If your claim is just that the number of interceptors available can be overwhelmed of course that's true but this event is totally uninformative about that -- we can just count the launch tubes in the carrier group.
Though the navy has started placing SM (forget number but ones capable of doing missle intercept) on planes so the air defen…
If your claim is just that the number of interceptors available can be overwhelmed of course that's true but this event is totally uninformative about that -- we can just count the launch tubes in the carrier group.
Though the navy has started placing SM (forget number but ones capable of doing missle intercept) on planes so the air defense patrols can contribute so that bumps up capacity a bit -- but that just brings us back to tradeoffs. Any remotely dangerous enemy can always take out pretty much any asset within range if they devote enough resources to it. Question is whether the amount is large enough to make that system an effective way to spend the dollars and lives in the conflict.
Missles large enough to substantially damage and with the capability to be given in flight guidedance to the current location of the moving carrier and then intelligently execute final approach despite potential jamming limiting them to a slow channel [1] are still quite expensive. And just as the interceptors and launch tubes are limited so too are the enemy's offensive missles and launchers and using them on one target reveals them to prevent them from being used against another. Maybe that's still a decent tradeoff, I just don't know but this evidence isn't particularly relevant to that.
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Though I am constantly puzzled why those missles still cost so much. The military really needs to adopt a different procurement model since it should be possible to mass produce cheapish missles with a common control architecture. They are slowly moving to this but I'm constantly horrified by the stories about lockhead etc retaining proprietary control over all the software and systems and charging billions and taking decades to do what a decent tech startup could deliver in a court years for 10s of millions. But it doesn't seem to be a us only problem.
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1: Pet peeve of mine is people assuming that jamming can block communication. Assuming the folks building the tech aren't idiots -- and you aren't so close you can completely overwhelm the receiver's ability to discriminate -- Shannon's noisy channel theorem (and extensions) tells us the fraction of bandwidth available after jamming by a given power.
I don't think that's it. It's not that this never happens but if the defense contractors could cut their costs they could actually probably pocket more profit. This money ends up getting burned in salaries and a bunch of other things and the defense contractors often hurt their own bottom lines by failing to deliver a working product on time.
Ultimately, I think the answer is the same reason that the USSR failed. Central planning tends not to find efficient solutions. You need competition and open standards but those haven't been easy to integrate with the need to know model. Recently the military has finally started figuring out the value of open (to them) standards.
If your claim is just that the number of interceptors available can be overwhelmed of course that's true but this event is totally uninformative about that -- we can just count the launch tubes in the carrier group.
Though the navy has started placing SM (forget number but ones capable of doing missle intercept) on planes so the air defense patrols can contribute so that bumps up capacity a bit -- but that just brings us back to tradeoffs. Any remotely dangerous enemy can always take out pretty much any asset within range if they devote enough resources to it. Question is whether the amount is large enough to make that system an effective way to spend the dollars and lives in the conflict.
Missles large enough to substantially damage and with the capability to be given in flight guidedance to the current location of the moving carrier and then intelligently execute final approach despite potential jamming limiting them to a slow channel [1] are still quite expensive. And just as the interceptors and launch tubes are limited so too are the enemy's offensive missles and launchers and using them on one target reveals them to prevent them from being used against another. Maybe that's still a decent tradeoff, I just don't know but this evidence isn't particularly relevant to that.
--
Though I am constantly puzzled why those missles still cost so much. The military really needs to adopt a different procurement model since it should be possible to mass produce cheapish missles with a common control architecture. They are slowly moving to this but I'm constantly horrified by the stories about lockhead etc retaining proprietary control over all the software and systems and charging billions and taking decades to do what a decent tech startup could deliver in a court years for 10s of millions. But it doesn't seem to be a us only problem.
--
1: Pet peeve of mine is people assuming that jamming can block communication. Assuming the folks building the tech aren't idiots -- and you aren't so close you can completely overwhelm the receiver's ability to discriminate -- Shannon's noisy channel theorem (and extensions) tells us the fraction of bandwidth available after jamming by a given power.
"Though I am constantly puzzled why those missles still cost so much. "
Corruption and kickbacks to the power elite who control this country.
I don't think that's it. It's not that this never happens but if the defense contractors could cut their costs they could actually probably pocket more profit. This money ends up getting burned in salaries and a bunch of other things and the defense contractors often hurt their own bottom lines by failing to deliver a working product on time.
Ultimately, I think the answer is the same reason that the USSR failed. Central planning tends not to find efficient solutions. You need competition and open standards but those haven't been easy to integrate with the need to know model. Recently the military has finally started figuring out the value of open (to them) standards.