A peek on future american SLBMs and ICBMs

link works for me at time of writing.

cheers,
Robin.
 
Pentagon FY2010 black budget includes significant increase (although not a huge dollar amount) for the Conventional Prompt Global Strike mission. No details as to the delivery system but AF Generals Chilton and Kehler have discussed development of the conventional ICBM option. Hopefully, it will carry a significant payload and eventually replace the Minuteman III. Also, the Navy appears to be testings MaRVs and hypersonic glide vehicles on Trident D5 test missiles.
 
God willing, we will never have to use our ICBMs. Yet we will still need a new missile in the next two decades to replace the Minuteman III, I suppose a major upgrade could work, but at this point I think a new design might be better.

I think the Trident II has significantly more life in it. Yet we still need the nuclear triad in my opinion.
 
where i find online this documents (July 3rd 1961, "Package Plans for Strategic Retaliatory Force Program") :D many thansk
 
Lampshade111 said:
God willing, we will never have to use our ICBMs. Yet we will still need a new missile in the next two decades to replace the Minuteman III, I suppose a major upgrade could work, but at this point I think a new design might be better.

I think the Trident II has significantly more life in it. Yet we still need the nuclear triad in my opinion.
Click to expand...

Nuclear weapons have been the best tools for maintaining the peace ever invented.
 
sferrin - there is a chart that shows deaths from military conflict as a percentage of global population The greatest decline in the history of mankind came after the invention of nukes and the decline continues to this day.

The US needs a modern and robust triad with an unquestioned ability to deter our adversaries. And that not only means delivery systems but also new nukes and healthy nuclear infrastructure including advanced concept R&D to avoid strategic surprise. We have to know "what is possible to build" in order to deter.
 
Interesting article on the prompt global strike mission. The article quotes two reports that do not appear available on the web, however, the link is:

http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20090521_3036.php
 
Thanks Bobby, for the link on direct energy weapons, too.
BTW, if you find good links on topics not yet covered by a thread, the right board to post in is the Useful Links.
 
sferrin said:
Lampshade111 said:
God willing, we will never have to use our ICBMs. Yet we will still need a new missile in the next two decades to replace the Minuteman III, I suppose a major upgrade could work, but at this point I think a new design might be better.

I think the Trident II has significantly more life in it. Yet we still need the nuclear triad in my opinion.
Click to expand...

Nuclear weapons have been the best tools for maintaining the peace ever invented.
Click to expand...

Nuclear weapons are just the vector, fear is the real weapon here ( sorry, semantic ... couldn't resist).

It would be ironic that pres. Obama would still fund the development of new nuclear weapons and delivery systems in the light of his recent remarks concerning nuclear weapons in the world. But it is obvious that when more and more countries develop a working nuclear triad ( albeit restricted in range) the US will not disarm unilaterally.
Still, I wonder what the operational future replacement of the Minuteman will look like, and especially what the capabilities regarding MIRV capacity, decoys will be. Will it be a rustic or a daring design. As always that remains the question
 
Skybolt - I must be blind where is Useful Links?

Firefly - Unfortunately the current administration's long term agenda is to let the entire nuclear enterprise "die on the vine" through neglect.

Example #1 is the Next Generation Bomber which has been delayed until the QDR and Nuclear Posture Review come out at the end of the year. What I predict is that under the cover of "arms control negotiations" the argument will be "why build ANYTHING when we might not need it a some distant point in the future especially with DOD budgets being constrained by the current "financial crisis".

The long term effect will be that scientists and engineers will flee the programs that will soon have no jobs and the US will lose its ability to produce both nukes and delivery systems.

Prior to the European Enlightenment (sorry for the topic break although the point is relevant to my post) China dominated the nukes of the day - large ocean going naval vessels. The emperor ordered a stop to their production and within ONE generation China was surpassed and conquered.
 
It is a child board of Site Feedback. And the current administration is, as a matter of fact, just current....
 
Does anyone know if there is a constant equation between the throw weight of a surface to surface ballistic missile and the same missile to low earth orbit? The proposed Ares I booster can lift 25 tons to LEO. Hypothetically, what would its payload be as an ICBM?
 
bobbymike said:
Does anyone know if there is a constant equation between the throw weight of a surface to surface ballistic missile and the same missile to low earth orbit? The proposed Ares I booster can lift 25 tons to LEO. Hypothetically, what would its payload be as an ICBM?
Click to expand...

