LGM-35A Sentinel - Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) program

[Forest Green]

Based on what? In service in 1990 meant deployed.

"In-service" has meant the same thing since the begining it means the missile is in the 'deployed' into the military missile storage, transport, maintenance AND on-alert system. 100 "deployed" simply means that many missiles in total are in the system not that they are installed in silo's and ready for use. The word is often used to MEAN such but it technically is not used that way by people who work in the field. In fact we use "in-storage", "in-maintenance", "in-transport" and "in-the-field" to specify where "in deployment" a missile is.

In this case 100 were 'deployed' into the system while only 48 were "in-the-field" deployed in silo's.

What part of all that being laid out in documentation is not clear? Funny how Russia and China don't see it that way.

What part of the documentation not being applicable when not building a past missile is not clear? The US could currently build a modernized version of the MMIII missile with little effort except where the legacy equipment no longer exists. Just like Russia and China can build missiles using their existing manufacturing process. The US could not build an MX or Midgetman as the manufacturing systems and equipment no longer exist. We'd have to build new ones and go from there. Could we? Yes, pretty easily but that's not the requirement because using what we have to build a new missile makes more sense. Russia and China are not building 'new' missiles using 'new' manufacturing systems but the same ones that built the original missiles in the first place. The US has been 'building' missiles as well to replace our older missiles and that manufacturing system is being used as the basis of the requirements for out 'new' missile system.

So what exactly are you talking about wrt a skills shortage around building solid propellant rockets when they're being built either way.

The last MMIII upgrade required that new mixing and pouring equipment be constructed and put into use and personnel be trained in it's use. Both the systems and personnel have been transfered away from those jobs since the upgrade was completed and there have been questions of the ability to get both back into service if we wait to long. There is also the issue with there being only two, (it may in fact be down to one now I'm not sure) manufacturer capable of producing large, monolithic pour solid motors.

Peacekeeper had a 2.34m diameter and Midgetman 1.18m. I believe this from an earlier thread covers it.

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/early-maneuverable-reentry-vehicle-studies.8981/

So why were there questions up-thread of fitting them to a MMIII? It in fact states that over three years three test vehicles, (prototype warheads basiclly) were successfully launched using MMI's as launch vehicles so there should be no issues fitting them to the MMIII? Length may be an issue as they look to be longer than the Mk21 but that shouldn't be an issue with land based missiles.

58.42cm vs 118cm. You could almost fit 2 at a push.

Only one a the Midgetman only had a single mounting point. Further a second warhead would require a significant upgrade of the guidance and warhead bus avionics and computers.

Even more advanced HGVs fit.

111.5cm vs 118cm.

The more advanced HGV would need a redesign/rebuild of the payload interface for one. Both would need new guidance and control, not a big issue but something to keep in mind for an operational system.

Err... oh no you don't, you referenced a missile dating back to the 1970s, which is the R-29 not the R-29RMU, which came in 2007. So let's not start the pigeon chess.

Well actually you stated that "An R-29RMU2 is about as similar to a vanilla R-29 as an F-18E is to an F-18C. It's 15% longer, 5% wider, 25% heavier and can carry 12x as many warheads.

So it wasn't I that brought up the comparision. Howver the R-29RMU2 is a basic advancment of of and from the R-29RMU, which was evolved from the basic R-29 from the 70s. In total it gained 10cm in diameter, 1.8m in length, (most of which was in the first modification in the late 70s where it went from 13.20m to 14.40m) of which it only grew 2cm on the R-29RMU. It has gained about 8,000kg of mass since the initial version but has lost around 3,000kg in the newest version despite the increased warhead load. Overall payload throw weight has remained the same since the mid-80s. You're assertion that it is a completely different missile doesn't hold up. F-18C to F-18E isn't an applicable comparision even to the original R-29 let alone the R-29RM or R-29RMU. F-18A to F-18C at best.

Given that most MM3s are only carrying one warhead, 1 HGV is still better.

Given the above examples I'd agree, As I said originally I was going off the up-thread discussion as if this was an issue. Thanks for the correction.

But then I also have to point out why are we worried about the Russian's and the Chinese then? We successfully tested and set-aside a working prototype of an HGV capable of being carried on our MM fleet so using that as a basis we should be able to deploy an updated version in short order. The main issue is it likely can't be carried on our SLBM's which are length limited but a redesign of the MM payload fixture should allow at least two to be carried along with penetration aids.

Randy

Back then new missiles were not manufactured for the purpose of storage. Storage is something that happened as a result of treaties on existing missiles.

The documentation also covers the manufacturing equipment you'll find. I disagree that building a new missile within the limitations placed by the defunct MM3 are the best options when the US's two main opposing powers are all building not 1 but several new missiles. And I think we have covered the fact that the R-29 and R-29RMU2 are not the same and the R-36 was built in Ukraine, so the idea that they're using the exact same manufacturing equipment and systems for the RS-28 is clearly false. The RS-26 was also a new missile although cancelled. The DF-41 is very clearly a new missile, as is the JL-3. But more to the point, this is about matching capabilities in terms of mobility and capacity, not choosing easy options. If the latter were the goal, then doing nothing would be the order of the day.

Boo-hoo. Deal with it and make the solid fuel.

Length can't be a problem, those nose cones are 3 times as long as wide. The MM3 nose cone for instance is 12ft long (144in).

https://imgur.com/KpIWrV4

And a quick measure puts the MGM-134 nose cone at >2.5m long (>100in), not that changing a nosecone slightly would make a massive difference anyway.

The AMARV was my original suggestion because it's relatively well tested, so that should fit and I was only saying 2 to emphasize that 1 easily fitted. The launch vehicles will need a different trajectory, and the guidance and control for the AMARV has already been worked out through testing.

The R-29RMU didn't enter service until 2007 and is still a smaller missile than the R-29RMU2. The RMU2 is 15m long and 1.9m wide. The RMU is 14.8m and 1.8m. The R-29 is 13.2m and 1.8m. But the more important thing is the increased warhead capacity. Now you're saying the mid-80s, earlier you said the 70s and that was what I made the F-18C to F-18E remark based on, which still holds.

But a Peacekeeper could carry far more.

 

[Forest Green]

I'll ask again, what target or operation scenario would be better served by an HGV over an RV + penaids/MIRVed RVs? Note this is relating to the nuclear triad so completely separate from CPS which is a different topic.

Against terminal defences, since penetration aids are stripped away by the atmosphere. But also against mid-course exo-atmospheric interceptors, since they don't work in the atmosphere and modern ABM radar types can distinguish decoys from warheads. I don't fully understand this part, but it's something to do with 2-plane polarisation (sea-based X-band has it).* And nothing says you can't use HGVs and decoys.

*http://scienceandglobalsecurity.org/archive/sgs06frankel.pdf

 

[Desertfox]

Both Russia and China have very different requirements from their land-based missile forces than the US in part based on the capability and requirements of their own sea-based missile forces. Neither one of those countries is planning on building 400 new single class ICBMs nor do they have 400 silos available for a new ICBM.

You do realize that an HGV is more vulnerable to terminal defenses? They are both much bigger and much slower in the terminal phase than an RV while also having bigger RCS. And a mid-course HGV decoy would have to be an HGV itself which is significantly larger than an RV mid-course decoy. And again, what MM3 targets are defended by midcourse exo-athmospheric interceptors?

 

[RanulfC]

I'll ask again, what target or operation scenario would be better served by an HGV over an RV + penaids/MIRVed RVs? Note this is relating to the nuclear triad so completely separate from CPS which is a different topic.

Against terminal defences, since penetration aids are stripped away by the atmosphere. But also against mid-course exo-atmospheric interceptors, since they don't work in the atmosphere and modern ABM radar types can distinguish decoys from warheads. I don't fully understand this part, but it's something to do with 2-plane polarisation (sea-based X-band has it).* And nothing says you can't use HGVs and decoys.

*http://scienceandglobalsecurity.org/archive/sgs06frankel.pdf

Actually they were initially developed in the US to try and deal with mobile ICBM's allowing mobile launchers to be targeted even if they moved after launch. A side benifit was that it made interception harder and that's the main driver today for further development. The main problem with decoy's is they only mimic a warhead and once you're in the atmosphere they quickly become apparent. The 'better' the decoy the more it resembles an actual warhead but along the lines it gets heavier and more complex as you go along.

Randy

 

[Sferrin]

I'll ask again, what target or operation scenario would be better served by an HGV over an RV + penaids/MIRVed RVs? Note this is relating to the nuclear triad so completely separate from CPS which is a different topic.

