{"id":34592,"date":"2013-03-18T05:00:54","date_gmt":"2013-03-18T09:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=34592"},"modified":"2013-03-18T10:22:17","modified_gmt":"2013-03-18T14:22:17","slug":"more-on-those-new-interceptors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=34592","title":{"rendered":"More on Those New Interceptors"},"content":{"rendered":"

I thought I’d follow-up regarding Jonn’s article from last week<\/a> on the subject.\u00a0 In case anyone was wondering:\u00a0 there\u2019s a good reason it will take until 2017<\/a> \u2013 or about 4 years from now \u2013 before those additional 14 interceptors for which the SECDEF recently announced deployment will be operational.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re silo-based<\/a>.\u00a0 We have to build the silos.\u00a0 And we’re putting all of them in Alaska, which will complicate matters.<\/p>\n

These interceptors – formally “Ground-Based Interceptors”, or GBIs – are big missiles<\/a>. Each is about 55 feet long, over 4 feet in diameter, and heavy (14 tons).\u00a0 While it\u2019s technically possible to put something like that on a large TEL (transporter-erector-launcher), doing so is a pain; you\u2019re only going to do that if you need them to be mobile.<\/p>\n

Time constraints also make mobile deployment a problem.\u00a0 You only have a short time to intercept a ballistic missile, so the interceptor needs to be essentially \u201ccombat ready\u201d for immediate launch pretty much all the time.\u00a0 That is difficult with something on a TEL<\/p>\n

The new interceptors are being deployed to a rather harsh environment, too:\u00a0 the vicinity of Fort Greely, Alaska.\u00a0 They\u2019ll definitely need protection from the elements.<\/p>\n

Given all of the above, silo-basing is thus really about the only rational choice for these interceptors if we’re putting them in Alaska.<\/p>\n

It takes a while to build silos and get them operational.\u00a0 That\u2019s particularly true at a place like Fort Greely that has a relatively short period of good outdoor weather each year.<\/p>\n

Bottom line:\u00a0 it\u2019s going to take a substantial period of time to get all of that done.\u00a0\u00a0 Like about 4 years.<\/p>\n

Four years ago was 2009.\u00a0 And I seem to remember decisions made that year which cut back planned deployments of GBIs for the US West Coast and Alaska from 44 to a total of 30<\/a> \u2013 or what we currently have in-place today.<\/p>\n

Hmmm.\u00a0 Seems to me that if the current Administration hadn\u2019t reduced planned deployments of GBIs four years ago we just might have those extra 14 missiles in place today.\u00a0\u00a0 And we also wouldn\u2019t be jumping through hoops today trying to make that happen, either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I thought I’d follow-up regarding Jonn’s article from last week on the subject.\u00a0 In case anyone … More on Those New Interceptors<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34592\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}