Hi!
I was looking up articles about counter ICBM measures for the last twenty minutes and they described existing efforts to consist of a detection system and counter missiles they use to try to hit the incoming missile and destroy it with the impact. The primary difficulty according to these articles is as the speed of the ICBM making it extremely hard to hit. I'm a complete layman who spent about five minutes on the problem, so I assume that the idea I came up with is completely infeasible and ludicruous, but I'm curious as to the science of why. Think of it as a thought experiment.
I'm making the following assumption: since the currently developed method is being tested in practice, it is possible to get kinda close to the target's trajectory.
The idea: instead of trying to hit the ICBM directly, scatter a cloud of matter in its path, let's say each particle being a 0.5 cm diameter disc bent to add air resistance, made from a high density metal. The location of the cloud wouldn't have to be impecably precise, as it would cover a larger area, the timing wouldn't have to be down to the prepostorouseth decimal digits since the cloud can be spread over time and it's density in the critical location changes in the order of magnitude of seconds. In essence this would turn the incoming missile's speed from a hinderance to an asset in destroying it before it hits its target.
Example with completely made up numbers: the detection systems picked up the ICBM and they calculate that it will pass through an area anywhere between time x seconds and x+1 seconds. The counter device, not necessarily a rocket, is launched. It begins shooting out the cloud at x-0.3 seconds, safely saturating the area (taking into account present wind conditions if within the atmosphere) by x, and keeps shooting metal until x + 0.5 seconds. For the remaining half a second the cloud is descending due to gravity and thinning out due to turbulence and wind, but maintaining a critical density long enough to last for until x+1. Somewhere within the time window the ICBM arrives, finding itself traveling at over 6000 km/s, being of several tons of weight and (I assume) carrying no armor plating and flies into a cloud of tens of thousands of few grams heavy, dense particles, which under these conditions shred it up, rendering it inoperable and if not completely destroying it, forcing it off course at the same time. The particles then keep falling to the ground at terminal velocity (low due to their shape), harmlessly landing to be sweapt up by whoever comes across them.
Obviously there's the danger that if the missile carried a nuclear warhead the radioactive matter would also land spread around under the impact site, but the same is true for the conventional method and while the initial path of the ICBM is set and there are limitations due to the time it takes to calculate it's path, the launch site and speed of the counter device and potentially wind conditions, there is still a degree of control over the area where it is taken down.
So, why is this stupid? Thoughts?
zoliking
