Author Topic: These Are The Wild Radar Ships That Make Missile Defense Possible  (Read 797 times)

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Offline DemolitionMan

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Tyler Rogoway

America's complex and costly ballistic missile defense programs regularly make the news, and although land based interceptor launch sites or AEGIS equipped Navy ships get the spotlight, few know of the small fleet of highly specialized sensor ships that have made this controversial technology possible.
Whether the focus of a test is shorter ranged theater ballistic missiles or long-range intercontinental ballistic missile with multiple reentry vehicles (MRVs), or even one of our own, we cannot properly learn how to counter or improve them without incredibly accurate and detailed telemetry data. Since ballistic missile tests occur over vast expanses of ocean, fixed-based radars are not ideal for the tracking job. This is where the DoD's pocket fleet of highly customized tracking, test and ballistic missile defense (BMD) support ships comes in to play, some of which have shadowy front-line duties as well.

USNS Howard O. Lorenzen


The newest and most powerful missile tracking ship is the USNS Howard O. Lorenzen. This 534-foot long bright white beast packs a pair of state-of-the-art "Cobra King" active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars that are each the size of a three story building and weigh half a million pounds each.
The Howard O. Lorenzen and her Cobra King radars were developed to replace their extremely successful but dated forerunner duo, the USNS Observation Island and her Cobra Judy phased array radar system. The Cobra King represents a vast improvement in resolution, agility and power handling, and it is said to be more easily upgradable over time, which will hopefully give the Howard O. Lorenzen a long service life like the Observation Island had.

The Cobra King system included two AESA radar arrays, one in the S band and one X band, that are both controlled via a common operations control station. The S Band array is used for scanning large volumes of sky for objects and for tracking missiles in flight, while the X band array is used for zeroing in on small hard to detect objects like reentry vehicles, missile interceptors, or even tiny satellites. The X band AESA array is especially important as it can help differentiate warheads from decoys, and this data can be used to build software for less capable systems to do the same. In many ways, Cobra King works in a similar fashion to the Navy's soon to be deployed Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR), which also has two separate radar arrays, one for X band and one for S band, for volume search and precise tracking. The AMDR will first be deployed on Nuclear Carrier the USS Ford.

Sea Based X Band Radar (SBX-1)

The giant SBX-1 is one intimidating contraption. She is built around the frame of a self propelled, semi-submersible drilling platform that can re-position itself anywhere in a hemisphere if need be. Ironically, the self propelled platform that houses the the SBX-1 radar was originally built in Russia before being bought by Boeing and refitted in the US for its current use.

https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/these-are-the-little-known-ships-that-make-missile-defe-1594677657
"Of Arms and Man I Sing"-The Aenid written by Virgil-Virgil commenced his epic story of Aeneas and the founding of Rome with the words: Arma virumque cano--"Of arms and man I sing.Aeneas receives full treatment in Roman mythology, most extensively in Virgil's Aeneid, where he is an ancestor of Romulus and Remus. He became the first true hero of Rome

Offline DemolitionMan

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Re: These Are The Wild Radar Ships That Make Missile Defense Possible
« Reply #1 on: October 02, 2017, 08:01:38 am »
We have been using more and more of these.


« Last Edit: October 02, 2017, 08:51:33 am by DemolitionMan »
"Of Arms and Man I Sing"-The Aenid written by Virgil-Virgil commenced his epic story of Aeneas and the founding of Rome with the words: Arma virumque cano--"Of arms and man I sing.Aeneas receives full treatment in Roman mythology, most extensively in Virgil's Aeneid, where he is an ancestor of Romulus and Remus. He became the first true hero of Rome

Offline Smokin Joe

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Re: These Are The Wild Radar Ships That Make Missile Defense Possible
« Reply #2 on: October 02, 2017, 08:10:52 am »
Long, but interesting article, thanks!
How God must weep at humans' folly! Stand fast! God knows what he is doing!
Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C S Lewis

Offline DemolitionMan

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Re: These Are The Wild Radar Ships That Make Missile Defense Possible
« Reply #3 on: October 02, 2017, 08:12:14 am »
Long, but interesting article, thanks!

