America to attack Iran?

[Mega]

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d73_1202250891
Worth reading
Mike

[sadsack]

Re: America to attack Iran?

For a minute there, my blood ran cold . . . that being said:

From the article:

Additionally, within the last week, three of the main underwater cables which carry Internet traffic have been cut off in the Persian Gulf and three-quarters of the international communications between Europe and the Middle East have been lost. Large parts of the Middle East have been plunged into darkness.

Is this merely a coincidence or is something else going on just below the surface?

I suppose we should look for any other anomalous disruptions of communications in the region - perhaps the "failure" of the relay satellite carrying Al Jazeera. This would be consistent with the pattern of preparatory electronic warfare practiced in Gulf Wars I and II.

More ominous would be if, after the failure of such satellite, the Chinese "accidently" kill a US satellite during an unscheduled test of their anti-satellite development program . . .

Is that the crinkling of tinfoil I hear, or the ablation of excrement upon the fanblades?

[GRG55]

Re: America to attack Iran?

For a minute there, my blood ran cold . . . that being said:

From the article:

"Additionally, within the last week, three of the main underwater cables which carry Internet traffic have been cut off in the Persian Gulf and three-quarters of the international communications between Europe and the Middle East have been lost. Large parts of the Middle East have been plunged into darkness."

I suppose we should look for any other anomalous disruptions of communications in the region - perhaps the "failure" of the relay satellite carrying Al Jazeera. This would be consistent with the pattern of preparatory electronic warfare practiced in Gulf Wars I and II.

More ominous would be if, after the failure of such satellite, the Chinese "accidently" kill a US satellite during an unscheduled test of their anti-satellite development program . . .

Is that the crinkling of tinfoil I hear, or the ablation of excrement upon the fanblades?

"Plunged into darkness"??? :rolleyes:

I'm in the Middle East. Internet is rather slow, but the lights seem to be working fine.

[fightthepower]

Re: America to attack Iran?

I stopped reading when the author said Lucca Brassi went to Hollywood. It was Tom Hagen. Get your Godfather right!

[Andreuccio]

Re: America to attack Iran?

For a minute there, my blood ran cold . . . that being said:

From the article:



I suppose we should look for any other anomalous disruptions of communications in the region - perhaps the "failure" of the relay satellite carrying Al Jazeera. This would be consistent with the pattern of preparatory electronic warfare practiced in Gulf Wars I and II.

More ominous would be if, after the failure of such satellite, the Chinese "accidently" kill a US satellite during an unscheduled test of their anti-satellite development program . . .

Is that the crinkling of tinfoil I hear, or the ablation of excrement upon the fanblades?

Iran test-launches satellite missile

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...cle%2FShowFull

This seems harmless enough. :eek:

[lakedaemonian]

Re: America to attack Iran?

Iran test-launches satellite missile

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...cle%2FShowFull

This seems harmless enough. :eek:

From a media operations perspective it's not.

Any other nation: satellite rocket , or rocket launched satellite

Iran: satellite missile or missile launched satellite


subtle but key difference in shaping perceptions

[sadsack]

Re: America to attack Iran?

Iran test-launches satellite missile

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...cle%2FShowFull

This seems harmless enough. :eek:

One relatively revealing item in the article:

The report claimed that the satellite itself would be launched by 2009. It is reported to be called Omid which means "Hope", and is said to be a low-altitude satellite.

Low altitude implies that the guidance system on the missile relies on GPS navigation to perhaps a significant degree.

In order to place a satellite in a precise orbit, a missile's guidance system must be very accurate. Self-contained systems (Inertial Guidance Systems - IGS) are very expensive and very hard to develop. It took the US a generation to develop sufficiently accurate IGS - that's why the first ICBM's were armed with multi-megaton warheads: the guidance systems had target accuracy only to within a few miles!

GPS is a centralized approach to guidance systems - a weapon with GPS-assisted IGS is a lot easier and cheaper to build (e.g., JDAM).

The tradeoff, though, is that in times of war, you might not have access to the GPS telemetery. Additionally, GPS is not useful for craft flying in higher orbits than the GPS satellite network.

A true offensive weapon with intercontinental range, then, must either have a self-contained, highly accurate IGS, or a bulletproof, secure GPS infrastucture (the US uses both).

Thus, if the Iranians are using GPS, it is more probable that they seek low orbital capability for spying purposes.

However, any old dumb missile will do if all you need is some anthrax lobbed into a ballistic (non-orbital) trajectory. My preceding comments are only concerned with the motivation for orbital capability.

[c1ue]

Re: America to attack Iran?

Sadsack,

I thought IGS was for cruise missiles.

I don't think there is a guidance nor steering system in existence which can effectively steer a ballistic object (ICBM).

On the other hand, ballistic objects are easier to target; after all, they are on ballistic trajectories. The accuracy is not super high because of variations due to atmospheric friction, etc, but these ARE nukes.

Thus unless IGS is useable for ICBMs, the primary point of a good IGS system is use against someone within cruise missile range - Europe, Russia, Middle East, and China for Iran.

[sadsack]

Re: America to attack Iran?

Sadsack,

I thought IGS was for cruise missiles.

I don't think there is a guidance nor steering system in existence which can effectively steer a ballistic object (ICBM).

On the other hand, ballistic objects are easier to target; after all, they are on ballistic trajectories. The accuracy is not super high because of variations due to atmospheric friction, etc, but these ARE nukes.

Thus unless IGS is useable for ICBMs, the primary point of a good IGS system is use against someone within cruise missile range - Europe, Russia, Middle East, and China for Iran.

By IGS I mean any system that depends on inertial measuring devices to place itself within space. IGS can be found in use everywhere, and the breadth in sophistication between the cheapest/simplest and the cutting edge is vast. Overview link for Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_guidance

Inertial Guidance uses sensitive measurement devices to calculate the location of the missile due to the acceleration put on it after leaving a known position. Early mechanical systems were not very accurate, and required some sort of external adjustment to allow them to hit targets even the size of a city. Modern systems use solid state ring laser gyros that are accurate to within metres over ranges of 10,000km, and no longer require additional inputs. Gyroscope development has culminated in the AIRS found on the MX missile, allowing for an accuracy of less than 100m at intercontinental ranges. Many civilian aircraft use inertial guidance using the ring laser gyroscope, which is less accurate than the mechanical systems found in ICBMs, but which provide an inexpensive means of attaining a fairly accurate fix on location (when most airliners such as Boeing's 707 and 747 were designed, GPS was not the widely commercially available means of tracking that it is today). Today guided weapons can use a combination of INS, GPS and radar terrain mapping to achieve extremely high levels of accuracy such as that found in modern cruise missiles.

The Gravity B probe uses perhaps the most accurate gyroscopic measurement system ever developed. It's only good in space, though, since the superfluid helium bearings of the gyros must be cooled to within within a few degrees of absolute zero).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_B

Systems that can use GPS don't need these $$$$$$$$ IGS systems.

[rabot10]

Re: America to attack Iran?

They have to do somethng before the "Nut job Bush" is out of office. My bet is an attack to stop the "evil doers"

Hope not