USA should build artificial island bases for allies in the age of hypersonic missiles

No one has effective anti-hypersonic missile systems now and there is no anti-hypersonic missile system in development that looks to be very effective or near deployment. This means any major power conflict would make submarines the main effective part of navies or having allied countries with airbases where aircraft can operate.

The US could also spend a few billion dollars for a dredging fleet. The US could help allied countries build artificial islands in key locations like the South China Sea. The US clearly will not be able to win an island construction race with China. However, having more islands and airfields and bases would be effective to ensure the navy and air force could operate under more situations.

China’s strategy of building artificial island bases is an effective strategy to ensure the projection of power. Islands cannot be sunk by missiles. They are larger and can have underground weapons and facilities.

The US and its allies would be able to operate in areas where a smaller country bought a few hypersonic missiles from Russia or China.

The Falkland Islands war showed that without effective anti-missile systems, then current Navy ships are easily sunk by effective anti-ship missiles.

The US Navy has a shortage of submarines because the US cut back after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The US did not decide to build a lot more submarines until recently. The US is choosing not to build many inexpensive submarines. The US is sticking with $2.7-4 billion Virginia attack submarines and $10 billion Columbia nuclear missile launching submarines. If the US just wanted to address the numbers of submarines then the US could buy perfectly effective diesel submarines for $200-400 million. There was a Swedish diesel submarine which performed very effectively against US surface ships in wargames.

The US military system seems to be allergic to spending ten times less for systems that would work. This seems to indicate that actually being prepared in case of a war with China and Russia does not matter to the US military. The actual risk for this scenario is low. The US military industrial complex puts a higher priority on getting more money and profits for each US military system.

Russia, China and US hypersonic missiles

Russia has deployed several hypersonic missiles.

China has deployed hypersonic weapons. China is deploying the DF-21D hypersonic missile. The DF-21D has a range of 1000 miles.

China also has an anti-ship ballistic missile, DF-26, which has a maximum range of 4,000 kilometers (2400 miles) and a payload capacity of 1.8 metric tons.

The US is trying to restart testing of hypersonic missiles in two years. This is not as much of a crisis because in any conflict with any other nation the US can still destroy the opposing military.

However, US getting hypersonic missiles would not protect US aircraft carriers or other US ships from Russian or Chinese missiles. Vulnerable US ships would have to operate 1000-2000 miles away. US aircraft would need to operate from airfields in friendly countries like Japan and South Korea or some long chain of refueling.

The Pentagon is asking Congress to re-allocate $4.7 billion from low priority projects to night-vision goggles, hypersonic weapons and long-range cannons.

Additional US Hypersonic Weapon Funding

$20 million so the Air Force can accelerate development and deployment of a prototype for a “Hypersonic Conventional Strike” air-launched glide munition, with a first test flight in late fiscal 2020. An additional $65 million is requested to accelerate demonstration of a land-launched version. Hypersonic weapons can travel five times the speed of sound, or Mach 5.

More funding for Long range artillery and Patriot Missiles also being added

$46 million to start a Deep Strike Cannon Artillery System technology demonstration program. It’s part of the Army’s Long-Range Precision Strike initiative, the service’s No. 1 modernization priority.

$363 million to buy as many as 100 more of Lockheed Martin Corp.’s most advanced Patriot missile defense interceptors enhanced to allow the weapons to fly higher altitudes at greater speeds.

173 thoughts on “USA should build artificial island bases for allies in the age of hypersonic missiles”

  1. Impose sanctions againsts all chinese ports in South China Sea. Ban all china made goods shipped from these ports entering USA and EU. Problem will be solved in no time.

  2. Any countries with 200 nautical miles close to these islands are the rightful ownership. not China. As long as these countries work with the US to have a few US military bases there . China can not do anyhing or have any good reason to start a war because it is not therightful owner. of course by doing this it will invalidate China’s illegal claim.

  3. Any countries with 200 nautical miles are the rightful ownership of those nearby islands. These countries should allow the US to build a few military bases there as well. China can not do nothing or have any good reason to start a war because it is not a rightful owner. By having a few US military stations there, this will invalidate China illegal claim.

  4. Sure we can build our military station on those islands in the South China Sea. China have no right to occupying them according to the international law.of sea as long as those countries with those 200 miles nearby that have rightful ownership allow us to do so.

  5. One among other options for the US would be to contract with Viet Nam, Phillipine, Brunei to build a few US military bases on those South China Sea islands. This will invalid China solely claimed of the 9 dash lines and this is legally abiding with international law of the Sea.

  6. Any countries with 200 nautical miles close to these islands are the rightful ownership. not China.As long as these countries work with the US to have a few US military bases there . China can not do anyhing or have any good reason to start a war because it is not therightful owner. of course by doing this it will invalidate China’s illegal claim.

  7. Any countries with 200 nautical miles are the rightful ownership of those nearby islands.These countries should allow the US to build a few military bases there as well.China can not do nothing or have any good reason to start a war because it is not a rightful owner.By having a few US military stations there this will invalidate China illegal claim.

  8. Sure we can build our military station on those islands in the South China Sea. China have no rightto occupying them according to the international law.of sea as long as those countries with those200 miles nearby that have rightful ownership allow us to do so.

  9. One among other options for the US would be to contract with Viet Nam Phillipine Brunei to builda few US military bases on those South China Sea islands. This will invalid China solely claimed of the 9 dash lines and this is legally abiding with international law of the Sea.

  10. There is currently no effective anti-missile defense system. And hypersonic missiles while been more expensive are not more effective. And as always an effective deterrence is that your enemy cannot defend itself either.

  11. To me it feels like a New Era of Military competitiveness. It didn’t feel very competitive say between 1980 and 2010. America kind of dominated, the F–35 rolled out to much catcalls and some fanfare. ICBMs did their thing, weren’t talked about, kept the SALT-II agreement terms. Then because a few countries were tired of status quo, and wanted to (almost literally) duck “under the RADAR”, now hypersonic missiles. Definitionally, a hypersonic weapon has an airspeed somewhat above MACH 5. So I’ve read. Its a bit loosey-goosey ‘cuz Mach 1’s actual linear airspeed depends on altitude (temperature and relative humidity mostly, and to a lesser extent actual absolute air pressure). Nonetheless, it is fair to remember Mach 1 ≈ 343 m/s. So Mach 5 is greater than 1,715 m/s. 1,715 m/s → 6,174 km/h → 3,836 MPH. Statute miles. 3,375 nmph (nautical miles per hour) The main write up posits that there is no effective defense against hypersonic missiles. I kind of beg to differ: yes, a HSM is dâhmned fast. But it also must obey the same Newtonian Laws of Physics as slower missiles. Namely, it goes much further per second, so that any adjustments it makes to its trajectory (say to avoid being impacted and destroyed by a counter-missile) take it much closer to “the problem”. Alternately, you can think of it as the hypersonic missile simply has LESS time to react to an interceptor, so either needs superior ‘reach’ forward counter-detection, or better passive cloaking. Hard to achieve, these. The “wall of bullets” idea (Phalanx) seems to have a kind of frame-defying utility: a hornet’s nest of dâhmned-lethal bullets to a hypersonic impactor will STILL be a dâhmned lethal hail of impactors (if not moreso) regardless of incoming speed. Specifically I would imagine that the United States has already run batteries of tests against dummy (warhead) incoming Mach 6+ missiles against Phalanx, and quietly confirmed that yes … Phalanx remains a potent counterforce. Th

  12. There is no need to “win a race” against China in the South China Sea.. Simply having a few strategically placed, well-equipped islands of our own would completely wreck the idea of Chinese dominance in the area. Let them build a hundred of their own.

  13. There is currently no effective anti-missile defense system. And hypersonic missiles while been more expensive are not more effective. And as always an effective deterrence is that your enemy cannot defend itself either.

  14. To me it feels like a New Era of Military competitiveness. It didn’t feel very competitive say between 1980 and 2010. America kind of dominated the F–35 rolled out to much catcalls and some fanfare. ICBMs did their thing weren’t talked about kept the SALT-II agreement terms. Then because a few countries were tired of status quo and wanted to (almost literally) duck under the RADAR””” now hypersonic missiles. Definitionally a hypersonic weapon has an airspeed somewhat above MACH 5. So I’ve read. Its a bit loosey-goosey ‘cuz Mach 1’s actual linear airspeed depends on altitude (temperature and relative humidity mostly and to a lesser extent actual absolute air pressure). Nonetheless it is fair to remember Mach 1 ≈ 343 m/s. So Mach 5 is greater than 1715 m/s. 1715 m/s → 6174 km/h → 3836 MPH. Statute miles. 3375 nmph (nautical miles per hour)The main write up posits that there is no effective defense against hypersonic missiles. I kind of beg to differ: yes a HSM is dâhmned fast. But it also must obey the same Newtonian Laws of Physics as slower missiles. Namely it goes much further per second”” so that any adjustments it makes to its trajectory (say to avoid being impacted and destroyed by a counter-missile) take it much closer to “”””the problem””””.Alternately”” you can think of it as the hypersonic missile simply has LESS time to react to an interceptor so either needs superior ‘reach’ forward counter-detection or better passive cloaking. Hard to achieve”” these.The “”””wall of bullets”””” idea (Phalanx) seems to have a kind of frame-defying utility: a hornet’s nest of dâhmned-lethal bullets to a hypersonic impactor will STILL be a dâhmned lethal hail of impactors (if not moreso) regardless of incoming speed.Specifically I would imagine that the United States has already run batteries of tests against dummy (warhead) incoming Mach 6+ missiles against Phalanx”””” and quietly confirmed that yes … Phalanx remains a pote”

  15. There is no need to win a race”” against China in the South China Sea.. Simply having a few strategically placed”””” well-equipped islands of our own would completely wreck the idea of Chinese dominance in the area.Let them build a hundred of their own.”””