Tsiolkovsky's "Rocket Equation" ought to do the trick, although it is a bit complicated (see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsky_rocket_equation).

If you know the exhaust velocity (or specific impulse) of the engine (-s) used, as well as the mass ratio (ratio of the rocket's wet mass (structural mass + payload + fuel/propellant) to its dry mass (structural mass + payload)), you can calculate max delta-V. For orbital insertion, something in the neighbourhood of 9 km/sec (about 6 miles/sec) would be required.

If you use your booster as an ICBM, reverse the equation. Figure out what range you want from your ICBM, and what delta-V is required to get that range (this is probably the complicated bit). Then, based on the exhaust velocity and the required delta-V, you calculate a revised mass ratio. Since the delta-V required of an ICBM is typically less than that required of an orbital launcher, your revised mass ratio will show that you get a larger dry mass(vehicle structural mass + payload mass). And since structural mass is about the same for both the launch vehicle and the ICBM: Hey Presto - more payload.

Did that make sense at all ???

Regards & all,

Thomas L. Nielsen
Denmark
 
This talk on using Ares I as an ICBM prompts me to remember that in early '60 there was a brief consideration on using the Titan-3M with gelled propellant as an ultra-heavy ICBM. Minus the solid booster it was called Titan-2A. Sort of American UR-500/Proton...
 
Skybolt said:
This talk on using Ares I as an ICBM prompts me to remember that in early '60 there was a brief consideration on using the Titan-3M with gelled propellant as an ultra-heavy ICBM. Minus the solid booster it was called Titan-2A. Sort of American UR-500/Proton...
Click to expand...

Interesting, I'd never heard that. Believe it or not there was a study done that looked at using a Saturn V as a "dead airfield in a can" using conventional warheads.
 
mmmm, very long reaction time, though, except they were planning to use storable fuel (there was an early consideration on not using LOX as oxydizer in for F-1 engines, seen it a few days ago....).
 
Lauge - THANKS! I will try the equations to see what I come up with, wish me luck :D

But at minimum it will be greater than the Ares 1, 25 tons. So it would be possible to carry 25+ 2000 lbs aMaRVS or Common Aero Vehicles. There is a video on Youtube called "Minuteman III missile launch - California to Kwajalein" that shows how accurate the RV's are, watch and listen close to the commentary.

@Sferrin and Skybolt - maybe the ultra heavy ICBM was to hold this weapons (from Armscontrolwonk.com)

Sen. John Pastore: Do you see any military need for a 50- or 75-megaton bomb?

[Gen. Curtis] LeMay: Yes, sir; I do. The Joint Chiefs have already recommended we go ahead with the development work on a large-yield bomb.

Pastore: Is this a new policy?

LeMay: It is not new as far as I am concerned. I asked for, the Air Force asked for, a high-yield bomb as early as 1954.

This was from a Senate hearing at the height of the Cold War. I think we need to have a weapon this size to fend off earth bound meteors.
 
Air Force RDT&E budget for FY08, 09 & 2010 for ICBM's: $26 million, $70 million & $66 million respectively. While the dollar figures are small to the $533 billion DOD budget anyone know why the big percentage jump? This is a separate line item from MMIII upgrades or refurbishment.
 
From Defense News today: Vice Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs Gen. James Cartwright.

Prompt Global Strike

Additionally, Cartwright said he continues to press for development of a new weapon that would allow Washington to take out a fleeting target in a manner of minutes.

The Marine Corps general said he has concluded conventionally armed bombers are "too slow and too intrusive" for many "global strike missions."

Cartwright for several years has advocated for a "prompt global strike" weapon, which would be ultra-fast and fitted with a conventional warhead.

Congress, due largely to worries that other nations, like Russia, would be unable to quickly determine whether an in-flight warhead was nuclear, has refused to fund the program.

Cartwright said even congressional skeptics of the idea realize there is a "military requirement" for such a fast weapon to take out fleeting targets.

The requirements for such a weapon are "starting to emerge," he said.

"At the low end," a PGS weapon would probably need to be launched and hit a target within "one hour," Cartwright said. "At the high end," the time frame could be as short as "300 milliseconds."

