Quote:

 

PYONGYANG (Reuters) - Isolated and impoverished North Korea said on Tuesday it was ready to go ahead with its proposed long-range rocket launch in a move that sparked immediate condemnation from South Korea and Russia and a plea from China, its main ally, for calm.

The launch of the Unha-3 rocket, which North Korea says will merely put a weather satellite into space, breaches U.N. sanctions imposed to prevent Pyongyang from developing a missile that could carry a nuclear warhead.

"We are expecting to complete the assembly by today," said Ryu Kum-chol, vice director of the space development department of the Korean Central Space Committee.

"The launch of Kwangmyongsong-3 satellite is the gift from our people to our great leader, comrade Kim Il-sung, on the occasion of his 100th birthday, so this cannot be a missile test," he added.

The launch, due between Thursday and next Monday, will coincide with the anniversary celebrations of the country's founder and North Korea says that it is its sovereign right to launch the rocket.

The West says it is a disguised ballistic missile test by a country which walked out of so-called six-party disarmament talks three years ago.

KFIR

Apr 8 2012, 02:41 PM

Parastriker

Apr 8 2012, 01:56 PM

israeli

Apr 7 2012, 04:38 PM

North Korea warns other nations: intercept of rocket is an act of war
06-Apr-12, 10:05 PM | PNA/Yonhap


SEOUL - North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ratcheted up his regime's militaristic rhetoric as Pyongyang threatened to retaliate against any country that intercepts a North Korean rocket booster or collects the rocket debris.

<snipped>

The Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea in Pyongyang warned that interception of the satellite would be "an act of war" and would cause a tremendous catastrophe.

Whoever "intercepts the satellite or collects its debris will meet immediate, resolute and merciless punishment" from the North, the committee said in an English-language statement carried by its Korean Central News Agency late Thursday.

The warning came days after South Korea said it was exploring measures to intercept the rocket booster in case it veers off its trajectory. Japan has also ordered its troops to shoot down the rocket if there is concern it or parts of it could land on Japan.

South Korea expects the rocket's first-stage booster to land in international waters, some 170 kilometers south of its southwestern city of Gunsan, before the rocket's second stage booster falls east of the Philippines.

<snipped>

The statement also warned South Korea against any provocation, noting any attack by Seoul on Pyongyang would mean the "end of everything in South Korea."

<snipped>

North Korea "will mete out the unimaginable and the most miserable punishment to its rival if it dares fire into the sky above the (North), Pyongyang, in particular," the statement said.

The North's threat came after South Korea vowed it would attack the North's capital in retaliation if the communist country strikes Seoul.

<snipped>

Meanwhile, North Korean leader Kim has also ordered his troops to bury the nation's enemies at sea if they "dare intrude into the territorial waters" of the North. Kim made the comment during his inspection trip to a navy unit that seized a U.S. spy ship, Pueblo, in 1968, the KCNA said in a dispatch on Friday.

<snipped>

Kim "set forth the tasks for rounding off combat preparations and bolstering the combat capability," the dispatch said.


More of the article here.

<rant>
Hmm. Terrifying words, Kim Jong-Un. But do you have the power to back them up?

Let us see the options of that leader if the missile is shot down from the sky;

NUCLEAR RETALIATION: Impossible. Patriot missiles in SoKor and Japan will shoot them down, and America have a trigger-happy finger when it comes to Nukes.

NAVAL RETALIATION: Far-off. NoKor submarines from their east coast couldn't even reach their west coast without provisioning.

AERIAL RETALIATION: Impossible. SoKor has the better air force.

So, what " tremendous catastrophe" would happen then? Don't tell me that you have missile submarines, Kim Jong-Un?
</rant>

What is the success rate of the Patriot missile system?

Quote:

 

Excuse me if I withhold judgment for the moment on the reported successes of the Patriot missile. The new version of the air-defense weapon, known as the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (or PAC-3) is said to have intercepted four of the six missiles that Iraq has fired at Kuwait.

This is an impressive record, if true. But I remember that, shortly after Operation Desert Storm, the first war against Iraq in 1991, the U.S. Army claimed that an earlier model of the Patriot had intercepted 45 out of 47 Iraqi Scuds—a 95 percent success rate. Over the following year, the Army lowered its estimate, stating that Patriots intercepted 79 percent of the Scuds launched over Saudi Arabia and 40 percent of those fired at Israel. These remain the official figures today.

However, even the revisions wildly overstate the Patriot's performance in Desert Storm. A later report by the General Accounting Office concluded that Patriot missiles destroyed only 9 percent of the Scuds they tried to engage. The Israeli Defense Force calculated they'd destroyed just 2 percent.

William Cohen, Bill Clinton's secretary of defense, admitted upon leaving office in January 2001, "The Patriot didn't work."

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_pol...riot_games.html

Parastriker

Apr 10 2012, 06:56 PM

Scuds fly lower than ICBMs, hence Patriots have more time to intercept ICBMs since they fly higher ( and therefore, fly longer).

Quote:

 

PAC-3 is a surface-to-air guided missile defense system that builds upon the existing Patriot air defense infrastructure (used most notably during the Persian Gulf War in 1991). The new fully operational PAC-3 provides advanced capability against enemy cruise missiles, aircraft, and unlike previous systems, tactical ballistic missiles.

Quote:

 

The RIM-161 Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) is a ship-based missile system used by the US Navy to intercept short- to intermediate-range ballistic missiles as a part of Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System. Although primarily designed as an anti-ballistic missile, the SM-3 has also been employed in an anti-satellite capacity against a satellite at the lower end of Low Earth orbit. The SM-3 is primarily used and tested by the United States Navy and also operated by the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force.

Quote:

 

... Japan has prepared plans to deploy three Aegis-capable destroyers to strategic sea lanes to intercept the rocket and has also issued directives authorizing deployment of Patriot PAC-3 missile batteries to areas best suited to improve the odds of actually bringing down the rocket should that become necessary.

The shoot-down order was issued following a meeting of Japan’s Security Council convened by Prime Minister Yoshiko Noda.  With this order now in hand, the Japanese Self-Defense Force can execute the deployment plans developed earlier in March.  Japanese leaders issued a similar order when North Korea launched a long-range ballistic missile in 2009, but Japanese forces did not fire on that missile when it became obvious it was not a threat to Japan...

... Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) is also under orders to deploy Patriot PAC-3 missile batteries in close proximity to the Defense Ministry’s headquarters in Tokyo, on the main island of Okinawa, and on Okinawa’s southwestern islands of Miyako and Ishigaki.

Defense plans call for the Aegis SM-3 missiles to intercept and destroy any airborne threat outside the Earth’s atmosphere. If this fails, the PAC-3 missiles will be fired at a target as it reenters the Earth’s atmosphere.

Wardog

Apr 10 2012, 08:13 PM

Also to debunk Parastriker's contention that a Patriot has more time to intercept ICBMs because these fly higher- an impossibility since ICBMs can reach altitudes of over 1000kms. PAC 3 can only manage 15kms.