Pardon my ignorance, but, the ones pointing at us are?:
- balistic misiles (simple)
- ICBMs
Most obliged
Medium-range ballistic as opposed to intercontinental ballistic, which are long-range jobbies.
Yep, in Spanish teh explanation made them look very similar, and since our comrades also have the other kind, I was a bit confused.
Oh, well, just gotta change a word. Intercontinentales becomes balisticos and no one is hurt. 
SRBM, MRBM, ICBM… all ballistic missiles and they hurt.
In the case of Taiwan, the shorter ranger are more dangerous, because there is less time to prepare or attempt to intercept. Longer range ones would be fired from deeper inside China, giving longer alert time. With ballistic missiles, even a few seconds or minutes additional helps.
Aren’t all missiles ballistic?
No. Missiles that use fuel halfway up and then come back down by gravity, in an inverted U-shaped path, are ballistic. A missile that burns fuel all the way to the target, flying in a straight line or changing its path to follow a dodging fighter jet, for instance would be non-ballistic.
They are Short Range Ballistic Missiles, mostly DF-11/CSS-7 and DF-15/CSS-6.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dongfeng_m … 28CSS-7.29
300km and 600km range, conventionally armed, rather poor accuracy - the Circular Error Probable is 30-35m for the DF-15 but that is with GPS guidance which the US can turn off. With no GPS the CEP is 300m. They designed for area bombing, not precision strikes.
I also think you could shoot them down with a Patriot PAC3 which Taiwan has.
Don’t worry about the poor CEP. 500kg of high explosives should cover that.
[quote=“Icon”]Pardon my ignorance, but, the ones pointing at us are?:
- balistic misiles (simple)
- ICBMs
Most obliged[/quote]
In my opinion, Taiwan would be far better off spending the time and money used to try gain admission to the U.N. on increasing world awareness about these missiles. Most folks in the 1st World have absolutley no idea.
That, and clarifying the difference between “Taiwan” and “Thailand”.
There is no way Taiwan will ever gain admission to the U.N. as long as the Commie nation is a member of the U.N. Security Council. Can’t fight veto power I’m afraid.
That sounds like something the Spanish translation of Captain Haddock would say in a moment of wrath, ‘Intercontinentales balisticos!’
I am totally ignorant in those military things. Now some are misiles, others are obuses… Sigh
Bombs are bombs.
Ballistic missiles are useless unless armed with nuclear bombs. They can’t touch underground targets either. The ballistic missile is more psychological than actual threat.
Not sure about that. The V2 flattened a few houses in London during that second world war. I don’t think they were nuclear tho…
Not sure about that. The V2 flattened a few houses in London during that second world war. I don’t think they were nuclear tho…[/quote]
Flattening a few houses doesn’t mean that they will reduce the enemy’s military capability at all. They are not accurate enough to pinpoint key military targets unless they literally fill the sky with them and even then they will do little to harm the military at all. They are only good at causing terror among civilians so that’s why I said they are more for psychological warfare.
Well, not really. North Korea puts all kinds of chemical and biological agents in the warheads of its short range ballistic missiles-enough to kill a whole lot of people in Seoul within a very short period.
The PRC ballistic missiles aimed at Taiwan are very well suited for what the mainlanders have them there for. They are not at all intended for shooting directly at cities. They are there to make sure that no ROCAF jets can take off any later than about ten minutes into a war. There are so damn many of them that the statistical probability of them turning most straight, long pieces of tarmack in Taiwan into gravel and crooked rebar is quite good. Patriot missiles might intercept some of them, but not that many.
Well, not really. North Korea puts all kinds of chemical and biological agents in the warheads of its short range ballistic missiles-enough to kill a whole lot of people in Seoul within a very short period.
The PRC ballistic missiles aimed at Taiwan are very well suited for what the mainlanders have them there for. They are not at all intended for shooting directly at cities. They are there to make sure that no ROCAF jets can take off any later than about ten minutes into a war. There are so damn many of them that the statistical probability of them turning most straight, long pieces of tarmack in Taiwan into gravel and crooked rebar is quite good. Patriot missiles might intercept some of them, but not that many.[/quote]
Not sure about that. The V2 flattened a few houses in London during that second world war. I don’t think they were nuclear tho…[/quote]
Plus they killed more people in Germany than they did in London.
When the ineffective missile lands on your house, because it is inaccurate and missed the military target, remind yourself how little it impacted on Taiwan’s military capabilities.
Saturation can make up for a lot of poor accuracy.
Not sure about that. The V2 flattened a few houses in London during that second world war. I don’t think they were nuclear tho…[/quote]
Flattening a few houses doesn’t mean that they will reduce the enemy’s military capability at all. They are not accurate enough to pinpoint key military targets unless they literally fill the sky with them and even then they will do little to harm the military at all. They are only good at causing terror among civilians so that’s why I said they are more for psychological warfare.[/quote]
Personally I believe that psychological warfare is as important, if not more, then actual warfare. Break the spirit of the enemy and half the war is won.