  16. To shelter a capital ship from incoming ballistic missiles, one could assume that an umbrella about 1 square km in size would be desirable. To ensure that any incoming missile would be hit at least once, you would want the impactor particles to be no more than say 30 cm apart. Say 10 units per square metre. So I think that means you want 35 tonnes of buckshot in the air, forming your shield. If one starts with the “umbrella at a height of say 5000 metres (any higher and a shallow trajectory could get under it. You would need a wider shield to be safe.) Then, at a terminal velocity of say… 25 m/s (I think that’s right for a 3.5 gram lead ball) your shield falls from 5000 metres into the sea in 200 seconds. So it needs to be replaced every 3 minutes or so. That’s launching about 10 tonnes of lead per minute. About what the USS Iowa could launch from a main battery at maximum rate of fire. You’d be better off using iron. It’s cheaper, it’s less dense, and you can shape it into something that will fall through the air much more slowly to maximise hang time. At a hypervelocity impact I think the mass dominates density for destructive purposes. Added bonus, you spread a bit of iron into the oceans. Win-win!

  17. YES! China building islands in the Gulf of Mexico would be “projection of power”. The US building islands off the china coast would be “projection of power”. Either nation building defensive installations near their own turf is just, exactly as you put it, “protecting access to themselves”.

  18. The Pacific ocean has an area of 64 million square miles. That would give one pacific island per 100 people. WHich is about the perfect population for an ideal life on a small pacific island. Clearly a world with one island per square mile would be much better than our own.

  19. I’ve often thought the same thing. When designing such a weapon, there’s a tradeoff between fuel, warhead size, and structural reinforcement. There’s also a tradeoff between overall mass and maneuverability. If one were to reinforce such a weapon sufficiently for it to resist the hail-storm from a Phalanx it would essentially become a KE weapon (at least in my mind). If a hypersonic weapon were to be robust enough to survive a Phalanx, have sufficient range, and a sufficiently large warhead, it would be enormous and therefore not very maneuverable thus making interception seemingly easier as both the point of launch and the destination will likely be known relatively quickly by the targeted vessel or installation. Further, at hypersonic speeds and the trajectories envisioned, one doesn’t need to actually “kill” the weapon but rather just destabilize it or compromise one of its control surfaces. The additional mass needed for counter-detection (radar) and the necessary geometric configuration seems to only add to the above tradeoffs. Flying ultra-low at hypersonic speeds is a no-go for a variety of reasons so detection should actually be easier for a target like a carrier battle group. In short, hypersonic cruise misses seem to be a solution looking for a problem. I doubt the U.S. DOD is genuinely concerned about them though they are likely using their specter to drum up support for defense spending. If it were my R&D money, I’d develop a stealth cruise missile capable of flying very low. It can take all the time it needs in reaching the target because it will be virtually impossible to “see”.

  20. Also how many land attack missiles can the Gotland launch. Your assuming the subs the US builds would be 200mil. Every time we do a actual design to look at its at least 1 billion.

  21. Thank you for making a point that China needs AIP and diesel subs. Also notice many of our allies have those including Japan. So… But yea you can call offering the relevant information a rant if you want.

  22. What did we do to Bikini Atoll? And why wouldn’t we do it again? Or the Japanese, who could become a nuclear power over a long weekend, practically.

  23. Why? China is not a problem for the US. China is a problem for the East Pac nations and Asia in particular. Namely, China is India & Japan’s problem. We just have to support them via lend-lease, technological support, etc. When the Big Fight happens, we prepare to intercede where it packs the most punch so that no one side ‘wins’. Just like we did in the Russo-Japanese War.

  24. In the South China Sea, AIP subs are great. You are comparing different needs (US supposedly having a need for a sub fleet that can be deployed all over the world’s oceans vs just a littoral need in a specific region), and so your oranges and apple rant doesn’t apply.

  25. $46 million to start a Deep Strike Cannon Artillery System technology demonstration program. It’s part of the Army’s Long-Range Precision Strike initiative, the service’s No. 1 modernization priority.” The Army is going to be deployed in the Pac? Really? No. This is a perfect example of the Cold War mentality that still dominates in DC. The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming! Not. Maybe for Europe, but that isn’t our problem. Russia with the GDP size of Italy is no Soviet Union. Maaaybe this would be deployed in Korea. But we could just license the tech to the South Koreans in that case anyway.

  26. China’s strategy of building artificial island bases is an effective strategy to ensure the projection of power. Islands cannot be sunk by missiles. They are larger and can have underground weapons and facilities.” That’s what nuclear weapons are for.

  27. Your comparing apples and oranges with the gotland class subs and the virginia’s. Virginia endurance: 90-120 days (this limit exist because of food. That’s basically it unless it has a mechanical issue) Armament: around 40 tomahawks for land attack (12 in VLS/28 in the VPM-these are only for the block V) around 65 torps. Speed: submerged for the Virginia is hard to find. We know its fast. Surfaced maybe 35kts. Gotland Endurance: 14 days MAYBE 30 at a stretch. (THIS is one of the most important. These subs are great for coastal patrol in smaller area’s. Not giant places like the pacific.) Armament: 6 tubes 16 torpedo’s and 48 externally carrier mines Speed: 11kts surfaced, 20kts submerged (note they are not going to be going that fast underwater all the time. That is a sprint speed and at that speed they would likely be easy to pick up) This is kind of the thing. The US builds nuke subs because they are going to be more versatile than the Diesels and AIP subs in the waters we patrol. Sure we could build Diesels to patrol our coast but then we would have less subs to patrols the waters we NEED to trade. Basically, apples and oranges.

  28. +1, old lad. Right you are. Even a STATIONARY “cloud” of buckshot, each weighing say 53.8 grains (00 shot), (53.8 ÷ 7000 gr/lb → 0.007686 lbs × 454 → 3.5 grams → 0.0035 kg) with a relative velocity difference of 1,750 m/s becomes ½ 0.0035 1,750² → 5,300 J/buck. A bit over 1¼ g of TNT explosive yield. That’d definitely ruin your day. Especially with all the kinetic energy focussed on [i]“going thru the incoming missile”[/i]. Just saying. You’re right. [b]Goat[/b]Guy

  29. You mean Islands which can’t move and are therefore easy to hit? Carriers can move, Islands can not and so…..

  30. To trade their ships have to leave their zone of protection. To trade they have to let other ships into their zone of protection. What they are protecting is access to themselves. Unless they are planning to build islands on every square mile of the ocean and claim it.

  31. To shelter a capital ship from incoming ballistic missiles one could assume that an umbrella about 1 square km in size would be desirable.To ensure that any incoming missile would be hit at least once you would want the impactor particles to be no more than say 30 cm apart. Say 10 units per square metre.So I think that means you want 35 tonnes of buckshot in the air forming your shield.If one starts with the umbrella at a height of say 5000 metres (any higher and a shallow trajectory could get under it. You would need a wider shield to be safe.) Then” at a terminal velocity of say… 25 m/s (I think that’s right for a 3.5 gram lead ball) your shield falls from 5000 metres into the sea in 200 seconds. So it needs to be replaced every 3 minutes or so.That’s launching about 10 tonnes of lead per minute. About what the USS Iowa could launch from a main battery at maximum rate of fire.You’d be better off using iron. It’s cheaper it’s less dense and you can shape it into something that will fall through the air much more slowly to maximise hang time. At a hypervelocity impact I think the mass dominates density for destructive purposes.Added bonus” you spread a bit of iron into the oceans. Win-win!”

  32. YES! China building islands in the Gulf of Mexico would be projection of power””. The US building islands off the china coast would be “”””projection of power””””. Either nation building defensive installations near their own turf is just”” exactly as you put it”” “”””protecting access to themselves””””.”””

  33. The Pacific ocean has an area of 64 million square miles. That would give one pacific island per 100 people. WHich is about the perfect population for an ideal life on a small pacific island.Clearly a world with one island per square mile would be much better than our own.

  34. I’ve often thought the same thing. When designing such a weapon there’s a tradeoff between fuel warhead size and structural reinforcement. There’s also a tradeoff between overall mass and maneuverability. If one were to reinforce such a weapon sufficiently for it to resist the hail-storm from a Phalanx it would essentially become a KE weapon (at least in my mind). If a hypersonic weapon were to be robust enough to survive a Phalanx have sufficient range and a sufficiently large warhead it would be enormous and therefore not very maneuverable thus making interception seemingly easier as both the point of launch and the destination will likely be known relatively quickly by the targeted vessel or installation. Further at hypersonic speeds and the trajectories envisioned one doesn’t need to actually kill”” the weapon but rather just destabilize it or compromise one of its control surfaces. The additional mass needed for counter-detection (radar) and the necessary geometric configuration seems to only add to the above tradeoffs. Flying ultra-low at hypersonic speeds is a no-go for a variety of reasons so detection should actually be easier for a target like a carrier battle group. In short”” hypersonic cruise misses seem to be a solution looking for a problem. I doubt the U.S. DOD is genuinely concerned about them though they are likely using their specter to drum up support for defense spending. If it were my R&D money”” I’d develop a stealth cruise missile capable of flying very low. It can take all the time it needs in reaching the target because it will be virtually impossible to “”””see””””.”””

