Golden Dome for America

exclaimedleech8 said:
These defense contractors are a bunch of sl*ts willing to do anything for a taxpayer dollar
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Arguable though that is their business. If they were to start rejecting opportunities, regardless of how stupid they might be, they will quickly go out of business. It would be akin to McDonalds suddenly saying they were going to stop selling beef burgers and replacing with Tofu. Even if executives within McDonalds have reservations about cattle farming they are just not going to change their business.
 
GTX said:
Arguable though that is their business. If they were to start rejecting opportunities, regardless of how stupid they might be, they will quickly go out of business. It would be akin to McDonalds suddenly saying they were going to stop selling beef burgers and replacing with Tofu. Even if executives within McDonalds have reservations about cattle farming they are just not going to change their business.
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Scott Kenny said:
It's literally their job description to look for new business opportunities. :mad:
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My problem is that they are pitching these completely useless gold-plated contraptions.
 
exclaimedleech8 said:
My problem is that they are pitching these completely useless gold-plated contraptions.
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You obviously haven't had much expereince with business. If money is being put on the table industry is going to grab for it.
pretty simple.
 
Scott Kenny said:
And what would be the minimal-cost systems you'd suggest, then?
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With today's level of technology, I'd recommend terminal phase defense for missile silos and bunkers. At that point, decoys would be a non-factor and a favorable cost exchange ratio could be achieved. If we insist on splurging for space based weapons, they should use cheap unguided ammunition.
 
exclaimedleech8 said:
With today's level of technology, I'd recommend terminal phase defense for missile silos and bunkers. At that point, decoys would be a non-factor and a favorable cost exchange ratio could be achieved. If we insist on splurging for space based weapons, they should use cheap unguided ammunition.
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If we didn't need hundreds or maybe thousands of sites, you're right it'd be cheap.

One at each Minuteman silo. One at each Air Force base. One at each Navy base (at least Kitsap and King's Bay, the missile sub bases, but all of the bases would be more likely).

But good luck getting Congress to approve a missile defense system that doesn't cover the cities.
 
Scott Kenny said:
If we didn't need hundreds or maybe thousands of sites, you're right it'd be cheap.

One at each Minuteman silo. One at each Air Force base. One at each Navy base (at least Kitsap and King's Bay, the missile sub bases, but all of the bases would be more likely).

But good luck getting Congress to approve a missile defense system that doesn't cover the cities.
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The problem is there is no system that can cover the cities
 
exclaimedleech8 said:
With today's level of technology, I'd recommend terminal phase defense for missile silos and bunkers. At that point, decoys would be a non-factor and a favorable cost exchange ratio could be achieved. If we insist on splurging for space based weapons, they should use cheap unguided ammunition.
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This just completely missed the point on why Golden Dome is Golden Dome as it is.

Just sign up for a spot on the House and tell you fellow men and women, you will not build a national defense system. Get rid of the CG and NG while you're at it, too.
 
The good thing is that—with NASA cuts—NewSpace has a de facto lifeline with GD

It’s only pork when a NASA Center gets it, I suppose ;)
 
Scott Kenny said:
And what would be the minimal-cost systems you'd suggest, then?
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Here's the thing. Americans do get the right to complain about it because it takes their tax money. There's fundamentally no minimal cost military system within this whole picture in mind. It is a deeply sit investment that has no noticeable return... unlike dispensing money into social programs that gives better paved roads, new amenities for the people and such.

All the arguments on stabilizing and not, cost effectiveness and not, and those stuff are essentially covers for the sociopolitical issues underhand. Fundamentally, you don't invest into mil-stuff for cost efficency, you do it for the effectiveness because it impacts the capability of the state to project hard power influences, to guarantee security after all economic measures fail. Until you meet the budget cap, then you start going for efficency. Hence why in retrospect, "cheapest offer that meets the objective threshold" has often been frowned upon. But even then, these measurements of efficency is only surface level, near term number forecasts. When you look further out, a system more effective will inevitably be more cost efficient.

