Posted on 04/28/2010 8:38:28 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
Cruise missiles are highly accurate but they have to be fired from a distance and they take a fair amount of time to get where they are going. So they are great for fixed targets, but their limitations have left the Pentagon scratching its head for half a decade trying to find something that can be launched and hit its target anywhere in the world within an hour or so. One of the key drivers behind this effort has been to develop a weapon that could kill a terrorist like Osama bin Laden anywhere in the world without having to send in special operators or deploy a big ship. The concept, pushed hard by vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Hoss Cartwright, is called Prompt Global Strike and the budget contains $240 million for development programs.
But one of the more promising efforts, DARPA’s Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2), made it part way through a test and then vanished. A review board has been formed to find out just what went wrong. No word yet on when their findings might be available.
DARPA said the launch vehicle, known as the Minotaur Lite, got the HTV-2 up. “The launch vehicle executed first of its kind energy management maneuvers, clamshell payload fairing release and HTV-2 deployment. Approximately nine minutes into the mission, telemetry assets experienced a loss of signal from the HTV-2. An engineering team is reviewing available data to understand this event.”
(Excerpt) Read more at dodbuzz.com ...
sweet concept,,, been hoping they could come up with somrthing like this.
Gen. Hoss Cartwright
Hmmmmmm.
Mach 20, a real speed demon.
The HTV-2 supposedly lost contact in this general area.
20°31’50.46”N latitude and 155°46’17.11”W
Dum diddydum diddydumdiddydum bonanza....dum diddydumddiddy dum diddy dum ..dum diddy dum dum dum!
We’ ve been played boys...!
Actually... the glider was picked up by Lorne Greene who was really Commander Adama commanding the Galactica which has been secretly orbiting the Earth...
Interesting mention in the article re. a Trident with conventional weapons. The military has been looking at that concept for close to twenty years. Of course, it would have to be a very high value target. However, the accuracy of our ICBM’s is frighteningly good. Certainly, it is good enough to target a miscreant with a conventional payload.
It’ would certainly get to just about anywhere in less than an hour or two that’s quoted for the hypersonic vehicle. While the ICBM is a ruinously expensive delivery vehicle, it’s proven technology. Trident or otherwise, it’s something that wouldn’t (didn’t) take a lot of work to put online.
The Trident II should be reserved for its primary mission. Its purpose is as a second-strike retaliation against Moscow,Russian cities and any remaining Russian military targets.
Faster than speeding telemetry waves?
Could be, but the Trident really doesn’t care what the payload is. Methinks there’s enough of them so as to spare one bird for such a mission. As I said, though expensive, it would probably work. Having the option, is sometimes worth the price.
I guess you are right.I guess they can spare one, but conventional attacks are usally reserved for attack submarines with cruise missiles.
I doubt that it survived re-entry.
Query: a Trident I’m guessing carries multiple nuclear payloads. Can it thus be converted to carry multiple non-nuke payloads? Because that would be cool. We could target the spot we last saw him, the spot we think he’s going, and points on the road in between.
Correct. MIRV capability goes along with the bus on those things. In effect, time on target would be achieved as well. In the end, what matters is the ability to lift enough conventional explosive on the individual warheads, and the accuracy of the system.
As an aside to Sonofstrangelove, while cruise missiles are quite effective with conventional weapons, there is a problem with radius of action and the amount of time that it takes to arrive on target. An ICBM is fast (lots faster than Mach 20). It also covers a much larger geographic area that it can act over. This means that you don’t have to put those subs into proximity to the target before launch.
Remember, an ICBM with conventional weapons is a “snap shot” weapon. Its greatest benefit is that it can be popped off on very short notice. Therein lies the benefit. Other methods take time. Sometimes lots of it. The possibility of needing such a weapon is fairly low, but if it is needed, it is needed a LOT, and it may be your only option for a target that is only going to be sitting still for a relatively short period of time. Again, it’s expensive, but when nothing else is available on short notice, it may be the only option.
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