  35. Also how many land attack missiles can the Gotland launch.Your assuming the subs the US builds would be 200mil. Every time we do a actual design to look at its at least 1 billion.

  36. Thank you for making a point that China needs AIP and diesel subs. Also notice many of our allies have those including Japan. So…But yea you can call offering the relevant information a rant if you want.

  37. What did we do to Bikini Atoll? And why wouldn’t we do it again? Or the Japanese who could become a nuclear power over a long weekend practically.

  38. Why? China is not a problem for the US. China is a problem for the East Pac nations and Asia in particular. Namely China is India & Japan’s problem. We just have to support them via lend-lease technological support etc. When the Big Fight happens we prepare to intercede where it packs the most punch so that no one side ‘wins’. Just like we did in the Russo-Japanese War.

  39. In the South China Sea AIP subs are great. You are comparing different needs (US supposedly having a need for a sub fleet that can be deployed all over the world’s oceans vs just a littoral need in a specific region) and so your oranges and apple rant doesn’t apply.

  40. $46 million to start a Deep Strike Cannon Artillery System technology demonstration program. It’s part of the Army’s Long-Range Precision Strike initiative” the service’s No. 1 modernization priority.””The Army is going to be deployed in the Pac? Really? No.This is a perfect example of the Cold War mentality that still dominates in DC. The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming! Not. Maybe for Europe”””” but that isn’t our problem. Russia with the GDP size of Italy is no Soviet Union. Maaaybe this would be deployed in Korea. But we could just license the tech to the South Koreans in that case anyway.”””””””

  41. China’s strategy of building artificial island bases is an effective strategy to ensure the projection of power. Islands cannot be sunk by missiles. They are larger and can have underground weapons and facilities.””That’s what nuclear weapons are for.”””””””

  42. Your comparing apples and oranges with the gotland class subs and the virginia’s.Virginiaendurance: 90-120 days (this limit exist because of food. That’s basically it unless it has a mechanical issue)Armament: around 40 tomahawks for land attack (12 in VLS/28 in the VPM-these are only for the block V) around 65 torps.Speed: submerged for the Virginia is hard to find. We know its fast. Surfaced maybe 35kts.GotlandEndurance: 14 days MAYBE 30 at a stretch. (THIS is one of the most important. These subs are great for coastal patrol in smaller area’s. Not giant places like the pacific.)Armament: 6 tubes 16 torpedo’s and 48 externally carrier minesSpeed: 11kts surfaced 20kts submerged (note they are not going to be going that fast underwater all the time. That is a sprint speed and at that speed they would likely be easy to pick up)This is kind of the thing. The US builds nuke subs because they are going to be more versatile than the Diesels and AIP subs in the waters we patrol. Sure we could build Diesels to patrol our coast but then we would have less subs to patrols the waters we NEED to trade.Basically apples and oranges.

  43. +1 old lad. Right you are. Even a STATIONARY cloud”” of buckshot”” each weighing say 53.8 grains (00 shot) (53.8 ÷ 7000 gr/lb → 0.007686 lbs × 454 → 3.5 grams → 0.0035 kg) with a relative velocity difference of 1750 m/s becomes ½ 0.0035 1750² → 5″”300 J/buck. A bit over 1¼ g of TNT explosive yield. That’d definitely ruin your day. Especially with all the kinetic energy focussed on [i]“going thru the incoming missile”[/i]. Just saying.You’re right.[b]Goat[/b]Guy”””””””

  44. You mean Islands which can’t move and are therefore easy to hit? Carriers can move Islands can not and so…..

  45. To trade their ships have to leave their zone of protection. To trade they have to let other ships into their zone of protection. What they are protecting is access to themselves. Unless they are planning to build islands on every square mile of the ocean and claim it.

  46. I would be surprised if you could not reduce the required area a lot from 1 sq. km, but in the 5 minutes of thought I put into it, I kept coming up with reasons that it wouldn’t be easy. – Your capital ship, probably an aircraft carrier, is a few hundred metres long anyway, so just being directly above the ship is several hectares. – If you know exactly where the hypersonic missile is going, you can of course target the interception. But the whole point of maneuverable hypersonics is that they can change their course, by at least a few hundred m, so that doesn’t work unless you are sure you will be smarter than they are. The point of a cloud defense is so you don’t need smart defense. – Remember your ship is moving. Send a protective cloud up now, and in 5 minutes your ship may be 5 km away – assuming you can move at 60 kph, and the big ships can do that ESPECIALLY if they are being shot at. – So you can predict where you are going to be, and put the cloud up there… but that means no last minute changes in course, which is of course exactly what you want to be able to do when someone is shooting at you. – And putting the defense cloud (iron cloud? Force shield? What will we call it???) Up where you are going to be… is painting a nice radar image of where you are going to be. Is that wise? I think not. – Having the defensive cloud lower reduces the effort required. At half the height, you have to replenish the cloud twice as often, but the cloud need only be 1/4 the area. However you want the intersection to be fairly far away, otherwise the debris of the hypersonic missile hits you anyway, even if it has been intercepted. Not as bad as a direct hit, but a few tonnes of hypersonic fragments is still not a good thing.

  47. That’s very true and it’s something I think the Chinese wrongly discount. If they allow NK to push the envelope too far it’s likely that Japan will develop a nuclear deterrent of its own.

  48. I think you could narrow your interception window to an area considerably smaller than 1square kilometer but your point stands: interception via “buckshot” is likely feasible… amongst other methods.

  49. You can not do that.. The Chinese will never allow this and the US have not the capability to overcome all this

  50. When the chinese started building those islands why did’nt obama build islands to oppose the chinese. major failure of his administration which history will take note…bad policy and he failed to act like a President of the United States should.

  51. Easy targets for ballistic missiles that travel about 17,000 mph. So much for hyper sonic. Think there’s going to anyone left to make a head count?

  52. China cares about int` l law as much as the US: that is nothing. If the US tries to build any island 1000km. from China` s coasts my bet is that they will nuke it down. This is why the US barks but does not bite. As china has now so many Nuke$$

  53. I would be surprised if you could not reduce the required area a lot from 1 sq. km but in the 5 minutes of thought I put into it I kept coming up with reasons that it wouldn’t be easy.- Your capital ship probably an aircraft carrier is a few hundred metres long anyway so just being directly above the ship is several hectares.- If you know exactly where the hypersonic missile is going you can of course target the interception. But the whole point of maneuverable hypersonics is that they can change their course by at least a few hundred m so that doesn’t work unless you are sure you will be smarter than they are. The point of a cloud defense is so you don’t need smart defense.- Remember your ship is moving. Send a protective cloud up now and in 5 minutes your ship may be 5 km away – assuming you can move at 60 kph and the big ships can do that ESPECIALLY if they are being shot at. – So you can predict where you are going to be and put the cloud up there… but that means no last minute changes in course which is of course exactly what you want to be able to do when someone is shooting at you.- And putting the defense cloud (iron cloud? Force shield? What will we call it???) Up where you are going to be… is painting a nice radar image of where you are going to be. Is that wise? I think not.- Having the defensive cloud lower reduces the effort required. At half the height you have to replenish the cloud twice as often but the cloud need only be 1/4 the area. However you want the intersection to be fairly far away otherwise the debris of the hypersonic missile hits you anyway even if it has been intercepted. Not as bad as a direct hit but a few tonnes of hypersonic fragments is still not a good thing.

  54. That’s very true and it’s something I think the Chinese wrongly discount. If they allow NK to push the envelope too far it’s likely that Japan will develop a nuclear deterrent of its own.

  55. I think you could narrow your interception window to an area considerably smaller than 1square kilometer but your point stands: interception via buckshot”” is likely feasible… amongst other methods.”””

  56. You can not do that.. The Chinese will never allow this and the US have not the capability to overcome all this

  57. When the chinese started building those islands why did’nt obama build islands to oppose the chinese. major failure of his administration which history will take note…bad policy and he failed to act like a President of the United States should.

  58. Easy targets for ballistic missiles that travel about 17000 mph. So much for hyper sonic. Think there’s going to anyone left to make a head count?

  59. There’s no defense because it is hitting a bullet with a bullet. It takes 300 ms for the human brain to actually see the ball and swing, a 100 mile fastball makes the distance in 375 ms. So there is literally no time to think or aim. A major league batter basically needs to guess. Likewise the interceptor needs to calculate and make adjustments, and again with the Phalanx it has mere microseconds between the system being able to aim and fire. Furthermore these missiles are all capable of erratic movement, and none of them follow a predefined path. So the equivalent would be similar to a kamikaze fighter. The system cannot predict if the missile will suddenly go 1-12 o clock At extremely high speeds this becomes nearly impossible.