To this point, there's virtually nothing that indicates that a space based BMD system will sustain worse cost effiency ratios over time than a ground based system. A space based system leverages promising space exploration and sustenance infrastructures. You can deploy a service module tipped F9 from the same pad a new venture shoots their micro-probe ELV. But very few construction firms are cleared to build silos. And then there's federal land cost. Imagine you need more GMD silos because the new PLARF ICBM has insane diverting RV buses. So you start build more silos near urban areas. Has that ever worked out. But with a spaceborne constellation, you check whether this new cluster will interfere with the ongoing orbits, and prep for launch. Maintenance and servicing is valid, but slowly decaying argument point. Invariably as space exploration demand grows so does the demand for persistent space settlement and cheaper spacelift. Then you start seeing HTHLs with the logistical and operation footprint of a 777X propping up everywhere. That's your solution: COTS and market. But how many people can build the sort of megation resisting, extremely high hardness silos of the MX era?

And then you approach stuff like guard details. If an adversary wants to neutralize a constellation it'll be hard enough to deploy a mass ASAT strike without seeing tit for tat retaliation. And then there's multiple spread out constellations. Versus a silo. In 2003 grandma nuns were putting spray paint on MM3 lids. Now imagine it's Spetsnaz cells with shaped charges. And I'm not even touching on the manning cost. Will America retaliate over a GMD silo being busted? Why couldn't it do the same for an Aegis cruiser sinking or BMD sat flak-ed?
 
yeetmahboi said:
This just completely missed the point on why Golden Dome is Golden Dome as it is.

Just sign up for a spot on the House and tell you fellow men and women, you will not build a national defense system. Get rid of the CG and NG while you're at it, too.
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The idea that we can't defend against ballistic missile attacks is a pretty mainstream view, starting with Robert McNamara.

A system that involves shooting down $100 decoys with $5 million interceptors is not a defense system.

Defending our missile silos from groundbursts will however contribute to our national defense in 2 ways 1. It will deter an attack from happening because we will still be able to retaliate 2. It will enormously reduce the problem of radioactive fallout

And in the future, we'll probably have directed energy weapons that would be effective in defending against ballistic missiles.
 
exclaimedleech8 said:
Defending our missile silos from groundbursts will however contribute to our national defense in 2 ways 1. It will deter an attack from happening because we will still be able to retaliate 2. It will enormously reduce the problem of radioactive fallout
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MAD is not practical. It is suicidal. It functions the same against any regime or actors. Also terminal, co-located BMD just totally missed the mark on how SAC operated for the entirety of the Cold War to this day. America has always taken on a LOW stance, hence the colossal black investment into DSP and its successors and predecessors. There's nothing that a co-located system can add on to this balance of power except for some semblance of redundancy, but until Sentinel enters service MM3 is still vulnerable to X-ray pindown, unless they've been cleared for new, extensive structures and coating mods that I'm certainly not aware of.

The CONUS targets adversaries put the tag on for pretty much this whole time has always been the metropolis-es, because America is still the dominant world economic power with a depreciated but functioning first rate industrial might. Why do new Chinese and Russian ICBMs all have multi-stage buses carrying X00 kilotons MIRVs numbering in the 10-20s? Because they are bombardment weapons. The destruction of 450 hardened silos will not spell doom for the US in the opening of a nuclear war. The extinguishing of hundreds of millions of lives in scorched, fallout ridden building sprawls will do so to its capability to wage hybrid warfare in the later stage of the conflict.

Seriously, it's 2025 and people are still embracing MAD? The rejection of such a concept to bring imbalance in strategic power has collapse entire states like the Soviet Union before. The USA stills remains the center of economics power. And stagnating such a dominant advantage to let your adversary consolidate and autarky-lize itself. WTF?
 
yeetmahboi said:
The CONUS targets adversaries put the tag on for pretty much this whole time has always been the metropolis-es, because America is still the dominant world economic power with a depreciated but functioning first rate industrial might. Why do new Chinese and Russian ICBMs all have multi-stage buses carrying X00 kilotons MIRVs numbering in the 10-20s? Because they are bombardment weapons. The destruction of 450 hardened silos will not spell doom for the US in the opening of a nuclear war. The extinguishing of hundreds of millions of lives in scorched, fallout ridden building sprawls will do so to its capability to wage hybrid warfare in the later stage of the conflict.
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What good would destroying America's cities do if America had 400 Minuteman missiles (plus a whole lot of SLBMs and ALCMs) to retaliate? It would be like killing someone by holding a gun to your temple so that the bullet passes through your head and hits the other person.

