clumsy interceptors, ultraslow computers, and ineffective defensives = SHADO '80

Hi everyone,

I finally got a chance to write again as it has been a very busy
week for me. I would like to expand on several things that were
brought up in previous posts, while pointing out critical flaws in
the thinking for UFO. I know, that as an adult you have to suspend
belief in much, but there are things which could have been (from a
1969-70 standpoint) much better.

1. SHADO organization. SHADO is tasked to defend the planet, and
in effect the entire human species, from extraterrestial attack. I
would imagine that facing immenent attack from outer space, that
things as money, resources, and talent would NOT be an issue. More
over I think it is a matter in that case of unlimited resources
being tasked on a global scale.

Considering that when the show was filmed in 1969-70, it was the
height of the Cold War - but still, why was there no Soviet
participation in SHADO as SHADO's scope is global? Think of how
intersting it would have been with a few Russian, Polish, Chinese,
East German, and other Com-block operatives. Would SHADO air and
space craft have been attacked if flown over Com-Block countries?

The SHADO HQ is puny in comparison to the NORAD facility, although
the location is very thoughtful and surprising. SHADO should have
have many command centers answering to a central HQ in true military
fashion.

2. SHADO COMMAND & CONTROL - the SID platform. Why, WHY I ask is
SID in Earth orbit at all? Or orbiting any plant for that matter? I
imagine this was done (Earth Orbit) as to provide a visually
stimulating background. Fair enough - this is a television show.
But now for a bit of critical thought. SID should only the SECOND
line of defense against incoming UFOs. SID, actually a giant
grouping of SIDs in Solar orbit between the orbits of Say Earth and
Mars, (Earth and Venus respectively) at spaced intervals of say a 1
to 2 million KM would be needed to provide critical tracking
information - IF, and only if *suspend belief here* a faster than
light vehicle could infact be detected even by the Utronics beam
which travels nearly instanteniously. Perhaps a thousand SIDs would
do the job.

The first line of defense would be a gigantic minefield with
thermonuclear mines with proximity detonators timed that at super-
light speeds (provided that is not faster than the Utronics beam)
the mine would detonate as the UFO passed.

3. SHADO's clusmy interceptors. The interceptors could be useful
to provide a shift and flexability in operations against areas where
other weapons platforms are not avalible. What would be far more
effective would have been SIDs armed with ripple launched missiles
fitted with nuclear or thermonuclear warheads. You would in effect
spray them into the path of the incoming target. Also, why was
there no provision made for beam weapons on the Moon, or on SID, or
on other spaceborne platforms? Even in 1969 the notion of lasers,
masers, particle beams was not only known - but for the most part
reality. Further, even if these enhansments had been sucessfully
implimented - the slow computers of the era (as depicted) would
perhaps not been fast enough to provide the realtime data needed.

4. Mission to the Alien homeworld. Why was only a probe sent? Why
not thousands of nuclear weapons - or a single Cobalt /
thermonuclear weapon which would have burned away the atmosphere
finishing much of the threat?

I hope I haven't offended anyone with my musings on UFO as I am a
fan of the show.

Hugs,
Tasha :-)

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Tasha;

The more I hear from you, the more I like you.

Ideally, SHADO should be tied into the armed forces of many of the
world's nations, especially the United States. With our aircraft carriers,
we could have air units capable of interceptions deployed all over the
world.
Ideally, if all the military were openly involved in it, humanity would
be much more able to deal with a global alien threat, than just by using 3
space ships and a single submarine/airplane combination.

But even if all the military wasn't clued into it, certain elite units
deployed within it, like special forces type outfits or personnel, could
assume temporary authority and direct the use of our regular military assets
in the event of a UFO alert.

How is SkyDiver supposed to deal with a UFO coming down over Guam when
it is offshore of southern England?