  60. Trading a ballistic missile that costs millions of dollars, highly refined materials to bomb a chunk of dirt. Smart.

  61. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Put6M0uOxiY/UNd5VBnaKZI/AAAAAAAACz4/L2-ka0kv9_E/s1600/european-overseas-territories.jpg Nope these islands belong to China, China claimed them first but it was rejected by Europeans. The racist Europeans rejected all island claims by the Chinese, while they themselves claimed numerous islands for themselves. There are numerous detailed maps and requests sent by the Qing to the European powers in regards to the ownership of these islands. And the Qing even sent ships to plant the flag on these islands. At no point was the Phillipines a independent country while the European imperialists raced to plant a flag on every island. By your line of reasoning the Falklands should be returned to Argentina because it is within 200 nautical miles.

  62. I’m imagining ”pieces of iron” either as a maple tree’s whirligig (samara) seed or a more complicated little fru-fru tropical drink umbrella … made of iron. When I was a kid, I learned that I could shoot the umbrellas out of my uncle’s rustic hobby-built blow-gun, and propel them a hundred feet or more in the sky. They’d dutifully open up, and then drift down oh-so-slowly. The “best” were ones that accidentally also autorotated like the samaras. Mini parachutes. I like the “added bonus” business. However, thinking like a statistician-turned-fisherman, catching Nearly All the fish with netting that’s intrinsically “full of holes” is answered by having multiple nets. Layers of nets. Nets within nets. The autogyrating samaras or fru-fru drink umbrellas is good ‘cuz with sufficient hang time, one could erect quite a 3-D cloud of lethal dead weight. I suppose it is time to haul out the real answer tho. Pinpoint accurate lasers. Adaptive optics. Clement weather conditions. Possible airborne (“above clouds”, less turbulance) deployment No mass impactors. Very rapid retargeting. However, by comparison, they’re “boring”. I like the samaras and hawaiian punch umbrellas. GoatGuy

  63. Islands cannot be sunk by missiles. They are larger and can have underground weapons and facilities.” ROFLMAO! Islands that small can be destroyed by missiles. The water table is so low that digging underground facilities is problematic at best, and won’t stop bunker busters in that type of soil no matter what you do. They’re too small to generate overwhelming firepower, and cannot maneuver. They may be impressive to small countries, but they’re just targets for advanced militaries.

  64. Or call an end to this rat race, its the most cheap solutions. Because nukes are not a solution to anything; it just ends all there. Just imagine with the amounts of money left, went into health research or free public health care.

  65. Would take quite a LOT o bullets to stop every single incoming missile.. Maybe 1000~10000 missiles to stop every HSM, just wondering. Just wondering if it will crush the already failing US military to go that way. I mean, F35 program is already costing 1 Trillion and more and US debt is soaring. Just saying..

  66. China cares about int` l law as much as the US: that is, nothing. If the US tries to build any island 1000km. from China` s coasts my bet is that they will nuke it down. This is why the US barks but does not bite. As china has now so many Nuke$$

  67. There’s no defense because it is hitting a bullet with a bullet. It takes 300 ms for the human brain to actually see the ball and swing a 100 mile fastball makes the distance in 375 ms. So there is literally no time to think or aim. A major league batter basically needs to guess.Likewise the interceptor needs to calculate and make adjustments and again with the Phalanx it has mere microseconds between the system being able to aim and fire.Furthermore these missiles are all capable of erratic movement and none of them follow a predefined path. So the equivalent would be similar to a kamikaze fighter. The system cannot predict if the missile will suddenly go 1-12 o clockAt extremely high speeds this becomes nearly impossible.

  68. Trading a ballistic missile that costs millions of dollars highly refined materials to bomb a chunk of dirt. Smart.

  69. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Put6M0uOxiY/UNd5VBnaKZI/AAAAAAAACz4/L2-ka0kv9_E/s1600/european-overseas-territories.jpgNope these islands belong to China China claimed them first but it was rejected by Europeans. The racist Europeans rejected all island claims by the Chinese while they themselves claimed numerous islands for themselves. There are numerous detailed maps and requests sent by the Qing to the European powers in regards to the ownership of these islands. And the Qing even sent ships to plant the flag on these islands. At no point was the Phillipines a independent country while the European imperialists raced to plant a flag on every island. By your line of reasoning the Falklands should be returned to Argentina because it is within 200 nautical miles.

  70. I’m imagining ”pieces of iron” either as a maple tree’s whirligig (samara) seed or a more complicated little fru-fru tropical drink umbrella … made of iron. When I was a kid I learned that I could shoot the umbrellas out of my uncle’s rustic hobby-built blow-gun and propel them a hundred feet or more in the sky. They’d dutifully open up and then drift down oh-so-slowly. The best”” were ones that accidentally also autorotated like the samaras. Mini parachutes.I like the “”””added bonus”””” business.However”” thinking like a statistician-turned-fisherman”” catching Nearly All the fish with netting that’s intrinsically “”””full of holes”””” is answered by having multiple nets. Layers of nets. Nets within nets. The autogyrating samaras or fru-fru drink umbrellas is good ‘cuz with sufficient hang time”””” one could erect quite a 3-D cloud of lethal dead weight. I suppose it is time to haul out the real answer tho. Pinpoint accurate lasers. Adaptive optics.Clement weather conditions.Possible airborne (“”””above clouds”””””” less turbulance) deploymentNo mass impactors. Very rapid retargeting.However by comparison”” they’re “”””boring””””. I like the samaras and hawaiian punch umbrellas.GoatGuy”””

  71. Islands cannot be sunk by missiles. They are larger and can have underground weapons and facilities.”” ROFLMAO! Islands that small can be destroyed by missiles. The water table is so low that digging underground facilities is problematic at best”” and won’t stop bunker busters in that type of soil no matter what you do. They’re too small to generate overwhelming firepower and cannot maneuver. They may be impressive to small countries”” but they’re just targets for advanced militaries.”””

  72. Or call an end to this rat race its the most cheap solutions.Because nukes are not a solution to anything; it just ends all there.Just imagine with the amounts of money left went into health research or free public health care.

  73. Would take quite a LOT o bullets to stop every single incoming missile.. Maybe 1000~10000 missiles to stop every HSM just wondering. Just wondering if it will crush the already failing US military to go that way. I mean F35 program is already costing 1 Trillion and more and US debt is soaring. Just saying..

  74. Wow! Someone connected to reality! For-profit militarism in a high tech era is both monstrously expensive — as in “Let’s just spend ourselves to death.” — massively complex, and therefore prone to failure, and so damn destructive that using it is only a tad more suicidal than just buying it. We need to address the madness, de-monitize it, ie take out the profit motive, dial it down to the max, and have verifiable, mutual, cooperative, international arms controls. Maybe even in the end, an international “police” force that keeps the peace by preventing anyone from having their own military. The ancient human instinct for domination must eventually be curbed. Robot cops? “Gort, Klaatu barada nikto.

  75. America does not need to fight China. China’s worst enemy is itself. From what I understand, in history, China has spent more time in pieces than together. So, all we need to do is wait. Also, demographics … not going to be kind to China.

  76. Please, Obama graduated “Summa Cum Laude” from Harvard Law School. To say that he is “not too smart” is idiotic and possible racist.

  77. Ummmm… I think you’re missing the point.Take a SHOTGUN shell (for hunting doves both here and in Europe). What is it full of? BIRDSHOT. Hundreds of itty-bitty sesame seed sized round bits of lead.The ability of the shooter to aim any one of the bits is zero””. They’re held in a little cup in front of the gunpowder in the shell. When the gun fires”” out go the shot bits more-or-less in the direction of the gun’s barrel. They spread out in flight and if a half-dozen or so intercept a bird the poor critter goes down. (I’m not a big fan of shotgun hunting but it is illustrative.)The PHALANX gun works similarly but with MUCH higher velocity impactors. It shoots off some 4500 bullets per minute or 75 per second. Being accelerated down a rifled battery of gattling-gun like barrels the accuracy of any particular bullet is actually quite eye-opening. The idea is [i]“use shot that goes MUCH farther and MUCH tighter”[/i] than a commonplace shotgun bird-hunting shell. Necessarily the bullets are sequentially aimed and fired not all at once. SURE it makes the target harder to hit when it follows its own internal randomizing trajectory. Sure it reduces the RADAR-hit reflection acquisition targeting-calculation gun-adjustment time. But again based on the shotgun theory sending a tightly grouped blast of hundreds of bullets each at well over 1000 m/s at an incoming missile … runs a pretty good chance of hitting the thing.So this is why I disagree with your dismissive rebuttal. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if a new kind of Phalanx will be ginned up that uses hypervelocity tungsten needles instead of conventional bullets and has a fire-rate of 250+ needles per second. Saboted of course but with velocities in excess of 2″”000 m/s. Needle shaped to go dozens of kilometers without losing appreciable kinetic energy. Brutal.The point is … hypervelocity missiles definitely have likely-effective near-conventional countermeasur”

  78. Wow! Someone connected to reality! For-profit militarism in a high tech era is both monstrously expensive — as in Let’s just spend ourselves to death.”” — massively complex”” and therefore prone to failure and so damn destructive that using it is only a tad more suicidal than just buying it.We need to address the madness de-monitize it ie take out the profit motive dial it down to the max and have verifiable mutual cooperative international arms controls. Maybe even in the end”” an international “”””police”””” force that keeps the peace by preventing anyone from having their own military.The ancient human instinct for domination must eventually be curbed. Robot cops? “”””Gort”””” Klaatu barada nikto.”””””””

