Lodamun

[imperialpearl]

Amidst decades of false starts, the Strategic Defence Agency (SDA) announced that it had obtained approval from the Department of Defence to begin work on a new radar platform which could enhance Lodamun’s current efforts towards information dominance, especially in the anti-ballistic missile domain. In a press statement issued earlier this morning, SDA Director Admiral Sean Howell confirmed that following an in-depth meeting with the Secretary of the Navy, wherein the supposed benefits of a sea-based radar system for ballistic missile tracking had been discussed, final approval for the provision of a mobile offshore platform had been granted. For the better part of the SDA’s early existence, the agency has continuously lobbied both the Department of Defence and Whitehall for their approval for a mobile radar platform, which, when fully deployed, would allow for greater accuracy with respect to tracking ballistic missile threats and other airborne targets. The development comes as part of the agency’s broader goals and objectives towards establishing its “Continental Ballistic Missile Defence” initiative (CBMD). The initiative, largely borne as a result of the nuking of Metz-Leonid in Xsampa by Beiteynu, envisions Lodamun at the centre of a broader network of systems and platforms capable of negating the threat posed by small, medium, intermediate and intercontinental ballistic missiles. “The nuclear explosion in Xsampa was certainly the wake-up call many in Kensington needed to take the warnings of the SDA seriously,” Admiral Howell explained. “We have long pointed to Lodamun’s and by extension, the Seleyan continent’s vulnerability to threats of this nature, particularly given that they have historically originated from extra-regional territories. The CBMD is but one of the many initiatives we have sent down the pipeline for implementation.” Advanced radar systems will play a crucial role in not only the defence of Lodamun but the wider continent. It is thus against this backdrop that the agency has long lobbied for approval to begin work on a mobile radar platform which can be moved throughout the continent whenever required.

Admiral Howell noted that given the proposed system’s benefits, particularly with respect to long-range detection and tracking, its development would ultimately enhance Lodamun’s response to the ever-growing threat of hypersonic weapons. He noted that in addition to its capability to track ballistic missiles of varying capabilities over large distances, it provided the agency with a capability to enhance its detection of hypersonic missiles. “We have long underscored the importance of developing platforms which give us that edge with respect to being able to detect and hopefully destroy hypersonic missile threats. The ability to widen our field of detection beyond our current capabilities is an important step towards being able to track these weapons throughout their various stages. In essence, the closer we are to detecting these systems as soon as they are launched from ground-based ballistic missile sites, the better it is for us,” Howell explained. According to the SDA, it is envisioned that the agency would operate four (4) platforms which would be deployed throughout the Seleyan continent and could see potential deployment to other parts of the world. At the very basic level, the platform is a decommissioned mobile platform once used by North Seleyan Petroleum. The Navy’s permission was ultimately needed to transfer the platform to the SDA as it had been acquired by the Navy for a project which had since been cancelled. Positioned on the platform would be a large X-band radar dome, which would be the basis of the platform’s capabilities. Initial cost estimates for a singular platform place it at around 900 million LOD. The Armed Forces Projects Agency (AFPA) is reportedly connected to the platform’s development as the very first unit, which is set to begin construction next year, will become a test-bed for future radar subsystems for the AFPA and the SDA.