The only city that would be a target itself (and not just suffering collateral damage from hits on military installations) is Washington DC.
 
exclaimedleech8 said:
What good would destroying America's cities do if America had 400 Minuteman missiles (plus a whole lot of SLBMs and ALCMs) to retaliate? It would be like killing someone by holding a gun to your temple so that the bullet passes through your head and hits the other person.
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9/11 says that argument doesn't work, so do all the other suicide attacks etc over the years. Sometimes people want to kill you more than they want to survive. Sometimes it works like a death cult (suicide bombers), sometimes its the result of ruthless calculation (kamikazes). Your argument seems to be built on the presumption everyone must think like you. That's not the case.
 
DWG said:
9/11 says that argument doesn't work, so do all the other suicide attacks etc over the years. Sometimes people want to kill you more than they want to survive. Sometimes it works like a death cult (suicide bombers), sometimes its the result of ruthless calculation (kamikazes). Your argument seems to be built on the presumption everyone must think like you. That's not the case.
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Russia and China have different ideas than a fundamentalist islamic terror group.
 
exclaimedleech8 said:
Russia and China have different ideas than a fundamentalist islamic terror group.
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By Western logic, Russia should know it's doing more damage to itself by terror-bombing in Ukraine than it's gaining in the war. It could easily divert those weapons to military targets and avoid that, potentially advancing both its progress in the war and diminishing the damage to its reputation, and yet it doesn't, because it has a different politico-military calculus than we do.

Assuming everyone things like we do is demonstrably wrong.
 
exclaimedleech8 said:
I know how business works, thank you very much.
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So which should the defence contractors choose? Refusing contracts and being sued, or taking the contracts and making money? Which is the legally required choice? Which is the moral choice?
 
DWG said:
So which should the defence contractors choose? Refusing contracts and being sued, or taking the contracts and making money? Which is the legally required choice? Which is the moral choice?
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They could propose something that has a chance of being useful like a space-based machine gun.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Spaced-based explicitly does.




Incorrect.

When an actor sees death as a good thing, MAD no longer deters.
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In that case I'd say all bets are off. Depending on the circumstances and power ratios, you might just be inclined to do them a favor...
 
Scott Kenny said:
When an actor sees death as a good thing, MAD no longer deters.
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Forgot about that. Irrational actors don't get deteeerred. When they see a weakness in their favor they strike. Osama remembers!
Kinda the whole point about proactive conventional defense. It gets the 5% that "sit-on-your-ass-wait-for-the-nuke" cannot.
 
exclaimedleech8 said:
Not if it can be defeated with cheap decoys
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How does a space based system gets defeated by decoys, genuinely? You can't just fling work around to advance your ideal. A global constellation fleet has literal omnipresent ground observation coverage and immediate BPI hard coded in. What good does an ICBM do when it gets blown up right after first stage detach?
 
yeetmahboi said:
How does a space based system gets defeated by decoys, genuinely? You can't just fling work around to advance your ideal. A global constellation fleet has literal omnipresent ground observation coverage and immediate BPI hard coded in. What good does an ICBM do when it gets blown up right after first stage detach?
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Scott Kenny said:
If I'm destroying your missile while still in boost phase you don't have decoys out.

Which is something that Space-based allows.
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But space based systems bring about the absenteeism problem. In an actual nuclear war, the vast majority of your interceptors will be traveling over the ocean and will not contribute one iota to your defense.