Two or three aircraft, with specialized pilots attached to SHADO,
stationed on every U.S., British, French, and Russian aircraft carrier could
provide much better global air coverage, even if the rest of the ship's
complement, including the Captain and regular staff officers, weren't clued
in to their real purpose. They would train, fly, and serve like normal with
the other squadron members, but have special authority, and special duties,
backed up from the highest levels of the hierarchy, for special duty during
a UFO alert in their theatre of coverage. Give them cover stories as CIA
pilots, thus people won't get too nosey even though they don't always look
and behave quite right being there.
Same goes for airbases.
Navy submarines could cover the ocean depths with one special officer on
each sub, authorized to detour the sub on UFO situations. Again, the regular
crew might not know exactly what they are doing, but tell them it's top
secret CIA type stuff, and they'll just follow orders.
Army and Air Force units could tote around other specialized units to
deal with landings, like the SHADO mobiles do.

Not sure about the millions of thermonuke minefield idea; seems awful
risky and too prone to being turned against us - imagine them aliens rigging
some of them and then slinging them back down on top of us again....
thermonuclear carpetbombing.
Plus the UFO's would have to fly past them in order for them to be
effective, too passive.

A giant array of space based high powered beam weapons seems the best
defense, steered and aimed by radar controlled computers. You fan-spray with
these out in the path of the incoming UFOs, kind of like a vietnamese
peasant shooting up at a passing fighterbomber with his shotgun and bringing
it down.
Takes the romance out of using manned interceptors out in space, but
it's much more effective.

Dave H.

--- In [hidden email], "davrecon" <davrecon@n...> wrote:>
> Tasha;
>
> The more I hear from you, the more I like you.
>
> Ideally, SHADO should be tied into the armed forces of many of
the
> world's nations, especially the United States. With our aircraft
carriers,
> we could have air units capable of interceptions deployed all over
the
> world.
> Ideally, if all the military were openly involved in it,
humanity would
> be much more able to deal with a global alien threat, than just by
using 3
> space ships and a single submarine/airplane combination........>
> >

Two or three aircraft, with specialized pilots attached to
SHADO,
> stationed on every U.S., British, French, and Russian aircraft
carrier could
> provide much better global air coverage, even if the rest of the
ship's
> complement, including the Captain and regular staff officers,
weren't clued
> in to their real purpose. ....

Not sure about the millions of thermonuke minefield idea; seems awful
> risky and too prone to being turned against us - imagine them
aliens rigging
> some of them and then slinging them back down on top of us
again....
> thermonuclear carpetbombing.
> Plus the UFO's would have to fly past them in order for them
to be
> effective, too passive.....
>
> A giant array of space based high powered beam weapons seems
the best
> defense, steered and aimed by radar controlled computers. You fan-
spray with
> these out in the path of the incoming UFOs, kind of like a
vietnamese
> peasant shooting up at a passing fighterbomber with his shotgun
and bringing
> it down.
> Takes the romance out of using manned interceptors out in
space, but
> it's much more effective.
>
> Dave H.

Hi Dave,

Thank you for the kind words. I never thought of a handful of
Officers knowning etc. It might be more plausable, that NO ONE
knows until alerted by a coded message. The Captain, or Commander
then goes to a safe and breaks sealed orders instructing him on what
action needs to be taken. So what if a few pilots talk about seeing
UFO's and attacking them - who whould believe their fantastic
stories? Doesn't that sound remotely familiar?

Lets speak of Skydiver. My Stepfather is a retired Phantom driver
and he pointed out something very interesting to me recently that I
never really thought about. Skydivers weapons are fin-folding
UNGUIDED rockets! I guess you cannot blame the Anderson's for the
lack of forethought as I am told that such weapons were in common
usage during the late 1960's. Would not have a Sparrow; or
Sidewinder; or their Russian, British, French, or Chinese
equivelents; been more effective than the scatter method?

Also his critical eye caught something else that I completely
missed: "that plane (Skydiver) is less aerodynamic than the F-4."
He also, if affectionately, refers to the F-4 Phantom as: "A brick
with wings"; "A plane with a vertical glideslope"; and "built like
THE brick factory".