  79. America does not need to fight China. China’s worst enemy is itself. From what I understand in history China has spent more time in pieces than together. So all we need to do is wait. Also demographics … not going to be kind to China.

  80. Please Obama graduated Summa Cum Laude”” from Harvard Law School. To say that he is “”””not too smart”””” is idiotic and possible racist.”””

  81. Telling people they are not allowed to criticise a black government leader because it is racist is the best possible reason to vote AGAINST a black politician. Because who wants a government they are not allowed to criticise.

  82. No, nuclear weapons are not for those islands; nuclear weapons is for the Americans to kill themselves because their retarded mentality and sick culture will make them irrational and suicidal.

  83. Missing by a couple of inches may land you a hit, but miss by a foot and the bird flies away. A hypersonic missile minimum speed to be considered hypersonic is 5x the speed of sound mach 5 = 5582.19 Feet per second Furthermore no country has fielded hypersonic missiles, so it makes little sense that current missile defenses will work The current hypersonic missiles are still testing and are not expected until 2020 They are Boeing X-51 wave rider (Mach 6), Lingyun-1 (Speed unknown), Kinzhal (Mach 10) All 3 are air/ship launched While many countries have CIWS (Close in weapon System) See the link below where a reddit user lists all the modern CIWS systems and compares them https://www.reddit.com/r/WarshipPorn/comments/36m8t5/the_chinese_type_1130_ciws_the_type_1130_ciws/crghxj6/ Both the Russians and Chinese have better CIWS today than the phalanx, and yet they are still working on hypersonic missiles for 2020 So clearly the people with the numbers to do the actual math believe that hypersonic missiles are too fast for CIWS. I never argued that the bullets wouldn’t be able to destroy the missile, but rather the speed is simply too high and no you can’t cover the air the gun only has a limited amount of time mere microseconds between when the missile is in firing range and past the point of no return. The gun simply won’t be able to cover everything,

  84. For some reason, my reply got eaten. Long one too. Frustrating. Investment of time, loss of it outright. Anyway, I posited that SAMARAS (little auto-rotating maple tree seeds) or autogyrating steel party-drink umbrellas would be good. Both schemes put a relatively heavy object “out there” then as it falls, its autorotation causes it to drop quite slowly (compared to a rock). GoatGuy

  85. Ummmm… I think you’re missing the point. Take a SHOTGUN shell (for hunting doves, both here and in Europe). What is it full of? BIRDSHOT. Hundreds of itty-bitty sesame seed sized round bits of lead. The ability of the shooter to aim any one of the bits is “zero”. They’re held in a little cup in front of the gunpowder in the shell. When the gun fires, out go the shot bits, more-or-less in the direction of the gun’s barrel. They spread out in flight, and if a half-dozen or so intercept a bird, the poor critter goes down. (I’m not a big fan of shotgun hunting, but it is illustrative.) The PHALANX gun works similarly, but with MUCH higher velocity impactors. It shoots off some 4,500 bullets per minute or 75 per second. Being accelerated down a rifled battery of gattling-gun like barrels, the accuracy of any particular bullet is actually quite eye-opening. The idea is [i]“use shot that goes MUCH farther, and MUCH tighter”[/i] than a commonplace shotgun bird-hunting shell. Necessarily, the bullets are sequentially aimed and fired, not all at once. SURE it makes the target harder to hit when it follows its own internal randomizing trajectory. Sure it reduces the RADAR-hit, reflection, acquisition, targeting-calculation, gun-adjustment time. But again, based on the shotgun theory, sending a tightly grouped blast of hundreds of bullets, each at well over 1,000 m/s at an incoming missile … runs a pretty good chance of hitting the thing. So, this is why I disagree with your dismissive rebuttal. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if a new kind of Phalanx will be ginned up that uses hypervelocity tungsten needles instead of conventional bullets, and has a fire-rate of 250+ needles per second. Saboted of course, but with velocities in excess of 2,000 m/s. Needle shaped to go dozens of kilometers without losing appreciable kinetic energy. Brutal. The point is … hypervelocity missiles definitely have likely-effective near-conventional countermeasures.

  86. Telling people they are not allowed to criticise a black government leader because it is racist is the best possible reason to vote AGAINST a black politician. Because who wants a government they are not allowed to criticise.

  87. No nuclear weapons are not for those islands; nuclear weapons is for the Americans to kill themselves because their retarded mentality and sick culture will make them irrational and suicidal.

  88. Missing by a couple of inches may land you a hit but miss by a foot and the bird flies away.A hypersonic missile minimum speed to be considered hypersonic is 5x the speed of soundmach 5 = 5582.19 Feet per second Furthermore no country has fielded hypersonic missiles so it makes little sense that current missile defenses will work The current hypersonic missiles are still testing and are not expected until 2020They are Boeing X-51 wave rider (Mach 6) Lingyun-1 (Speed unknown) Kinzhal (Mach 10) All 3 are air/ship launchedWhile many countries have CIWS (Close in weapon System) See the link below where a reddit user lists all the modern CIWS systems and compares themhttps://www.reddit.com/r/WarshipPorn/comments/36m8t5/the_chinese_type_1130_ciws_the_type_1130_ciws/crghxj6/Both the Russians and Chinese have better CIWS today than the phalanx and yet they are still working on hypersonic missiles for 2020So clearly the people with the numbers to do the actual math believe that hypersonic missiles are too fast for CIWS. I never argued that the bullets wouldn’t be able to destroy the missile but rather the speed is simply too high and no you can’t cover the air the gun only has a limited amount of time mere microseconds between when the missile is in firing range and past the point of no return. The gun simply won’t be able to cover everything

  89. For some reason my reply got eaten. Long one too. Frustrating. Investment of time loss of it outright.AnywayI posited that SAMARAS (little auto-rotating maple tree seeds) or autogyrating steel party-drink umbrellas would be good. Both schemes put a relatively heavy object out there”” then as it falls”””” its autorotation causes it to drop quite slowly (compared to a rock).GoatGuy”””

  90. I think you meant to say: ” I’m imagining ”pieces of iron” either as a maple tree’s whirligig (samara) seed or a more complicated little fru-fru tropical drink umbrella … made of iron. When I was a kid, I learned that I could shoot the umbrellas out of my uncle’s rustic hobby-built blow-gun, and propel them a hundred feet or more in the sky. They’d dutifully open up, and then drift down oh-so-slowly. The “best” were ones that accidentally also autorotated like the samaras. Mini parachutes. I like the “added bonus” business. However, thinking like a statistician-turned-fisherman, catching Nearly All the fish with netting that’s intrinsically “full of holes” is answered by having multiple nets. Layers of nets. Nets within nets. The autogyrating samaras or fru-fru drink umbrellas is good ‘cuz with sufficient hang time, one could erect quite a 3-D cloud of lethal dead weight. I suppose it is time to haul out the real answer tho. Pinpoint accurate lasers. Adaptive optics. Clement weather conditions. Possible airborne (“above clouds”, less turbulance) deployment No mass impactors. Very rapid retargeting. However, by comparison, they’re “boring”. I like the samaras and hawaiian punch umbrellas. GoatGuy

  91. I think you meant to say: I’m imagining ”pieces of iron” either as a maple tree’s whirligig (samara) seed or a more complicated little fru-fru tropical drink umbrella … made of iron. When I was a kid I learned that I could shoot the umbrellas out of my uncle’s rustic hobby-built blow-gun and propel them a hundred feet or more in the sky. They’d dutifully open up” and then drift down oh-so-slowly. The “”best”””” were ones that accidentally also autorotated like the samaras. Mini parachutes.I like the “”””added bonus”””” business.However”” thinking like a statistician-turned-fisherman”” catching Nearly All the fish with netting that’s intrinsically “”””full of holes”””” is answered by having multiple nets. Layers of nets. Nets within nets. The autogyrating samaras or fru-fru drink umbrellas is good ‘cuz with sufficient hang time”””” one could erect quite a 3-D cloud of lethal dead weight. I suppose it is time to haul out the real answer tho. Pinpoint accurate lasers. Adaptive optics.Clement weather conditions.Possible airborne (“”””above clouds”””””” less turbulance) deploymentNo mass impactors. Very rapid retargeting.However by comparison”” they’re “”””boring””””. I like the samaras and hawaiian punch umbrellas.GoatGuy “””””””

  92. The US could also spend a few billion dollars for a dredging fleet….” Is where I stopped reading, Jones Act is backfiring here, preventing the USA to acquire a competitive dredging fleet

  93. China is growing 7{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} per year with no debt added The US is groing 2{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} per year with debt soaring China has overtook the US in GDP PPP in 2014 In a few years the CHinese economy will double that of the US Kee waiting

  94. The US could also spend a few billion dollars for a dredging fleet….”” Is where I stopped reading”” Jones Act is backfiring here”” preventing the USA to acquire a competitive dredging fleet”””

  95. No, it is not video game, Chinese have nuclear power generated force shield covering those islands, US missiles and bombs will be bounced off from the force shields, your ignorance is your lost. US aircraft carrier combat groups move at 30 knots, comparing to the speed of Chinese electromagnetic railguns and laser cannons, the US aircraft carrier combat groups are sitting ducks in the term of relative speed. Japanese is stupid, if the American can only think in terms of Japanese like you, then the American is stupid too. Before WWII, the American is just one of the Western imperialists ravaged and wreaked havoc of Asia with barbaric wars, illicit drugs like Opium, slavery, stealing, robbing, looting, plundering, murdering, torturing, exploiting, polluting, culture genocide, ‘pious’ fanaticism, unmatchable greed and extreme brutality. In the historical point of view, it is hard to tell the difference between the American and the unrepentant war criminal Japanese who is more lethal and barbaric to Asians.