Any where a large amount of cross range is desirable. Any target not defended by terminal defenses. If the option is HGV and RVs then you have the best of both worlds. If you have to choose one or the other then HGV wins.

 

[Sferrin]

Both Russia and China have very different requirements from their land-based missile forces than the US in part based on the capability and requirements of their own sea-based missile forces. Neither one of those countries is planning on building 400 new single class ICBMs nor do they have 400 silos available for a new ICBM.

You do realize that an HGV is more vulnerable to terminal defenses? They are both much bigger and much slower in the terminal phase than an RV while also having bigger RCS. And a mid-course HGV decoy would have to be an HGV itself which is significantly larger than an RV mid-course decoy. And again, what MM3 targets are defended by midcourse exo-athmospheric interceptors?

No country can afford to have terminal defenses at every potential target.

 

[Desertfox]

What MM3 target requires large amounts of cross range? If the target has no terminal defenses an RV would work just as well as an HGV, in fact better because I can carry more of them and hit more targets or hit the same target more times.

Targetting mobile missiles is more of an ISR problem than a warhead problem and if you are feeding your warhead targetting data in flight it opens up vulnerabilities to being hacked by the enemy.

 

[Sferrin]

What MM3 target requires large amounts of cross range? If the target has no terminal defenses an RV would work just as well as an HGV

Not so. The enemy could have mid course defenses. Also your hypothetical MM3 can't carry "perfect" decoys because it needs to use that weight for range.

 

[Desertfox]

What Russian mid-course defenses? You don't need "perfect" decoys for mid-course defenses, its a lot easier to pack decoys for them than for terminal defenses. Now HGVs can not use mid-course decoys at all.

 

[Sferrin]

What Russian mid-course defenses?

If you're seriously suggesting pegging our ICBM force to a missile that depends on the other guy not having mid-course defenses for the next 50 years I think we're done here.

 

[Desertfox]

Better than pegging our ICBM force to a missile that is vulnerable to terminal defenses that the other guy actually has right now...

 

[Sferrin]

Better than pegging our ICBM force to a missile that is vulnerable to terminal defenses that the other guy actually has right now...

What missile is that?

 

[RanulfC]

Back then new missiles were not manufactured for the purpose of storage. Storage is something that happened as a result of treaties on existing missiles.

Ugh, no actually when manufactured you make MORE than you can put into use BECAUSE part of the planning is you have backups and stored missiles that can then be sent to replace ones in the field that come in or maitenance or repair. As has been noted the US has far more MMIII missiles "deployed" than it has silo's to put them in and this has been a 'feature' since the begining. For every 'active' missile in a silo you assume one missile is in storage in 'ready-to-use' status and one missile in various stages of repair, maintenance and inspection. More is likely simply because while unlikely there might be a string of in service failures or malfunctions so you want backups just in case and those will be stored as individual stages but counted as all up missiles.

The documentation also covers the manufacturing equipment you'll find.

In a general way as usually the manufacturer has the details. The US had to go back to the original manufacturer's documentation and still had to start almost from scratch due to changes in manufacturerer's and dicarded and/or unusable equipment. The manufacturer also had to allocate, design and build new buildings and facilities, new supply lines and expanded locations to accomodate just the upgrade program. An acutual new manufacturing program will be bigger still.

I disagree that building a new missile within the limitations placed by the defunct MM3

You're aware the MM3 isn't 'defunct' and has been modernized and upgraded steadily.

...are the best options when the US's two main opposing powers are all building not 1 but several new missiles.

If we want to field and effective new missile system in a short period of time with as much economic efficiency as possible you can disagree all you want but you'd be wrong. Note the "limitations" you keep going on about are for ancillary and support systems which have already been shown to be quite adaptable if not pushed too far beyond what they were initially designed to handle. And a missile based on the physical parameters of the MM3 with modern technology would be quite effective. More so as I point out below there's still room between the current MM3 and Peacekeeper to play with.

And I think we have covered the fact that the R-29 and R-29RMU2 are not the same and the R-36 was built in Ukraine, so the idea that they're using the exact same manufacturing equipment and systems for the RS-28 is clearly false.

I never said they were the 'same' but your assertion that the R-29RMU2 is a 'completely different' missile is also untrue as it's an evolution of the basic R-29 and that's been clearly shown.

The RS-26 was also a new missile although cancelled.

Like the Midgetman? I keep pointing out the main reason we in the US have not continued missile development was the end of the Cold War took away the majority of rational that was driving such programs. That is changing but in both Russia and China's cases they needed to recover the economic and political will to re-engage in an arms build up while the US has been slow to do so.

The DF-41 is very clearly a new missile, as is the JL-3.

Well yes as the former has been in development for over 30 years using the (again) same infrstructure as the DF-31 and will use mostly the same support systems. Similarly the J3 has been developed using the same infrastructure as the J2 but requires a new-build launch platform which is still in development. Note the diameter hasn't changed and there's a good reason for this.

But more to the point, this is about matching capabilities in terms of mobility and capacity, not choosing easy options. If the latter were the goal, then doing nothing would be the order of the day.

And you'll note the latter is what the US did for the last 20+ years Capability matching is dependent on many things but having a few bigger, or many more smaller warheads mounted on a few big missiles, yes we COULD match that capability but it won't enhance our overall capability. Having numerous variable yield, manuverig multiple warhead missiles would likely be a better and more effective deterent which is what the plan is. (IF they get the manuvering warhead work approved that is)

I will say that there is very much a 'chimera' in the idea the US needs to match the 'mobilty' capability of our adversaries. The US has been down this road several times already and chosen not to pursue such systems to deployment for several reasons. While keeping the option open is a good idea as has been noted the most effective means of going that route is to design for mobility FIRST rather than refitting it after the fact and that's a problem. Mobilty requires a number of new systems, equipment, and operations to achieve and despite numerous studies it's not really a clear win in any catagory.

Boo-hoo. Deal with it and make the solid fuel.

We are but we need to expand and build new to meet the future demand.

Length can't be a problem, those nose cones are 3 times as long as wide. The MM3 nose cone for instance is 12ft long (144in).

And a quick measure puts the MGM-134 nose cone at >2.5m long (>100in), not that changing a nosecone slightly would make a massive difference anyway.

Actually changing the nose cone shape does in fact have a lot of effect since by nature the ICBM's tend to have high accelleration during the first stage burn. While fitting the AMaRV wasn't an issue fitting the SWERVE apperantly was as illustrated by the folding nose option. And again there'd be issues with fitting it to something like the Trident.

But I'm going to point out a bit we missed, (and I myself was looking at that or a similar pic when I wrote a lot of this) in that the warhead bus on the MM3 is NOT as big as we're assuming. Not that it's much but the bus diameter is only 52in/1.32m not the full 66in/1.68m of the first stage. So we've got an extra 14in/0.36m to play with

The R-29RMU didn't enter service until 2007 and is still a smaller missile than the R-29RMU2. The RMU2 is 15m long and 1.9m wide. The RMU is 14.8m and 1.8m. The R-29 is 13.2m and 1.8m. But the more important thing is the increased warhead capacity. Now you're saying the mid-80s, earlier you said the 70s and that was what I made the F-18C to F-18E remark based on, which still holds.

But a Peacekeeper could carry far more.

The original R-29 carried two warheads, (and originally deployed with two), but in 1980 it went up to carrying 4 as a standard load, the R-29RMU also carried 4 and in fact the R-29RMU2 ALSO can only carry '4' warheads in the same configuration which was the point you missed. It CAN carry 12 smaller, low-yield warheads with no penetration aids or decoys. Note the warhead yield and not manuvering ones either. The yield can go up with fewer warheads and then pen-aids and decoys can be added as I noted.
The most often quoted diameter for both the RMU and RMU2 is 1.9m while the older R-29's were only 1.8m and a 2cm 'stretch' in length can be accounted for with the modifications to the warhead bus structure to hold more than the standard 4 warheads.

The Peacekeeper could carry a maximum of 11, (treaty limited to only 10) of the medium yield W87 warheads in the Mk21 RV along with pen-aids and decoys. It could carry 12 of the Mk-12 RV's but it was only deployed with the Mk21.

Randy

 

[RanulfC]

Still think they should have taken this opportunity to build new ultra hard silos using cutting edge materials

This isn't off the table and will be something that can be done when we're emplacing the new missile launch system. HOW reinforced that might end up being is a question.

Silos are crazy expensive, you will kill GBSD at birth if you try to add new silos to the equation, and it is much easier to increase the accuracy of an RV than it is to harden the silo to resist that RV, especially now with MARVs and GPS. If you can drop a nuke within say 50 meters it wont matter how hard the silo is.

