jch@GS48.SP.CS.CMU.EDU (Jonathan Hardwick) (02/04/91)
From: Jonathan Hardwick <jch@GS48.SP.CS.CMU.EDU> In article <1991Jan27.112410.29337@cbnews.att.com>, henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: |> |> >From: moudgill@svax.cs.cornell.edu (Mayan Moudgill) |> | [stuff on other systems that I've deleted] |> |> > I believe the (british) sea wolf has some AMM capability. |> |> Possibly. You have to distinguish cruise missiles from ballistic missiles. |> The former are basically small fast aircraft, and there has been a lot of |> interest in shooting them down, with a lot of systems claiming some degree |> of ability. Ballistic missiles come in much more steeply at much higher |> speeds, and very few systems can do anything about them. Sea Wolf just |> might be good enough, although its effective range would be quite short. |> One of the most impressive Sea Wolf tests proved that it could intercept a 4.5 inch shell, fired (I believe) from a nearby warship. Granted, this was probably under ideal conditions, but I think Henry is being a little hard on Sea Wolf when he says that it "just might be good enough". Sea Wolf / Phallanx (sp?) seems to be the British Navy's current AMM solution, with Phallanx trying to hit anything that Sea Wolf can't. Of course, Sea Wolf also has an anti-aircraft role. Jonathan Hardwick, jch@cs.cmu.edu
henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (02/05/91)
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) >From: Jonathan Hardwick <jch@GS48.SP.CS.CMU.EDU> >|> ... Ballistic missiles come in much more steeply at much higher >|> speeds, and very few systems can do anything about them. Sea Wolf just >|> might be good enough, although its effective range would be quite short. >One of the most impressive Sea Wolf tests proved that it could intercept >a 4.5 inch shell, fired (I believe) from a nearby warship. Granted, this >was probably under ideal conditions, but I think Henry is being a little >hard on Sea Wolf ... Unfortunately, attempts to repeat that particular test have not been consistently successful, even under good conditions, which is why I said "just might". Sea Wolf was built as a fast-reaction antiaircraft system, and when it works it does that very well. (There was one incident in the Falklands in which a flight of four Skyhawks tried to bomb a Sea Wolf ship, and the fourth aborted his attack after seeing the first three blown apart in fast succession. Unfortunately, there was another incident in which Sea Wolf refused to do anything useful, so the bugs weren't all out.) It has considerable capability against cruise missiles as well. But it wasn't really designed for use against ballistic missiles, and has to be considered somewhat marginal for that. -- "Maybe we should tell the truth?" | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology "Surely we aren't that desperate yet." | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry