Enemies wouldn’t place a transponder in their missile. However, this system isn’t deployed against enemy missiles YET. It’s still in the testing phase. I have no idea what the object of the test was, but let us suppose that is was a test for the warhead section and not for the guidance system. If that’s the case, then using a transponder to get the weapon to the target is fine. The effectiveness of the warhead may dictate just how well the guidance system has to work. It doesn’t mean that they don’t have to test the guidance system at a later date.
Sure, but unless you know why the interceptor didn’t launch it’s hard to say what sort of failure this was. It could have been a hardware problem, it could have been an operational problem, it could have been a safety problem. I have no idea what it was. There is a difference between a failure to launch because the missile is made out of Legos and masking tape, and a failure to launch because a 747 intruded in the airspace 30 seconds before it was supposed to launch.
How long would it take an ICBM launched from, say, North Korea to land in Honolulu or Los Angeles? Could we scramble some F-15s or F-16s and shoot it down, or would it be going too damned fast for that?
I’m guessing we’d have about 30-45 minutes warning, which isn’t a lot of time to scramble fighters in the post-Cold War era, even if they are based in the right places.
This wikipedia article suggests that warhead reentry speeds would be about 10,000 mph, which would leave an infinitesimally small amount of time for a fighter aircraft’s radar to acquire and target the warhead. On top of that, what weapon could the fighter possibly use to reach the warhead before it reached its target? Fighter missiles rarely have ranges of greater than 40 miles or so, and their speeds are in the 2,000 to 3,000 mph range. Unless the fighter is directly under the warhead, interception seems unlikely at best.
It looks like we’ll just have to wait until those airborne lasers are operational.
It’d be kind of tough with a fighter, but a high altitude helicopter could hover directly in the path of the missile. You’d probably want to use an unmanned vehicle for the job.
