Lodamun

[imperialpearl]

Having spent the better half of the previous year conducting numerous tests of the GUARDIAN-missile defence system under varying weather conditions and scenarios as a means of becoming reacquainted with the system, the Strategic Defence Agency (SDA) has concluded its tests and has lifted the safety notice on portions of the Karzon Strait and Mad Dog Ocean. In a rare moment of transparency from the otherwise secretive agency, Director of the SDA Admiral Rodney Gross revealed that compared to other missile defence networks currently deployed throughout Terra, Guardian’s performance was “lacklustre”. At a press conference held at the agency’s headquarters in Newport, Admiral Gross reiterated that the SDA had initiated tests on the air/missile defence system to determine its principal vulnerabilities and to assess the conditions which would likely be ideal for the successful destruction of airborne threats alongside ensuring the crews within the Lodamese Army, Air Force and Commonwealth Guard are acquainted with the system which had been unofficially decommissioned for decades. He noted that the tests of varying weather conditions contributed to the abnormal length of the testing period. Traditionally, missile defence tests are conducted within a week-long period, however, the SDA believed it necessary to test the system’s operations in varying conditions throughout the years including winter/snow, high winds etc. “Although it is possible to tell the system to act as if it were deployed in varying environmental/weather conditions, it was believed that testing in these conditions in the real world was necessary as the simulations may not be capable of predicting every single scenario,” Admiral Gross explained.

On Guardian’s lacklustre performance during the tests, although the Admiral was not forthcoming in providing the broader details surrounding the outcome of the tests and the SDA’s internal assessment, he nonetheless revealed that the system failed to destroy all targets. He explained that the thirteen (13) target drones deployed throughout the tests, each operating within varying altitudes, were made to simulate both aircraft and ballistic missiles. Guardian is being primed as the nation’s all-aspect, all-weather, multi-role air defence system capable of destroying varying targets from aircraft to ballistic missiles. Throughout the tests, Guardian failed to destroy all but one drone, meaning that compared to conventional long-range air defence systems, Guardian Block I has a 92% failure rate. Despite this performance, Admiral Gross stated that there is was expected and that there was certainly room for improvement. “We had always expected the Block I to underperform. It is not up to modern standards and crew proficiency on these systems is at an all-time low. Some are going to take these results as irrefutable evidence as to the superiority of their own platforms and to that we are unbothered. There is a lot of work to be done in transforming this system into what we want it to be,” Gross explained. Already, the Strategic Defence Agency and the Armed Forces Projects Agency, the project leads for the GUARDIAN programme, have contracted International Defence and Harrington Dynamics as long-term partners in improving the system. Some analysts have noted that the introduction of private sector companies points to the fact that the system could make major enhancements in sub-system technologies and potentially a new kill vehicle, however, such claims have not been substantiated.