  96. Generate a force shield?!? What are you talking about? This isn’t a video game. Apparently you are not familiar with how important maneuvering is in warfare. Those tiny islands made of loose sand are targets that cannot move, nothing more. An aircraft carrier is vulnerable to missiles, sure, but it can move out of the way of them and play on range. An island can be hit with our eyes closed, by munitions that the poor soldiers sitting on the island with their rear ends swinging in the breeze won’t even have time to see and react to. Also, aircraft carriers are just part of what would be faced by units stationed on these islands as part of a combined arms assault. The Japanese discovered just how vulnerable islands are, but apparently the PLA didn’t get that memo. If these islands really do have nuclear power stations, there is going to be a LOT of radioactive materials spewed out all over that valuable real estate when they get hit. Might want to switch to natgas or something that isn’t going to create an environmental catastrophe during combat. All this because the Chinese government wants to steal resources from their neighbors with their 9-line fantasy and follow some dipshot confrontational “realpolitik” foreign policy, when all they had to do was bide their time and play along. China has all the necessary ingredients to be a great power (except possibly natural resources) but the way the Chinese government is going about it is counterproductive in the extreme.

  97. China is growing 7% per year with no debt added The US is groing 2% per year with debt soaring China has overtook the US in GDP PPP in 2014 In a few years the CHinese economy will double that of the US Kee waiting

  98. No it is not video game Chinese have nuclear power generated force shield covering those islands US missiles and bombs will be bounced off from the force shields your ignorance is your lost. US aircraft carrier combat groups move at 30 knots comparing to the speed of Chinese electromagnetic railguns and laser cannons the US aircraft carrier combat groups are sitting ducks in the term of relative speed.Japanese is stupid if the American can only think in terms of Japanese like you then the American is stupid too.Before WWII the American is just one of the Western imperialists ravaged and wreaked havoc of Asia with barbaric wars illicit drugs like Opium slavery stealing robbing looting plundering murdering torturing exploiting polluting culture genocide ‘pious’ fanaticism unmatchable greed and extreme brutality. In the historical point of view it is hard to tell the difference between the American and the unrepentant war criminal Japanese who is more lethal and barbaric to Asians.”

  99. Generate a force shield?!? What are you talking about? This isn’t a video game.Apparently you are not familiar with how important maneuvering is in warfare. Those tiny islands made of loose sand are targets that cannot move nothing more. An aircraft carrier is vulnerable to missiles sure but it can move out of the way of them and play on range. An island can be hit with our eyes closed by munitions that the poor soldiers sitting on the island with their rear ends swinging in the breeze won’t even have time to see and react to. Also aircraft carriers are just part of what would be faced by units stationed on these islands as part of a combined arms assault. The Japanese discovered just how vulnerable islands are but apparently the PLA didn’t get that memo.If these islands really do have nuclear power stations there is going to be a LOT of radioactive materials spewed out all over that valuable real estate when they get hit. Might want to switch to natgas or something that isn’t going to create an environmental catastrophe during combat.All this because the Chinese government wants to steal resources from their neighbors with their 9-line fantasy and follow some dipshot confrontational realpolitik”” foreign policy”””” when all they had to do was bide their time and play along. China has all the necessary ingredients to be a great power (except possibly natural resources) but the way the Chinese government is going about it is counterproductive in the extreme.”””

  100. No, it is not video game, Chinese have nuclear power generated force shield covering those islands, US missiles and bombs will be bounced off from the force shields, your ignorance is your lost.

    US aircraft carrier combat groups move at 30 knots, comparing to the speed of Chinese electromagnetic railguns and laser cannons, the US aircraft carrier combat groups are sitting ducks in the term of relative speed.

    Japanese is stupid, if the American can only think in terms of Japanese like you, then the American is stupid too.

    Before WWII, the American is just one of the Western imperialists ravaged and wreaked havoc of Asia with barbaric wars, illicit drugs like Opium, slavery, stealing, robbing, looting, plundering, murdering, torturing, exploiting, polluting, culture genocide, ‘pious’ fanaticism, unmatchable greed and extreme brutality. In the historical point of view, it is hard to tell the difference between the American and the unrepentant war criminal Japanese who is more lethal and barbaric to Asians.

  101. Generate a force shield?!? What are you talking about? This isn’t a video game.

    Apparently you are not familiar with how important maneuvering is in warfare. Those tiny islands made of loose sand are targets that cannot move, nothing more. An aircraft carrier is vulnerable to missiles, sure, but it can move out of the way of them and play on range. An island can be hit with our eyes closed, by munitions that the poor soldiers sitting on the island with their rear ends swinging in the breeze won’t even have time to see and react to. Also, aircraft carriers are just part of what would be faced by units stationed on these islands as part of a combined arms assault. The Japanese discovered just how vulnerable islands are, but apparently the PLA didn’t get that memo.

    If these islands really do have nuclear power stations, there is going to be a LOT of radioactive materials spewed out all over that valuable real estate when they get hit. Might want to switch to natgas or something that isn’t going to create an environmental catastrophe during combat.

    All this because the Chinese government wants to steal resources from their neighbors with their 9-line fantasy and follow some dipshot confrontational “realpolitik” foreign policy, when all they had to do was bide their time and play along. China has all the necessary ingredients to be a great power (except possibly natural resources) but the way the Chinese government is going about it is counterproductive in the extreme.

  102. China is growing 7% per year with no debt added
    The US is groing 2% per year with debt soaring
    China has overtook the US in GDP PPP in 2014
    In a few years the CHinese economy will double that of the US
    Kee waiting

  103. “The US could also spend a few billion dollars for a dredging fleet….”
    Is where I stopped reading,

    Jones Act is backfiring here, preventing the USA to acquire a competitive dredging fleet

  104. I think you meant to say:

    I’m imagining ”pieces of iron” either as a maple tree’s whirligig (samara) seed or a more complicated little fru-fru tropical drink umbrella … made of iron. When I was a kid, I learned that I could shoot the umbrellas out of my uncle’s rustic hobby-built blow-gun, and propel them a hundred feet or more in the sky. They’d dutifully open up, and then drift down oh-so-slowly. The “best” were ones that accidentally also autorotated like the samaras. Mini parachutes.

    I like the “added bonus” business.

    However, thinking like a statistician-turned-fisherman, catching Nearly All the fish with netting that’s intrinsically “full of holes” is answered by having multiple nets. Layers of nets. Nets within nets. The autogyrating samaras or fru-fru drink umbrellas is good ‘cuz with sufficient hang time, one could erect quite a 3-D cloud of lethal dead weight.

    I suppose it is time to haul out the real answer tho.

    Pinpoint accurate lasers.
    Adaptive optics.
    Clement weather conditions.
    Possible airborne (“above clouds”, less turbulance) deployment
    No mass impactors. Very rapid retargeting.

    However, by comparison, they’re “boring”. I like the samaras and hawaiian punch umbrellas.
    GoatGuy “

  105. Telling people they are not allowed to criticise a black government leader because it is racist is the best possible reason to vote AGAINST a black politician. Because who wants a government they are not allowed to criticise.

  106. No, nuclear weapons are not for those islands; nuclear weapons is for the Americans to kill themselves because their retarded mentality and sick culture will make them irrational and suicidal.

  107. Missing by a couple of inches may land you a hit, but miss by a foot and the bird flies away.

    A hypersonic missile minimum speed to be considered hypersonic is 5x the speed of sound

    mach 5 = 5582.19 Feet per second

    Furthermore no country has fielded hypersonic missiles, so it makes little sense that current missile defenses will work

    The current hypersonic missiles are still testing and are not expected until 2020

    They are

    Boeing X-51 wave rider (Mach 6), Lingyun-1 (Speed unknown), Kinzhal (Mach 10) All 3 are air/ship launched

    While many countries have CIWS (Close in weapon System)

    See the link below where a reddit user lists all the modern CIWS systems and compares them

    https://www.reddit.com/r/WarshipPorn/comments/36m8t5/the_chinese_type_1130_ciws_the_type_1130_ciws/crghxj6/

    Both the Russians and Chinese have better CIWS today than the phalanx, and yet they are still working on hypersonic missiles for 2020

    So clearly the people with the numbers to do the actual math believe that hypersonic missiles are too fast for CIWS.

