Army Shoots Down Missile in Test

[Steve Savicki]

http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,105241,00.html

I have mixed feelings about this. I'm not all for anymore warhead funding, but it's good to have some defense if we ever get attacked.

[diamondD]

How do you feel about people that are told not to do something dozens of times, but continue to do it anyway?

[Nickdfresh]

STEVE, LEARN HOW TO CUT AND PASTE FOR FUCK'S SAKE!!

Army Shoots Down Missile in Test
David Axe | July 12, 2006
After several failed test shots and a seven-year flight hiatus, the Army's Terminal High-Altitude Air Defense missile system (THAAD) hit a Hera ballistic missile target this morning over the White Sands range in New Mexico.

"It was quite spectacular," said Lockheed Martin vice president Tom McGrath, who manages the $10-billion program. "This flight main goal was to charge the seeker and have the radar perform discrimination [telling the target from background objects]. Both were completely successful. In addition, we did have an intercept."

THAAD, like its smaller cousin the Raytheon Patriot Advanced Capability-3, is designed to destroy its target by hitting it rather than exploding near it. The Lockheed Martin system will complement the Patriot in providing last-ditch defense against short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, such as those tested by North Korea in recent weeks.

Today's successful test comes after a massive program restructuring precipitated by early poor performance. Between 1995 and 1998, THAAD missiles missed their targets in five consecutive tests. The program was suspended in 1999 and resumed ground and flight testing in November.

THAAD's failures echo the mixed performances of several U.S. missile defense systems. The Missile Defense Agency's long-range ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California that were put on alert to shoot down North Korean missiles haven't hit a test target since 2002. An Air Force plane designed to shoot down missiles using a powerful laser has been downgraded to an experiment, with no plans to field the system.

Test failures don't surprise missile defense expert Philip Coyle, an advisor to the Center for Defense Information in Washington, D.C. Considering the unforgiving physics of missile trajectories, Coyle likens hitting a ballistic missile to scoring a hole-in-one in golf. And if the missile is equipped with decoys or descends in a cloud of debris, as is common, intercepting it is like "hitting a hole-in-one when there are a bunch of black dots on the green and you can't tell which one is the hole."

The Hera target in today's THAAD test used no decoys and did not simulate debris. Still, McGrath calls the test "representative".

The Army had been hoping to have THAAD battery ready for deployment as early as 1999, but now anticipates fielding the system "in a few years," according to McGrath.

In coming months, THAAD testing will move to a missile range off of Hawaii for several more flights at longer ranges. Beginning with the next flight, all THAAD systems will be operated by regular Army personnel instead of industry testers.

[Cathedral]

Re: Army Shoots Down Missile in Test

Originally posted by Steve Savicki
http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,105241,00.html

I have mixed feelings about this. I'm not all for anymore warhead funding, but it's good to have some defense if we ever get attacked.

Steve, it seems you drink from the same glass where people think that one day all the soldiers in our army completed the battle for freedom and democracy, hung up their guns, and went home to their families.

That never happened, brother.

The bill for the freedoms and liberty we enjoy is still being paid and will always need to be paid with each passing generation...in installments.
For as long as we are a free nation there will be another with sight's set on destroying us. Our power threatens them and their own ways of doing things through opression and tyranny in their preferred dictatorships.

How can you have mixed feelings about that which preserves your right to life as you have always known it?

This board reads like bad re-runs of every major news outlet in existance.
You all spend so much time watching and listening to the so-called 'experts' that you don't even see the slight of hand going on right in front of you.
I'd have to look real hard to find an independant thinker on this site at this point.

The name of this forum should be changed to Talking Point's...

[FORD]

Re: Re: Army Shoots Down Missile in Test

Originally posted by Cathedral
Steve, it seems you drink from the same glass where people think that one day all the soldiers in our army completed the battle for freedom and democracy, hung up their guns, and went home to their families.

That never happened, brother.

It should have happenned in 1945, since there hasn't been any war that required the participation of the United States Military since then.

You could make a reasonable argument for leaving troops stationed in Germany, or Japan for a while after WWII. But not Korea. Not Vietnam. Not Iraq.

None of that had a damn thing to do with our freedom and democracy. You know it. I know it. All the guys who went to those places know it. Though that isn't the story they (or we) were fed at the time, of course.

Unless a war is declared by Congress, and is for the purposes of defending the United States of America, then that war is illegal, and those responsible for it should be treated as the war criminals they are.

[Guitar Shark]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
STEVE, LEARN HOW TO CUT AND PASTE FOR FUCK'S SAKE!!

Funny shit, Nick...

If it were me, I'd just close and dump any Savicki thread on sight.

[Cathedral]

Re: Re: Re: Army Shoots Down Missile in Test

Originally posted by FORD
It should have happenned in 1945, since there hasn't been any war that required the participation of the United States Military since then.

You could make a reasonable argument for leaving troops stationed in Germany, or Japan for a while after WWII. But not Korea. Not Vietnam. Not Iraq.

None of that had a damn thing to do with our freedom and democracy. You know it. I know it. All the guys who went to those places know it. Though that isn't the story they (or we) were fed at the time, of course.

Unless a war is declared by Congress, and is for the purposes of defending the United States of America, then that war is illegal, and those responsible for it should be treated as the war criminals they are.

Well, we agree that things turned south right after WWII.
But now the damage is done, 60 years of foreign policy has failed continuously and left people that hate us a whole bunch on the verge of building weapons that can cause serious destruction on a global scale.
it won't be long now until there is a nuke sitting on top of an operational long range ballistic missile somewhere, aimed in our direction and operated by people who just don't give a fuck.

Given that Revelation we are in a position that if we don't stop them from proceeding, we're digging our own graves.

Either way, a little extra time is the only gain without renouncing Israel (which we will not do), and developing a new, fair and equal foreign policy that doesn't intrude on other sovereign nations.