C-RAM-Randomly fire spent DU shells & *hope* to hit mortars?

[underpants]

Is this really a good idea? I am all for defending our soldiers from....eh....being greeted as liberators but there is a big difference between spraying an area AT SEA with 20MM rounds and spraying rounds out over populated urban settings.

I am willing to bet that the defense contractor who will build this is either located in the braintrust Duncan Hunter's district or gives him lots of money.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,151712,00.html

C-RAM is like a huge Gatling gun, which utilizes fire-finding radar to track mortar launches.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter is urging Congress to provide $75 million in funding to get C-RAM to the front lines.

C-RAM will shoot spent uranium shells very quickly and will be able to take a mortar — a fairly slow-moving projectile — out of the air, Hunter said.

But unlike at sea, Halley said, collateral damage on land could be a factor, particularly when the C-RAM is transferred to an urban setting.

"In an urban area, if you are able to knock these mortars out and have them explode up in the air, then the debris and the shrapnel from some of those rounds are going to fall, and of course it is going to cause possibly some civilian casualties," Halley said.

"Shooting the incoming mortar round as it comes into the base is a sure-fire way to stop it without having collateral damage in the towns, without having to worry about this time element and escape element on the part of the guys that threw those mortars at you," the lawmaker said.