What is interesting is that at certain altiudes, the Phantom could
(and still does for those very few remaining in serivce) fly at
speeds that would outdistance a rifle bullet. Perhaps Skydiver can
do so as well, but nowhere are the huge and afterburning engines
seen that propelled the Phantom.

---- IT'S A TELEVISION SHOW!!!! ---- I know :-)

Minefield idea:

If the aliens wanted to destroy Earth with Thermonuclear (or other)
weapons they would have. So flinging remote detonated thermonuclear
mines at Earth is an unlikely senario; especially if these mines
could be triggered during transport by SHADO, or would have
automatically triggered themselves during the approach of the UFO to
collect them.

As a defensive weapon, at least in my humble opinion (regardless of
the consideration of the morality of using mine warfare), it is
massively effective. Especially if the mine is not always armed -
but selectively armed.

I have read recently about work on EM barriers; similar to force
fields and shields used by so many science fiction films. If you
could errect those in the path of the UFO to slow it down perhaps -
then spray it with a barrage of beam and guided weapons.

GOLDEN BB method:

The spraying indiscriminately into the sky ordinance is extremely
wasteful and TOTALLY ineffective.

How many fighter-bombers where shot down over Vietnam by peasents
armed with rifles and shotguns? Answer = 0

How many fighter-bombers were shotdown over Iraq by peasents armed
with rifles and shotguns? Answer = 0

How many fighter-bombers where shotdown during the Second World War
by peasents armed with rifles and shotguns? Answer = 0 (but I will
add that there could have been a few as the speed of the aircraft
would have been low enough to permit this in certain EXTREME cases)

According to my Father.. he was never really worried about the guy
with a rifle on the ground. But the guy with the radar aimed AA
cannon or the surface-to-air missile.

Hugs,
Tasha :-)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Natasha Bell" <[hidden email]>
To: <[hidden email]>
Sent: Saturday, February 14, 2004 10:26 PM
Subject: [SHADO] Re: clumsy interceptors, ultraslow computers, and
ineffective defensives = SHADO '80





----------------------------------------------------------



Maybe your sources are better than mine, but I've long heard anecdotal
and documentary evidence of low flying attack planes suffering from ground
fire (maybe they didn't go down though).
Maybe it was a *concentration* of small arms fire from the ground.
Maybe it was all myth.
It'd be a hard belief for me to let go of....

My vision of the SHADO pilots on the carriers is, they are alerted by a
coded message through the CIC. The ship's D.O. then alerts the two pilots.
All he knows is that they have to scramble. The pilots themselves are
regular SHADO guys like Carlin or Foster with full knowledge. Their jets are
loaded up and they fly off, do the interception using SID's guidance, then
return to base, claiming they were chasing some obscure intelligence target.
They don't answer too many questions, everybody just accepts that they're
spooks, and knows not to press the issue.
Other than that, they hang and train with the other guys like normal
Navy pilots.

Skydiver's blocky aerodynamics has been beaten to death on this list.
It's cleaved rear end has even more turbulent boattail drag than your
daddy's F-4. The only way I could see it being supersonic is at very high
altitudes, and even then, the wing and tail layout moment arms are simply
too short for effective stability and control, even in my opinion, if a fly
by wire system were used.
We never see in the show just exactly what kind of rockets Sky 1 has in
those pods. Carlin only seems to shoot one or maybe two at a time. I've
never seen him shoot a barrage (sp???).

Personally, I would favor that beam weapon defense.