Even if the silo itself is hardened the missile and support systems have to be survivable as well. This was an issue with the Peacekeeper in MMII silo's as noted above the fitting was questionable if it had enough shock survivablity.

Probably need to be closer than that. I've seen pictures from superhard silo testing in the 80s with a relatively unscathed silo protruding from the bottom of the evacuated crater. That said, I think as positive attack verification gets more reliable the need for anything harder than that required to ride out a near miss goes down. A terminally guided RV will kill the hardest silo.

The silo may have been unscathed but that would likely be a 'mission' killed bird in it. That was why the initial idea was to put the Peacekeeper in converted Titan II silos instead of the MMII silos so as to give them plenty of space to mount shock supression and support gear. It wasn't going to be cost effective though because the Titan II silos were less survivable in the first place.

Randy

 

[Sferrin]

The silo may have been unscathed but that would likely be a 'mission' killed bird in it.

Or not. Until they release the reports of the testing, and how hard ICBMs are, we're both just guessing.

 

[Desertfox]

Better than pegging our ICBM force to a missile that is vulnerable to terminal defenses that the other guy actually has right now...

What missile is that?

Your hypothetical HGV armed ICBM.

 

[Sferrin]

Better than pegging our ICBM force to a missile that is vulnerable to terminal defenses that the other guy actually has right now...

What missile is that?

Your hypothetical HGV armed ICBM.

Is there some unwritten law that says my HGV-armed ICBM is incapable of carrying standard RVs if desired?

 

[RanulfC]

The silo may have been unscathed but that would likely be a 'mission' killed bird in it.

Or not. Until they release the reports of the testing, and how hard ICBMs are, we're both just guessing.

Point though if it's the one I'm thinking it was the crater was made by conventional explosives (likely) and it had to be that close to get a good simulation of a 'near-miss' (but not really 'near' the silo as one would think) for ground shock and over-pressure damage. An actual nuke would have wiped out the silo at any 'contact' range.

Randy

 

[Desertfox]

Better than pegging our ICBM force to a missile that is vulnerable to terminal defenses that the other guy actually has right now...

What missile is that?

Your hypothetical HGV armed ICBM.

Is there some unwritten law that says my HGV-armed ICBM is incapable of carrying standard RVs if desired?

It is not quite as simple as swapping payloads. RV -> MARV that is doable, you lose some payload but can be done pretty easily if you have the spare space and mass margins. RV -> HGV is a whole different matter. The trajectories are very different as is the GN&C system. You also need a separate testing program and a booster optimized for one mission will not be optimized for the other, especially if its solid-fueled.

 

[Sferrin]

It is not quite as simple as swapping payloads. RV -> MARV that is doable, you lose some payload but can be done pretty easily if you have the spare space and mass margins. RV -> HGV is a whole different matter. The trajectories are very different as is the GN&C system. You also need a separate testing program and a booster optimized for one mission will not be optimized for the other, especially if its solid-fueled.

You most certainly CAN use the same missile for two different types of payloads. It's already been done. You can start with a larger ICBM and use it for either RVs or HGVs (both Russia and China intend to do exactly that). You can't start with an ICBM with low throw weight and short range and expect to swap out RVs for HGVs however.

 

[marauder2048]

Do you really need a different booster? Assuming you aren't trying to do direct injection to equilibrium glide,
I didn't think the HGV boost trajectory was particularly stressing except for maybe the third stage.

The silo may have been unscathed but that would likely be a 'mission' killed bird in it.

I think most of the Superhard silo techniques tried to reduce lateral loads on the missile with energy absorbing material around the silo and/or some ground shock
diversion/deflection techniques applied to the surrounding geology. None of these techniques struck me as particularly expensive to retrofit.

 

[Forest Green]

Both Russia and China have very different requirements from their land-based missile forces than the US in part based on the capability and requirements of their own sea-based missile forces. Neither one of those countries is planning on building 400 new single class ICBMs nor do they have 400 silos available for a new ICBM.

You do realize that an HGV is more vulnerable to terminal defenses? They are both much bigger and much slower in the terminal phase than an RV while also having bigger RCS. And a mid-course HGV decoy would have to be an HGV itself which is significantly larger than an RV mid-course decoy. And again, what MM3 targets are defended by midcourse exo-athmospheric interceptors?

HGVs are more unpredictable and less vulnerable to terminal defences.

You have to consider the future not just the now.

 

[Forest Green]

Back then new missiles were not manufactured for the purpose of storage. Storage is something that happened as a result of treaties on existing missiles.

Ugh, no actually when manufactured you make MORE than you can put into use BECAUSE part of the planning is you have backups and stored missiles that can then be sent to replace ones in the field that come in or maitenance or repair. As has been noted the US has far more MMIII missiles "deployed" than it has silo's to put them in and this has been a 'feature' since the begining. For every 'active' missile in a silo you assume one missile is in storage in 'ready-to-use' status and one missile in various stages of repair, maintenance and inspection. More is likely simply because while unlikely there might be a string of in service failures or malfunctions so you want backups just in case and those will be stored as individual stages but counted as all up missiles.

The documentation also covers the manufacturing equipment you'll find.

In a general way as usually the manufacturer has the details. The US had to go back to the original manufacturer's documentation and still had to start almost from scratch due to changes in manufacturerer's and dicarded and/or unusable equipment. The manufacturer also had to allocate, design and build new buildings and facilities, new supply lines and expanded locations to accomodate just the upgrade program. An acutual new manufacturing program will be bigger still.

I disagree that building a new missile within the limitations placed by the defunct MM3

You're aware the MM3 isn't 'defunct' and has been modernized and upgraded steadily.

...are the best options when the US's two main opposing powers are all building not 1 but several new missiles.

If we want to field and effective new missile system in a short period of time with as much economic efficiency as possible you can disagree all you want but you'd be wrong. Note the "limitations" you keep going on about are for ancillary and support systems which have already been shown to be quite adaptable if not pushed too far beyond what they were initially designed to handle. And a missile based on the physical parameters of the MM3 with modern technology would be quite effective. More so as I point out below there's still room between the current MM3 and Peacekeeper to play with.

And I think we have covered the fact that the R-29 and R-29RMU2 are not the same and the R-36 was built in Ukraine, so the idea that they're using the exact same manufacturing equipment and systems for the RS-28 is clearly false.

I never said they were the 'same' but your assertion that the R-29RMU2 is a 'completely different' missile is also untrue as it's an evolution of the basic R-29 and that's been clearly shown.

The RS-26 was also a new missile although cancelled.

Like the Midgetman? I keep pointing out the main reason we in the US have not continued missile development was the end of the Cold War took away the majority of rational that was driving such programs. That is changing but in both Russia and China's cases they needed to recover the economic and political will to re-engage in an arms build up while the US has been slow to do so.

The DF-41 is very clearly a new missile, as is the JL-3.

Well yes as the former has been in development for over 30 years using the (again) same infrstructure as the DF-31 and will use mostly the same support systems. Similarly the J3 has been developed using the same infrastructure as the J2 but requires a new-build launch platform which is still in development. Note the diameter hasn't changed and there's a good reason for this.

But more to the point, this is about matching capabilities in terms of mobility and capacity, not choosing easy options. If the latter were the goal, then doing nothing would be the order of the day.

And you'll note the latter is what the US did for the last 20+ years Capability matching is dependent on many things but having a few bigger, or many more smaller warheads mounted on a few big missiles, yes we COULD match that capability but it won't enhance our overall capability. Having numerous variable yield, manuverig multiple warhead missiles would likely be a better and more effective deterent which is what the plan is. (IF they get the manuvering warhead work approved that is)

I will say that there is very much a 'chimera' in the idea the US needs to match the 'mobilty' capability of our adversaries. The US has been down this road several times already and chosen not to pursue such systems to deployment for several reasons. While keeping the option open is a good idea as has been noted the most effective means of going that route is to design for mobility FIRST rather than refitting it after the fact and that's a problem. Mobilty requires a number of new systems, equipment, and operations to achieve and despite numerous studies it's not really a clear win in any catagory.

Boo-hoo. Deal with it and make the solid fuel.

We are but we need to expand and build new to meet the future demand.

Length can't be a problem, those nose cones are 3 times as long as wide. The MM3 nose cone for instance is 12ft long (144in).

And a quick measure puts the MGM-134 nose cone at >2.5m long (>100in), not that changing a nosecone slightly would make a massive difference anyway.

Actually changing the nose cone shape does in fact have a lot of effect since by nature the ICBM's tend to have high accelleration during the first stage burn. While fitting the AMaRV wasn't an issue fitting the SWERVE apperantly was as illustrated by the folding nose option. And again there'd be issues with fitting it to something like the Trident.

