise its life-time will be measured in seconds in wartime. Can everybody say what its rate of fire would be, and what have been the possibilities to track those projectiles firing into orbit, in peace-time situation?
 
The shells it was firing weren't that much different in size from the warheads the Patriot batteries were shooting out of the sky over the Tel Aviv-Haifa megalopolis in '91.

I thought the Patriot was pretty much useless at hitting scud warheads during 1991 partly because it was so new and the bugs hadnt been fixed and partly because it wasnt designed for that role
 
The shells it was firing weren't that much different in size from the warheads the Patriot batteries were shooting out of the sky over the Tel Aviv-Haifa megalopolis in '91.

I think it would've been a pretty thing for Coalition forces to have their picture taken in front of.

Oh. I thought the thing fired this ridiculous huge shells.

Thing is, I don't think artillery shells can be intercepted. Whatever's heading for Tel Aviv in TTL is going to get there.
 
I thought the Patriot was pretty much useless at hitting scud warheads during 1991 partly because it was so new and the bugs hadnt been fixed and partly because it wasnt designed for that role

I was under the impression they didn't actually hit the Scuds due to the design issues, but they did cause them to detonate prematurely somehow.
 
I was under the impression they didn't actually hit the Scuds due to the design issues, but they did cause them to detonate prematurely somehow.
My understanding was that the Patriots hit the missiles just fine. It was the warheads they couldn't get.

There was also something, I think, where the computer, if left on for an extended period, developed a time-based inaccuracy that caused the radar to look for a contact in the wrong place, causing the contact to be 'lost.'
 

mowque

Banned
My understanding was that the Patriots hit the missiles just fine. It was the warheads they couldn't get.

I THINK (just a guess) that the early version was supposed to hit the warhead dead on and cause it to explode via kinetic force. The next model (current) just explodes near it, and takes the warhead out.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
I thought the Patriot was pretty much useless at hitting scud warheads during 1991 partly because it was so new and the bugs hadnt been fixed and partly because it wasnt designed for that role

I was under the impression they didn't actually hit the Scuds due to the design issues, but they did cause them to detonate prematurely somehow.

In Battle Ready, Gen. Tony Zinni talks about that. He was in EUCCOM during Desert Storm, so the Patriot batteries in Israel and the air components in Turkey were under their command as opposed to CENTCOM in Saudi Arabia.

Originally, he says, they had trouble because they would fire on atmospheric clutter, etc. when they were placed on automatic. Then the crews (US and Dutch) started using manual firing techniques and were able to pick the incoming Scuds out.

Now the only PR problem was that when you destroy one of these things over the Haifa megalopolis (which is where the Patriots had to do it), then you're logically going to have debris. So the news would of course show some piece the size of an engine block that crashed into a living room and say that that the Patriots didn't work when in fact the Patriot batteries had managed to take out the warhead by telling it apart from the rocket body.

Heck, by the end of Desert Storm, they were selling Patriot Condoms in Israel.
 
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