The military might need a "hypersonic" weapon that would travel in the exoatmosphere to take out a limited number of fleeting targets, he said.

Finally, Cartwright told the audience the Pentagon is examining a new concept, called "extended deterrence," something "we're trying to force into the QDR."

The idea would be to field a weapon so effective that it would dissuade enemies from carrying out a specific activity, while also "not starting a nuclear arms race" and "giving allies comfort."

The options for an "extended deterrence" capability, he said, are not limited to nuclear-armed weapons.
 
0,3 sec reaction time means an extensive fleet of mid-altitude satellites armed with lasers. Or half a dozen of geo satellites (actually, battle stations with self defense und so weiter) with very powerful lasers with near instant pumping mechanism (name one, not explosive since the weapon must be a repeat-fire one). Probably doable, putting 200 billions on the table and political resolve for 10 years in a row.
 
The key weapon idea is "one that is so effective (and apparently nonnuclear) that our enemies will be deterred and our allies will feel safe". Megawatt class FEL based in space? It sounds like some far off dream weapon under Cartwright's description. Anyone else care to speculate.
 
bobbymike said:
The key weapon idea is "one that is so effective (and apparently nonnuclear) that our enemies will be deterred and our allies will feel safe". Megawatt class FEL based in space? It sounds like some far off dream weapon under Cartwright's description. Anyone else care to speculate.
Click to expand...

That kind of power would require a LARGE number of solar cells and a megawatt chemical laser in space would be fantasy at this point (look at the difficult just putting one in a plane). Now if they could fire ABL up to a series of relay mirrors. . .but then again it's bordering on fantasy given the current administration.
 
I think the only way would be some kind of solid state FEL with pumping energy coming from a nuclear reactor (MHD power conversion ?). Solar cells (or a solar mirror concentrator) would make the all thing enormous and easily disablable. Or maybe they just made some nuclear isomer work... ;)
 
Skybolt said:
I think the only way would be some kind of solid state FEL with pumping energy coming from a nuclear reactor (MHD power conversion ?). Solar cells (or a solar mirror concentrator) would make the all thing enormous and easily disablable. Or maybe they just made some nuclear isomer work... ;)
Click to expand...

I thought the "nuclear isomer" idea was right up there with "hafnium bombs" and cold fusion? ???
 
@sferrin - nuclear isomer and hafnium are synonymous. Hafnium was the isomer that was used in the now famous "Texas experiments".

There was an article, I think in National Defense magazine, about a "breakthrough" in FEL technology that while the power was still in the tens of kilowatts the technology was now apparently more easily "scaleable" to the megawatt range. However, this was to be deployed on "electric warships" which seems to imply massive energy needs.

But 300 milliseconds attack time has to be directed energy. I just hope they actually develop a large ICBM for MMIII replacement as well as conventional prompt global strike (sorry to restate what I did at the beginning of this thread)
 
bobbymike said:
@sferrin - nuclear isomer and hafnium are synonymous. Hafnium was the isomer that was used in the now famous "Texas experiments".

There was an article, I think in National Defense magazine, about a "breakthrough" in FEL technology that while the power was still in the tens of kilowatts the technology was now apparently more easily "scaleable" to the megawatt range. However, this was to be deployed on "electric warships" which seems to imply massive energy needs.

But 300 milliseconds attack time has to be directed energy. I just hope they actually develop a large ICBM for MMIII replacement as well as conventional prompt global strike (sorry to restate what I did at the beginning of this thread)
Click to expand...

Already being worked on!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ares_I
RV is large enough to carry RRW or CAV easily.
 
Sorry for being pedantic on this basic matters, but the Ares-1 with its LH/LOX second stage (J-2X) isn't up to an ICBM, nor a CAV carrier: a strike using Ares-1 would be perhaps global but surely not prompt...
 
Skybolt said:
Sorry for being pedantic on this basic matters, but the Ares-1 with its LH/LOX second stage (J-2X) isn't up to an ICBM, nor a CAV carrier: a strike using Ares-1 would be perhaps global but surely not prompt...
Click to expand...

If they blew the dust off Aerojet's 260" solid motor. . .
 