Think about this with the minefield idea - In order to obtain effective
coverage, you would need a solid 3D spherical sheild of
them completely surrounding the Earth, and at quite a distance. They would
have to be densely packed enough to only have, perhaps, a few dozen miles
between any two of them. Coordinating the orbits of so many of these
individual thermonuclear devices in an orbital cloud like that would be an
absolute nightmare. The collision potential is so tremendous.
Then there would be the sheer number of bombs necessary. Millions! Is
there even enough nuclear material available to make all of them?
Tremendously expensive. No wonder poor Henderson gripes about the budget.
Then there is the navigation hazard.
Next, even if that problem could be dealt with - every time a passing
UFO set one of them off, the shrapnel released and sent continuously
orbiting around the Earth would be utterly chaotic. We ourselves would be
imprisoned on Earth as all of our space vehicles and satellites would be at
risk of bombardment, especially as more and more of these things went off.
Eventually our space tracking satellites, and the other bombs, would be
taken out by our own defenses leaving us utterly blind and helpless against
the Aliens..... :-0
Even a fleck of paint, strand of wire, or liquid droplet striking a
vehicle at thousands of miles per hour is quite destructive, and there would
be millions of these out there in no time.

I would be so nervous leaving all those nukes out there for those guys
to hijack, even if they wanted to preserve us for organ harvesting. Who's to
say they wouldn't round them up and then use them for blackmail? Surrender
or be nuclear carpet bombed.....or lose a city a day until you agree. I
think Earth might choose the route of subjugation over total extinction. But
then, maybe I'm wrong.
I just wouldn't want to leave that possibility out there.

cheers;
Dave H.

--- In [hidden email], "davrecon" <davrecon@n...> wrote:
>> Eventually our space tracking satellites, and the other bombs,
would be
> taken out by our own defenses leaving us utterly blind and
helpless against
> the Aliens..... :-0
>

Hi Dave,

Well you have me there. That is a very good point, and the flaw to
my minefield idea. You're absolutely right here, the more I think
about it. Gosh, I hate to admit when I'm wrong. I was invisioning
the minefield to be something like a shell in deep space.

Okay, then how about this - and requiring a tiny fraction of the
weapons. Thermonuclear homing mines in Solar orbit. When a UFO is
sighted by the constellation of SIDs, SHADO HQ directs several of
these weapons to fly into the flight path of the UFO and detonate
only if in proximity to the UFO.

Then come your beam defenses! Followed by the interceptors, and then
the terror of what is launched from Earth.

But if our defenses are taken out by our own weapons... I'm coming
to stay at your home :-O

Hugs,
Tasha :-)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Natasha Bell" <[hidden email]>
To: <[hidden email]>
Sent: Monday, February 16, 2004 9:01 PM
Subject: [SHADO] Re: clumsy interceptors, ultraslow computers, and
ineffective defensives = SHADO '80




> Okay, then how about this - and requiring a tiny fraction of the
> weapons. Thermonuclear homing mines in Solar orbit. When a UFO is
> sighted by the constellation of SIDs, SHADO HQ directs several of
> these weapons to fly into the flight path of the UFO and detonate
> only if in proximity to the UFO.
>


-----------------------------------------------------



That's certainly better than passive mines. But why scatter them so far
out? Again, they are far away and vulnerable to sabotage. Also, it takes a
lot of energy/fuel to kick a mine halfway across the solar system to place
it in front of an incoming UFO, especially if it happens to be moving FTL.
There is a lot of empty space to approach Earth through, from any particular
direction....

Make it simpler, place them all right where you know all the UFO's
will go, right around the Earth. Even then though, they would have to be
fantastically fast moving mines, probably more of a large intercept missile.
Try basing them out of a James Gibbon style set of medium altitude Earth
orbiting platforms. Kind of like orbiting ballistic missile bases.
You could put all those beam weapons on those platforms as well, and
hose off the UFOs with them as they come in.....just don't hit your own
missile you also sent out there.

If they were scattered all around the solar system, they'd be nothing
more than an occasional surprise annoyance to the inbound aliens, rather
than an effective tactical defense, don't you think? Could be thought of as
a pscychological impediment though, if the aliens could be effected by such
things....
But then still, they are still so far out and vulnerable to hijacking.
That's a real sleep depriver.

cheers;
Dave H.