military@cbnews.ATT.COM (William B. Thacker) (04/11/89)
From: sun!portal!cup.portal.com!mmm I remember several years ago, it must have been at least 5 years ago, the DoD was saying the Soviets had built a facility to shoot things down with charged particle beams. Apparently this facility was pretty big, DoD claimed it was designed to use the power of an underground nuclear explosion to create the beams. This story was on the evening network news at the time. I remember seeing artist's conceptions provided by the DoD of what the facility looked like from the outside and in cross-section. I was wondering if anything more came of this story. Has it been confirmed or refuted? And what caused that area of damaged tiles on the last shuttle flight? [mod.note: I get this image of a Soviet particle-beam gunner watching a Shuttle launch, and, as the countdown reaches "1", shouting, "Pull !" 8-) -Bill ]
wyle@inf.ethz.ch (Mitchell Wyle) (04/19/89)
From: wyle@inf.ethz.ch (Mitchell Wyle) >From: sun!portal!cup.portal.com!mmm >the DoD was saying the Soviets had built a facility to shoot things down >with charged particle beams. Apparently this facility was pretty big, >DoD claimed it was designed to use the power of an underground nuclear >explosion to create the beams. You might be thinking of the Moscow ABM point defense (very old, "60's vintage) which uses X-ray lasers to knock out in-coming MIRVs. The X-ray lasers are powered by underground A-bombs, which, although destroying the laser in 100 milliseconds, provide enough energy to knock out the in-coming warheads. One of the minor spin-off successes of the US SDI program is the US's "catching up" to the Soviet Union in X-ray laser technology. If Bill will excuse the following political statement, X-ray laser technology is a good example of spin-off benefits from SDI research; such spin-offs might make the program worthwhile even if the shield concept proves untenable. -Mitch (wyle@ethz.uucp) [mod.note: Excused, but dissenting opinions to talk.politics.misc, or soc.politics.arms-d, please. - Bill ] -- -Mitchell F. Wyle wyle@ethz.uucp Institut fuer Informationssysteme wyle@inf.ethz.ch ETH Zentrum / 8092 Zurich, Switzerland +41 1 256 5237
mchamp@wpi.wpi.edu (Marc J. Champagne) (04/25/89)
From: mchamp@wpi.wpi.edu (Marc J. Champagne) >You might be thinking of the Moscow ABM point defense (very old, "60's >vintage) which uses X-ray lasers to knock out in-coming MIRVs. The >X-ray lasers are powered by underground A-bombs, which, although >destroying the laser in 100 milliseconds, provide enough energy to >knock out the in-coming warheads. The Moscow ABM system DOES NOT contain any X-ray laser weapons. It consists of a series of Galosh interceptor missiles housed in above-ground canister launchers and a smaller high acceleration missile housed in an underground concrete lined launcher. There are a total of 100 launchers, although the high-acceleration missile bunkers may have several missiles in a "ready magazine" (a violation of the '72 ABM treaty, but that's another story). The deployment of "exotic weaponry" in an ABM role is SPECIFICALLY prohibited by the '72 ABM treaty and has NOT been undertaken by either side. Both the US and Soviet Union have deployed some operational experimental type laser weapons, but they are strictly for testing purposes and lack the accurate control mechanisms to give them ABM potential. I'm afraid that the Moscow X-ray laser story is pure science fiction. Both the Galosh and its decommisioned American counterpart (the Spartan missile) used an X-ray kill mechanism....but the X-rays were not directed in a laser form in that case either. The simply used enhanced radiation warheads. The whole ABM topic is probably a little inappropriate for this newsgroup. So I've tried to just correct the description of the weapons systems involved and explain why their capabilities could not be as described. My apologies to the moderator. [ mod.note: None needed; the posting is quite appropriate. The technicalities of the ABM systems, and how they relate to the existing treaty, are welcome here. - Bill ] Marc J. Champagne