Missile Defenders Trained, Ready for Deployment, General Says
By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, April 5, 2013 – Missile defenders preparing for the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Air Defense System to Guam are ready for the mission, the Army general at their home station reported, noting his full confidence in the ability of U.S. air defense systems to protect against North Korean missiles.
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The Defense Department announced earlier this week its plans to deploy a THAAD system to Guam as a precautionary move to strengthen the regional defense posture against the North Korean regional ballistic missile threat.
All three of the Army’s THAAD batteries, part of the 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command, are based at Fort Bliss. The THAAD system is a land-based missile defense system that includes a truck-mounted launcher, a complement of interceptor missiles, an AN/TPY-2 tracking radar and an integrated fire control system.
Once deployed, the THAAD system will work in tandem with other missile defense systems in the region to provide multi-tiered protection, Pittard explained. Aegis cruisers and other air defense systems will provide lower-level coverage. Patriot missiles and other systems will provide defenses at slightly higher altitudes.
/snip/
The THAAD deployment will strengthen defense capabilities for American citizens in the U.S. territory of Guam and U.S. forces stationed there, the Defense Department said in an April 3 news release announcing the deployment that’s expected in the coming weeks.
Full article HERE from Global Security.
Of interest, there are ONLY three of these systems in existence that are actually deployable, and note the last sentence, ‘expected’ to deploy in the coming weeks… How? There will have to be a massive reshuffle of lift capability to get them there, and a couple of weeks may be too late…
At least a couple of BMD capable ships are loitering on 24/7 alert and just for clarification, they CAN also shoot down a missile or ‘other’ object in the terminal phase, as exhibited a couple of years ago off Hawaii, when USS LAKE ERIE shot down a Russian Satellite with a nuclear power plant in a decaying orbit with ONE SM-3…
But those ships were pulled from other duties, and due to sequestration, backfill is going to be slow to non-existent in the near term…
Isn’t sequestration wonderful, when the government can’t afford to defend its citizens anymore with military force? Yet leftists still get their government cheese. And Obama continues to golf.
Is this really the result of sequestration or other neglect/cuts to the military that would have happened regardless?
If sequestration really was a small cut in growth, how could this have had so drastic a result on our military?
Annnnd we canceled missile test because we didn’t want to make Kim Il Looney Toon nervous. Idiots. We WANT him nervous!
In under all the talk about deployment, money, sequestration there is an even more troubling “foundation” . . . . Barack Obama. He is drastically out of his depth with events like Lybia, the recent assassination of another US diplomat in Afghaninstan and this desperat plunge towards war by North Korea. It will be this lack of depth that will bring harm to the US and our allies . . . .
Maybe they can hitch the system to a team of unicorns. Sorry, smart assed reply to a serious subject. Team Obama hasn’t a clue.
I would feel nervous if I was on Guam right now. Of course, if the DPRK nukes the place and the warhead makes it through, I would prefer to be right at the point of impact. Who wants to die of radiation sickness.
THAAD is not proven technology in the sense that there is high confidence of one interceptor taking down one warhead, but if you shoot enough of those bad boys, it will likely work. I hope that they arrive in time.
Opus- Yeah… sigh
Ed- It’s a combination of both, and remember DOD took 47% of the ENTIRE sequester! And all from Operations and maintenance funds, no reprogramming allowed.
PH- point…
Bill- Good point, they have NO idea how to respond.
WSF- Why not… sigh
LL- Concur!
We might ought to be concerned as to what exactly they put into orbit during that last missile test and why it was put into orbit over us at just the right altitude.
http://modernsurvivalblog.com/emp-electro-magnetic-pulse/suspect-super-emp-orbit-over-united-states/
It could be absolutely nothing up there but a piece of junk, but NK has long been suspected of having a Russian made super EMP nuke.
Barlow- I don’t ‘think’ it actually made it on orbit…
Bill +1 – obama has absolutely no clue. And Kerry will be zero help. The blind leading the blind…