But I'm going to point out a bit we missed, (and I myself was looking at that or a similar pic when I wrote a lot of this) in that the warhead bus on the MM3 is NOT as big as we're assuming. Not that it's much but the bus diameter is only 52in/1.32m not the full 66in/1.68m of the first stage. So we've got an extra 14in/0.36m to play with

The R-29RMU didn't enter service until 2007 and is still a smaller missile than the R-29RMU2. The RMU2 is 15m long and 1.9m wide. The RMU is 14.8m and 1.8m. The R-29 is 13.2m and 1.8m. But the more important thing is the increased warhead capacity. Now you're saying the mid-80s, earlier you said the 70s and that was what I made the F-18C to F-18E remark based on, which still holds.

But a Peacekeeper could carry far more.

The original R-29 carried two warheads, (and originally deployed with two), but in 1980 it went up to carrying 4 as a standard load, the R-29RMU also carried 4 and in fact the R-29RMU2 ALSO can only carry '4' warheads in the same configuration which was the point you missed. It CAN carry 12 smaller, low-yield warheads with no penetration aids or decoys. Note the warhead yield and not manuvering ones either. The yield can go up with fewer warheads and then pen-aids and decoys can be added as I noted.
The most often quoted diameter for both the RMU and RMU2 is 1.9m while the older R-29's were only 1.8m and a 2cm 'stretch' in length can be accounted for with the modifications to the warhead bus structure to hold more than the standard 4 warheads.

The Peacekeeper could carry a maximum of 11, (treaty limited to only 10) of the medium yield W87 warheads in the Mk21 RV along with pen-aids and decoys. It could carry 12 of the Mk-12 RV's but it was only deployed with the Mk21.

Randy

You don't build 114 and only put into service 46.

OMG! Would it be harder than building a rocket to go to the moon and back from scratch? If this attitude have been prevalent 50 years ago, the Cold War would have been lost, no questiion about it.

It's 50 years old and is basically on a life-support machine.

A missile between the MM3 and Peacekeeper would not only require new equipment but new designs. The Peacekeeper isn't even that large compared to an RS-28 or DF-5B.

Yeah, the R-29RMU2 is an evolution of the R-29 in the same way an F-18E is an evolution of the F-18A, as has been clearly shown. Not to mention the RSM-56.

The Cold War only went into hibernation.

You can still have the manoeuvring warheads with the bigger missiles and have the capacity for more of them.

Any evidence of that?

Don't know where you get your 2cm from but basically everything in your last paragraph is wrong and can be shown to be if you simply bothered Googling before firing a pre-emptive text salad.

 

[Forest Green]

Better than pegging our ICBM force to a missile that is vulnerable to terminal defenses that the other guy actually has right now...

What missile is that?

Your hypothetical HGV armed ICBM.

How is a HGV more vulnerable than an RV? Generally decoys are stripped away by the atmosphere and probably don't even follow the exact same trajectory as the live warheads.

 

[Forest Green]

Actually they were initially developed in the US to try and deal with mobile ICBM's allowing mobile launchers to be targeted even if they moved after launch. A side benifit was that it made interception harder and that's the main driver today for further development. The main problem with decoy's is they only mimic a warhead and once you're in the atmosphere they quickly become apparent. The 'better' the decoy the more it resembles an actual warhead but along the lines it gets heavier and more complex as you go along.

Randy

I've heard that modern ABM radars can detect decoys unless they're an exact external match to a live warhead.

 

[RanulfC]

It is not quite as simple as swapping payloads. RV -> MARV that is doable, you lose some payload but can be done pretty easily if you have the spare space and mass margins. RV -> HGV is a whole different matter. The trajectories are very different as is the GN&C system. You also need a separate testing program and a booster optimized for one mission will not be optimized for the other, especially if its solid-fueled.

You most certainly CAN use the same missile for two different types of payloads. It's already been done. You can start with a larger ICBM and use it for either RVs or HGVs (both Russia and China intend to do exactly that). You can't start with an ICBM with low throw weight and short range and expect to swap out RVs for HGVs however.

You CAN use the same missile for different payloads but what is important here is not the 'payload' per-se but the payload interface which means pretty much the payload bus. The HGV is going to be bigger, (and longer) than the standard ballistic RV so it will require replacement of the standard payload bus with one designed and engineered to carry the HGV. The switch out will be non-trivial so deployment loads will be pretty standard as they are now. And while both Russia and China intend to deploy an HGV they will need to do the same thing and it is unlikely they will 'standardize' to HGV only payloads. As I pointed out this is a problem with the current Russian HGV due to its mass and size. They lose a LOT of performance with such a massive payload.

I've heard that modern ABM radars can detect decoys unless they're an exact external match to a live warhead.

Older, (some woud call it ancient being from the 70s and 80s ) decoy's were simple radar reflectors but as computing power and resolution went up the shapes and dimensions had to closly mimic the warhead itself. But for the most part they were still inflated/foam filled forms that coased along with the warhead. With today's computing power it possible to ID a decoy like that due to the minimumal air drag at altitude effecting the decoy's differently than the warhead due to the mass difference. (The decoy's would be slowing slightly while the warhead would not. Independently targeted warheads have some means of adjusting course and can slow down or speed up to a very small extent but with the parameters of velocity and loss due to drag inflated decoys will rapidly show too much loss and fall below the tracking parameters) Jammers and spoofers can reduce the radar effectivness enough so that you can use 'hard' body decoy's that do not look like the warhead but will act the same until well into the atmosphereic terminal phase.

Now an interesting concept, (and what it sounds like the Russians are doing with the R-29RMU2 missile bus) is using a mix of high and low yield warheads on the same bus along with the decoy's and pen-aids. What happens is the high yeild warhead either jetisions from the bus a little later or uses a retarder system to 'fall-behind' the low yeild warheads in the atmosphere, As both high and low yeild warheads are in fact warheads the defenses have to cover both. Once the defenses engage the incoming warheads the low yeild warhead is detonated to blind the ABM's and the ground radars allowing the high yeild warhead to head into the target. It is a very brute force way to do it being expensive and rather wasteful of warheads but effective in its own way.

The problem for decoy's is worse for the HGV as mentioned since to mimic an HGV requires pretty much that the decoy BE and HGV and manuever in a similar manner. As I noted above the original work on HGV's was not to avoid interception but to allow the to hit a 'moving' target or one that is nominally mobile at any rate. The US was looking at mobile missile launchers while both Russia and China had a very different target in mind. Carrier Task Groups. You have to generate a very close miss or preferably a hit against a modern carrier to "kill" it and any purely ballistic warhead allowed a very on-the-ball carrier the possiblity of generating a 'miss' by maxium movement before impact. The HGV was supposed to counter that movement but the HGVs had longer atmospheric terminal phases, (obviousy because they have to manuever) and they also lost more velocity during that phase so that they were more vulnerable to terminal phase defenses. There was also a proble with guidance during that phase due to atmopshereic heating and stress and this goes UP with higher atmospheric speed. (So the proposed "Mach27" of the Russian HGV is questionable on several levels)

More recently, (at least on the Russian and Chinese supposed reasons) is to defeat current ABM systems but this is questionable as well on several levels. The most basic way to use manuever to degrade an ABM system is to launch the HGV to appear to have missed any defended target and then once the HGV enters the atmopshere to turn it towards the target. this has the problem that in a general attack ANY launch is going to be closely tracked so it is doubtful that such a trick would work. The other idea is to manuever to avoid KKV's by 'dodging' but this has issues with the KKV's being manuvering as well and mostly have as much if not more manuevrablity than the HGV at very close range. Against non-KKV interceptors with warheads the same issues apply and is compounded by heavy fragmenting warheads which would require the HGV to manuever to avoid and can be used to herd the HGV into missing the target or an intercept. Even with an HGV the best option is to overwhelm the defenses with an ICBM attack rather than manuver

HGV's tend to be bigger than a standard RV which could leave them vulnerable to mid-phase, or any exo-atmospheric interception since they can't manuever until they get into the atmosphere. Their size also tends to limit the number of penetration aids the bus can carry and decoy's was addressed above.

Randy

 

[Sferrin]

You CAN use the same missile for different payloads but what is important here is not the 'payload' per-se but the payload interface which means pretty much the payload bus. The HGV is going to be bigger, (and longer) than the standard ballistic RV so it will require replacement of the standard payload bus with one designed and engineered to carry the HGV. The switch out will be non-trivial so deployment loads will be pretty standard as they are now. And while both Russia and China intend to deploy an HGV they will need to do the same thing and it is unlikely they will 'standardize' to HGV only payloads. As I pointed out this is a problem with the current Russian HGV due to its mass and size. They lose a LOT of performance with such a massive payload.

