Re: ICBM warheads

From: George (Geodanah_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 11/23/04 

To: sci-military-moderated@moderators.isc.org
Date: 22 Nov 2004 22:10:31 -0800

"john-locke" <john-locke@ntlworld.com> wrote in message news:<5iRnd.478$%92.427@newsfe1-gui.ntli.net>...
> "Ian Stirling" <root@mauve.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:419df3f7$0$557$ed2619ec@ptn-nntp-reader03.plus.net...
> > Dirk Bruere at Neopax <dirk@neopax.com> wrote:
> > > How are the warheads of ICBMs triggered for an air burst?
> > > Presumably they are coming in at several thousand mph and are plasma
> sheathed so
> > > radar won't work.
> >
> > Inertial navigation.
> > Basically just measuring the accellerations that the warhead undergoes,
> and
> > working out the position from these accellerations.
> > Because of the short time that the warhead is in the atmosphere,
> > (10-20 seconds?) this bit of guidance does not need to be very accurate.
> > I suspect even a $2 car airbag type sensor (50G +-0.5G) might do, with a
> > LEP of around 1Km.
> > That's probably a bit much, but you're only looking at maybe an order and
> > a half of magnitude better than that, nothing challenging compared to the
> > navigational accuracy needed for the bus.
>
> This is all very well, however, with fail-safe measures such a presidential
> counter command facilities, I would have given some thought that this
> detonation or device burst would have been implimented via satellite relay
> through GPS sats to the missile warhead on-board computer to greet it, then
> give it correct orders. I would have thought that sats would have more
> input, than in previous (Cold War era) times.
>
> John Locke.

Satellites are too vulnerable, especially in a nuclear war. A high
powered laser, Soviet ASAT satellites, high altitude nuclear bursts,
there are a lot of ways to kill them, so you don't want to depend on
them for your doomsday weapon like an ICBM.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: ICBM warheads
    ... >> Inertial navigation. ... >> Basically just measuring the accellerations that the warhead undergoes, ... >> working out the position from these accellerations. ... codes have to be supplied prior to launch. ...
    (sci.military.moderated)
  • Re: ICBM warheads
    ... Dirk Bruere at Neopax wrote: ... > How are the warheads of ICBMs triggered for an air burst? ... working out the position from these accellerations. ... Because of the short time that the warhead is in the atmosphere, ...
    (sci.military.moderated)