lenbrazil
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Post by lenbrazil on Oct 13, 2005 11:13:04 GMT -4
In Fetzer's book about the Wellstone crash he claims that the Senator's plane was shot down with a directed energy weapon. Leaving aside his inability to cite a single article from a reliable source saying that such a weapon exists. I see another problem with his theory. At the time he believes the plane was hit it was about 2100 feet [640 meters] above ground level and travelling at about 170 KCAS [195 mph - 315 kph]. Cloud cover was zero visibility above 700 feet and partially obscured above 400. Since the plane was off course the "hit team" would not have been close to being under the flight path [thus increasing the distance] [see www.ntsb.gov/Events/2003/Eveleth/Eveleth_Board_Meeting_IIC.pdf the plane would have been hit soon after the last radio message pg 15 and before the plane overshot the flight vector for the 2nd time pg. 19. Altitude is shown sea level, the terrain is at 1100 -1200 feet elevation] Forget death ray type weapons that no one can prove exist, can conventional weapons hit such a target?The weapon would have to be small enough to fit into an inconspicuous van or small truck
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Post by Obviousman on Oct 14, 2005 0:03:23 GMT -4
You could hit it with a radar-guided weapon. IR probably wouldn't work because of the cloud cover. If you had a transmitter hidden on the aircraft, there might be some weapons available which would home in on the signal.
Problem is that all these weapons would have some type of explosive warhead, and leave evidence of their use (explosive residue, blast pattern on the airframe, etc).
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Post by ShowCon on Oct 14, 2005 1:19:20 GMT -4
This all comes from a layman with no practical experience in these matters, so take it as you will. I don't think there are any radar-guided man-portable AA systems out there. They are all optically- or IR-guided. It's possible that a Sea Sparrow or Phalanx CIWS could do it, but that's a lot of gear to haul around, and a lot of evidence to cover up/ leave behind. I think there is a portable AA system based on the 20mm Vulcan cannon, but it's the size of a small trailer. I don't think its effective range is much over a mile. Same with the Phalanx CIWS.
[woo^2] Of course, we are overlooking Scalar Weapons. The Swiss Army Knife of energy weapons, they can be as large as a long-range radar installation, or small enough to fit in a captured alien ship. They can cause earthquakes, hurricanes, civil unrest, and teen pregnancy, so shooting down a small jet should be no problem. One shot down Columbia doing Mach 12, for Pete's sake. The operators probably took care of Wellstone's plane between hands of Texas Hold 'Em. [/woo^2]
Doug
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lenbrazil
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Now there's a man with an open mind - you can feel the breeze from here!
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Post by lenbrazil on Oct 14, 2005 9:11:09 GMT -4
This all comes from a layman with no practical experience in these matters, so take it as you will. I don't think there are any radar-guided man-portable AA systems out there. They are all optically- or IR-guided. It's possible that a Sea Sparrow or Phalanx CIWS could do it, but that's a lot of gear to haul around, and a lot of evidence to cover up/ leave behind. I think there is a portable AA system based on the 20mm Vulcan cannon, but it's the size of a small trailer. I don't think its effective range is much over a mile. Same with the Phalanx CIWS. [woo^2] Of course, we are overlooking Scalar Weapons. The Swiss Army Knife of energy weapons, they can be as large as a long-range radar installation, or small enough to fit in a captured alien ship. They can cause earthquakes, hurricanes, civil unrest, and teen pregnancy, so shooting down a small jet should be no problem. One shot down Columbia doing Mach 12, for Pete's sake. The operators probably took care of Wellstone's plane between hands of Texas Hold 'Em. [/woo^2] Doug Fetzer would argue that the death ray would have been hooked up to some guidance system. What I really wanted to know if a guidance system capable of hitting the plane exists. What's your take on radar could it have worked, could such a system fit into a van or small truck? Do these systems need to be test fired to guarantee accuracy? The van would have to have been positioned somewhere on an isolated bumpy access road, would the drive to the location affect the guidance system
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
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Post by Al Johnston on Oct 14, 2005 13:52:40 GMT -4
IIRC the British Army's Rapier missile system is radar guided, and is usually towed on trailers behaind a couple of land-rovers, although I think there's a version mounted on a tracked IFV chassis now.
Rapier also contains no explosives; being intended to destroy its targets by kinetic energy alone. I believe that this may have been down to the designers wishing to avoid collateral damage when it missed a target at low level. (Rumours from the Falklands conflict tell of a field kitchen that was demolished by such a miss during an Argentine Skyhawk attack.)
[woo^2]D'Oh! Looks like Perfidious Albion strikes again![/woo^2]
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Post by Obviousman on Oct 15, 2005 18:07:44 GMT -4
You've got man-portable SAMs that would have no trouble taking out the aircraft. Because it was the only aircraft in the vicinity, getting an ID would not pose a problem. I still, however, return to my main point: all these methods would have left traces which would have been identified during the investigation.
A portable radar unit (i.e. trailer / truck) to track the aircraft would also be no problem. There are several types around.
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lenbrazil
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Now there's a man with an open mind - you can feel the breeze from here!
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Post by lenbrazil on Oct 16, 2005 0:14:13 GMT -4
You've got man-portable SAMs that would have no trouble taking out the aircraft. Because it was the only aircraft in the vicinity, getting an ID would not pose a problem. I still, however, return to my main point: all these methods would have left traces which would have been identified during the investigation. A portable radar unit (i.e. trailer / truck) to track the aircraft would also be no problem. There are several types around. So let's imagine Fetzer would claim that one of these radar guided man portible SAM type systems had been adapted to use a DE weapon. I was hoping to be able to agrue that even IF a DE weapon capable of taking the plane out existed, it would not have been possible to aim it with enough precision to hit the target. You're saying I would be wrong?
