US missile defense tests have a checkered history, as despite giving the interceptor full data on the size and trajectory, and often firing both from the same vessel, sometimes they just aren’t able to blow up the dummy target.
Last month’s failure by the US Navy in the SM-3 Block IIA test was a particularly embarrassing failure, with the USS John Paul Jones firing both the test missile and the interceptor, and not managing to get the two to meet in the air. Officials are now blaming this on a single, unnamed sailor.
Officials have said from the start the interceptor was tracking the target successfully. They now say the sailor pressed “the wrong button” and the interceptor identified the test target as friendly, self-destructing before it could collide.
That’s probably a problem they wouldn’t have in a real-life situation, where they wouldn’t have all the trajectory and other information on the target in the first place. At the same time, not having all of that information would make any shootdown wildly more difficult than the tests, raising serious doubts about the system’s practical value.
Murican junk fails, so they blame some poor white trash dude…. How exceptional of them…
Today’s modern military honor ….. blame the lowest ranking person you can blame. That’s what passes for honor in the Murican Miltary these days. The propaganda goes on and on about honor and honor codes, but now we see the real level of honor in that they all pass the buck and blame a low ranking seaman.
Let me guess, instead of pushing the “hit” button, they pushed the “miss” button. Really this doesn’t seem likely. They’re making it up as they go along.
The “practical value” of this missile system – much like the F-35 – is to put billions of dollars into the pockets of the merchants of death (MIC).
So, they designed a multi-billion dollar system that depends on some 18 year pressing the right button?
If there’s a real crisis, something like the Cuban missile crisis except hotter, everyone nervous and on edge …. then word comes from the sensors that there are launches. Everyone is going to freak out. Its likely to be chaos in any missile control room. Its the craziest day of their life for anyone in that control room. …….. So lets design a system that requires an 18 year old to press the right button in the middle of the crisis that might destroy the world.
Gee, I feel safer already.