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hk

wrote:
On Thu, 14 Aug 2008 12:04:32 -0400, hk wrote:

What I suspect will happen is that someday some assholes will launch one
of these new missiles at one of our capital ships, hit it, and sink it,
and *then* we'll have the sort of "missile crisis" that results some
years later in a new ship defense system. Defense systems tend to be
reactive.

We already had one of these incidents in 1987 with the Iraqis and the
USS Starke.
This wasn't really a high tech missile either, it was the Exocet, a
fairly crude subsonic cruise missile that managed 2 out of 2 hits on
the ship.

The submariners have it right. There are only 2 kinds of ship.
Subs and targets.
When they asked (Zumwalt?) how long our aircraft carriers would last
in a real war he said "a couple days".

Yeah, and to this day, the attacks on the Stark have not been fully
explained.

These large ships are targets of opportunity for terrorists or rogue
nations. Imagine the "prestige" that will accrue to a terrorist group
that sinks or severely damages a U.S. carrier.

Despite the hopes of the "naysayers" here that our fleet can defend
itself, the fact remains that anti-ship missile technology is advancing.
The Chinese, the Russians, the Republic of China, and others are
developing larger, faster, more "guide-able" and more powerful anti-ship
weapons. I'd like to know how a ship is supposed to avoid being hit by a
wave-hopping, supersonic missile "steered" by a couple of guys via a
video camera on the weapon and a laptop computer. That's where anti-ship
missile technology is headed.

Sinking or seriously damaging a big U.S. warship is a perfect way to
"get at" the United States without having to find 19 Muslim fanatics who
want to die crashing an airliner into an office building.