Defense against Ballistic Missiles

Abstract

The topic of my lecture is defense against ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads. I would like to start by discussing for a short time the air defense problem and how it was solved during the Second World War. Ground based defenses against aircraft using anti-aircraft artillery turned out not to be very effective. Fighter aircraft, on the other hand, that could shoot down long-range bombers sent over enemy territory caused casualty rates among-attacking aircraft that were unacceptably high. It is, of course, for this reason that the RAF Fighter Command won the Battle of Britain in 1940 and the Luftwaffe prevented a really massive bombing campaign against continental Europe by the Allies until the Allies were able to provide long-range fighter escorts for their bombers. Air defense, therefore, depended on having fighter aircraft that could deal with escorting fighters and could shoot down bombers.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 09, 1992
Accession Number
ADA345011

Entities

People

  • Hans Mark

Organizations

  • University of Texas at Austin

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Counter WMD
  • Space
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Defense
  • Air Force
  • Aircrafts
  • Anti-Ballistic Missiles
  • Artificial Satellites
  • Astronautics
  • Ballistic Missiles
  • Defense Systems
  • Detectors
  • Directed Energy Weapons
  • Fighter Aircraft
  • Nuclear Weapons
  • Radar
  • Rockets
  • Second World War
  • Strategic Defense Initiative
  • United States

Readers

  • Aerospace Engineering
  • Military History / Militaries and War Studies
  • Strategic Security Studies