
Why Didn’t the US Shoot Down That North Korean Missile? - spking
http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2017/08/why-didnt-us-shoot-down-north-korean-missile/140620/?oref=d-river
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memracom
Likely because they have monitored ever North Korean missile launch and they
know these are ballistic missiles. That means they follow a parabolic
trajectory, and that means that before they go very far, a reasonably accurate
landing zone can be calculated.

The USA and Japan (and China and Russia) likely knew within seconds that it
would land in the sea and they even knew how high it would fly over a low
population area in Japan.

It's like a car full of young punks stopped at a red light beside a police
cruiser and when the light goes green they burn rubber and peel away from the
intersection first, but never exceed the speed limit. Very provocative, but
the police have real crime to deal with, so they ignore it.

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dTal
>It's like a car full of young punks stopped at a red light beside a police
cruiser and when the light goes green they burn rubber and peel away from the
intersection first, but never exceed the speed limit. Very provocative, but
the police have real crime to deal with, so they ignore it.

The punks can be charged with dangerous driving or reckless endangerment.

Testing your ballistic missiles over populated areas is not just
"provocative", it's reckless. One mistake and people die. It's not so much
that it's not a "real crime", it's that [shooting the missile down /
accelerating in front of the car and doing a handbrake turn into its path]
doesn't make anyone safer. You deal with it afterwards.

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oblib
Without reading the article I'll offer it's because it's more important to get
as much data as you can from them while they're in flight and the US military
did shoot one down they launched recently to test the tech they have.

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randcraw
One of the problems with the Patriot missiles used in Iraq was that they often
followed the target scud missile all the way down to the ground before making
contact, thereby causing more civilian destruction than the scud alone,
especially when the scud was also a dud.

Damaging residential communities in the japanese countryside in order to
intercept unarmed missiles from NK would not be smart politics.

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squarefoot
Very likely because in this case what you gain by succeeding is a lot less
than what you lose if you don't.