    I never argued that the bullets wouldn’t be able to destroy the missile, but rather the speed is simply too high and no you can’t cover the air the gun only has a limited amount of time mere microseconds between when the missile is in firing range and past the point of no return. The gun simply won’t be able to cover everything,

  108. For some reason, my reply got eaten. Long one too. Frustrating. Investment of time, loss of it outright.

    Anyway,

    I posited that SAMARAS (little auto-rotating maple tree seeds) or autogyrating steel party-drink umbrellas would be good. Both schemes put a relatively heavy object “out there” then as it falls, its autorotation causes it to drop quite slowly (compared to a rock).

    GoatGuy

  109. Ummmm… I think you’re missing the point.

    Take a SHOTGUN shell (for hunting doves, both here and in Europe).

    What is it full of?
    BIRDSHOT.
    Hundreds of itty-bitty sesame seed sized round bits of lead.

    The ability of the shooter to aim any one of the bits is “zero”. They’re held in a little cup in front of the gunpowder in the shell. When the gun fires, out go the shot bits, more-or-less in the direction of the gun’s barrel. They spread out in flight, and if a half-dozen or so intercept a bird, the poor critter goes down. (I’m not a big fan of shotgun hunting, but it is illustrative.)

    The PHALANX gun works similarly, but with MUCH higher velocity impactors. It shoots off some 4,500 bullets per minute or 75 per second. Being accelerated down a rifled battery of gattling-gun like barrels, the accuracy of any particular bullet is actually quite eye-opening. The idea is [i]“use shot that goes MUCH farther, and MUCH tighter”[/i] than a commonplace shotgun bird-hunting shell. Necessarily, the bullets are sequentially aimed and fired, not all at once.

    SURE it makes the target harder to hit when it follows its own internal randomizing trajectory. Sure it reduces the RADAR-hit, reflection, acquisition, targeting-calculation, gun-adjustment time. But again, based on the shotgun theory, sending a tightly grouped blast of hundreds of bullets, each at well over 1,000 m/s at an incoming missile … runs a pretty good chance of hitting the thing.

    So, this is why I disagree with your dismissive rebuttal.

    It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if a new kind of Phalanx will be ginned up that uses hypervelocity tungsten needles instead of conventional bullets, and has a fire-rate of 250+ needles per second. Saboted of course, but with velocities in excess of 2,000 m/s. Needle shaped to go dozens of kilometers without losing appreciable kinetic energy. Brutal.

    The point is … hypervelocity missiles definitely have likely-effective near-conventional countermeasures.

    GoatGuy

  110. Wow! Someone connected to reality! For-profit militarism in a high tech era is both monstrously expensive — as in “Let’s just spend ourselves to death.” — massively complex, and therefore prone to failure, and so damn destructive that using it is only a tad more suicidal than just buying it.

    We need to address the madness, de-monitize it, ie take out the profit motive, dial it down to the max, and have verifiable, mutual, cooperative, international arms controls. Maybe even in the end, an international “police” force that keeps the peace by preventing anyone from having their own military.

    The ancient human instinct for domination must eventually be curbed. Robot cops?

    “Gort, Klaatu barada nikto.”

  111. America does not need to fight China. China’s worst enemy is itself. From what I understand, in history, China has spent more time in pieces than together. So, all we need to do is wait. Also, demographics … not going to be kind to China.

  112. There’s no defense because it is hitting a bullet with a bullet.

    It takes 300 ms for the human brain to actually see the ball and swing, a 100 mile fastball makes the distance in 375 ms. So there is literally no time to think or aim. A major league batter basically needs to guess.

    Likewise the interceptor needs to calculate and make adjustments, and again with the Phalanx it has mere microseconds between the system being able to aim and fire.

    Furthermore these missiles are all capable of erratic movement, and none of them follow a predefined path. So the equivalent would be similar to a kamikaze fighter. The system cannot predict if the missile will suddenly go 1-12 o clock

    At extremely high speeds this becomes nearly impossible.

  113. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Put6M0uOxiY/UNd5VBnaKZI/AAAAAAAACz4/L2-ka0kv9_E/s1600/european-overseas-territories.jpg

    Nope these islands belong to China, China claimed them first but it was rejected by Europeans.

    The racist Europeans rejected all island claims by the Chinese, while they themselves claimed numerous islands for themselves.

    There are numerous detailed maps and requests sent by the Qing to the European powers in regards to the ownership of these islands. And the Qing even sent ships to plant the flag on these islands.

    At no point was the Phillipines a independent country while the European imperialists raced to plant a flag on every island.

    By your line of reasoning the Falklands should be returned to Argentina because it is within 200 nautical miles.

  114. I’m imagining ”pieces of iron” either as a maple tree’s whirligig (samara) seed or a more complicated little fru-fru tropical drink umbrella … made of iron. When I was a kid, I learned that I could shoot the umbrellas out of my uncle’s rustic hobby-built blow-gun, and propel them a hundred feet or more in the sky. They’d dutifully open up, and then drift down oh-so-slowly. The “best” were ones that accidentally also autorotated like the samaras. Mini parachutes.

    I like the “added bonus” business.

    However, thinking like a statistician-turned-fisherman, catching Nearly All the fish with netting that’s intrinsically “full of holes” is answered by having multiple nets. Layers of nets. Nets within nets. The autogyrating samaras or fru-fru drink umbrellas is good ‘cuz with sufficient hang time, one could erect quite a 3-D cloud of lethal dead weight.

    I suppose it is time to haul out the real answer tho.

    Pinpoint accurate lasers.
    Adaptive optics.
    Clement weather conditions.
    Possible airborne (“above clouds”, less turbulance) deployment
    No mass impactors. Very rapid retargeting.

    However, by comparison, they’re “boring”. I like the samaras and hawaiian punch umbrellas.
    GoatGuy

  115. “Islands cannot be sunk by missiles. They are larger and can have underground weapons and facilities.” ROFLMAO! Islands that small can be destroyed by missiles. The water table is so low that digging underground facilities is problematic at best, and won’t stop bunker busters in that type of soil no matter what you do. They’re too small to generate overwhelming firepower, and cannot maneuver. They may be impressive to small countries, but they’re just targets for advanced militaries.

  116. Or call an end to this rat race, its the most cheap solutions.
    Because nukes are not a solution to anything; it just ends all there.
    Just imagine with the amounts of money left, went into health research or free public health care.

  117. Would take quite a LOT o bullets to stop every single incoming missile..
    Maybe 1000~10000 missiles to stop every HSM, just wondering.
    Just wondering if it will crush the already failing US military to go that way.
    I mean, F35 program is already costing 1 Trillion and more and US debt is soaring.
    Just saying..

  118. China cares about int` l law as much as the US: that is, nothing.
    If the US tries to build any island 1000km. from China` s coasts my bet is that they will nuke it down.
    This is why the US barks but does not bite.
    As china has now so many Nuke$$

  119. Easy targets for ballistic missiles that travel about 17,000 mph. So much for hyper sonic. Think there’s going to anyone left to make a head count?

  120. I would be surprised if you could not reduce the required area a lot from 1 sq. km, but in the 5 minutes of thought I put into it, I kept coming up with reasons that it wouldn’t be easy.
    – Your capital ship, probably an aircraft carrier, is a few hundred metres long anyway, so just being directly above the ship is several hectares.
    – If you know exactly where the hypersonic missile is going, you can of course target the interception. But the whole point of maneuverable hypersonics is that they can change their course, by at least a few hundred m, so that doesn’t work unless you are sure you will be smarter than they are. The point of a cloud defense is so you don’t need smart defense.
    – Remember your ship is moving. Send a protective cloud up now, and in 5 minutes your ship may be 5 km away – assuming you can move at 60 kph, and the big ships can do that ESPECIALLY if they are being shot at.
    – So you can predict where you are going to be, and put the cloud up there… but that means no last minute changes in course, which is of course exactly what you want to be able to do when someone is shooting at you.
    – And putting the defense cloud (iron cloud? Force shield? What will we call it???) Up where you are going to be… is painting a nice radar image of where you are going to be. Is that wise? I think not.
    – Having the defensive cloud lower reduces the effort required. At half the height, you have to replenish the cloud twice as often, but the cloud need only be 1/4 the area. However you want the intersection to be fairly far away, otherwise the debris of the hypersonic missile hits you anyway, even if it has been intercepted. Not as bad as a direct hit, but a few tonnes of hypersonic fragments is still not a good thing.

  121. That’s very true and it’s something I think the Chinese wrongly discount. If they allow NK to push the envelope too far it’s likely that Japan will develop a nuclear deterrent of its own.

  122. I think you could narrow your interception window to an area considerably smaller than 1square kilometer but your point stands: interception via “buckshot” is likely feasible… amongst other methods.

  123. When the chinese started building those islands why did’nt obama build islands to oppose the chinese. major failure of his administration which history will take note…bad policy and he failed to act like a President of the United States should.

  124. To shelter a capital ship from incoming ballistic missiles, one could assume that an umbrella about 1 square km in size would be desirable.

    To ensure that any incoming missile would be hit at least once, you would want the impactor particles to be no more than say 30 cm apart. Say 10 units per square metre.

    So I think that means you want 35 tonnes of buckshot in the air, forming your shield.

    If one starts with the “umbrella at a height of say 5000 metres (any higher and a shallow trajectory could get under it. You would need a wider shield to be safe.)

