Quote:
Originally Posted by dradernh
After 9/11, I met a group of Air Force officers working on a number of projects. One was to both detect and defeat ICBMs ASAP after launch and before they reached midcourse phase. To this day, this remains the principal problem, as by the time an ICBM is in terminal phase, it is a challenge to effectively defeat it.
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One of the related Wikipedia articles gives the following numbers for the terminal velocity of ballistic missiles:
-- Short range: 3,400 mph or 1.5 km per second
-- Medium range: 6,700 mph or 3 km per second
-- ICBM: 15,700 mph or 7 km per second (!)
A challenge indeed!