Cheap, low-tech, easy-to-use, and utterly lethal, shoulder-fired missiles have become a terrorist weapon of choice, killing more than 640 people in 35 attacks on civilian jets. And so far, countermeasures have proven too finicky and too expensive to widely deploy. So the Department of Homeland Security is trying out instead a pair of new defenses, seemingly straight of science fiction: laser guns and microwave blasters.
The Department will spend $4.1 million to test out Raytheon’s “Vigilant Eagle” system, which relies a series of microwave pulses to throw off a missile’s guidance package. A series of passive infrared trackers, installed around an airport, would look out for missile exhaust. When these sensors detect a launch, data about the missile’s trajectory is sent to a control center, which in turn tells a billboard-size microwave array where to blast.
How exactly this is done without disrupting a plane’s avionics system has never been fully explained to me. Which may be why DHS is also sinking nearly $2 million into a study of Northrop Grumman’s laser-based, “SkyGuard” defense, as well.
The system is a modification of the company’s Tactical High Energy Laser, which successfully blasted dozens of Katyusha rockets and mortars out of the air during military testing. The laser, powered by vats of toxic chemicals, was considered too cumbersome for battlefield use. A permanent set-up an airport might be a different story, however.
DHS has spent nearly four years and $239 million to adapt the military’s series of countermeasures to civilian jets. But most commercial carriers have been unwilling to pay for the systems, which could cost $50 billion over ten years to install and maintain. So far, Fedex is the only big flier to invest heavily in the defenses, agreeing to outfit 11 of its planes with the countermeasures.
Ground-based systems — even ones based on ray guns — might prove more palatable to the airline industry. Sure, the technology is less proven than the jet-based defenses. But eventually, the microwave and laser blasters could prove “more reliable,” Daniel Goure, vice president of the Lexington Institute, tells Bloomberg News. “It is easier to be on the ground where you can have an infinite power supply. Aircraft are only vulnerable below a certain altitude, when they are taking off and landing. For most airports you can place them on towers where you can cover landing and takeoff routes.“
Raytheon and Northrop have 18 months to prove their futuristic systems are ready to handle the job.
UPDATE 4:18 PM: In case you’re wondering — no, this is not the 300-oven death ray.
(Big ups: CP)
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Hilarious. A dubious technology in search of an application.
All you have to do is wait for a rainy day to use the manpad and the THEL is to all intents and purposes useless anyway.
2 million isn’t really a big research contract. For a shop like Raytheon I would be surprised if 2 mill would even buy you a good powerpoint.
…which at Heathrow is 80 per cent of the days!
Waste of money.
Fifty Billion Dollars to guard against something that’s never happened? (In the US, that is.) Is it really likely to happen? Maybe that’s why the airlines are against paying for it.
Seems to me that there is a hugh need for an anti-missile system for C-17’s; C-5, AF 1 etc. etc. The tech stuff is already on the shelf if you could get the powers that be to actually do something for a change. Right now all their doing at the Pentigon and Homeland Defense is playing into the hands of the good old Military/Industrial Bureaucracy; developing a gold plated failure for the future that is over complicated and expensive!!
When these MANPAD type weapons are fired, it is ususally at a fairly low altitude, during take-off or landing ops. These types of missils are fairly small and lightly constructed so that they can fly with their small rocket motors. Any impact, say with a 7.62 Nato ball projectile would have a hugh effect on the flight of such a missile.
Next time your out at the range, shoot a .308 or 30–06 or any other military type rifle at a 1/2 thick piece of steel plate. Examine the damage & you’ll be impressed. Remember, that the plate was stationary. A approaching missile would be adding to the closure rate, and therefore kenetic energy impact effect. The 7.62 “Mini-gun” we currenty know and love is available for such a system and we know it works. This type of ammo is available everywhere our service people go if re-arming were a consideration.
It is not necessary to destroy the missile, only defeat its ability to fly and hit its target. A couple bullet holes in the missile casing would probably do that. If you hit the seaker head, fine, but if you knock off a guidance fin or damage the motor, you’ll most likely divert the thing also. Additionally, the fact that this type of linked ammo has a tracer projectile every 5th round, might give the missiles seaker head something additional to think about. These tracers might help to confuse the guidance system in flight, EVEN if the gun missed the target, which is unlikely when you consider the wall of lead this system puts out.
The old “G” model Cobra gunship had an electricly driven, twin gun turret under it’s chin. It was called the XM-28 when I worked with them and they were reliable & worked pretty well. With that ammo drive/feed system and turret, slaved to a computer system and sofeware from the Phalanx Navy system might offer a fairly quick start for a system that could work.
In WW II, they made turrets that could be retracted into the belly of bombers for landing. If clearance with the ground, or “appearance”, were a factor, perhaps that could be engineered into the system if necessary. We had a “gunners Sighting Station” in the front seat of the AH-1G that controlled the weapons turret and firing. How would you like to have that if your C-17 was leaving a “hot” air-strip and you wanted to hose down the neighborhood as you climbed out? All the system would need would be a “manual” mode and camera in the turret for the sighting stations display.
The combined weight of this system would be tiny when you consider what todays large A/C can carry. With todays electronics, I would think this could be easily developed and quickly! The need is fast approaching if not here already by your own admissions.
I went on the Homeland “Security” web site and they are doing what all useless bureaucrats do. They’re wasteing time & money with studies, graphs and projections! What an air crew needs for defense is Projectiles,.. Not Projections! Their plan is to develop a lazer defense system and their target date for first deployment is 2020! How many piles of wrecked aluminum will there be around the world between now and then if the military awaits results from that bunch?
Everything needed to make at least a basic anti-missile system is right on the shelf; Hardware & Software. If we don’t make these military bureaucrates develop it right soon, we will start to loose aircraft and it will be partially our faults for not demanding they get a system flying that at least gives our kids a chance to survive in the hostile places we send them.