NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/sci/military/12913

Text File | 1993-01-28 | 2.5 KB | 50 lines

Newsgroups: sci.military
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From: Won-Soon Lau <[e-mail]>
Subject: Catching a Tomahawk
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail] (Sci.Military Login)
Organization: National University of Singapore
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 17:49:13 GMT
Approved: [e-mail]
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From Won-Soon Lau <[e-mail]>

There has been quite a bit of discussion on the Tomahawk cruise missile
recently.  My impression of the missile is that it is vulnerable to ground
small arm fires because it is flying at such a low altitude.  I had a
discussion with my brother and we came out with this (crazy??) idea of
catching (yes, not shooting it down) a cruise missile.

The scheme is very simple.  Suppose you can identify in advance some of
the potential targets (e.g. weapon factory, defence military HQ) which
you think will be attack by the cruise missile.  The first thing to do
is to erect one or two layers of heavy duty fishing nets surrounding
the target.  The nets should be set up at a distance of 200m away.  One
end of the nets should be firmly archored to the ground and the nets are
make to suspend in the air by ballons.  The basic requirement is that the
nets shouldn't be tensioned so that anything falls onto it will be trapped
and entangled.  The nets need not be raised to very high because the
terminal phase of the cruise missile is very low (50m??).  The next thing
is to dig a canal between the nets and target and fill it with water.  The
purpose of this water canal is for the entangled mass to land softly on it
and kill the turbofan on the tomahawk without detonating its warhead.
Now we are all set to catch the incoming cruise missiles.

The idea is somewhat similar on that use on the carrier to recover those
aircraft which cannot lower its tail hook.  Since the aircraft is a much
bigger mass than a cruise missile I don't see any reasons why this is not
feasible.  I hope to see some discussions and even improvement to this
scheme.  Thanks.


Won-Soon Lau
--
VLSI DESIGN & CAD LABORATORY          \  Internet: [e-mail]
Dept of Electrical Engineering         \  Bitnet:  [e-mail]
National University of Singapore        \  Phone:  [phone]
10, Kent Ridge Crescent. Singapore 0511. \______________________________