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Post by JayUtah on Oct 17, 2005 13:11:31 GMT -4
Shoulder-fired SAM missiles have their own guidance systems, as distinguished from rocket-propelled grenades. You don't aim them; you allow the missile to acquire the target while still in the tube, then you fire it. The guidance systems are not based on radar, but on thermal signature. And they don't require the operator to "track" the target during weapon firing. The weapon simply signals that it has made an initial acquisition, after which the operator releases it. A radar-assisted shoulder-fired directed-energy weapon that requires the operator to maintain tracking during the emission of the energy is quite farfetched.
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lenbrazil
Saturn
Now there's a man with an open mind - you can feel the breeze from here!
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Post by lenbrazil on Oct 18, 2005 10:33:29 GMT -4
Shoulder-fired SAM missiles have their own guidance systems, as distinguished from rocket-propelled grenades. You don't aim them; you allow the missile to acquire the target while still in the tube, then you fire it. The guidance systems are not based on radar, but on thermal signature. And they don't require the operator to "track" the target during weapon firing. The weapon simply signals that it has made an initial acquisition, after which the operator releases it. A radar-assisted shoulder-fired directed-energy weapon that requires the operator to maintain tracking during the emission of the energy is quite farfetched. Would dermal targeting have been feasible in this situation. The temp was close to freezing and there was light show at the time
The radar-assisted directed-energy weapon wouldn't have to be shoulder fired to fit Fetzer's theory. He says they could have carried it in a van or small truck, so he could argue it was mounted on a tripod or something like that.
Is a radar-assisted shoulder fired or tripod mounted conventional AA weapon farfetched? If not why would a DE one be? [Don't forget I'm playing Devil's advocate]
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Post by JayUtah on Oct 18, 2005 12:26:51 GMT -4
You got me thinking about shoulder-fired SAMs; that's where that notion came from. We were originally talking about truck-mounted equipment.
Anything small and radar-guided is farfetched. Infrared targeting works because the target emits the radiation used to detect it -- like a man carrying a lantern in an otherwise dark night. Radar targeting works by "painting" the target with energy that bounces off -- like using a spotlight to search for someone at night. Someone has to keep the target painted until the weapon hits it, otherwise the weapon loses the track. The emitter, receiver, and computer are too heavy and bulky to operate from a tripod or shoulder mount.
Of course now you realize the utter futility of a radar-assited directed-energy weapon. If someone has to keep the target painted with radar energy, why can't he just keep the target painted with the allegedly damaging energy? Radar waves are just electromagnetic radiation too. If you want the radar to be a search radar able to find, "lock on" and track the target automatically like a SAM battery -- then no: you'll need something the size of a SAM battery. They're already as small as we can make them.
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Post by stutefish on Mar 20, 2006 19:33:37 GMT -4
Of course now you realize the utter futility of a radar-assited directed-energy weapon.
Not really, although you do make your specific objection clearer in the following sentence. At this point, however, my thoughts immediately leapt to British work during WWII to develop radar-assisted anti-aircraft guns. Of course, they were directing kinetic energy...
If someone has to keep the target painted with radar energy, why can't he just keep the target painted with the allegedly damaging energy?
As an utter layman, the following question occurs to me:
What would be the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of a system that used a (relatively) low-power broad beam to "paint" a large portion of the sky, and then applied a much more focused and (relatively) high-power beam to whatever likely targets reflected the original "painting" beam? Perhaps there'd be some value in conserving the system's power supply by only cranking it up to killing levels after you've used the low-power setting to acquire your target.
(I've heard a rumor that the SPY-1 radar system on the AEGIS missile cruisers can do exactly that: paint a target space with its radar, and then focus a narrow-beam EMP on anything it happens to find in the painted space. As this rumor is totally unsubstantiated, let me just say that if I ran the AEGIS zoo, I'd certainly be investigating such "get our weapon system free with purchase of our targeting system!" solutions.)
Also, I would assume the system's targeting computer would handle maintaining the lock on the painted target, once the target was validated by human input. (And of course, once the human operator dialed the targeter up to killing power, the targeting computer could use the reflection from the killing beam to maintain the lock, as Jay implies.)
Anyway, I don't see how it would be futile in principle, though I suppose it might be futile in manportable or trailer form, given current technology and the parameters of the specific scenario under discussion.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Mar 21, 2006 10:13:48 GMT -4
I think you missed the point little. Jay was meaning that there isn't a lot of use in using Radar to track for the beam weapon when the weapon is just a type of radar anyway and can be used to do it's own tracking.
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Post by stutefish on Mar 21, 2006 19:33:47 GMT -4
Oof. Close one. The point must have just grazed me. I felt it pass, but was untouched.
Anyway, what would the feasibility of such a weapon be?
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
Posts: 1,453
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Post by Al Johnston on Mar 22, 2006 9:56:15 GMT -4
Not sure: radar works because the target reflects most of the incoming energy away, which doesn't do much for the prospects of destroying that target...
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Post by stutefish on Mar 22, 2006 16:54:58 GMT -4
radar works because the target reflects most of the incoming energy away, which doesn't do much for the prospects of destroying that target...
On the other hand, optical visibility works because the target reflects some (most?) of the incoming energy away. But that doesn't prevent me from getting a sunburn while simultaneously being visible in sunlight.
I mean, the gist of all the heat transfer and reflection discussions on this board seems to be that greater energy means both brighter reflections and greater energy load on the illuminated object. (E.g., when exposed to full sunlight, the moon's surface becomes a powerful fill light while also reaching temperatures of +250 degrees...)
I'd imagine something like...
SCAN BEAM: Nothing. Nothing. Blip! Nothing. Nothing. Blip!
KILL BEAM: Nothing. Nothing. BLIP! Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing...
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