MEADS Test

regarding funding,
Strange, I thought that this project would be very important. My understanding it will have a significantly better performance against VLO platforms

VLO works against all radars, both friendly and adversary. VLO systems’ ability to suppress RF returns are better than radar systems capability for detecting them. The physics of how receivers work and the self-generated noise of those radars keeps the VLO RF return below the detection threshold for a given power density. It would take a radically different approach to improve the detection/tracking radius against VLO, and nobody has a system which is capable of that feat. Until that new technology miracle occurs, MEADS/Patriot/AEGIS are just as blind as S-300/MQ-9/S-400.

Not a claim that I have ever heard from the MEADS team. Their main selling points have always been that the system is much more mobile than Patriot, requires less manpower than Patriot (the US Army cannot man all of its existing Patriot systems), and can cope with threats approaching from any direction (useful when countering cruise missile threats).

regarding funding,
Strange, I thought that this project would be very important. My understanding it will have a significantly better performance against VLO platforms

The budget in question is for Fiscal Year 2014, which began on October 1, 2013 and ends on September 30, 2014. But in the case of MEADS, the final tranche of US funding was signed into law on 26 March 2013, and will be enough to complete the current D&D phase of the programme. Had this not been done, the US would have been liable for cancellation fees of a magnitude approaching that of the planned US contribution to the final year of D&D.

The MEADS flight test programme has already been completed, having ended with trial FT-2 in November. All that remains to be done are a non-firing system demonstration intended to demonstrate the ability of MEADS to be integrated with other assets such as non-MEADS sensors, and a study of potential ‘engage on remote’ operation.

So it looks like the only significant phase of US involvement that that Congress has now affected might be the process of ‘harvesting’ being done to redirect relevant MEADS technology into other US weapon systems. Limiting this would be a short-sighted move, recalling to mind Mark Twain’s quip – “Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.”

U.S. Blocks Funding for Lockheed MEADS Program

I did not see this when it was first posted. The last five days were busy even without the distractions of a missile conference in Paris.

It is a nice video. Three missiles fired – both targets downed. A textbook engagement that went exactly as planned.