Trump is probably nettled about Russia’s claim to have tested a long-range, nuclear-powered cruise missile, the Burevestnik
Let me tell you a little story about an American missile called the “snark.”
The name was the sort of joke that weapons engineers like to make. It was supposed to navigate itself autonomously to its target in the Soviet Union by watching the stars. It did not have horizontal stabilizers, and flew itself pointed in a weird nose-up attitude the entire way. Once it arrived at its destination, it was supposed to detach the warhead and then pull up violently in order not to get in the warhead’s way, which caused it to break apart in flight. They said with a straight face that the falling debris would help to confuse enemy radar, as if this had been a purposeful design element rather than something that they weren’t bothering to fix.
It did not do its navigation very well. One of the strategic bomber pilots was quoted as saying that he felt a hell of a lot better about flying his bomber knowing that the plan was for a bunch of these things to be wandering aimlessly above Asia and distracting everyone’s attention from what his bomber was up to.
Anyway, they tried it in about 1961, and it sucked so they stopped. And I think the US in 1961 was in a lot better position than modern Russia to do these kinds of things effectively.
Just a little story to distract everyone from the horror of Trump and what he is doing
Let me tell you a little story about an American missile called the “snark.”
The name was the sort of joke that weapons engineers like to make. It was supposed to navigate itself autonomously to its target in the Soviet Union by watching the stars. It did not have horizontal stabilizers, and flew itself pointed in a weird nose-up attitude the entire way. Once it arrived at its destination, it was supposed to detach the warhead and then pull up violently in order not to get in the warhead’s way, which caused it to break apart in flight. They said with a straight face that the falling debris would help to confuse enemy radar, as if this had been a purposeful design element rather than something that they weren’t bothering to fix.
It did not do its navigation very well. One of the strategic bomber pilots was quoted as saying that he felt a hell of a lot better about flying his bomber knowing that the plan was for a bunch of these things to be wandering aimlessly above Asia and distracting everyone’s attention from what his bomber was up to.
Anyway, they tried it in about 1961, and it sucked so they stopped. And I think the US in 1961 was in a lot better position than modern Russia to do these kinds of things effectively.
Just a little story to distract everyone from the horror of Trump and what he is doing