Wen Chen <wenc...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in article
<34A7C849.A6A51...@ix.netcom.com>...

Simple physics. Weight more, get more push.

Dan Macgowan AT1 USN-R
MCP (Soon to be MCSE!)
The Predator.
Out hunting.... The most dangerous game.

<Snip about bubbleheads>

Jay

John Lansford

But R&R were not follow-ons to the line that started with Indefatigalbe(?),
the first battle cruiser, and ended with the Cats - they were a completely
new design (well sliced battleships with boilers shoved in and armour left
out :) ). The line ended with the Cats, battle cruisers didn't.

The RN also called Scharnhorst and Gneisnau, as well as the French
Dunkerques "battlecruisers". They weren't though. I still think that
after Renown and Repulse anything that was built outside of true BB
specs was more on the "fast battleship" line than the classic
battlecruiser.

Jay

In article <68eeek$ko...@pyrite.mv.net>, David Winslow
<Da...@Winslow.mv.com> writes

All of them range from the partially correct (Gen Partin) to the
completely speculative (sub-launched SAMs, shallow-water submarines) or
outright and provably wrong (Rivero).

However, these are seized upon and advanced as certain truths, until
their faults are shown: the response to that is usually silence.

They reappear later, where someone else has read the (uncorrected)
original on a website, and have to be refuted again. And again...

Max's actions constituted either defamation or libel (depends how the
courts choose to define Usenet, there hasn't been an appropriate case)
and I'm tempted to call him on it. He's failed to either support or
retract his accusations, and has retreated into silence.

I could say "who's using a broad brush now?" There have been mistakes,
discourtesy and outright rudeness from both sides.

The Navy says there were no missiles fired at or near Flight 800. Are
they lying or not?

Pardon my irritation, David, but this is the crux of my frustration. The
notion of testing a totally classified weapon system (one so secret that
even its development funding has been hidden) under a civil air route,
with "longstop" for the weapon being in an uncontrolled yet inhabited
area (resulting in the missile levelling a house or three with the
occupants inside, and/or the weapon wreckage appearing on the six
o'clock news) is so bizarre and Byzantine that it cannot be assumed, and
_must_ somehow be explained.

As has been said before, it's akin to siting a firing range across a
busy city street, in order to familiarise shooters with crowded urban
environments. It's safer and more effective by far to simulate: drones
can be programmed to crowd into the engagement zone, to manoevre in the
most inconvenient manner possible, and to provide a far more exacting
test environment than an air route could.

We can surmise a great deal about its parameters: it's a medium-range
missile (because it was still in boost at impact), thus it's large (over
half a ton) and fast.

It's submarine-launched, since there was no other launch platform in the
area and the majority of witness testimony describe a "rising" point or
streak of light or smoke.

Its guidance system is neither radar nor IR-based: perhaps command or
laser (beamrider or semiactive), but that rather negates the point of a
medium-range missile (the guidance provided a dead-centre hit, which is
difficult to achieve on a 747 by radar or IR). Millimetre-wave terminal
active homing is a possibility, but of dubious benefit: it's too short-
ranged for the high speeds of an antiaircraft missile.

It would appear to have been a non-warshot missile (no warhead), since
there's no evident warhead damage, and thus the scenario calls for the
missile to dead-centre hit the airliner and ignite the centreline tank
in passing, without leaving any identifiable remains behind.

The above fits no existing US missile. The nearest weapon I can find to
match this, is the Russian Buk-1M, NATO code SA-11 / SA-N-7, which has
never even been alleged to be submarine launched.

Now, where's any equivalent contribution from the missile theorists? One
that's based on checkable fact, rather than requiring assorted unknown
classified systems? We've been awaiting one for over a year.

--
There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable and
praiseworthy...            

In article <wUdu4MATL+q0E...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk>, p...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk
says...