No problem!! The land based are at Los Angeles AFB and Buckley AFB.
« Last Edit: October 02, 2017, 08:13:43 am by DemolitionMan »
"Of Arms and Man I Sing"-The Aenid written by Virgil-Virgil commenced his epic story of Aeneas and the founding of Rome with the words: Arma virumque cano--"Of arms and man I sing.Aeneas receives full treatment in Roman mythology, most extensively in Virgil's Aeneid, where he is an ancestor of Romulus and Remus. He became the first true hero of Rome

Offline Smokin Joe

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Re: These Are The Wild Radar Ships That Make Missile Defense Possible
« Reply #4 on: October 02, 2017, 08:25:02 am »
No problem!! The land based are at Los Angeles AFB and Buckley AFB.
I have seen the dome that was at Fortuna, ND, and they 'pyramid'  at Nekoma, ND http://www.ghostsofnorthdakota.com/2011/08/14/nekoma-safeguard-complex/
How God must weep at humans' folly! Stand fast! God knows what he is doing!
Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C S Lewis

Offline DemolitionMan

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Re: These Are The Wild Radar Ships That Make Missile Defense Possible
« Reply #5 on: October 02, 2017, 08:35:26 am »
I have seen the dome that was at Fortuna, ND, and they 'pyramid'  at Nekoma, ND http://www.ghostsofnorthdakota.com/2011/08/14/nekoma-safeguard-complex/

Yes,"The Pyramid". It was part of the Safeguard Program. In the 1972 ABM treaty, each side were allowed to either protect a missile complex or the national capitol. We chose to protect Grand Forks. The Russians chose to Safeguard Moscow. As soon as the program went on line, Congress pull the plug on it. Some weird religious group bought it for $500,000. Its still active.
« Last Edit: October 02, 2017, 08:45:54 am by DemolitionMan »
"Of Arms and Man I Sing"-The Aenid written by Virgil-Virgil commenced his epic story of Aeneas and the founding of Rome with the words: Arma virumque cano--"Of arms and man I sing.Aeneas receives full treatment in Roman mythology, most extensively in Virgil's Aeneid, where he is an ancestor of Romulus and Remus. He became the first true hero of Rome

Offline Smokin Joe

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Re: These Are The Wild Radar Ships That Make Missile Defense Possible
« Reply #6 on: October 02, 2017, 08:58:07 am »
Yes,"The Pyramid". It was part of the Safeguard Program. In the 1972 ABM treaty, each side were allowed to either protect a missile complex or the national capitol. We chose to protect Grand Forks. The Russians chose to Safeguard Moscow. As soon as the program went on line, Congress pull the plug on it. Some weird religious group bought it for $500,000. Its still active.
There were two sites under that program, iirc. That one guarded Grand Forks, and those missiles were relocated to Malmstrom. Minot still has an active wing.
How God must weep at humans' folly! Stand fast! God knows what he is doing!
Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C S Lewis

Offline DemolitionMan

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Re: These Are The Wild Radar Ships That Make Missile Defense Possible
« Reply #7 on: October 02, 2017, 09:39:03 am »
There were two sites under that program, iirc. That one guarded Grand Forks, and those missiles were relocated to Malmstrom. Minot still has an active wing.

Are you sure. This is the ABM treaty at a glance:

Negotiated between the United States and the Soviet Union as part of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, the now-defunct Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty was signed on May 26, 1972 and entered into force on October 3, 1972. The treaty, from which the United States withdrew on June 13, 2002, barred Washington and Moscow from deploying nationwide defenses against strategic ballistic missiles. In the treaty preamble, the two sides asserted that effective limits on anti-missile systems would be a "substantial factor in curbing the race in strategic offensive arms."

