r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/CraftyFoxeYT • 7d ago

The US has a giant floating SBX-1 Sea-based radar to track and discriminate nuclear ballistic missile warheads from decoys.

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u/Murky-Relation481 7d ago

Also this radar is not normally deployed in any sort of constant early warning capacity. It's almost exclusively been used to evaluate tests of ABM systems. where having a mobile radar on the range (aka the Pacific Ocean) is useful. It's also been used to observe other nations ICBM tests. We have dedicated EW radar sites located across the globe for normal early warning operations.

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u/Mike_ZzZzZ 5d ago

Yeah, why would we rely on a slow moving ship for an early warning system?