Since you're starting from scratch there is no reason you couldn't make a modular interface or minimize bus differences. It's not as difficult as you portray it.

 

[Desertfox]

It is not quite as simple as swapping payloads. RV -> MARV that is doable, you lose some payload but can be done pretty easily if you have the spare space and mass margins. RV -> HGV is a whole different matter. The trajectories are very different as is the GN&C system. You also need a separate testing program and a booster optimized for one mission will not be optimized for the other, especially if its solid-fueled.

You most certainly CAN use the same missile for two different types of payloads. It's already been done. You can start with a larger ICBM and use it for either RVs or HGVs (both Russia and China intend to do exactly that). You can't start with an ICBM with low throw weight and short range and expect to swap out RVs for HGVs however.

You can use the same booster, but its not as simple as swapping payloads. The GN&C has to be changed as the trajectories are not the same at all, and the booster will not be optimized for one of the two missions so there will be a payload loss. The Russians are also using liquid-fueled boosters which helps with trajectory management for HGV insertion.

HGVs are more unpredictable and less vulnerable to terminal defences.

How is a HGV more vulnerable than an RV? Generally decoys are stripped away by the atmosphere and probably don't even follow the exact same trajectory as the live warheads.

An HGV will be significantly slower (~Mach 5) when it enters a terminal defense zone than an RV (~ Mach 20), this is straight physics, the RV hits the atmosphere at max energy, while the HGV already burned most of its energy getting there. The HGV is also a significantly larger target and will have a significantly larger RCS while also being a huge IR target through its entire flight while the RV doesn't start heating up until it hits the atmosphere. Besides the HGV will not be making much defensive maneuvers, at Mach 5 you have the turn radius the size of Texas.

HGVs are great for two things, complicating target ID and evading exo-athmospheric mid-course interceptors. Why do China and russia have them? Oh look the US happens to be the one country with exo-athmospheric mid-course interceptors in GBI and SM-3. But if you are the US and your target is Moscow, there is no need to obscure the target and one would rather overwhelm the defenses with multiple RVs and penaids than one HGV.

And yes the atmosphere strips away decoys but by then the RVs are seconds from hitting and the defense has vastly reduced time to react. In defeating defenses the goal is not to eliminate vulnerabilities but to reduce the time the defense engagement time.

 

[RanulfC]

You don't build 114 and only put into service 46.

Yet that is exaclty what we did Congress only authorized modification and silo deployment of 50 missiles while the other 50 were 'on-hold' awaiting funding and support to modify and install them in another set of silos that never came. Those were then as they became available put as "All-Up" missiles (without warheads though) into "ready-storage" to replace any of the active missiles at a moments notice. That's 100. The other 14 were as noted, stored in seperate stages so that they could replace a stage that went bad or was found during maintenance. There is your "114" deployed but not active missiles. (That was the plan anyway but really 14 was too low a number so we only had about 20 "all-up" missiles in ready storage and with the other 10 more stored at the depot as 'all-up' missiles ready to transport, 10 being kept as seperate stages for a total in storage of 24 in all. And that was still low as the 'standard' is two stages for each missile on 'duty' to cover both the missiles in the field and in ready storage. On top of that you want anywhere from a third to half your active force numbers to cover similar numbers cycling through maintenance or being transported. So once thing are moving you make about another 35 or 40 missiles and put them in storage as stages to cover that.

So realistically for the number we actually planned to put into service, (initially 100 in silos) we'd have manufactured somewhere north of 450 missiles of which 'only' 100 would have been active "in-the-field" in silos. 100 would have been in ready storage, 200 as individual stages in storage at depot and about 50 in the pipeline for maintenance, servicing, or testing. 500 would have been better but that assumes some low level continued manufacturing and VERY aggresive 'test' program to burn off missiles you you never really reach that level. Of coure Congress is not likely to actually let us get the perfect number so it's a lot more likely we have 'less' than optimum numbers to work with.

100 deployed in silos, 100 all-up in ready-storage, 75 stored as individual stages, 25 in various stages of transport, or maintenance. This is of course a recipe for disaster, or as per the Peacekeeper something you can easily afford to 'trade' in a treaty deal.

Why all this backup? Because this is a zero tolerance for time busineness. If a missile in a silo goes bad you have to have a ready-spare to put into that silo in less than 24 hours. You have to determine what needs to be replaced within 72 hours and have assets moving in the system to replace them at that time. In addition you need to replace the "ready-spare" within 24 hours with a fully checked out and ready to go missile. The number of actual missiles you have deployed and ready for use is always going to be smaller than the number you actually build or have in the system.

OMG! Would it be harder than building a rocket to go to the moon and back from scratch? If this attitude have been prevalent 50 years ago, the Cold War would have been lost, no questiion about it.

Nice to see you understand the situation and drew a perfect parallel. 60 years ago we made unlimited (essentially) money, resources and support available along with the political and public will to spend what was needed to gain an ICBM capability from scratch and we wasted a lot of time, money, resources, and effort learning how to do it better and more efficently. 50 years ago we made a decision to do the same to send a man to the Moon and return him safetly to the Earth and that was ALL we made an effort to do.

A bit more than 40 years ago with the Lunar goal achieved we no longer had the public or political support to continue going to the Moon and financially American's had other priorities so we scrapped the whole program and have not been back to the Moon since.

Similarly around 40 years ago we found ourselves with an overwhelming superiority in nuclear weapons to our adversaries and decided that military spending would be brought under control.

About 30 years ago we decided we needed several new ICBM programs and initated them but about 20 years ago the main driver of those programs suddenly disappeared.

In accordance politicians at the time, (mostly Republicans mind you) decided that the public was due a 'Peace Dividend' from the long Cold War conflict and began steadily reducing the military both in budget and in size. Then as the world heated up again it was still thought that international conflicts in which sides would anhilate the world with nuclear weapons was unlikely.

But soon China and then Russia again recovered and began to push back not the world stage. Dragged kicking and screaming back into supporting the nuclear deterrent, (and it's still opposed as Congress forces the Army to buy tanks it can't use but won't fund nuclear modernization, https://www.military.com/daily-news...n-buys-abrams-tanks-the-army-doesnt-want.html) Congress finally authorizes a new ICBM program. But it's clear that money, priority and resources will be tight and most if not all in some places of the manufacturing expertise and equpment is highly dated or completely gone. So in order to move forward without the priorities and support of 60 years ago we have to make compromises and accept limits.

Don't like it? Tough that's our reality. Want to change it? That's easy, simply roll back all the tax cuts of the last 30 or so years and hit the top 10% with 'retro' tax rates that we had in the 50s like around 80%*, clear the national debt and we'll still have plenty of money to throw at American industry to rebuild and replace our infrastructure to build several world beating ICBMs and just about anything else we want to do. Think it will happen? Given the outcome would be political suicide for most of the Republicans in office and about half the Democrats I find it highly unlikely and yes if we'd had this attitude during the Cold War, especially at the begining, we probably wouldn't have lost but it would have never ended to be sure.
(*=Don't worry, they won't go broke but with all the loopholes and such they simply will have to settle for being multi-millionares instead of billionares for a while)

Today is not the 1950s/60s and Russia and China are trading partners and more 'frenimies' than adversaries in the political and public eye. (There is a disturbing number of people both in pubic and political office that in fact see Russia for example as the most likely 'saviour' of America rather than an adversary. Think about that for a moment) Like the incentive to go back to the Moon in any kind of hurry the fear and loathing of "Evil Communism" disappeared and isn't coming back. Welcome to the new reality and no, it doesn't mean we're doomed.

Russia and China are building new missiles using their existing infrastructure and industry. We can do the same and also rebuild the lost infrastrcutre and industry and then keep inovating and moving on. What we can not do it do everything at once.

It's 50 years old and is basically on a life-support machine.

Actually with the last upgrade, (which included a full replacement of the propellants and upgrades to the structure) its only about 20 years old and doing quite well.

A missile between the MM3 and Peacekeeper would not only require new equipment but new designs.

We could probably go up to around 6ft in diameter, and probably 60ft to 70ft long and need only modifications to the existing faciities and most equipment. That shouldn't run into the shock isolator systems issues of the Peacekeepr though it would require new lifting and handling tools but those aren't a deal breaker. It's once you get over 7ft in diameter that you start to need major changes to the support systems. The argument could be made pretty easily that the lifting and handling systems can be contrcted out to the folks who built the stuff for the Navy Trident. Of course at that size you run into silo limits again which WILL cost to fix.

