That is precisely the point. Because an orbitiing satellite is much more preditable than a ship at sea, it is, in that sense, much more straight forward.
A satellite having an orbit with "fixed" orbital parameters doesn't mean it will go through the same 10m x 10m box every single orbit. If it can pass through the same box most of the time, then it can be called "known location at known time" to allow your kind of "straight forward" interception to happen. The effects I have mentioned in my preivous post, combined with the high speed of the satellite, will ensure that a satellite will not pass through the same point in its next orbit. And the high speed of a satellite will also mean that errors in prediction will cause the results to diverage from reality very, very quickly.
You have said these things...but that does not mean you have proven or "shown" it. Sorry.
This is nothing but a poor argument on your part. By the same logic, you haven't prove or shown a ship to be much more unpredictable than a orbiting satellite.
A satellite travels in a fixed orbit (99%) of the time in the sense that it is very predicatable...even taking into account those forces and issues that may effect its path. The entire point is that those forces and issues are known to all and can be accounted for and are in fact a part of orbital mechanics themselves.
Not so with a ship at sea.
Yes of course the sat will move, it is, after all, orbiting. But that orbit (including the natural forces which act upon it) is known...the movement of a ship at sea is not as predictable in the least.
True that these forces are known to all. What you haven't mention is that they are more qualitative rather than quantative, and you can only model them to a certain degree. No model can account for everything, and anything outside of the model is an unknown thus unpredictable.
To the observer, even the satellite itself is an unpredictability. The method employed by a satellite for attitude control is also an unknown to an observer. The mass of the satellite is also an unknown, although you can only estimate its mass from the trajectory up to a certain degree. The error in mass estimation will introduce errors into the orbital mechanics calculations, and results from the model would diverage from reality.
Inputing a range of values to cover the errors and the model will output a probability function, which is similar to the probability function you will get if you were to use, let say Monte Carlos, to estimate the positions of a ship after an initial observation.
That is the difference. If a vessel has any indication that it is under attack, or operating in an environment where it might be, it will move wholly unpredictably and employ numerous active and passive measures to mask its presence and location and be much harder to reaquire once the warhead gets to where it is going.
If you put a plane perpendicular to the path of a satellite, and note the location where the satellite hits the plane, you will notice that all the hits will be around the theoretical intercetion point. Drawing a circle around these hits, if the KV can strike any point within this circle, then the KV can intercept the satellite.
Regardless of how the ship moves, it won't be able to move out of a circle around its initial location. If an incoming warhead can hit any point within the circle, then the warhead can certainly hit the ship. This is similar to the above case for a KV.
The difference between the two is that in the latter case, you can miss the point of interception by 10m and you could still hit the ship. In the former case, if you miss the satellite by 10m, then it is a miss.
99% of satellites are not equipeed to do so. A very small number of very expensive and intricate military satellites do have the ability to manuever...and that becomes a different discussion because then the RV has to re-aquire it and manuever itself. BUt most military satellites and commercial ones cannot do this and that is my discussion.
A satellite capable of "maneuvering" means that its orbit could potentially be more unpredictable than satellites that can't "maneuver". But it says absolutely nothing about the predictability of the latter.
It is not my intention to say that the process and ability to hit even those types of satellites is "easy". This whole discussion is taking place because of an original statement by you comparing the two and my assertion that they are really not comparable.
And it is my assertion that they are comparable.
As to the ECM envvironment. Again...sorry, but your assertion that the radiation in space is much more difficult than a warfare intensive ECM environment is again simply not so. The radiation in space again is a known quantity. It is there for all to deal with.
A warfare ECM environment is designed specificallyto precisely defeat what you may be sending against it. It will therefore be much more specifically adapted to and targeted at the types of systems you may employ and it will be employed locally, with intense power, by large platforms directed at your relatively small warhead.
ECM is there for all to deal with, and it would be naive for any weapon designer to not take that effect into account.
Focusing on objects only within our own solar system, there is a sun larger than any ECM platform out there, directing intense energy across the entire EM spectrum onto a very small target. Tell me about ECM when there is man-made platform that can direct 1360 W/m^2 of energy onto a target 150 million kilometers away.
This is a much different and more difficult environment than the general radiation found in space whose quantities and existance are already known and much more predicatable.
Saying man-made EM radiation is more difficult to dealt with than those from space is the most ridiculous point I have ever heard. By all means find me a form of ECM that can output gamma radiation, aside from a nuclear warhead.
