Grand Danois - tell me something.
THAAD is designed to intercept exo-atmospheric and endo-atmospheric threats.
Its missile can reach and destroy targets 150km in hight - so im interested, SCUD like missile while in flight reaches max atitude of aprox 150km and missiles with longer range have even higher hight peak whitch means faster re-entry speed. So in order to achive hit THAAD needst to have prety fast missile.
1. Do you have any information about it?
Very little. It seems to me that THAAD is the system of the three US systems there is least information on. Most of it is on press releases on tests and the occasional pentagon briefing to congress on the progress of development. All of it is vague, convoluted and delayed. This also makes it hard to figure out what it is capable of and what the engagement envelope is. Of course, this is also very sensitive data anyway. That is the reason why I used "supposed to".
But above is the official numbers, plus the 200 km range.
This is why I looked up what kind of target it had engaged for this recent test.
2. Is THAAD constructed to handle balistic missiles with depresed trajectory concernig THAAD is constructed to hit missiles in space with kill vehicle?
3. Do you know what are maximum target speed THAAD can handle?
4. i had something else in mind but forget it now.
5.THAAD is not constructed to be mid-course interceptor like GBI does it? Whitch in that case means it can handle missiles only in therminal phase whitch is not bad but not wery good either because even IRBM will have high peak atitude and hell of a speed during re-entry?
No, I don't know the speeds it can handle, but it seems that the goal is quite ambitious. I seems it will be able to handle the speeds of a high end IRBM/low end ICBM in the terminal phase, which should indicate that it could handle some depressed and/or endoatmospheric intercepts depending on engagement geometry. The same goes to midcourse intercepts. My personal opinion is that it has the potential - again depending on precise circumstances.
IMV the strength of these systems really is the battle management systems, which will really increase the footprint that can be covered with confidence.
If the programme is succesful, I think that THAAD can potentially have a greater impact than the GMD, due to deployability, survivability and cost. Though the range of the GBI is much greater.
For instance, the GBI that may be stationed in Europe are nearly useless against, hypothetically, Russian ICBM, as they are fired almost at point blank. This has to do with engagement geometry.
A batallion of THAAD, however, may bleed a significant number of ballistic missiles/warheads. And it could be layered with GMD and MEADS.
Basically, how the defences are deployed and their numbers, and how the offense employs its BMs has a lot to say. I don't think THAAD will reliably take down an ICBM. That would be the job of the GBI. A sidenote to that is, as I have reflected on it, that if the GBI in Europe was intended for Russia, then they would have been deployed deeper in Western Europe than Poland.
Mind you, just using this as an example. I don't see any agressive posture towards Russia in this.
