Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
El Paso Times
May 29, 2008
Pg. 1B
By Chris Roberts, El Paso Times
When Pvt. James Raber arrived at Fort Bliss in mid-December to join the Army's first Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile unit, he still wasn't sure it was for real.
"We were wondering whe ther the unit was going to activate," Raber said Wednesday, after Alpha Battery of the 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment unfurled its colors, becoming the first unit built around the new $11 billion THAAD missile system.
Raber wasn't the only one wondering.
The system faced funding cuts in the 1990s when it missed targets during test firings. But after a redesign, THAAD has been consistently successful -- so successful that the Army recently added two more batteries to its original plans, which called for four batteries.
The first two batteries, of which Alpha Battery is one, will be located at Fort Bliss and are part of an air defense brigade scheduled to stay here when the school moves to Fort Sill, Okla.
"You all are making history; you're not just reading about it," Col. Heidi Brown, Fort Bliss deputy commander and assistant commandant of the air defense artillery school and center, told the battery's 80 soldiers during the ceremony. Ultimately, the battery will have about 100 soldiers.
The system is "bullet-on-bullet," which means it is designed to destroy its target -- as far away as the outer edge of Earth's atmosphere -- in a high-speed collision.
The impact releases so much energy that it can destroy nuclear, chemical and biological material in the attacking missile's payload, officials said, and anything that survives would probably burn up in the atmosphere before reaching the ground.
It will be part of what the Army calls a "layered" missile defense shield, which also includes the Patriot missile system.
Alpha Battery should have a full set of equipment by 2009, Lamb said. The battery will be deployable in late 2010 after an Army board certifies that all the systems are safe and effective, he said.
The system is so new that both Raber and Pfc. Shawn Woodard received their advanced training as Patriot crewmen. Now they are completing their THAAD training.
Woodard, a THAAD fire control operator and maintainer, said the system is very different from the Patriot, and updated in just about everything, including ergonomics. "I don't have to hit my head on the ceiling (of the fire control trailer) anymore," he said.
May 29, 2008
Pg. 1B
By Chris Roberts, El Paso Times
When Pvt. James Raber arrived at Fort Bliss in mid-December to join the Army's first Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile unit, he still wasn't sure it was for real.
"We were wondering whe ther the unit was going to activate," Raber said Wednesday, after Alpha Battery of the 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment unfurled its colors, becoming the first unit built around the new $11 billion THAAD missile system.
Raber wasn't the only one wondering.
The system faced funding cuts in the 1990s when it missed targets during test firings. But after a redesign, THAAD has been consistently successful -- so successful that the Army recently added two more batteries to its original plans, which called for four batteries.
The first two batteries, of which Alpha Battery is one, will be located at Fort Bliss and are part of an air defense brigade scheduled to stay here when the school moves to Fort Sill, Okla.
"You all are making history; you're not just reading about it," Col. Heidi Brown, Fort Bliss deputy commander and assistant commandant of the air defense artillery school and center, told the battery's 80 soldiers during the ceremony. Ultimately, the battery will have about 100 soldiers.
The system is "bullet-on-bullet," which means it is designed to destroy its target -- as far away as the outer edge of Earth's atmosphere -- in a high-speed collision.
The impact releases so much energy that it can destroy nuclear, chemical and biological material in the attacking missile's payload, officials said, and anything that survives would probably burn up in the atmosphere before reaching the ground.
It will be part of what the Army calls a "layered" missile defense shield, which also includes the Patriot missile system.
Alpha Battery should have a full set of equipment by 2009, Lamb said. The battery will be deployable in late 2010 after an Army board certifies that all the systems are safe and effective, he said.
The system is so new that both Raber and Pfc. Shawn Woodard received their advanced training as Patriot crewmen. Now they are completing their THAAD training.
Woodard, a THAAD fire control operator and maintainer, said the system is very different from the Patriot, and updated in just about everything, including ergonomics. "I don't have to hit my head on the ceiling (of the fire control trailer) anymore," he said.