The treaty originally permitted both countries to deploy two fixed, ground-based defense sites of 100 missile interceptors each. One site could protect the national capital, while the second could be used to guard an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) field. In a protocol signed July 3, 1974, the two sides halved the number of permitted defenses. The Soviet Union opted to keep its existing missile defense system around Moscow, while the United States eventually fielded its 100 permitted missile interceptors to protect an ICBM base near Grand Forks, North Dakota. Moscow's defense still exists, but its effectiveness is questionable. The United States shut down its permitted ABM defense only months after activating it in October 1975 because the financial costs of operating it were considered too high for the little protection it offered.

The United States and the Soviet Union negotiated the ABM Treaty as part of an effort to control their arms race in nuclear weapons. The two sides reasoned that limiting defensive systems would reduce the need to build more or new offensive weapons to overcome any defense that the other might deploy. Without effective national defenses, each superpower remained vulnerable, even at reduced or low offensive force holdings, to the other's nuclear weapons, deterring either side from launching an attack first because it faced a potential retaliatory strike that would assure its own destruction.


What the ABM Treaty Permited

-One regional defense of 100 ground-based missile interceptors to protect either the capital or an ICBM field
-A total of 15 missile interceptor launchers at designated missile defense test ranges
-Research, laboratory, and fixed land-based testing of any type of missile defense
-Use of national technical means, such as satellites, to verify compliance. (The ABM Treaty was the first treaty to prohibit a state-party from interfering with another state-party's national technical means of verification.)
-States-parties to raise questions about compliance, as well as any other treaty-related issue, at the Standing Consultative Commission, which was a body established by the treaty that meets at least twice per year
-Theater (nonstrategic) missile defenses of any type to protect against short- and medium-range ballistic missiles. (The ABM Treaty originally did not specifically delineate the point at which a missile defense would be considered strategic or nonstrategic. The United States and Russia negotiated and signed a demarcation agreement on this subject in September 1997. Russia ratified the agreement in May 2000, but it has never been transmitted to the Senate for its advice and consent, and therefore the agreement has not entered into force. The Bush administration's June 13 withdrawal from the ABM Treaty makes the demarcation agreement moot)
-Either state-party to propose amendments

https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/abmtreaty
« Last Edit: October 02, 2017, 09:41:36 am by DemolitionMan »
"Of Arms and Man I Sing"-The Aenid written by Virgil-Virgil commenced his epic story of Aeneas and the founding of Rome with the words: Arma virumque cano--"Of arms and man I sing.Aeneas receives full treatment in Roman mythology, most extensively in Virgil's Aeneid, where he is an ancestor of Romulus and Remus. He became the first true hero of Rome

Offline DemolitionMan

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Re: These Are The Wild Radar Ships That Make Missile Defense Possible
« Reply #8 on: October 02, 2017, 09:43:44 am »
Are you sure. This is the ABM treaty at a glance:

Negotiated between the United States and the Soviet Union as part of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, the now-defunct Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty was signed on May 26, 1972 and entered into force on October 3, 1972. The treaty, from which the United States withdrew on June 13, 2002, barred Washington and Moscow from deploying nationwide defenses against strategic ballistic missiles. In the treaty preamble, the two sides asserted that effective limits on anti-missile systems would be a "substantial factor in curbing the race in strategic offensive arms."

The treaty originally permitted both countries to deploy two fixed, ground-based defense sites of 100 missile interceptors each. One site could protect the national capital, while the second could be used to guard an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) field. In a protocol signed July 3, 1974, the two sides halved the number of permitted defenses. The Soviet Union opted to keep its existing missile defense system around Moscow, while the United States eventually fielded its 100 permitted missile interceptors to protect an ICBM base near Grand Forks, North Dakota. Moscow's defense still exists, but its effectiveness is questionable. The United States shut down its permitted ABM defense only months after activating it in October 1975 because the financial costs of operating it were considered too high for the little protection it offered.

The United States and the Soviet Union negotiated the ABM Treaty as part of an effort to control their arms race in nuclear weapons. The two sides reasoned that limiting defensive systems would reduce the need to build more or new offensive weapons to overcome any defense that the other might deploy. Without effective national defenses, each superpower remained vulnerable, even at reduced or low offensive force holdings, to the other's nuclear weapons, deterring either side from launching an attack first because it faced a potential retaliatory strike that would assure its own destruction.


