Olympics 2012: A Bruce Schneier Moment
antipope.org
antipope.org
Disappointed in Mr. Stross for this one.
No, no, no. Modern SAM missiles have either a continuous rod warhead, a quite substantial affair that on detonation will spread shrapnel to a substantial range, or, even worse in this context, are kinetic killers like the HVM Starstreak the UK DoD is deploying. A kinetic killer is a heavy metal rod with some guiding fins that is propelled to hypervelocity (Mach 3.5 for the Starstreak) by a first stage. The Starstreak has 3 of these. There's a strong possibility that they stay intact after hitting their target, as aircraft are more flimsy than armoured combat vehicles, or even worse, some of the 3 will miss the target. What happens then is easy to guess: is goes on a ballistic trajectory at a high Mach speed, and in a dense urban area, may hit something fragile and cause some damage. Each of the 3 Starstreak submunition has as much energy as a 40mm Bofors shell.
So your scenario of "they'll gently come down" is far off target.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starstreak http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous-rod_warhead
Edit: the Starstreak submunitions also have an explosive payload so they won't stay intact neither on hitting nor missing the target. The raining shrapnel caveat still applies, but shrapnel slows down beyond a few hundred meters.
Of course an intact Starstreak submunition is very definitely something you that wouldn't want landing on your roof. But fragments from half a mile overhead? Not such a problem. Certainly not pleasant, and possibly a bit dangerous -- but probably no more than things that London drivers do hundreds of times every day already.[1]
[1] NB: I'm not a weapons engineer, but I do live in London. So to that degree, at least, I know of what I speak.
There aren't a lot of places on earth that put SAMs in residential areas apart from North Korea.
I agree with C. Stross that this is a daft idea.
I suspect that people who are concerned about shooting down planes over London are worried less by the debris of the missile, and more by that of the target.
In the scenario of an attack by something that is actually dangerous, shooting it down will almost certainly cause less damage than letting it hit its intended target (at least when the target is a mass of spectators at a sports event).
Moreover, if I were the authorities I would make sure that there was a big public kerfuffle about anti-aircraft missiles being stationed in London - whether they were actually going to be stationed or not. It may be security theatre, but not in the way that the blog author thinks.
And it may be deeply unfashionable, but the family and I are pretty excited by the prospect of the Olympics.
A better idea would be letting the Chagossians return to their homeland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chagossians).
The part of this situation that upsets me the most is not the missiles, but what comes along with them - the heavily armed soldiers billeted for up to 2 months.
We have no choice in this, and were informed by a leaflet through the door.
This isn't war time and the Olympics only last for a few weeks. We shouldn't have to have soldiers and weapons in a residential complex!
Wonder how long it'll be before you see a SAM in the local Cash Converters.
Why can't this sort of advocacy (which is important) not take the high ground for once? Fighting FUD with FUD is disgusting.
He points out the ridiculousness of anti air missiles being installed in random flats: it is far more cost effective to be a shit head by triggering those missiles than it is to actually hijack a plane. To my mind, that is therefore a uselessly expensive security countermeasure that puts more lives in danger.
To paraphrase Schneier, security is a trade off, and complete security is impossible at best and mandatory identification and cavity searches at every bus stop at worst. Given the casualties at previous terrorism incidents (Munich, Atlanta are the only ones that come to mind) we're lavishly wasting money. Where do you want it to stop?
The reference to a "High Velocity Missile system" implies that the weapon in question is the Starstreak HVM system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starstreak_%28missile%29). Starstreak is a man-portable weapon, so nothing would need to be "installed" anywhere; it'd be a couple of guys standing on the roof with a Starstreak tube.
> triggering those missiles
As far as I can tell, the only way to "trigger" a Starstreak launch is by physically pressing a button on the launcher, so the risk of remotely triggered launch is pretty low. And even if a terrorist or group of terrorists managed to somehow neutralize the Starstreak operators, seize control of the weapon and launch it, the missile itself is so small it wouldn't really matter; the backblast from the launch is negligible (it has to be, for the missile to be safe to launch from the operator's shoulder), and the warhead is just three darts with around 16 ounces of explosive in each. The terrorists would do more damage if they stole bowling balls and dropped them on people from the roof.
> uselessly expensive
Presumably the Starstreak missiles in question have already been bought by the British army, so the only expense would be the cost of having the guys stand around on the roof all day. And since those guys are soldiers the British government is going to be paying them that day regardless of where they happen to be standing.
Re: doing more damage if they dropped bowling balls from the roof, that's just flat out wrong. For a start, the missiles travel at 2800 miles per hour which is an order of magnitude higher than the terminal velocity of a bowling ball, so the impact alone would be much more damaging. Secondly, the warhead is housed in a tungsten shell which is designed to fragment on impact to maximise damage inside the target. And then there are the explosives as well. The source for all this, by the way, is the wikipedia link you posted.
(1) presumably the airspace over London is going to be pretty thoroughly controlled during the Olympics, reducing the risk; and
(2) if terrorists want to shoot down an airliner with a man-portable air defense system (MANPADS) like Starstreak, there's easier ways for them to get their hands on one than by infiltrating one of the most heavily secured areas in the world and wresting one out of the hands of professional soldiers -- MANPADS have proliferated widely, and can be acquired on the black arms market for a few thousand bucks (see http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/asmp/MANPADS.html).
No, if that was his message, the post would be three words long ("Lunacy on stilts"). This is pure, unfiltered tabloid FUD:
> If one of those things is ever fired, either in anger or by accident, it'll shower white-hot supersonic shrapnel across the extremely crowded residential heart of a city.
As multiple comments courteously point out, that scenario has exactly zero grounding in reality.
Yes that's a sarcastic tone I'm taking. I live in London and the thought of missiles being deployed around my city frightens me a great deal more than the vague possibility of a terrorist attack.
> The real damage comes from the thing you're trying to shoot down; all the missile is going to do is to prevent a lunatic from hitting a stadium, by making it have a near-miss. If that means scores die when a plane hits a tower block, instead of thousands dying when it hits the opening ceremony or 100m final, then it's done it's job.
Now, that doesn't make it any less security theatre, the main component of which is announcing the presence of the missiles loudly, but Stross' article is still pure FUD.
And anyway the British military does not want to be caught with its trousers around its ankles like the USAF on 9-11.
this may sound horrible, but I genuinely hope someone innocent gets injured or killed by the security forces and everyone jumps on it. it's about time it all came to a head.
But when it happens (and it does - see Jean Charles de Menezes) it will be put down to insufficient budgets, manpower, equipment and training. So far from coming to a head, it is perpetuated - bigger budgets, more people and more kit.