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Title: MEDUSA: A concept for countering multiple targets from theater ballistic missiles. Final report

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/10173238· OSTI ID:10173238

We feel that the concept of intercepting a fractionated threat from a tactical ballistic missile is potentially feasible and would have very high payoff for the defense. Many other concepts have been suggested to solve this problem, although they have mostly been more futuristic approaches, e.g. aircrafty based lasers. We also believe that current technologies are not likely to be adequate for the expected types of very small submunition payloads, especially in the presence of relatively simple countermeasures. The MEDUSA concept, or its clones, may very well provide a vehicle for the study of less stressing threats, e.g. separating warheads and provide a lethality enhancement for non-deployed payloads. An opportunity also exists to investigate alternative technologies, such as the explosively-formed ``disk`` idea. The use of high-precision, limited field-of-view sensor-fuzed munitions is a subject of interest in other Defense Department programs and may have application to the important area of theater missile defense.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
DOE Contract Number:
W-7405-ENG-48
OSTI ID:
10173238
Report Number(s):
UCRL-ID-118200; ON: DE94016634
Resource Relation:
Other Information: PBD: Apr 1994
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English