What the ABM Treaty Permited

-One regional defense of 100 ground-based missile interceptors to protect either the capital or an ICBM field
-A total of 15 missile interceptor launchers at designated missile defense test ranges
-Research, laboratory, and fixed land-based testing of any type of missile defense
-Use of national technical means, such as satellites, to verify compliance. (The ABM Treaty was the first treaty to prohibit a state-party from interfering with another state-party's national technical means of verification.)
-States-parties to raise questions about compliance, as well as any other treaty-related issue, at the Standing Consultative Commission, which was a body established by the treaty that meets at least twice per year
-Theater (nonstrategic) missile defenses of any type to protect against short- and medium-range ballistic missiles. (The ABM Treaty originally did not specifically delineate the point at which a missile defense would be considered strategic or nonstrategic. The United States and Russia negotiated and signed a demarcation agreement on this subject in September 1997. Russia ratified the agreement in May 2000, but it has never been transmitted to the Senate for its advice and consent, and therefore the agreement has not entered into force. The Bush administration's June 13 withdrawal from the ABM Treaty makes the demarcation agreement moot)
-Either state-party to propose amendments

https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/abmtreaty

A First-Person Visit To A Nuclear Missile Silo 70 Feet Below Minot, ND(This is from Forbes 2017) Therefore the missiles are at Minot,AFB and have not been moved

Sleepy Minot, ND, population around 50,000, is all the rage right now. In the last few months, 60 Minutes Australia, Marie Claire magazine, NBC's Today Show and other media have visited. General James "Mad Dog" Mattis, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, was even there in September.

Why all the fuss? The town is home to the U.S. Air Force 91st Missile Wing. Tensions with North Korea, among other things, have propelled the nuclear base to front and center.

Buried in the ground near Minot are 150 nuclear-tipped missiles, which, if launched, could destroy a good chunk of the world's population. Minot is just one of three land-based nuclear missile areas in the U.S. (the others being in Wyoming and Montana, each with its own 150-missile arsenal) ready to strike with the appropriate order from the President.

I’m here to visit the bowels of one of Minot's 15 nuclear missile bunkers, each responsible for 10 missiles. Before we head out to the field (and I mean that literally), there is an interview with Colonel Bill Barrington, who oversees missile maintenance at the 91st, then a morning briefing with staff, including the two missileers who will take over from the two on duty now. Shifts are generally 24 hours in length. First Lieutenant Damion Proctor, 25, and Second Lieutenant Matthew Ernst, 28, are the replacements.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimclash/2017/09/29/a-first-person-visit-to-a-nuclear-missile-silo-70-feet-below-minot-nd/#b019db81add6
« Last Edit: October 02, 2017, 09:45:31 am by DemolitionMan »
"Of Arms and Man I Sing"-The Aenid written by Virgil-Virgil commenced his epic story of Aeneas and the founding of Rome with the words: Arma virumque cano--"Of arms and man I sing.Aeneas receives full treatment in Roman mythology, most extensively in Virgil's Aeneid, where he is an ancestor of Romulus and Remus. He became the first true hero of Rome

Offline Smokin Joe

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Re: These Are The Wild Radar Ships That Make Missile Defense Possible
« Reply #9 on: October 02, 2017, 09:46:18 am »
Quote
Through the Safeguard era, talks between the US and Soviet Union originally started by Johnson were continuing. The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 limited the US and Soviet Union to two ABM sites each. Safeguard was scaled back to sites in North Dakota and Montana, abandoning initial work at a site in Missouri, and cancelling all other planned bases. Construction on the two remaining bases continued until 1974, when an additional agreement limited both countries to a single ABM site. The Montana site was abandoned with the main radar partially completed. The remaining base in North Dakota, the Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex, became active on 1 April 1975 and fully operational on 28 September 1975. By that time the House Appropriations Committee had already voted to deactivate it.[3] The base was shut down on 10 February 1976.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safeguard_Program

