Thread View: sci.military
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Started by Won-Soon Lau
Tue, 26 Jan 1993 17:49
Catching a Tomahawk
Author: Won-Soon Lau
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 17:49
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 17:49
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From Won-Soon Lau <engp2065@nusunix1.nus.sg> There has been quite a bit of discussion on the Tomahawk cruise missile recently. My impression of the missile is that it is vulnerable to ground small arm fires because it is flying at such a low altitude. I had a discussion with my brother and we came out with this (crazy??) idea of catching (yes, not shooting it down) a cruise missile. The scheme is very simple. Suppose you can identify in advance some of the potential targets (e.g. weapon factory, defence military HQ) which you think will be attack by the cruise missile. The first thing to do is to erect one or two layers of heavy duty fishing nets surrounding the target. The nets should be set up at a distance of 200m away. One end of the nets should be firmly archored to the ground and the nets are make to suspend in the air by ballons. The basic requirement is that the nets shouldn't be tensioned so that anything falls onto it will be trapped and entangled. The nets need not be raised to very high because the terminal phase of the cruise missile is very low (50m??). The next thing is to dig a canal between the nets and target and fill it with water. The purpose of this water canal is for the entangled mass to land softly on it and kill the turbofan on the tomahawk without detonating its warhead. Now we are all set to catch the incoming cruise missiles. The idea is somewhat similar on that use on the carrier to recover those aircraft which cannot lower its tail hook. Since the aircraft is a much bigger mass than a cruise missile I don't see any reasons why this is not feasible. I hope to see some discussions and even improvement to this scheme. Thanks. Won-Soon Lau -- VLSI DESIGN & CAD LABORATORY \ Internet: engp2065@nuscc.nus.sg Dept of Electrical Engineering \ Bitnet: ENGP2065@NUSVM.bitnet National University of Singapore \ Phone: (+65) 772 6319 10, Kent Ridge Crescent. Singapore 0511. \______________________________
Re: Catching a Tomahawk
Author: Dan Sorenson
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 16:10
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 16:10
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From Dan Sorenson <viking@iastate.edu> Won-Soon Lau <engp2065@nusunix1.nus.sg> writes: >The idea is somewhat similar on that use on the carrier to recover those >aircraft which cannot lower its tail hook. Since the aircraft is a much >bigger mass than a cruise missile I don't see any reasons why this is not >feasible. An aircraft also isn't doing 500 knots with an active warhead when it's stopped by those nets, either. Structurally, an aircraft is likely to withstand greater forces exerted by the net than the missile will, and at a 50-mile range you need over 300 miles of netting and have to hope nobody saw you deploy it or dig your ditch, else they'll just program the Tomahawk to fly over it, or under it, or whatever. The water impact is something I can't say for certain, but I'd make a quick guess that impact with water at 50 knots will likely set off the warhead. Water is a brick wall at any decent speed. Just do a belly-flop from the 10m diving board to get a feel for this. Your system may work, but the smart money is on radar-controlled guns or anti-missile missiles to take out the Tomahawk rather than capture it. Now if they were nuclear-tipped and you were Dictator Don, who otherwise couldn't get a nuke, this might be a worthwhile scheme. The other problems you have when a superpower is launching nuclear weapons at you does seem to invalidate this point, however. < Dan Sorenson, DoD #1066 z1dan@exnet.iastate.edu viking@iastate.edu > < ISU only censors what I read, not what I say. Don't blame them. > < USENET: Post to exotic, distant machines. Meet exciting, > < unusual people. And flame them. >
Re: Catching a Tomahawk
Author: Charles K. Scott
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 16:10
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 16:10
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From Charles.K.Scott@dartmouth.edu (Charles K. Scott) In article <C1H2u1.F09@law7.DaytonOH.NCR.COM> engp2065@nusunix1.nus.sg (Won-Soon Lau) writes: > I hope to see some discussions and even improvement to this > scheme. Well since you asked. I'm not sure I see the point in catching a cruise missile. Saddam already has a bunch of AAA, he doesn't have a bunch of nets and balloons. Recon photos would soon see the masses of netting which would then cause the attacking forces to simply use a different attack method like the F-117 and smart bombs. The point for someone who could be that focus of such an attack is to prevent the missile from hitting the target. Going through all that trouble (nets, moats, water) presupposes that the attacking force is willing to wait for all this preperation and then, once everything is in place, attack with cruise missiles, and at that target, not something else. This is a lot of supposition. As I said at the beginning, I don't understand why anyone would want to "catch" a cruise missile. Corky Scott
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