So, in a world where rocketry (and electronics) get ahead of nuclear power and you have the technology for ICBMs, but not the know how to build nuclear warheads, would it be at all economical to build a kinetic ICBM? I was thinking about the 'rods from god' type idea, and how the satellite adds a lot of bulk to a launch, and that the savings from not having the put up the satellite might balance out the disadvantage of not being as rapid response or hard to detect as the satellite based kinetic weapons. So, does the idea make any sense? Or would the rocketry been seen as lacking any military applications?
Kinetic ICBMs?
- Thread starter Beedok
- Start date
One Rick (named after Rocketpunk Rick Robinson) is the unit of velocity at which an object is packing the same amount of kinetic energy as it's equivalent mass in TNT; non SI, obviously, and works out at three kilometres per second, ish.
TNT is not exactly cutting edge these days, and better explosives are available- and ICBM warheads usually come in a lot slower than that. The early ones were actually subsonic.
So. probably not, especially given CEP issues.
On the other hand, short range missiles, without the nuclear spectre to restrict them- things like Lance, ATACMS, Luna/FROG-7, artillery missiles and larger up to SRBM class, are likely to be more efficient and more prevalent.
TNT is not exactly cutting edge these days, and better explosives are available- and ICBM warheads usually come in a lot slower than that. The early ones were actually subsonic.
So. probably not, especially given CEP issues.
On the other hand, short range missiles, without the nuclear spectre to restrict them- things like Lance, ATACMS, Luna/FROG-7, artillery missiles and larger up to SRBM class, are likely to be more efficient and more prevalent.
Assuming no nukes yet the ability to have ICBMs?
ICBMs strongly imply the ability to put things into space as well.
Have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment
for one reference.
You COULD pre-launch all of the kill vehicles over a long period of time and have them orbiting, but they would be vulnerable to whatever the bad guys do to stop them.
Don't forget that the Soviets were the ones who were ahead at the beginning of the space race due to captured scientists and V2 technology after WWII.
You need decent guidance systems to make these work, as the boom these make, while still impressive, does not match that of a nuke.
ICBMs strongly imply the ability to put things into space as well.
Have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment
for one reference.
You COULD pre-launch all of the kill vehicles over a long period of time and have them orbiting, but they would be vulnerable to whatever the bad guys do to stop them.
Don't forget that the Soviets were the ones who were ahead at the beginning of the space race due to captured scientists and V2 technology after WWII.
You need decent guidance systems to make these work, as the boom these make, while still impressive, does not match that of a nuke.
Archibald
Banned
There was a TL like this by Amerigo Vespucci where the Manhattan project focused on ICBMs without nuclear warheads.
You needed a crapton of these things (called howitzer !) to flatten a city and trigger a firestorm
You needed a crapton of these things (called howitzer !) to flatten a city and trigger a firestorm
They are indeed very difficult to intercept (far more so than typical missiles), and would only be vulnerable to shooting down the satellite itself. They also can strike with far less warning.
The downside is with a conventional warhead on an ICBM you could do more for the price, not even getting into other ways of delivering a warhead to a city or whatever. It would be quite a bit more, barring easy access to space through space elevator, mass drivers, etc.
They seem to represent a way to militarise a space program much as one could militarise a nuclear power plant.
The downside is with a conventional warhead on an ICBM you could do more for the price, not even getting into other ways of delivering a warhead to a city or whatever. It would be quite a bit more, barring easy access to space through space elevator, mass drivers, etc.
They seem to represent a way to militarise a space program much as one could militarise a nuclear power plant.
RamscoopRaider
Donor
Not cost effective
A bloody R-36 (the biggest ICBM deployed) can only throw a 9 ton impactor, with maybe a 90 ton TNT equivalent, being generous. At 200 meters the vast majority of concrete buildings would survive that, and even with modern guidance tech 200 meters is pretty good, for a 1st gen ICBM, 2000 is good
Unless you are trying indiscriminate terror bombing, which is fairly ineffective, the thing is useless. And that has proven non cost effective
The soviet used radiological Warhead with radioactive dust or liquid, until there Atomic Bomb was ready.
in 1980s they look into option to use Bioweapons in ICBM warheads
with that info I guess that Warheads with nerve gas or a fuel-air bomb are possible.
FAEs on ballistic missiles just don't work - at high speeds the fuel doesn't disperse properly. They struggle with strong winds much less hypersonic reentry.