[quoteThe Peacekeeper isn't even that large compared to an RS-28 or DF-5B.[/quote]

It didn't need to be since it could carry more warheads than the DF-5, (even the B and C models) and keep in mind the RS-29 is specifically a "Super-Heavy" ICBM along lines of the Titan. LImited utility, and deployment. We want something we can field in larger numbers.

Yeah, the R-29RMU2 is an evolution of the R-29 in the same way an F-18E is an evolution of the F-18A, as has been clearly shown.

F-18C not E. The F-18E was a total rebuild which you noted yourself. As has been shown the R-29RMU2 is an evolution of the late R-29 class through the R-29 RM/RMU.

Not to mention the RSM-56.

Designed from 'scratch' though it used engineering solutions from the Topol-M and uses the same manufacturing and support infrastructure.

The Cold War only went into hibernation.

No this isn't a continuation of the Cold War this is a throwback to even older international relations. Which is why trying to bring back that level of paranioa doesn't work on either the politicians or the public. The US, China, and Russia have larger trade relations than during the Cold War and the dynamics are different as well.

You can still have the manoeuvring warheads with the bigger missiles and have the capacity for more of them.

Yes but the problem with a bigger missile, (especailly anything over 7ft when considering the MMIII silos) is the costs ramp up very, very quickly which means likely fewer of them if they even make it to production. At this point we don't want that we want as many new missiles as we can afford to deploy.

Any evidence of that?

Your going to have to be more clear on what this refers too as I can't see what it's attached to.

Don't know where you get your 2cm from but basically everything in your last paragraph is wrong and can be shown to be if you simply bothered Googling before firing a pre-emptive text salad.

The RS-29RMU2 'grew' 2cm from the R-29RMU and R-29RM, which themselves only added 71cm in length over the R-29RL. My last paragraph is information taken from several sources on the web dealing with the payload of the R-29RMU2/R-29 series and the Peacekeeper so its very much the known data. It can carry 12 low yield warheads with no penatration aids, 10 low yield warheads with standard penatration aids, 8 low yield warheads with enhanced penetration aids, or 4 medium yield warheads with standard penetration aids. It could also carry a 'mixed' payload such as 4 medium yield warheads and 4 low yield warheads. This would reduce if not eleminate the ability to carry penetration aids though.

While it sounds neat keep in mind that the Trident II carries more (up to 14 low yield warheads, or 8 medium yield warheads) or a mix since 1983 with a similar range and accuracy.

Randy

 

[Forest Green]

Older, (some woud call it ancient being from the 70s and 80s ) decoy's were simple radar reflectors but as computing power and resolution went up the shapes and dimensions had to closly mimic the warhead itself. But for the most part they were still inflated/foam filled forms that coased along with the warhead. With today's computing power it possible to ID a decoy like that due to the minimumal air drag at altitude effecting the decoy's differently than the warhead due to the mass difference. (The decoy's would be slowing slightly while the warhead would not. Independently targeted warheads have some means of adjusting course and can slow down or speed up to a very small extent but with the parameters of velocity and loss due to drag inflated decoys will rapidly show too much loss and fall below the tracking parameters) Jammers and spoofers can reduce the radar effectivness enough so that you can use 'hard' body decoy's that do not look like the warhead but will act the same until well into the atmosphereic terminal phase.

Now an interesting concept, (and what it sounds like the Russians are doing with the R-29RMU2 missile bus) is using a mix of high and low yield warheads on the same bus along with the decoy's and pen-aids. What happens is the high yeild warhead either jetisions from the bus a little later or uses a retarder system to 'fall-behind' the low yeild warheads in the atmosphere, As both high and low yeild warheads are in fact warheads the defenses have to cover both. Once the defenses engage the incoming warheads the low yeild warhead is detonated to blind the ABM's and the ground radars allowing the high yeild warhead to head into the target. It is a very brute force way to do it being expensive and rather wasteful of warheads but effective in its own way.

The problem for decoy's is worse for the HGV as mentioned since to mimic an HGV requires pretty much that the decoy BE and HGV and manuever in a similar manner. As I noted above the original work on HGV's was not to avoid interception but to allow the to hit a 'moving' target or one that is nominally mobile at any rate. The US was looking at mobile missile launchers while both Russia and China had a very different target in mind. Carrier Task Groups. You have to generate a very close miss or preferably a hit against a modern carrier to "kill" it and any purely ballistic warhead allowed a very on-the-ball carrier the possiblity of generating a 'miss' by maxium movement before impact. The HGV was supposed to counter that movement but the HGVs had longer atmospheric terminal phases, (obviousy because they have to manuever) and they also lost more velocity during that phase so that they were more vulnerable to terminal phase defenses. There was also a proble with guidance during that phase due to atmopshereic heating and stress and this goes UP with higher atmospheric speed. (So the proposed "Mach27" of the Russian HGV is questionable on several levels)

More recently, (at least on the Russian and Chinese supposed reasons) is to defeat current ABM systems but this is questionable as well on several levels. The most basic way to use manuever to degrade an ABM system is to launch the HGV to appear to have missed any defended target and then once the HGV enters the atmopshere to turn it towards the target. this has the problem that in a general attack ANY launch is going to be closely tracked so it is doubtful that such a trick would work. The other idea is to manuever to avoid KKV's by 'dodging' but this has issues with the KKV's being manuvering as well and mostly have as much if not more manuevrablity than the HGV at very close range. Against non-KKV interceptors with warheads the same issues apply and is compounded by heavy fragmenting warheads which would require the HGV to manuever to avoid and can be used to herd the HGV into missing the target or an intercept. Even with an HGV the best option is to overwhelm the defenses with an ICBM attack rather than manuver

HGV's tend to be bigger than a standard RV which could leave them vulnerable to mid-phase, or any exo-atmospheric interception since they can't manuever until they get into the atmosphere. Their size also tends to limit the number of penetration aids the bus can carry and decoy's was addressed above.

Randy

With Sea-Based X-Band, they mentioned something about dual-polarisation helping them detect decoys too.

How could you retard a warhead in space without thrusters of some kind? Both heavy and light warheads would move at the same speed and fall at the same rate, there would be no different in their path to the same target without them being MARVs or having thrusters.

Wouldn't ABM radar be hardened against EMP.

But a HGV could mimic an RV until the last minute, head for one target then divert to another. The second target may have limited warning due to the flight altitude,

The only thing you really need to hit a carrier is a Pershing II with a datalink to update the missile on the ships position during flight.

Like I mentioned earlier, there's more than one target to aim for. It could head for one target with a ballistic decoy and then manoeuvre towards the next, wasting the defences around that target as it does so. You could even have a MIRV HGV to really annoy the enemy. I'm sure it would just count as one warhead in START right?

It's not just a matter of manoeuvrability, a HGV is very fast, hitting it whilst it takes a fix ballistic path is difficult but when it starts moving you will suffer huge problems with control lag. For instance, the current THAAD will not work against HGVs, even IRBM or MRBM HGVs/MARVs and they are looking at a new version that does.

Has jamming the defence radars from space during a strike been tried?

 

[RanulfC]

You CAN use the same missile for different payloads but what is important here is not the 'payload' per-se but the payload interface which means pretty much the payload bus. The HGV is going to be bigger, (and longer) than the standard ballistic RV so it will require replacement of the standard payload bus with one designed and engineered to carry the HGV. The switch out will be non-trivial so deployment loads will be pretty standard as they are now. And while both Russia and China intend to deploy an HGV they will need to do the same thing and it is unlikely they will 'standardize' to HGV only payloads. As I pointed out this is a problem with the current Russian HGV due to its mass and size. They lose a LOT of performance with such a massive payload.

Since you're starting from scratch there is no reason you couldn't make a modular interface or minimize bus differences. It's not as difficult as you portray it.

Actually you want the different bus rather than just changing the interface. It just makes the whole process vastly easier. The mass distribution and flight perameters are going to be different enough you want to control as many variables as you can. I'm not saying it would be a long, complex process but any configuration change is a non-trivial process. The MMIII one-warhead bus is actually different than the three-warhead bus, mostly due to the physical removal of the other two interfaces and supporting systems. If we every went back to sitting alert with three warheads we'd have to swtich back to the three-interface bus AND then load the three warheads. It's not an extremely difficult task but its not something you can switch on the fly either.

Even if you're starting from scratch it makes sense to mount dedicated interfaces on a dedicated bus. The buses are stored on the main base and can easily be shipped to the silo along with the warhead/HGVs. Pull the current bus and prep it and the payload for shipment and by the time the new bus and payload arrive at the silo you're ready for instillation.