I believe the intent was for the Nekoma site to guard both GF and Minot. The Minot missile wing is active, the radar is not. The Grand Forks wing was moved to Malmstrom AFB control in MT
How God must weep at humans' folly! Stand fast! God knows what he is doing!
Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C S Lewis

Offline DemolitionMan

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Re: These Are The Wild Radar Ships That Make Missile Defense Possible
« Reply #10 on: October 02, 2017, 09:53:55 am »
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safeguard_Program

I believe the intent was for the Nekoma site to guard both GF and Minot. The Minot missile wing is active, the radar is not. The Grand Forks wing was moved to Malmstrom AFB control in MT


I need to watch "Nukes In Space" again.
« Last Edit: October 02, 2017, 10:07:54 am by DemolitionMan »
"Of Arms and Man I Sing"-The Aenid written by Virgil-Virgil commenced his epic story of Aeneas and the founding of Rome with the words: Arma virumque cano--"Of arms and man I sing.Aeneas receives full treatment in Roman mythology, most extensively in Virgil's Aeneid, where he is an ancestor of Romulus and Remus. He became the first true hero of Rome

Offline Smokin Joe

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Re: These Are The Wild Radar Ships That Make Missile Defense Possible
« Reply #11 on: October 02, 2017, 10:09:18 am »
I need to re-watch "Nukes In Space". It mentions it there.
Quite the place. In the Red River Valley (the old Glacial Lake Aggasiz Plain) where the earth is flatter than the open ocean, and there are very few trees, you can see it from a long ways off.
How God must weep at humans' folly! Stand fast! God knows what he is doing!
Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C S Lewis

Offline DemolitionMan

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Re: These Are The Wild Radar Ships That Make Missile Defense Possible
« Reply #12 on: October 02, 2017, 10:17:44 am »
Quite the place. In the Red River Valley (the old Glacial Lake Aggasiz Plain) where the earth is flatter than the open ocean, and there are very few trees, you can see it from a long ways off.
Until they day they need to push the button. All that nice feeling is gone. In Great Falls,Montana is smack dab in the middle of Malmastrom AFB. For a while Kansas City/Sedalia was in the 509th until they disbanded their missiles. All they have is Stealth Bombers
« Last Edit: October 02, 2017, 10:25:50 am by DemolitionMan »
"Of Arms and Man I Sing"-The Aenid written by Virgil-Virgil commenced his epic story of Aeneas and the founding of Rome with the words: Arma virumque cano--"Of arms and man I sing.Aeneas receives full treatment in Roman mythology, most extensively in Virgil's Aeneid, where he is an ancestor of Romulus and Remus. He became the first true hero of Rome

Offline Smokin Joe

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Re: These Are The Wild Radar Ships That Make Missile Defense Possible
« Reply #13 on: October 02, 2017, 10:27:44 am »
Until they day they need to push the button. All that nice feeling is gone. In Great Falls,Montana is smack dab in the middle of Malmastrom AFB. For a while Kansas City/Sedalia was in the 509th until they disbanded their missiles. All they have is Stealth Bombers
Minot is the only base left with two legs of the triad. (B-52s and ICBMs)
How God must weep at humans' folly! Stand fast! God knows what he is doing!
Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C S Lewis

Offline DemolitionMan

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Re: These Are The Wild Radar Ships That Make Missile Defense Possible
« Reply #14 on: October 02, 2017, 10:35:17 am »
Minot is the only base left with two legs of the triad. (B-52s and ICBMs)

For a while Warren AFB had 50 MX missiles on alert when it was banned under treaty. Heard that they have a contamination problem on the base.
« Last Edit: October 02, 2017, 10:39:08 am by DemolitionMan »
"Of Arms and Man I Sing"-The Aenid written by Virgil-Virgil commenced his epic story of Aeneas and the founding of Rome with the words: Arma virumque cano--"Of arms and man I sing.Aeneas receives full treatment in Roman mythology, most extensively in Virgil's Aeneid, where he is an ancestor of Romulus and Remus. He became the first true hero of Rome