Taurus KEPD350?Is it a mystery cruise missile? Some kind of Kim-Buster? Looks like the wings did not fully open.
Yeah, looks right. Odd kind of missile. South Koreans must have got a hold of some. Must be cheaper than the Tomahawk.
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Somebody get NewWay to make a scale kitFolks, Looks like a glide bomb. No motor is seems. Kurt
Ok, I stand corrected if it's a Taurus there is a small turbine in there.
That's it. The SKs bought 170 with 90 more on order according to Wikipedia.Taurus KEPD350?
Nuclear reactors although it's production is at the expense of optimal Pu239 production. Also, since tritium has uses other than in nukes, there might be sources for the NK's supply on the underground market.Where do they get the tritium from?
The added fear, of course, would be that if the two are working on missiles, then they could just as easily be sharing information on nuclear weapons.[/I] ( Could North Korea help Iran develop nuclear weapons? September 14, 2017 https://www.cnn.com/2017/09/14/politics/north-korea-iran-nuclear-weapons-program/index.html )
Yep, that's exactly the way I read the situation, too.Far from simply being a fear, this should be a fundamental assumption. Iran has hundreds of billions of dollars IN CASH from the good old US of A but has a treaty (whether they follow it or not is arguable) that says they cannot purify uranium. NK has proven, tested, nukes but is starving for hard currency. That these two are working together, and are known to exchange technology development, makes it a tiny leap to believe that NK would be more than happy to sell Iran some nukes. And while NK may not be able to deliver a nuke at long range, Iran can reach all kinds of important Western targets with short and intermediate range missles. Heck, they could smuggle them across borders in the back of a truck or in the belly of a tanker ship. This line of thinking, while totally reasonable, is far more frightening than NK blustering about nuking Guam.
https://missiledefenseadvocacy.org/alert/duck-and-cover/
As North Korea knows, and as previously noted (Link), the Japanese and the United States do not have a ballistic missile defense capability deployed and operational today to intercept and negate ballistic missile flights over Japan. All the systems deployed today in and around Japan both Japanese and American intercept and are positioned in the terminal phase of the ballistic missile flight in space and inside the earth’s atmosphere. The North Korean Hwasong-12, Hwasong-14, and upcoming KN-08 ballistic missiles can and do overfly these Japanese and American missile defense capabilities deployed today in defense of Japan, when they fly over the territory.
Development of an early assent missile defense capability for the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) ships was attempted, using faster interceptors like as the proposed and promised SM-3 Block IIB for the European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) phase four that was to intercept Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) from Aegis Ashore sites in Poland and Romania to defend the United States of America with a first shot opportunity, but was ultimately canceled by the previous administration in 2013 (Link). From Aegis BMD ships positioned correctly in the Sea of Japan, this much larger interceptor would have been capable of chasing down and intercepting a North Korean missile in the early assent phase. Today there remains inherent capability in the Aegis BMD system for ascent phase intercept, but it has been deemed operationally unfeasible with the speed of the current SM-3 interceptors and the required positioning of the ship in North Korean waters. The Aegis BMD ships are much more valuable defending Japan with their terminal phase defense capabilities and providing key sensor discrimination of the North Korean ballistic missiles targeting the United States of America.
The development of boost phase and early assent missile defense is essential to providing the most efficient means to negate ballistic missiles before the payloads are released. Today, the United States has directed energy solid-state (non-chemical) lasers that can burn through a half inch of steel six miles away in under two seconds with a low yield 30-kilowatt laser. There are solid state lasers today being developed, but not yet programs of record for the Department of Defense, that have 150-kilowatt solid-state power and weigh under 5,000lbs that can be put on reapers and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) that can stand off in international waters and burn through any North Korean ballistic missile material during its boost phase in under a second. This capability is a technology game changer and this technology needs to be developed, tested, and made into programs of record for the United States Department of Defense. Having an unmanned capability that can loiter in international airspace with the capability to intercept in the boost phase at speed of light is where North Korea is driving the United States and Japan to go in order to defend their people the best that they can.
I think they were, a few years back. I have read of a laser that is being worked on in the 100kW power class. Solid-state Diode-pumped YAG I seem to recall. Relatively portable compared to the old excimer in the 747.Weren't the 747 laser systems mothballed? Or perhaps the systems were further miniaturized? Kurt
Yep, that system was. The standoff range was not adequate and since it was a chemical laser it was a potential flying bomb even if not hit by enemy fire.Weren't the 747 laser systems mothballed? Or perhaps the systems were further miniaturized? Kurt
Truly impressive.
For those folks who still struggle to visualise how small a gram is, the best reminder from common usage (at least to me) is to remember that a nickle weighs five grams.
IR observables are part of stealth. A high powered laser beam would create plenty of it along its path as well as beam atmospheric scattering at the wavelength of the laser which would also be detectable, not by the naked eye, just by appropriate sensors, causing the same problem as a missile contrail, a reason for the use of low-smoke propellants. Once the position of the stealth aircraft is known and considering that the stealth drones we know of being developed aren't high-performance or highly maneuverable in a fighter aircraft sense, knowing where it's at allows a missile to be rapidly sent close enough to it that radar acquisition of it by the missile might be possible. However, granted, electronic countermeasures by the drone can still do their thing and those countermeasures are likely to be more effective with very low aircraft radar cross-sections as would be the case with a smallish stealth drone.One note---A stealth drone would not likely give away it's position. The laser is not in the visible light range. They would know it's there in a big sky but not where. It's also a good bet that you would have more than one on station at any given point in time. I'm also willing to bet that 65,000 ft is a sort of minimum.--H
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