Randy

 

[Desertfox]

But a HGV could mimic an RV until the last minute, head for one target then divert to another. The second target may have limited warning due to the flight altitude,

You are thinking of a MARV here. There is no way for an HGV to mimic an RV, very very different trajectories.

 

[marauder2048]

You can use the same booster, but its not as simple as swapping payloads. The GN&C has to be changed as the trajectories are not the same at all, and the booster will not be optimized for one of the two missions so there will be a payload loss.

Still unclear since there's no PBV needed for the HGV.

Two fairly easy arguments for the HGV:

a. attacking a very hard target in the geometric shadow of a mountain (a pretty obvious defensive ploy against a fixed ICBM threat)
b. delivering a nuclear earth penetrator within the angle of obliquity and velocity tolerances of penetrator

 

[Forest Green]

You don't build 114 and only put into service 46.

Yet that is exaclty what we did Congress only authorized modification and silo deployment of 50 missiles while the other 50 were 'on-hold' awaiting funding and support to modify and install them in another set of silos that never came. Those were then as they became available put as "All-Up" missiles (without warheads though) into "ready-storage" to replace any of the active missiles at a moments notice. That's 100. The other 14 were as noted, stored in seperate stages so that they could replace a stage that went bad or was found during maintenance. There is your "114" deployed but not active missiles. (That was the plan anyway but really 14 was too low a number so we only had about 20 "all-up" missiles in ready storage and with the other 10 more stored at the depot as 'all-up' missiles ready to transport, 10 being kept as seperate stages for a total in storage of 24 in all. And that was still low as the 'standard' is two stages for each missile on 'duty' to cover both the missiles in the field and in ready storage. On top of that you want anywhere from a third to half your active force numbers to cover similar numbers cycling through maintenance or being transported. So once thing are moving you make about another 35 or 40 missiles and put them in storage as stages to cover that.

So realistically for the number we actually planned to put into service, (initially 100 in silos) we'd have manufactured somewhere north of 450 missiles of which 'only' 100 would have been active "in-the-field" in silos. 100 would have been in ready storage, 200 as individual stages in storage at depot and about 50 in the pipeline for maintenance, servicing, or testing. 500 would have been better but that assumes some low level continued manufacturing and VERY aggresive 'test' program to burn off missiles you you never really reach that level. Of coure Congress is not likely to actually let us get the perfect number so it's a lot more likely we have 'less' than optimum numbers to work with.

100 deployed in silos, 100 all-up in ready-storage, 75 stored as individual stages, 25 in various stages of transport, or maintenance. This is of course a recipe for disaster, or as per the Peacekeeper something you can easily afford to 'trade' in a treaty deal.

Why all this backup? Because this is a zero tolerance for time busineness. If a missile in a silo goes bad you have to have a ready-spare to put into that silo in less than 24 hours. You have to determine what needs to be replaced within 72 hours and have assets moving in the system to replace them at that time. In addition you need to replace the "ready-spare" within 24 hours with a fully checked out and ready to go missile. The number of actual missiles you have deployed and ready for use is always going to be smaller than the number you actually build or have in the system.

OMG! Would it be harder than building a rocket to go to the moon and back from scratch? If this attitude have been prevalent 50 years ago, the Cold War would have been lost, no questiion about it.

Nice to see you understand the situation and drew a perfect parallel. 60 years ago we made unlimited (essentially) money, resources and support available along with the political and public will to spend what was needed to gain an ICBM capability from scratch and we wasted a lot of time, money, resources, and effort learning how to do it better and more efficently. 50 years ago we made a decision to do the same to send a man to the Moon and return him safetly to the Earth and that was ALL we made an effort to do.

A bit more than 40 years ago with the Lunar goal achieved we no longer had the public or political support to continue going to the Moon and financially American's had other priorities so we scrapped the whole program and have not been back to the Moon since.

Similarly around 40 years ago we found ourselves with an overwhelming superiority in nuclear weapons to our adversaries and decided that military spending would be brought under control.

About 30 years ago we decided we needed several new ICBM programs and initated them but about 20 years ago the main driver of those programs suddenly disappeared.

In accordance politicians at the time, (mostly Republicans mind you) decided that the public was due a 'Peace Dividend' from the long Cold War conflict and began steadily reducing the military both in budget and in size. Then as the world heated up again it was still thought that international conflicts in which sides would anhilate the world with nuclear weapons was unlikely.

But soon China and then Russia again recovered and began to push back not the world stage. Dragged kicking and screaming back into supporting the nuclear deterrent, (and it's still opposed as Congress forces the Army to buy tanks it can't use but won't fund nuclear modernization, https://www.military.com/daily-news...n-buys-abrams-tanks-the-army-doesnt-want.html) Congress finally authorizes a new ICBM program. But it's clear that money, priority and resources will be tight and most if not all in some places of the manufacturing expertise and equpment is highly dated or completely gone. So in order to move forward without the priorities and support of 60 years ago we have to make compromises and accept limits.

Don't like it? Tough that's our reality. Want to change it? That's easy, simply roll back all the tax cuts of the last 30 or so years and hit the top 10% with 'retro' tax rates that we had in the 50s like around 80%*, clear the national debt and we'll still have plenty of money to throw at American industry to rebuild and replace our infrastructure to build several world beating ICBMs and just about anything else we want to do. Think it will happen? Given the outcome would be political suicide for most of the Republicans in office and about half the Democrats I find it highly unlikely and yes if we'd had this attitude during the Cold War, especially at the begining, we probably wouldn't have lost but it would have never ended to be sure.
(*=Don't worry, they won't go broke but with all the loopholes and such they simply will have to settle for being multi-millionares instead of billionares for a while)

Today is not the 1950s/60s and Russia and China are trading partners and more 'frenimies' than adversaries in the political and public eye. (There is a disturbing number of people both in pubic and political office that in fact see Russia for example as the most likely 'saviour' of America rather than an adversary. Think about that for a moment) Like the incentive to go back to the Moon in any kind of hurry the fear and loathing of "Evil Communism" disappeared and isn't coming back. Welcome to the new reality and no, it doesn't mean we're doomed.

Russia and China are building new missiles using their existing infrastructure and industry. We can do the same and also rebuild the lost infrastrcutre and industry and then keep inovating and moving on. What we can not do it do everything at once.

It's 50 years old and is basically on a life-support machine.

Actually with the last upgrade, (which included a full replacement of the propellants and upgrades to the structure) its only about 20 years old and doing quite well.

A missile between the MM3 and Peacekeeper would not only require new equipment but new designs.

We could probably go up to around 6ft in diameter, and probably 60ft to 70ft long and need only modifications to the existing faciities and most equipment. That shouldn't run into the shock isolator systems issues of the Peacekeepr though it would require new lifting and handling tools but those aren't a deal breaker. It's once you get over 7ft in diameter that you start to need major changes to the support systems. The argument could be made pretty easily that the lifting and handling systems can be contrcted out to the folks who built the stuff for the Navy Trident. Of course at that size you run into silo limits again which WILL cost to fix.

[quoteThe Peacekeeper isn't even that large compared to an RS-28 or DF-5B.

It didn't need to be since it could carry more warheads than the DF-5, (even the B and C models) and keep in mind the RS-29 is specifically a "Super-Heavy" ICBM along lines of the Titan. LImited utility, and deployment. We want something we can field in larger numbers.

Yeah, the R-29RMU2 is an evolution of the R-29 in the same way an F-18E is an evolution of the F-18A, as has been clearly shown.

F-18C not E. The F-18E was a total rebuild which you noted yourself. As has been shown the R-29RMU2 is an evolution of the late R-29 class through the R-29 RM/RMU.

Not to mention the RSM-56.

Designed from 'scratch' though it used engineering solutions from the Topol-M and uses the same manufacturing and support infrastructure.

The Cold War only went into hibernation.

No this isn't a continuation of the Cold War this is a throwback to even older international relations. Which is why trying to bring back that level of paranioa doesn't work on either the politicians or the public. The US, China, and Russia have larger trade relations than during the Cold War and the dynamics are different as well.

You can still have the manoeuvring warheads with the bigger missiles and have the capacity for more of them.

Yes but the problem with a bigger missile, (especailly anything over 7ft when considering the MMIII silos) is the costs ramp up very, very quickly which means likely fewer of them if they even make it to production. At this point we don't want that we want as many new missiles as we can afford to deploy.

Any evidence of that?

Your going to have to be more clear on what this refers too as I can't see what it's attached to.

