[quote]Sifu wrote:
[quote]smh23 wrote:
[quote]VTBalla34 wrote:
[quote]Severiano wrote:
Only part they need is to be able to get the rocket path right, and to detonate the warhead at the optimal height…
[/quote]
Which requires an absurdly smart guidance system that relies on stars (yes fucking stars millions of miles away) to position itself perfectly…
AND release the warhead at the right spot in outer space
AND make sure the warhead is able to re-enter the earth’s atmosphere without disintegrating
AND make sure the warhead free falls to its right location
AND make sure the warhead denoates at the right spot to be effective
There is a reason there are only a handful of countries with this technology…it isn’t all that simple.
Edit: This all assumes that they manage to get the launch off without us intercepting the rocket on liftoff or the warheads on reentry…[/quote]
This.
They aren’t close to being able to strike us yet, according to the experts.
Therefore all of this bluster is probably best explained through the prism of domestic politics.
But that doesn’t make it something to be laughed off.[/quote]
Again who are these so called experts and what assumptions are they basing their opinions on? One assumption they are making that could prove to be seriously wrong is where North Korean or Iranian missiles could reach. I covered this subject several years ago but obviously I am going to have to repeat it.
The Iranians have been known to have tested launching Skud missiles off of a barge in the Caspian sea several years ago. So in reality the Koreans could have the ability to stand off over a thousand miles from the US coast and hit anywhere in the US. Right now.
Iran's Missile Threat - WSJ
Another false assumption is that celestial guidance is needed. Just because that is what the US uses it doesn’t mean that the Koreans or anyone else couldn’t use something less advanced that will still get the job done. Inertial guidance can be quite accurate. Eighties vintage Trident 2 missiles had an accuracy of within 100 meters using inertial guidance.
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists - Google Books
I don’t doubt you’ve done your research, but all the experts whose daily bread this is give a quite different picture. If NK really had any chance at all of hitting the US, the Pentagon would know it long before any of us. With the exception of David Cameron - who admittedly may know something that most of us don’t - absolutely nobody who’s talking in the media thinks we have anything to worry about.
One thing I do know is that North Korea sucks at everything. Their scientists and engineers will likely have done at least part of their work through the fog of hunger. There have been a number of FAILED NK missile tests in the last decade, and none of those failed missiles would’ve been able to hit the US anyway. I’m not at all worried, though I do feel bad for people in South Korea, and perhaps Japan.