I've seen some dumb DOD projects, but this 1 is at the top of the list

[Nash]

"........... and BOOM!..... ladies and gentlemen, that's how we get her done. Thank you for your time."

I can't imagine how this presentation not only passed the very first round, but ended up as an initiative so fully formed as to seek congress' approval for the funding of it.

"Uhm....  How would other nations differentiate this conventional attack from a nuclear attack?"

d'Oh!

It's such an obvious question. A bonafide show stopper!

How could this not have been asked long before you and I even heard of it?

[john9001]

Originally posted by Nash
[BI"Uhm....  How would other nations differentiate this conventional attack from a nuclear attack?"

 [/B]

what other nations do you speak? you presume the USA is going to attack the whole world.

but to answer your question, the USA would inform CNN that the missiles were  not nukes and CNN would tell the world the breaking news in 2 minutes.

[Chairboy]

...and the guys in the target building would go outside.  Just a few hundred feet should be fine, easy with 15 minutes notice, and the conventional warheads don't get 'em.  Well done.

[ChickenHawk]

How quickly people forget about the cold war.  We used to live with the knowledge that any moment, life could be snuffed out for millions and millions and for those who were unlucky enough to survive, life on earth would never be the same.

Between the US, Russia and former Soviet states, we still have enough nuclear missiles to make that a reality.  One conventional warhead mistaken for a nuclear warhead could be the start of a very bad day.

[Seagoon]

Yeah, I know the theory is that we can immediately react to a situation anywhere in the world with an unmanned system that none of the probable targets can defend against, but I still see three colossal drawbacks:

1) The "lets warn everyone in the world, except the loonies in the target country, prior to the the launch" problem.  Of course the loonies won't find out, because no one in China or Russia who is supplying them with arms will bother to make a cell-phone call to their customers in advance of the strike. Nah...

2) Forgive me for asking this, but don't ICBMs cost around 60 million each to produce? Admittedly that is the cost of the Nuclear armed variety, but do we really want to pay astronomical costs to pop one (possibly empty) building or terrorist training camp?

3) The UAV/Hellfire or B-2 with JDAMs advantage is that you can actually monitor the target and then choose to engage or to recall. Once an ICBM is sent off you are committed to eithering going through with the strike or having launched what becomes a very expensive bottle rocket.

BTW - What kind of conventional payload would they have? You'd probably have one big payload rather than several MRVs if it was conventional. Either way the bucks to bang ratio isn't going to be very good.

- SEAGOON

[LePaul]

I dunno...one big mushroom cloud sure makes the bad guys think twice....and unless they are wearing something SPF 9,000, they are gonna have a really bad day