CW/BW agents are difficult for dispersal reasons too - and BW has the added problem of being sterilised by the heat of reentry. The dispersal issue is solveable, but you kill a lot of your payload that way. The heat issue is also solvable, but you kill most of what's left by installing a refrigeration plant in the RV.
A Saturn V can handle 140 tonnes of load. Would that be a big enough rocket for use?
Unless you were willing to commit towards building a functioning cosmodrome (which is what a Saturn V or similarly-sized rocket would need to maintain readiness) in place of every missile silo in the country, it's just not going to be a significant part of the intercontinental arsenal. And good luck hiding all of that infrastructure, and protecting it from a first strike.
Well I was planning for it to be located somewhere isolated enough the other side would need to use an ICBM to hit the launch site (at least that was the plan). Also the plan was for a quite limited number of surgical strike weapons.
Saphroneth
Banned
It took some considerable redesign work (Chevaline) to increase the re-entry speed of nuclear weapons to go supersonic. This applies especially for ICBMs since they have to stage, so the result is a form which - without other work - remains subsonic.
It'd be hard but not impossible to intercept (harder than a nuke since you can use nuke tipped SAMs more unforgivingly for an incoming nuke) but not really worth it - far too much expense for a very small explosion.
Re-entry of about 400 mph (200 m/s) is not unlikely, and at that rate a 9 tonne impactor has the impact of about 180 MJ.
It's actually less destructive than a car petrol tank.
If we instead assume a very much later one (the mach 15 peak of RVs in the 1980s) then you have about 5000 m/s.
That's getting to where it's actually impressive, at 1.1E11 joules. That's two MOABs.
Still not really very impressive. The V-2 weighed 12.5 tonnes and came in at 1500 ms-1, by the way.
The problem is simply that you're doing it intercontinental - that means you lose most of the weight - and that the stresses on re-entry mean you have to slow down somewhat.
It'd be hard but not impossible to intercept (harder than a nuke since you can use nuke tipped SAMs more unforgivingly for an incoming nuke) but not really worth it - far too much expense for a very small explosion.
Re-entry of about 400 mph (200 m/s) is not unlikely, and at that rate a 9 tonne impactor has the impact of about 180 MJ.
It's actually less destructive than a car petrol tank.
If we instead assume a very much later one (the mach 15 peak of RVs in the 1980s) then you have about 5000 m/s.
That's getting to where it's actually impressive, at 1.1E11 joules. That's two MOABs.
Still not really very impressive. The V-2 weighed 12.5 tonnes and came in at 1500 ms-1, by the way.
The problem is simply that you're doing it intercontinental - that means you lose most of the weight - and that the stresses on re-entry mean you have to slow down somewhat.
Saphroneth
Banned
Let's assume that the Saturn V object reaches the ground at mach six - very high for a vehicle able to survive re-entry.
That means 2.8E11 joules from impact, which sounds big but is about 0.4 % of the Little Boy bomb.
That means 2.8E11 joules from impact, which sounds big but is about 0.4 % of the Little Boy bomb.
That's unlikely.
The V-2 was already supersonic. That was in fact what caused the initial British confusion as to why suddenly whole city blocks started exploding without the normal sounds of aircraft beforehand.
According to a 1963 RAND study (http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_memoranda/2008/RM3475.pdf), RV's can reach spees up to 9.5 km per second.
RamscoopRaider
Donor
Yeah but then you reduce the size of the payload, or you are essentially adding another stage to the missile and making it bigger and more expensive
Would be interested to see your source for that. I could see the Mk2 RV as potentially being subsonic as it was a blunt design (I.e capsule-like). But the Mk3 and Mk6 RVs on the Atlas and Titan, respectively, were triconic designs and certainly hypersonic. As far as I can tell the Polaris did use the Mk2 RV even in later editions so maybe that's what you're thinking about re: chevaline?
I do agree with the majority here that kinetic payloads are generally inefficient. However, there certainly is a niche for something like it, hence why there were some efforts into modifying Trident to carry a kinetic penetrator. Using an SLBM gives the advantage of an endoatmospheric profile. One source states a 2000 lb penetrator at Mach 4 terminal velocity - they sacrifice a lot of velocity to obtain high crossrange capability (up to 3000 nmi - Russia or China would understandably be shitting bricks if you tried an overflight with a Trident
). Not much of a hard target capability, hence why the Bush administration tried to bring back the idea of nuclear bunker busters.