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Originally Posted by StrangeWill
Well if anything I would think war would make it harder to apply the changes, "you're busy and in the way while we're playing war" kind of attitude.
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Actually, it's easier - easier to push through political BS, easier to get the will to change, etc. Also, funding is usually higher and going towards what NEEDS to be used at the time - which is what's usually the thing that is being changed. For instance, WW2. Before WW2, we had an obsolete military. By the end of the war, we had a world-class military in almost every regard, with up-to-the-date structure, tactics, etc. at least being IMPLIMENTED.
Quote:
Originally Posted by StrangeWill
I'd keep low yield nukes out of it, being as for conventional missiles we'd typically intercept on the decent of the ICBM, which means detonating nukes in our upper atmosphere. With lasers you can actually deploy them on ships and shoot them down over international waters, and actually like a decade ago we had a 747 shooting them down. Obviously that's what civilians know we can do.
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Actually, low-yield-nukes are a good way to take out nukes - generally, you'd target them in the extreme-upper atmosphere or still in space - you can take a whole clump of missles out at once. Also, when the missles are in the atmosphere, they ussually are MIRV's - Multiple Individual Re-entry Vehicles - independent nuke warheads, 3-15 warheads per missle. When the missle enters the atmosphere - actually, usually right before - it breaks apart and sends warheads to different targets. It takes a MASSIVE blast to take out all the warheads at once. A laser would require multiple shots for each missle. Same with anti-missle missles. (and those are pretty un-reliable anyways, at least against anything but the most basic ballistic missles)
The laser tech we have now is heavy, only has a couple shots per energy source, is un-reliable, and takes ALOT of up-time (warning) before being able to get off a shot - for instance, that 747 would take an hour or two to get into place, then only has like 3 shots or so before it is useless. Ships would be a little better, but still, would take too long to activate and target the missle before firing. Plus it wouldn't be able to fire fast enough to take out all enemy missles.
Quote:
Originally Posted by StrangeWill
And with lasers and a high-altitude aircraft, you can shoot them practically coming out of their silos (or close enough to only be self-inflicting wounds).
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Again, you'd have to have the aircraft in the air - and realize that from missle silos in Russia, it only takes a few minutes - I don't remember exactly, but it's like 20-30 minutes from the time we have ANY warning till impact. Sub launched missles vary from minutes to basically un-detectable (cruise missles launched right off the coast) - plus you're not even taking into account bombers (their backfire bombers have been authorized by Cuba to be based there now - mach 2.5 at 50 foot above the water - they would be able to reach Miami, Tampa, and Jacksonville - taking out 3 major airbases, our special operations command, and a massive carrier / nuclear sub base before we even knew they were in the air - like 20-30 minutes from wheels up to bombs landing)
And then we come to weaponizing space - this is the most realistic idea for stopping missles. Put our anti-missle satellites up - shoot them down as they are travelling through space. That is the most effective way to do it. Unfortunately, the Russians are already (according to my sources) weaponizing space with anti-satellite satellites. Also, it's rumored they have a few nuclear weapons sitting up there on 'weather satellites' or whatever aimed at us. First strike stuff - probably EMP burst warheads. That would neutralize most of our anti-satellite weapons around North America, unless they are HEAVILY armored and buried deep underground.
Basically, an anti-missle shield - unless you're talking about selectively taking out 1 or 2 missles at a specific location - IE, Washingon DC - is stupid and un-realistic with modern technology. (Unless you wanted to spend untold trillions doing multi-layer systems, etc - which will still let a few missles in)
The best approach is to aim to stop rouge missle attacks - one or two missles. You do this by producing state of the art anti-missle missles - put 4 of them on a couple of F-15's or F-22's at strategic locations - Washington DC, West Coast, Hawaii, Florida, Alaska, etc. If you need to down a couple missles, you jet up as high as you can go and launch all 4 missles at a single enemy ballistic missle - odds are really good at least one missle will hit. But again, you're talking a VERY expensive weapon and you can only make enough / have enough on active standby to effectively target a couple missles at a time. Not enough to fight a nuclear war with.