    Then, at a terminal velocity of say… 25 m/s (I think that’s right for a 3.5 gram lead ball) your shield falls from 5000 metres into the sea in 200 seconds. So it needs to be replaced every 3 minutes or so.

    That’s launching about 10 tonnes of lead per minute. About what the USS Iowa could launch from a main battery at maximum rate of fire.

    You’d be better off using iron. It’s cheaper, it’s less dense, and you can shape it into something that will fall through the air much more slowly to maximise hang time. At a hypervelocity impact I think the mass dominates density for destructive purposes.

    Added bonus, you spread a bit of iron into the oceans. Win-win!

  125. YES! China building islands in the Gulf of Mexico would be “projection of power”. The US building islands off the china coast would be “projection of power”. Either nation building defensive installations near their own turf is just, exactly as you put it, “protecting access to themselves”.

  126. The Pacific ocean has an area of 64 million square miles. That would give one pacific island per 100 people. WHich is about the perfect population for an ideal life on a small pacific island.

    Clearly a world with one island per square mile would be much better than our own.

  127. I’ve often thought the same thing. When designing such a weapon, there’s a tradeoff between fuel, warhead size, and structural reinforcement. There’s also a tradeoff between overall mass and maneuverability. If one were to reinforce such a weapon sufficiently for it to resist the hail-storm from a Phalanx it would essentially become a KE weapon (at least in my mind).

    If a hypersonic weapon were to be robust enough to survive a Phalanx, have sufficient range, and a sufficiently large warhead, it would be enormous and therefore not very maneuverable thus making interception seemingly easier as both the point of launch and the destination will likely be known relatively quickly by the targeted vessel or installation. Further, at hypersonic speeds and the trajectories envisioned, one doesn’t need to actually “kill” the weapon but rather just destabilize it or compromise one of its control surfaces.

    The additional mass needed for counter-detection (radar) and the necessary geometric configuration seems to only add to the above tradeoffs. Flying ultra-low at hypersonic speeds is a no-go for a variety of reasons so detection should actually be easier for a target like a carrier battle group.

    In short, hypersonic cruise misses seem to be a solution looking for a problem. I doubt the U.S. DOD is genuinely concerned about them though they are likely using their specter to drum up support for defense spending. If it were my R&D money, I’d develop a stealth cruise missile capable of flying very low. It can take all the time it needs in reaching the target because it will be virtually impossible to “see”.

  128. Also how many land attack missiles can the Gotland launch.

    Your assuming the subs the US builds would be 200mil. Every time we do a actual design to look at its at least 1 billion.

  129. Thank you for making a point that China needs AIP and diesel subs. Also notice many of our allies have those including Japan. So…

    But yea you can call offering the relevant information a rant if you want.

  130. Why? China is not a problem for the US. China is a problem for the East Pac nations and Asia in particular. Namely, China is India & Japan’s problem.

    We just have to support them via lend-lease, technological support, etc. When the Big Fight happens, we prepare to intercede where it packs the most punch so that no one side ‘wins’. Just like we did in the Russo-Japanese War.

  131. In the South China Sea, AIP subs are great. You are comparing different needs (US supposedly having a need for a sub fleet that can be deployed all over the world’s oceans vs just a littoral need in a specific region), and so your oranges and apple rant doesn’t apply.

  132. “$46 million to start a Deep Strike Cannon Artillery System technology demonstration program. It’s part of the Army’s Long-Range Precision Strike initiative, the service’s No. 1 modernization priority.”

    The Army is going to be deployed in the Pac? Really? No.

    This is a perfect example of the Cold War mentality that still dominates in DC. The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming! Not. Maybe for Europe, but that isn’t our problem. Russia with the GDP size of Italy is no Soviet Union.

    Maaaybe this would be deployed in Korea. But we could just license the tech to the South Koreans in that case anyway.

  133. “China’s strategy of building artificial island bases is an effective strategy to ensure the projection of power. Islands cannot be sunk by missiles. They are larger and can have underground weapons and facilities.”

    That’s what nuclear weapons are for.

  134. Your comparing apples and oranges with the gotland class subs and the virginia’s.

    Virginia
    endurance: 90-120 days (this limit exist because of food. That’s basically it unless it has a mechanical issue)
    Armament: around 40 tomahawks for land attack (12 in VLS/28 in the VPM-these are only for the block V) around 65 torps.
    Speed: submerged for the Virginia is hard to find. We know its fast. Surfaced maybe 35kts.

    Gotland
    Endurance: 14 days MAYBE 30 at a stretch. (THIS is one of the most important. These subs are great for coastal patrol in smaller area’s. Not giant places like the pacific.)
    Armament: 6 tubes 16 torpedo’s and 48 externally carrier mines
    Speed: 11kts surfaced, 20kts submerged (note they are not going to be going that fast underwater all the time. That is a sprint speed and at that speed they would likely be easy to pick up)

    This is kind of the thing. The US builds nuke subs because they are going to be more versatile than the Diesels and AIP subs in the waters we patrol. Sure we could build Diesels to patrol our coast but then we would have less subs to patrols the waters we NEED to trade.

    Basically, apples and oranges.

  135. +1, old lad.

    Right you are. Even a STATIONARY “cloud” of buckshot, each weighing say 53.8 grains (00 shot), (53.8 ÷ 7000 gr/lb → 0.007686 lbs × 454 → 3.5 grams → 0.0035 kg) with a relative velocity difference of 1,750 m/s becomes ½ 0.0035 1,750² → 5,300 J/buck. A bit over 1¼ g of TNT explosive yield.

    That’d definitely ruin your day.
    Especially with all the kinetic energy focussed on [i]“going thru the incoming missile”[/i].

    Just saying.
    You’re right.

    [b]Goat[/b]Guy

  136. To trade their ships have to leave their zone of protection. To trade they have to let other ships into their zone of protection. What they are protecting is access to themselves. Unless they are planning to build islands on every square mile of the ocean and claim it.

  137. There is currently no effective anti-missile defense system. And hypersonic missiles while been more expensive are not more effective. And as always an effective deterrence is that your enemy cannot defend itself either.

  138. To me it feels like a New Era of Military competitiveness. It didn’t feel very competitive say between 1980 and 2010. America kind of dominated, the F–35 rolled out to much catcalls and some fanfare. ICBMs did their thing, weren’t talked about, kept the SALT-II agreement terms. Then because a few countries were tired of status quo, and wanted to (almost literally) duck “under the RADAR”, now hypersonic missiles.

    Definitionally, a hypersonic weapon has an airspeed somewhat above MACH 5. So I’ve read. Its a bit loosey-goosey ‘cuz Mach 1’s actual linear airspeed depends on altitude (temperature and relative humidity mostly, and to a lesser extent actual absolute air pressure).

    Nonetheless, it is fair to remember Mach 1 ≈ 343 m/s.
    So Mach 5 is greater than 1,715 m/s.
    1,715 m/s → 6,174 km/h → 3,836 MPH. Statute miles. 3,375 nmph (nautical miles per hour)

    The main write up posits that there is no effective defense against hypersonic missiles. I kind of beg to differ: yes, a HSM is dâhmned fast. But it also must obey the same Newtonian Laws of Physics as slower missiles. Namely, it goes much further per second, so that any adjustments it makes to its trajectory (say to avoid being impacted and destroyed by a counter-missile) take it much closer to “the problem”.

    Alternately, you can think of it as the hypersonic missile simply has LESS time to react to an interceptor, so either needs superior ‘reach’ forward counter-detection, or better passive cloaking.

    Hard to achieve, these.

    The “wall of bullets” idea (Phalanx) seems to have a kind of frame-defying utility: a hornet’s nest of dâhmned-lethal bullets to a hypersonic impactor will STILL be a dâhmned lethal hail of impactors (if not moreso) regardless of incoming speed.

    Specifically I would imagine that the United States has already run batteries of tests against dummy (warhead) incoming Mach 6+ missiles against Phalanx, and quietly confirmed that yes … Phalanx remains a potent counterforce. The only thing needed is to extend the range of its host ship’s antimissile RADAR to detect the cheetah-fast hypersonics.

    Just saying.

    GoatGuy

  139. There is no need to “win a race” against China in the South China Sea.. Simply having a few strategically placed, well-equipped islands of our own would completely wreck the idea of Chinese dominance in the area.

    Let them build a hundred of their own.

  140. Any countries with 200 nautical miles close to these islands are the rightful ownership. not China.
    As long as these countries work with the US to have a few US military bases there .
    China can not do anyhing or have any good reason to start a war because it is not therightful owner.
    of course by doing this it will invalidate China’s illegal claim.

  141. Any countries with 200 nautical miles are the rightful ownership of those nearby islands.
    These countries should allow the US to build a few military bases there as well.
    China can not do nothing or have any good reason to start a war because it is not a rightful owner.
    By having a few US military stations there, this will invalidate China illegal claim.

  142. Sure we can build our military station on those islands in the South China Sea. China have no right
    to occupying them according to the international law.of sea as long as those countries with those
    200 miles nearby that have rightful ownership allow us to do so.

  143. One among other options for the US would be to contract with Viet Nam, Phillipine, Brunei to build
    a few US military bases on those South China Sea islands. This will invalid China solely claimed of
    the 9 dash lines and this is legally abiding with international law of the Sea.

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