From: sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu (Doug Mohney)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Who can launch antisats? (was Re: DoD launcher use)
Date: 8 Jan 93 19:26:42 GMT
Reply-To: sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu
Organization: Computer Aided Design Lab, U. of Maryland College Park

In article <ewright.726514832@convex.convex.com>, ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright) writes:
>In <1993Jan07.203533.10511@eng.umd.edu> sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu (Doug Mohney) writes:
>
>>You're being silly. If you're going to treat the nuke as "just another
>>weapon" you don't need the Clancyesque plot. Just nuke the friggin' carrier
>>and be done with it. It's only full-scale war, after all, right Ed? 
>
>Well, Tom Clancy at least understands the technology and how it works.

Oh Ed, you're being snide. And I know any number of people in the military who
say Mr. Clancy writes a good read, but as for tactics and details...

>Just finding a carrier at sea, let alone hitting it, is not easy.
>Don't believe everything Dan Rather tells you.

Well, your assumption proof is that the carrier is already located, and
blinding the overhead sats are a prelude to attacking it. 

>  It's a moving
>target, which will probably move out of the target area between
>the time you launch your ballistic missile and the time the warhead
>lands.

C'mon Ed. Let's talk SPECIFICS here. The assumption was a Third-World country,
not Russia. If you assume Russia in your scenario, they've already worked out
various schemes for maneuverable RVs. Plus have a wide variety of cruise
missiles and other goodies. 

Let's pick on Libya. The carrier battle group is observed moving eastward in a
box something by something (having to stay within the box to effectively launch
aircraft against your country without refuelling tricks). Four MRBMs with 80KT
warheads are launched to bracket the box. 

Even if you don't sink the carrier, you've got EMP which is playing hell with
the radars and radios of both carrier and escorts. So you just send in the
surplus Tu-22M Backfires and drop a couple of gravity bombs after you locate
the carrier visually. You'll lose some planes, sure, but the object of the game
is to kill the carrier.

>>It is not for nothing DARPA has a love with microsats and ways to get them
>>quickly into orbit. And what DARPA is doing is in the sunshine. 
>
>Microsats are incapable of replacing photorecon satellites.  The
>laws of physics prevent it.  To get adequate resolution, you need
>a large mirror (or large radar).  Black programs use the same laws
>of physics as everybody else.

Hmm. So why does Bell Corporation have a recently declassified microsat design 
with a telescope in it? You don't need to read the numbers of license plates (a
la the KH-11 series) in wartime, hence you don't need THAT large of a package
to get useful information. 

>>Of course. So why did we get the UN to rubber stamp it first? C'mon Ed, 
>>stop helping me out here. We really didn't NEED to get the UN's blessing, 
>>did we?
>
>Of course we didn't.  The United States has gone to war numerous
>times in the past.  It has never needed permission of the United
>Nations before.  It was George Bush who set that (dangerous) precendent.

Ed, you're starting to foam at the mouth. Large-scale war is never a single
nation effort. You need diplomacy to get you forward bases, refuelling rights,
and various other goodies so you can effectively operate far away from home.

It's more difficult to get support for operations if everyone thinks you are an
Imperialist Warmonger Bent on World Conquest. :)

>>>Besides, your claim was that "international public opinion" would
>>>*prevent* nations like Iraq from making hostile acts.
>
>>Prevent a degree of hostile acts. Why didn't the Iraqis use chemical weapons
>>against allied forces in Desert Storm? 
>
>Not because he was afraid someone would say something bad about
>him at a UN cocktail party.
>
>Hint: the people who planned the initial airstrikes were not
>complete idiots.

You assume everything was stockpiled nice and neatly. It wasn't. The SCUDs
which hit Israel and Saudi Arabia (and which continued to elude the best
efforts of Allied planners to find them until the end of the war) could have
just as easily have been armed with chemical warheads as high explosives. 

                    I have talked to Ehud, and lived.
  -- >                  SYSMGR@CADLAB.ENG.UMD.EDU                        < --
Newsgroups: sci.space