Directed energy weapons reduce this problem because they can offer a much longer range meaning exponentially fewer satellites are needed and as long as they have electricity, they have ammo.
 
exclaimedleech8 said:
Not if it can be defeated with cheap decoys
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The decoy designed to fool the boost-phase system would clearly not be cheap. It needs to basically simulate ballistic missile first and second stages in flight. Definitedly not cheap, and at some point a question would arise "why don't just add another missile?"
 
DWG said:
because it has a different politico-military calculus than we do.
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Mainly because Western public did not realize a simple fact; a drone or missile shot down would fell down and explode. And shooting down or jamming drones and missiles over city tended to cause them to fell down & hit random objects. Of course such explanation is too mundane for propaganda purposes, so "terror bombing" instead is weaved into narrative.
 
exclaimedleech8 said:
But space based systems bring about the absenteeism problem. In an actual nuclear war, the vast majority of your interceptors will be traveling over the ocean and will not contribute one iota to your defense.
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Literally so does the siloed ABM you are proposing so I see no noticeable difference. In a nuclear war that is. In non-nuclear conflict you can deorbit any of those spaceborne interceptors to attack IRBMs which the majority are now conventional tipped. But good luck having on time deployment of NGIs to foreign ground.
exclaimedleech8 said:
Directed energy weapons reduce this problem because they can offer a much longer range meaning exponentially fewer satellites are needed and as long as they have electricity, they have ammo.
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You are conflating ground-space basing (a method of deployment) with interceptors/lasers (a kill mechanism) here. If nuclear pumped anti-ICBM lasers get to the assembly sure I'd rather have them on the ground than spewing radiation from orbit. But that's out of our hand for the moment, Golden Dome wants BPs so they will have BPs.
 
exclaimedleech8 said:
But space based systems bring about the absenteeism problem. In an actual nuclear war, the vast majority of your interceptors will be traveling over the ocean and will not contribute one iota to your defense.
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Wrong.

Does a guard patrolling around a base who happens to be on the opposite side of the base at the moment of attack not contribute to the defense of that base?



exclaimedleech8 said:
Directed energy weapons reduce this problem because they can offer a much longer range meaning exponentially fewer satellites are needed and as long as they have electricity, they have ammo.
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Fewer satellites are easier to destroy by ASATs. Whereas large numbers of satellites (as in Brilliant Pebbles) are nearly impossible to destroy or even significantly degrade.
 
Missed a couple points.
exclaimedleech8 said:
Directed energy weapons reduce this problem because they can offer a much longer range meaning exponentially fewer satellites are needed and as long as they have electricity, they have ammo.
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DEWsats don't have a power problem, they have a heat problem. Though newer lasers are much better about turning power into laser energy instead of heat, megawatt class beams still mean megawatts of heat to radiate away.



Dilandu said:
The decoy designed to fool the boost-phase system would clearly not be cheap. It needs to basically simulate ballistic missile first and second stages in flight. Definitedly not cheap, and at some point a question would arise "why don't just add another missile?"
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Exactly. A boost-phase decoy needs to be the same mass as the fully loaded missile or you can tell it's a decoy by exhaust energy intensity. So it might as well be a full on missile with more warheads. Once you're in Midcourse, the attacker can and should be popping decoys.

I should point out that I fully expect the total defense system to have both kinetic and directed-energy components, both in orbit and on the ground. Which will be expensive, but that's just what it costs to play the game at all.
 
That sort of complexity is going to cost more than the price quoted in this article you can bet.

The Trump administration's flagship Golden Dome missile defense system will include four layers -- one satellite-based and three on land -- with 11 short-range batteries located across the continental U.S., Alaska and Hawaii, according to a U.S. government slide presentation on the project first reported by Reuters.
The slides, tagged “Go Fast, Think Big!” were presented to 3,000 defense contractors in Huntsville, Alabama, last week and reveal the unprecedented complexity of the system, which faces an ambitious 2028 deadline set by U.S. President Donald Trump.
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https://www.reuters.com/business/ae...-layer-defense-system-slides-show-2025-08-12/
 

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