The 100 feet of water has often been forwarded as a stumbling block to the sub
launched SAM theory. I have recently seen information about new mini-subs to
be used for localized close to shore operations. I have also seen news shots
of what look to be nuclear attack class subs putting to sea with a fairly
large object resembling a mini-sub attached piggy-back. I suspect these new
mini-subs can easily operate in 100 feet of water. Are you familiar with these
developments?

Thank you gentlemen,

In article <68jfl8$h...@ruby.digisys.net>, s...@spam.note.below.com says...

To the best of my knowledge the only subs  *rumoured* to be capable of SAM
launch are owned by the FSU and I dont think any were in the vicinity at the time

 Why dont you take your head outta your arse and look at things... a missile
launch is not an "everyday* occurrance.... the notice to mariners has to go
out...the flight safety has to be posted ....the FAA has to be informed .... The
Range clear has to be declared ...both by radar and visually... so tell me.....
do you see your conspiracy theory evaporating?...
I do....actually I never really saw one....

get a life

In article <68jfl8$h...@ruby.digisys.net>, Ron May
<s...@spam.note.below.com> writes

One point to note: continuous-rod warheads are only employed on the
larger missiles (SA-2 Guideline, Sea Dart, early Sparrows, are
examples). If Partin's correct, you're looking at a missile of 500lb or
greater launch weight.

Again, though, this fails a credibility test. You're looking at a
minisubmarine, which is inherently limited in range, speed, sensors and
payload. It's carrying a large, medium-range SAM, designed for submarine
launch: yet it has nowhere to carry the communications gear and sensors
needed to make use of such a weapon. What purpose is this object meant
to serve? Covert air defence of CONUS?

It certainly can't travel beyond the US coast alone, and tying it to a
mothership seems pointless: since the witness statements, if assumed to
be a missile, point to a weapon of considerable range, why not just sit
further offshore and fire from there from a Sturgeon-class SSN, rather
than have said SSN tow a minisub across an ocean? The SSN has better
sensors, better comms, and a much larger bomblocker, so can carry many
more weapons and employ them far more effectively than the minisub.

(Minisubs have their uses, as North Korea tried to demonstrate last
year, but they have severe limitations too; ask any Biber or Kaiten
crews during WW2).

There's also the problem that no such platform is currently known to be
in service with the USN, let alone be qualified to launch the also-
unknown sub-launched SAM: thus widening yet further the circle of
individuals required to keep silence as part of the coverup by adding
everyone involved in the design, production, acceptance and maintenance
of said minisub.

I can recommend as a good introduction to weapons technology, Norman
Friedman's "US Naval Weapons". My copy was published by the Naval
Institute Press, and the ISBN is 0-87021-735-6. It's a good book, and
contains a great deal of information about - for instance - the history,
development and technology of US surface-to-air missile systems.

There's no shortage of books covering guided weapon technology, anyway,
and I'd recommend acquiring at least a working knowledge of anti-
aircraft missiles: it lets you spot when you're getting duff info,
whether by accident or design.

That's my complaint, in a lot of ways: what, exactly, is the Navy
accused of? "Shooting down an airliner with a missile" is an incredibly
broad charge, and very hard to coherently argue against.  

The eyewitness testimony is the reason a missile can't be dismissed
outright: but it also, when pressed to point to a missile, demands a
great many things that are currently unknown. Neither any missile, nor
any launch platform, are in the public domain, and for them to be
developed to the stage of field testing in secrecy is extremely unusual
for the US (even for the UK: it's necessary to build support for a
project. Secret ones are the easiest to cut in a budget squeeze).

There's a lot of air, and only a little airliner, when you draw that
sort of circle around each engine; centre the compass on each engine in
turn, put the pencil point in the CFT, and see how much of the circle is
in empty air.

Not definitive, true, but not to be ignored either.

The individual flaws aren't showstoppers. But when we have to accept a
new and secret missile, a new and secret launch platform, extreme
incompetence and stupidty in the trials planning department, an
extraordinarly lucky dead-centre hit, and an unprecedentedly successful
coverup, all in order to make the missile theory work... you see where
some have problems swallowing all this whole without some more evidence?