ClaytonB
Member
- Joined
- Oct 30, 2011
- Messages
- 10,801
Moderns are so used to the rapid progress of technology, and the "laser-precision" warfare depicted in sci-fi movies, that they've come to (falsely) assume that this level of precision applies to hot conflict. It does not. Stopping an object moving multiple times the speed of sound descending along a re-targetable trajectory is a feat of unimaginable difficulty. With all of our latest wiz-bang technology we can kind of do it, sometimes, if we're lucky. And that's leaving aside the problem of saturation. Iron Dome can swat away short-range ballistic rockets like it's nothing because the interceptors have much faster rockets, in fact, they even have multiple tries if they miss the first time. Not so with LRBMs and hyper-sonics -- you have one chance to hit that thing. Lasers can take out some of them but getting a confirmed kill with a laser at the distances at which these missiles must be engaged requires very high time-on-target, meaning, each LRBM ties up a laser for a long duration of time, so again, saturation is more quickly reached. And none of these rockets are SOTA hyper-sonics like Russia is dropping on Ukraine. Those would run through Iron Dome like a hot knife through butter.
