Saturday, May 30, 2015

Report: US Anti-Missile Ground-Based Interceptors Have Serious Technical Flaws

An interceptor missile being hoisted at Fort Greely, Alaska. U.S. Army

L.A. Times: Serious flaws revealed in U.S. anti-missile nuclear defense against North Korea

Two serious technical flaws have been identified in the ground-launched anti-missile interceptors that the United States would rely on to defend against a nuclear attack by North Korea.

Pentagon officials were informed of the problems as recently as last summer but decided to postpone corrective action. They told federal auditors that acting immediately to fix the defects would interfere with the production of new interceptors and slow a planned expansion of the nation's homeland missile defense system, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.

As a result, all 33 interceptors now deployed at Vandenberg Air Force Base in Santa Barbara County and Ft. Greely, Alaska, have one of the defects. Ten of those interceptors — plus eight being prepared for delivery this year — have both.

Update: GAO Report: US Anti-Missile Interceptors Have Serious Technical Flaws -- Newsmax

WNU Editor: You cannot make this stuff up .... the Pentagon knows that there are serious flaws n these missiles .... but who cares .... lets spend the money and deploy them anyway.

5 comments:

B.Poster said...

This is beyond ridiculous. If one learns that the product they are working on has flaws, the best thing to do is to immediately STOP what one is doing and work on fixing the problem before resuming what they were doing. I suppose when one is spending someone else's money they may not think the same way as they might if they were spending their own money.

Also, in the event of a North Korean attack, the powers that be likely expect to be protected in hardened facilities as opposed to the folks who would bear the brunt of the attack. As such, there may be little concern in developing a system that might actually serve America's national defense interests.

Developing a missile defense system against North Korea much less a larger arsenal such as Russia is likely beyond the capability of America's scientists or its defense industry. To attempt to do so would be comparable to charging tanks on horseback. It's a waste of time, money, and needlessly places lives in danger. Such an action serves to provide a rationale for North Korea and others to expand their nuclear capabilities that America was already incapable of dealing with!! As such, it seems the best course of action would be not to build such a system as it is ineffective and only serves to make matters worse or so it seems.

Unknown said...

And the missile interceptor around Moscow worked 100% of the time?

Just knowing that hypothetically say that a system had 33% to 67% effectiveness in interception might dissuade someone like Kim Jung Ill form considering a launch or beating his chest so much.

Jay Farquharson said...

Aizino,

In carefully scripted tests, the failure rate from the motor flaw, is 50%.

The failure rate from the harness flaws, is right now zero, but the harness solder points are fully expected to degrade in position.

The current "plan" is to fire 10 interceptors at each incoming warhead, in the hopes of hitting one, 10 incoming missiles exhaust the entire US inventory.

phill said...

Jay

You got a reputable link?

Jay Farquharson said...

phill,

It's in the LA Times story,

It really helps to read the links.