SM-3 Interceptor

IDonT said:

You guys are missing the point. The silkworm in gulf war II was a cruise missile, ie it was flying low under the radar horizon. That argument is moot. If detected immediately, those are easy to shoot down.

PAC 3 missiles are designed to hit ballistic missiles. The major accomplishment of this test was that it hit a MULTISTAGE ballistic missile. That is very difficult because the radar has to distinguished which part of the ballistic missile is the one that still has the warhead and which part is the stage that is discarded.

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it detected the scud alright, it just couldn't shoot it down. Watch those clips. It made numerous stabs, but just couldn't hit it well enough to actually destroy it. That's why I have so little faith in all BMD. They might be able to graze the missile, but a full on hit is very difficult. Also, it didn't help PAC-3 that it keeps on targetting its own planes in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Kudos to the Software Engineers at Raytheon, you guys can't program at all.

tphuang said:

it detected the scud alright, it just couldn't shoot it down. Watch those clips. It made numerous stabs, but just couldn't hit it well enough to actually destroy it. That's why I have so little faith in all BMD. They might be able to graze the missile, but a full on hit is very difficult. Also, it didn't help PAC-3 that it keeps on targetting its own planes in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Kudos to the Software Engineers at Raytheon, you guys can't program at all.

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The problem here is that any failure......no matter what it is, is what's highlighted. The PAC-3 did not keep targeting it's own planes. This was one isolated incidents of many tracks. And do you know the story about why it happened? But that's not what's important. What is important is, it's the one incident out of a few hundred that some focus on so they can call the whole system a failure. In defining successful tests, it means missile to target kills. And 17 out of 20 is not exactly terrible. Slamming Raytheon engineers is not exactly tactful. Of course you're not going to see 100% success rates on new sophisticated systems. Are you saying Russia and China see 100% success rates on their "new" systems? If that's what you think, then you're kidding yourself. And Russia and China have both 'relied' on technological progress from the West in much of their military designs, developed initially by USA Raytheon type engineers......... "that can't program at all". Nuff said on that. That's why I think all the griping about PAC-3 is bogus. Especially since many nations, who have been given demonstrations, are sold on the system. I'll defer to their experts.

On the flip side of this whole thing, the SM-3 is darn near perfect in intercepting ballistic targets way out of the atmosphere. The proof that it works is the results of these tests. And I myself do believe in BMD. In fact, the US Navy is demonstrating it's effectiveness right now. Glad to have my tax dollars going toward this effort.

Sea Dog said:

The problem here is that any failure......no matter what it is, is what's highlighted. The PAC-3 did not keep targeting it's own planes. This was one isolated incidents of many tracks. And do you know the story about why it happened? But that's not what's important. What is important is, it's the one incident out of a few hundred that some focus on so they can call the whole system a failure. In defining successful tests, it means missile to target kills. And 17 out of 20 is not exactly terrible. Slamming Raytheon engineers is not exactly tactful. Of course you're not going to see 100% success rates on new sophisticated systems. Are you saying Russia and China see 100% success rates? If that's what you think, then you're kidding yourselves. And Russia and China have both 'relied' on technological progress from the West, with USA Raytheon type engineers "that can't program at all". Nuff said on that. That's why I think all the griping about PAC-3 is bogus. Especially since many nations, who have been given demonstrations, are sold on the system. I'll defer to their experts.

On the flip side of this whole thing, the SM-3 is darn near perfect in intercepting ballistic targets way out of the atmosphere. The proof that it works is the results of these tests. And I myself do believe in BMD. In fact, the US Navy is demonstrating it's effectiveness right now. Glad to have my tax dollars going toward this effort.

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I'm not saying S-300 or S-400 will be better, but rather PAC-3 is far from the safety belt that some people seem to believe it is. As for PAC-3, there was 2 incidents I believe:
1. it shot down a British plane
2. it locked on to an American plane, but then the pilot noticed, so he dropped a bomb on it.

Anyhow, as I said, we don't know what constitutes a successful test and what kind of missile it was facing exactly.

As for the "Raytheon programmers can't program at all", that's based on my personal knowledge of where the best programmers in North America go to. It certainly isn't Raytheon.

tphuang said:

I'm not saying S-300 or S-400 will be better, but rather PAC-3 is far from the safety belt that some people seem to believe it is. As for PAC-3, there was 2 incidents I believe:
1. it shot down a British plane
2. it locked on to an American plane, but then the pilot noticed, so he dropped a bomb on it.

Anyhow, as I said, we don't know what constitutes a successful test and what kind of missile it was facing exactly.

As for the "Raytheon programmers can't program at all", that's based on my personal knowledge of where the best programmers in North America go to. It certainly isn't Raytheon.

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You're right. I know of both of those incidents. Each were only 1 out of hundreds of tracks and hand-offs. Not too problematic, but enough to cause concern, indeed. But nevertheless, claiming you know the programming capabilities of all Raytheon types because of a couple of failures is pushing it. And no, I don't work there myself.

But SM-3 is progressing very rapidly and proving very capable. My hope is that PAC-3 will benefit from the knowledge gained.

the styx flys over the air like a big airplan about 50meter not very low!!! infect that why the israelis manage to shoot down all of them in 1973 also the scuds DO NOT have war head seperation just like the V-2 missile 50 years ago

The USN is really getting good at this. Here's another story.



Take notice trouble-makers out there...:nono:

What's that missisle in the first photo?

At present, there's no such thing as a perfect missile defense system. Thus on ships we have long-range air defense missiles coupled with close-range CIWS guns and other "soft kill" (chaff?) defenses, just in case.

Also, the success rate of a single missile in testing is not reflective of actual combat conditions, where the environment is not "ideal condition", or multiple missiles are fired to intercept one incoming target.

As for the quality of programmers at Raytheon, I can't comment on individual programmer's skills, but having worked in IT industry for 10 years I can say that jobs at defense contract companies aren't very secure. I have seen many coworkers who came from the defense industry because they lost their jobs there. This is probably due to the defense contractor's dependence on large government contracts, which often results in corruption & scandals.

As a general rule I do not recommend others to seek employement in the defense industry.