Detection and Defense We have been led to believe we have the most powerful and reliable weapons in the world, but every once in a while, something happens which makes it seem our weapons are not as reliable as they pretend to be. Britain’s largest warship is the new aircraft carrier the HMS Queen Elizabeth. Supposedly this carrier has every modern detection device mounted on it known to man. It is probably the equivalent of one of our newest carriers except for a few add-ons we have, such as the fact it doesn’t have an electronic catapult and as far as I know does not have electronic restraining devices for planes landing. One would think a ship like this is able to detect something as small as a bird heading its way and yet recently something happened which nobody would have believed. A drone being flown by a photographer had a problem and he landed it on the carrier deck, took a picture of the deck and the drone took off and nobody on the ship was any the wiser. How could this possibly happen? Are the British carriers and our carriers vulnerable to a drone strike? The military may say this is ridiculous, but actions speak louder than words and if a drone can land on a carrier deck undetected why couldn’t it be carrying a bomb? This event was very disappointing indeed. Ironically the drone was a DJI Phantom brand and it certainly seemed to live up to its name. An Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyer, the USS Fitzgerald was sitting in the waters south of Japan on June 18, 2016 when a giant container ship over three times the size of the destroyer ran into it killing seven crew members and causing injuries among other members of the crew. This type of ship should be able to detect a peanut somebody threw up in the air, let alone a huge cargo vessel and yet it went totally undetected until it slammed into the Fitzgerald. We have been told these ships contain the latest in radar and other means of detection, so how can we explain what happened? Was everybody asleep on their watch? The ships are equipped with ship to air warfare, anti-submarine warfare and anti-surface warfare weapons. They are said to have all sorts of advanced sensors including one of the most advanced multifunction radars. This radar was described as being able to not only look over the land but look throughout the extremely difficult and cluttered sea land interface. Sounds great on paper, but didn’t seem to perform very well. Could it be something interfered with the ships sensors preventing the destroyer from detecting the cargo ship and why did the cargo ship crash into the destroyer without detecting it? Another American destroyer, the Donald Cook is also a missile carrying destroyer. It has four large radars which are so powerful they are said to put out as much power as several radar stations. In 2014 this ship was overflown by a Russian Su 24 tactical aircraft. The bomber carried no weapons. When the USS Donald Cook entered into the black sea the plane flew over it. It is said the crew became so demoralized from the incident that they didn’t recover. It seems the plane had a pod under it which contained electronics which knocked out every means of detection and all the electronics on the destroyer. It appears the Russians now have the means to turn everything off on our ships. We don’t hear much about this, they just seems to be an initial story and you can understand why. The US military certainly doesn’t want this story to spread very far. If it is possible for a plane to knock out ships in our fleet without firing a shot where does that leave us? It leaves us with worthless ships unless something can be done to prevent this. The United States has spent $700 million dollars so far on an advanced mind detection system. The system was supposedly built to remotely detect mines. The name of the system is the Remote Minehunting System. It is also known as the RMS. An advanced sonar system was built into an underwater vehicle. Tests were conducted and there was such a high rate of failure the Pentagon said the system falls significantly short of the project design requirements. The contract for the system went to Lockheed Martin, the same company which is responsible for the F-35 fighter many pilots are scared to fly, because the oxygen is gets cut off in some of the planes. I don’t know how many defects are in the plane today, but about a year ago it was said there was still over seven hundred to be corrected. The United States began work on the US defense system. It was touted as being an incredibly powerful system which could defend us against sneak attacks in places like North Korea. Congress was told it contained the most powerful radar in the world. The idea was for the radar to guide a missile which would intercept the one fired by an enemy. It was also said the system would be able to tell the difference between a decoy and a real missile. The director of the Missile Defense Agency told the Senate subcommittee in 2017 the system represented an unmatched capability. The truth of the matter is the system would only have a chance against a single missile, because it has a very narrow field of vision and would be useless against a stream of missiles and decoys. It is said we spent ten billion dollars on this system along with a couple of others which were also failures. An Air Force Colonel said, “you can spend a lot of money and end up with nothing.” It seems we’ve been having problems with not being able to detect things for quite some time, let me give you an example. In 1987 during the Iraq Iran war, an Iraqi jet fired missiles at the American frigate USS Stark. This caused the deaths of 37 Navy personnel and injuries to 21 others. The radar on the Stark failed to detect two missiles which were fired at the ship. The missiles were Exocets. A weapons defense system known as the Phalanx System never fired. This was later blamed on the fact there was miscommunication between the captain and the crew and the captain had believed the system was alive and ready when it was really in passive mode. The first Exocet missile hit the ship, but failed to detonate, but it did start a fire from its rocket fuel. The second missile detonated and left a large hole in the ship’s side. The Iraqi plane was allowed to leave the scene and return back to its base. Are our weapons as good as we think? Are our detection systems really as good as we have been told or are better ones available and we just go with what the most lobbyists want and buy the ones they told us to? We have a long history in of buying inferior weapons and with the state of the world today this is no longer a luxury we can afford. |
