Obama betrays Poland and every American

[EagleSmack]

Oh I can't fault the people tasked with making the thing work in the field, that must have been fairly unsatisfying, akin to trying to screw in a bolt with a hammer

The report on them hearings I linked doesn't go so far as to call it an outright failure, but it mentions what your friend said about the "target stretch" and the software issues.

The whole concept of shooting bullets with bullets does seem a bit farfetched tho, I would imagine some kind of EMP or some similar "fields based" system would make more sense physics-wise.

The best strategy for avoiding missile attacks is to avoid giving people any kind of justification for even thinking of making such attacks, and hopefully in the long term that is how things will shake down- maybe we'll institute a Gundam Fight, then nobody would be getting hurt AND we'd have some seriously engaging entertainment every 4 years

It seemed like the missle had to be within range to be engaged as a plane would. Ideally you want to hit the missle far enough away and not over the city. But that is exactly where the Patriots needed to be to engage them. They were definately hitting them but if you remember they basically knocked the missle off it trajectory but the warhead just needs to find something solid to set it off. SCUDS were area weapons and were aimed at cities and not necessarily buildings or specific target.

Nukes on the other hand NEED to go off a certain way. If the ballistic missle is exploded then you will have a dirty bomb and not a nuclear detonation as intended. Nasty indeed but less destructive.