Don't know where you get your 2cm from but basically everything in your last paragraph is wrong and can be shown to be if you simply bothered Googling before firing a pre-emptive text salad.

The RS-29RMU2 'grew' 2cm from the R-29RMU and R-29RM, which themselves only added 71cm in length over the R-29RL. My last paragraph is information taken from several sources on the web dealing with the payload of the R-29RMU2/R-29 series and the Peacekeeper so its very much the known data. It can carry 12 low yield warheads with no penatration aids, 10 low yield warheads with standard penatration aids, 8 low yield warheads with enhanced penetration aids, or 4 medium yield warheads with standard penetration aids. It could also carry a 'mixed' payload such as 4 medium yield warheads and 4 low yield warheads. This would reduce if not eleminate the ability to carry penetration aids though.

While it sounds neat keep in mind that the Trident II carries more (up to 14 low yield warheads, or 8 medium yield warheads) or a mix since 1983 with a similar range and accuracy.

Randy
[/QUOTE]
They built 70 x $70m missiles to put in storage? I doubt that.

It's hardly a parallel. Doing something that's never been done before and involves covering 40x the range of an ICBM and supporting humans vs rebuilding something that's been done before. It's a good job people don't make this fuss when it comes to making new tyres.

I still make 50 years-old, just with a botox.

But then you still have to have completely new missile designs and trying to use existing equipment creates MRA4-type problem potential. I'm not a big fan of reusing old crap after than project I can tell you.

So a Peacekeeper is smaller than an RS-28 and can be fielded in larger numbers.

So if the F-18E was called the F-18P and there were several other F-18s between F-18C and this F-18P, that would make the F-18P an evolution of the F-18C?

The Topol-M is also much newer than an MM3 though.

Because in the Cold War we placed an embargo on electronics and stuff so that we weren't giving the enemy stuff to replicate... like we are now. The dynamics aren't that different, except China is now the main Communist superpower and North Korea is nuclear armed. That actually sounds worse to me, not better.

Warhead numbers are current START-limited anyway, so the extra capacity is just there as an option if things change.

The bus diameter of MM3.

The RMU2 grew 20cm from RMU, which grew 1.4m from R-29.

The D-5 carries 8-12 but mostly 8 with decoys was the original intent.

 

[Forest Green]

You are thinking of a MARV here. There is no way for an HGV to mimic an RV, very very different trajectories.

Not prior to re-entry.

 

[Desertfox]

HGVs do not re-enter. The whole point of an HGV is that it doesn't leave the atmosphere to begin with. If it behaves like an RV, re-enters, and then maneuvers, that is a MARV.

 

[RanulfC]

With Sea-Based X-Band, they mentioned something about dual-polarisation helping them detect decoys too.

That was part of what I was talking about Those had resolving power to detect the standard 'radar reflector' decoys and the computers that were tied in could detect the different rates due to drag between the lighter 'simulated warhead' decoys and a regular warhead. Cool stuff but damned expensive

How could you retard a warhead in space without thrusters of some kind? Both heavy and light warheads would move at the same speed and fall at the same rate, there would be no different in their path to the same target without them being MARVs or having thrusters.

This is after atmospheric interface so simple flaps or a ballute would be used. MARVs have to enter the atmosphere to be able to manuever. Prior to atmospheric entry the only manuevering a warhead, (even a MARV or HGV) can do is by the bus propulsion system. MIRVs require the bus to position and provide thrust before release as they have no real onboard propulsion. Once released from the bus everything is ballistic till it hits the atmosphere.

Wouldn't ABM radar be hardened against EMP.

EMP isn't the problem, (yes they are hardened as is the interceptors themselves) but physical 'blinding' of the close range sensors AND the blast produces a plasma ball that screws up radar returns for several seconds. This was one of the 'downsides' to using nuclear warheads to intercept incoming missiles in that your tracking and direction radars are going to be unable to 'see' through the mess your own blast created for a second or two.

Hmm, now that's been brought up I should point out that as many ABM systems try to get exo-atmospheric intercepts where the incoming warhead is still outside the atmosphere but after the warhead has been released by the bus ANY warhead is essentialy helpless and dependent on decoy's and penatration aids to avoid intercept. Unless the warhead has on-board propulsion, (an issue in and of itself) it will be ballistic till it can hit atmosphere.

And the tactic won't work outside the atmosphere as you need the plasma fireball to block the radar.

But a HGV could mimic an RV until the last minute, head for one target then divert to another. The second target may have limited warning due to the flight altitude,

True but radical manuvers reduce your speed and once you're in the atmosphere you going to contunually lose speed the further you go. So unless the targets really nearby, (in which case it's likely shooting at the incoming anyway) your chances of surprise aren't that much greater. On the other hand the 'advantage' to boost-glide or HGV is that they enter the atmosphere earlier than the 'ballistic' warheads, (possibly causing the computer to asign them as a 'miss' and drop their tracking priority) and then manuever to the target hopefully gaining surprise.

The main problem is in this case "knowing" really is half the battle and simply programing the computer to keep tracking anything that isn't a absolute miss or watching for new tracks is going to go a long way to negating the advantages.

The only thing you really need to hit a carrier is a Pershing II with a datalink to update the missile on the ships position during flight.

Essentially But the idea was to hit them a lot further away than an IRBM could reach.

Randy

 

[Sferrin]

Still unclear since there's no PBV needed for the HGV.

This. 3-stage ICBM to push an HGV platform or swap that platform out for a 4th stg PBV with MaRVs.

 

[DrRansom]

This is a very interesting conversation - lots of stuff here which I didn't know about before.

 

[RanulfC]

For some odd reason this dropped off the original reply:

You could even have a MIRV HGV to really annoy the enemy. I'm sure it would just count as one warhead in START right?

Ya we had a nuclear powered cruise missile that was designed to do that But no, each 'explody' bit counts as a warhead, better men than us have tried to bypass that one

It's not just a matter of manoeuvrability, a HGV is very fast, hitting it whilst it takes a fix ballistic path is difficult but when it starts moving you will suffer huge problems with control lag. For instance, the current THAAD will not work against HGVs, even IRBM or MRBM HGVs/MARVs and they are looking at a new version that does.

Actually if we're being technically honest it IS just a matter of manuverability in that the interceptor can't manuever to match an incoming target at hypersonic speed if the target 'jinks' near intercept. (And now we understand why everyone wanted to use nuclear warheads for everything... Frustration rearing its ugly head and all that )

Yep as long as the incoming can maintain hypersonic speed the interceptor has little chance of generating a successful hit. Of course the further and more sharply the HGV/MARV manuervers the more speed it loses and the further it travels the more it loses and pretty soon even if you hit atmosphere at Mach 27 and survived to impact your speed is a LOT less near the target.

And while interceptors have a hard time making a direct kill if you launch enough of them and/or put up enough debris, (continious rods, metal/explosive mesh, chunks of shrapnel, heck beehive rounds from rapid fire cannon could do the job) the HGV/MARV is very likely to run into something that will damage it enough for its own speed to destroy it.

Terminal defense is both where the target and attacker are most vulnerable.

Now having said that, I'll also admit that as 'scary' as HGV/MARV may be there are actually worse out there

Has jamming the defence radars from space during a strike been tried?

IIRC it has but results are mixed at best since you have both range and the atmopshere working against you. Power density is an issue I think I remember. You needed a pretty big and powerful platform to get any good results and then there is the whole 'light up and everyone can see you' with ASat's with jamming trackers being a thing.

You can use the same booster, but its not as simple as swapping payloads. The GN&C has to be changed as the trajectories are not the same at all, and the booster will not be optimized for one of the two missions so there will be a payload loss.

Still unclear since there's no PBV needed for the HGV.

This. 3-stage ICBM to push an HGV platform or swap that platform out for a 4th stg PBV with MaRVs.

There isn't? Your PBV is your interface with the missile and carries you GNC and computer system for the whole missile. The PBV also provides power and support till the payload is released and coure corrections prior to atmosphereic entry. Specifically in the HGV case it likely provides you propulsion 'boost' prior to entry so you have more speed to play with. Even if the support is only minimumal you will have a PVB-like structure for mounting the HGV to the missile because there' no 'payload' connection built into the missile itself.

So you're still 'swapping' the PBV assembly between warhead types.

Two fairly easy arguments for the HGV:

a. attacking a very hard target in the geometric shadow of a mountain (a pretty obvious defensive ploy against a fixed ICBM threat)
b. delivering a nuclear earth penetrator within the angle of obliquity and velocity tolerances of penetrator

I'll buy those but will point out the penetrator is supposed to already exist in everyones arsenel?

Randy