In the 1990s, the THAAD originally stood for Theater High Altitude Area Defense, but it has changed. Lockheed Martin: “…Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptor to the Missile Defense Agency (MDA). THAAD is a highly effective, combat-proven defense capability against short, medium and intermediate-range ballistic missile threats, and is the only U.S. system designed to intercept targets outside and inside the atmosphere.”
Possibly in exchange for Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu promising not to attack nuclear operations in Iran, on 13OCT2024 U.S. President Joseph Robinette Biden Junior confirmed he deployed the THAAD system to Israel.
Bravo Battery-62nd Air Defense Artillery Regiment, Fort Cavazos (aka Fort Hood), July 2024. U.S. Army photo by Private First Class Josefina Garcia.
Estimated cost (as of 2017): $1.25-Billion per battery (48 missiles, six truck-mounted launchers, a radar, a command-and-control platform, 95 soldiers), $12.6-Million per missile.
THAAD command & control vehicles, Dededo, Guam, 12MAR2024. U.S. Army photo by Major Trevor Wild.
Difference between a rocket and a missile: A ‘missile’ is a guided rocket, a ‘rocket’ has no guidance system.
THAAD launcher somewhere in The Middle East, November 2023. USA photo by Duy Nguyen.
In March 2019, the U.S. Army deployed (supposedly for the first time) a THAAD battery to Israel for a U.S.-Israeli wargame.
Somewhere in the Negev Desert, U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sergeant Cory D. Payne.
THAAD radar units of the U.S. Army’s Bravo Battery-Second Air Defense Artillery Regiment-11th Air Defense Artillery Brigade, Israel, 04MAR2019.
Somewhere in the Negev Desert, USAF photo by Staff Sergeant Cory D. Payne, 05MAR2019.
Fort Bliss, Texas, 23FEB2019. USAF photo by Staff Sergeant Cory D. Payne.
THAAD load-up on C-17 for deployment from Fort Bliss, Texas, 23FEB2019.
Official U.S. Department of Defense music video of 2019 deployment to Israel:
Anderson Air Force Base, Guam. USA photo by Captain Adan Cazarez.
THAAD deployed to Guam, 05FEB2019.
AN/TPY-2 radar on Kwajalein Atoll, 11AUG2012. Photo via U.S. Missile Defense Agency.
The THAAD also uses the Army/Navy TPY-2 radar.
GREAT RENEGER:
TRUMP DEPLOYS THAAD TO ISRAEL
VEHICLE I-D: USAF C-21 LEARJET, YEAR OF THE LEAR
U.S. military took part in the Great Tohoku Earthquake remembrance, 11MAR2019.
Local emergency responders practice casualty evacuation during Pacific Partnership-19, 16MAR2019.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Los Angeles District conducted an earthquake continuity of operations training by simulating an emergency move of their Los Angeles HQ to Pheonix, Arizona. Think about that, the Army Corps of Engineers is prepping for a southern California quake so big that they’ll have to move their HQ out of California! According to the military report, preps for such a scenario began in 2018, as part of a Presidential Directive, Public Law and Corps regulations.
04MAR2019, fast transport ship USNS Brunswick (T-EPF 6) departs Naval Base Guam for Pacific Partnership 2019, the largest annual multinational humanitarian assistance and disaster relief preparedness mission conducted in the Indo-Pacific.
U.S. military/USAID Humanitarian Assistance Response Training conducted 06MAR2019, Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.
On 09MAR2019, more than 120 state militia personnel (National Guard) took part in FEMA Region 9 mass-casualty training: “Det. 1 Hawaii is poised in the middle of the pacific, where we train to respond quickly with a team made up of professional responders. Some of our Airmen are already in the local fire department, police and EMS departments. It makes it easy to just sync right in. So there’s a credibility that we worry less about catching up to the civilian standards, because we come trained, equipped and interoperable with our civilian response partners. We have a small, close knit community in Hawaii, but at the same time, it’s also like we’re one big, extended family always find ways to provide kokua.”-Lieutenant Colonel James Faumuina, 154th Medical Group’s Detachment 1
Idaho Air National Guard, along with local responders, trained for mountain disaster/rescue ops 08MAR2019.
From 07-13MAR2019, the Idaho Army National Guard conducted Idaho Response-19 at Orchard Combat Training Center (aka Orchard Training Area). More than 350 Guard personnel from Idaho, Washington, Montana and Utah took part. Apparently the chemical weapons suits were part of an earthquake simulation in which the earthquake caused an argon gas leak.
Washington National Guard’s 10th Homeland Response Force took part in Idaho Response-19, despite the ‘bad’ weather: “It’s actually good training…because the weather will almost certainly not be ideal if we were called to a real world disaster.”-Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Bugbee
U.S. Coast Guard delivers 18.5 tons of cocaine to Port Everglades, 15NOV2018. The illegal drug was captured off the U.S. Pacific coast.
A UH-60 Blackhawk with Idaho’s 1-183rd Aviation Battalion taxies at Gowen Field, Boise, Idaho, 10FEB2019.
‘Get on the bus!’
‘I see you!’
Gowen Field, Boise, Idaho, 10FEB2019.
Idaho’s 124th Medical Group conducts ‘post chemical attack’ checks of Gowen Field, 10FEB2019.
‘Winter testing’ the 116th Cavalry Brigade Combat Team’s Bradley Fighting Vehicle at Orchard Training Area.
Infantry squad live fire qualifications at Orchard Training Area, 20FEB2019.