260" diameter, wow! You could fit around 10 Mk-21 RV's just across the diameter. That would mean at least 50 (probably way more if they were dart shaped) warheads. Just think 50 500 lbs bombs raining down (or several hundred tungsten rods) on a North Korean missile site at Mach 15 and only 30 minutes after launch.

Now that would qualify as General Cartwright's "extended deterrence".
 
Aerojet News Release:

Aerojet Selected for $46M Solid Rocket Motor Air Force Contract

SACRAMENTO, Calif., May 14, 2009 – Aerojet, a GenCorp (NYSE: GY) company, has been awarded the Large Class (LC) Stage II Technology Demonstration contract from the U.S. Air Force’s 526th ICBM Systems Group. The program is worth just over $46M over a three-year period and includes delivery of a Stage II asset for flight demonstration.

Aerojet’s large solid motor heritage with the Air Force spans nearly 40 years. The company has designed, developed and produced the second stage of every U.S. Air Force strategic launch vehicle ever fielded or flown: Minuteman I, II and III; Peacekeeper and Small ICBM.


The LC Stage II award will provide the Air Force with a modern 92-in. diameter upper stage motor that can be used for a variety of future launch applications including strategic deterrence, conventional strike and rapid space response. “The Large Class Stage II Technology Demonstration Program is destined to become another example of the outstanding teamwork between Aerojet and the Air Force. We look forward to continuing this tradition of excellence with the development of the next generation of solid upper stage systems,” says Vice President of Defense Programs, Dick Bregard.


Aerojet’s approach for the LC Stage II Demonstration effort will use industry-wide capabilities including those at Aerojet’s Sacramento facility and at its critical suppliers. Key features of the motor include a composite case fabricated with domestically supplied graphite fiber, a low-cost movable nozzle with electrical-mechanical thrust vector control actuators and robust production-based propellant. Mark Kaufman, executive director of Strategic Propulsion Programs, commented, “Aerojet’s proposal was structured to provide the best overall value to our Air Force customer. Our broad-based program plan will deliver a modernized upper stage solid rocket motor to the Air Force and will help sustain key propulsion industry suppliers for long-term value to the U.S. government.”
_________________________________________________________________________________________________

So 92" diameter basically Peacekeeper sized second stage. Wonder if the propellant has higher thrust due to recent improvements is the technology from the IHPRPT research program?
 
260" diameter, wow!
Click to expand...
It would need entire new silos... the largest solid ICBM ever officialy studied by the US was the 156" version of WS-120 concept. Preferred configuration was 120" diameter, though. During early MX development configurations studied was constrained by Minuteman silo size. The largest one was called "silo stuffer", that's self explaining. It had to use a cold launch technique because the silo would have to be stripped by all protection from exhaust gases to make room.
BTW, 92" is, as anyone knows, diameter of the Peacekeeper (which sitted in Minuteman silos).
 
bobbymike said:
260" diameter, wow! You could fit around 10 Mk-21 RV's just across the diameter. That would mean at least 50 (probably way more if they were dart shaped) warheads. Just think 50 500 lbs bombs raining down (or several hundred tungsten rods) on a North Korean missile site at Mach 15 and only 30 minutes after launch.

Now that would qualify as General Cartwright's "extended deterrence".
Click to expand...


There's no reason you couldn't stack them several tall as well (I seem to remember seeing drawing of an SS-18 variant illustrating this). Figure a Saturn V sized ICBM might have a 300,000lb or better throw weight and that's a lot of RVs (A Mk21 weighs less than a thousand pounds).
 
Again, the constraining factor here is the Minuteman silo size. To me it seems significant that Aerojet work is limited to 92". Moreover, it is true you can stack segments, but then there are staging problems and the longer you make a missile (actually, the higher you push the diameter/lenght factor) the more bending and vibration harmonics problems you'll have. For an ICBM this translate directly in lost accuracy. During the Saturn V development there were estensive studies on bending and vibrations in long tubular bodies. They are on NTRS if someone is interested.
 
Yes 92" is Peacekeeper's diameter, my comment "so basically Peacekeeper size" was meant to convey, as the Aerojet press release indicated, that this was a "modern" or new stage II development project in this size range (and not an old Peacekeeper stage II pulled out of storage) incorporating new technologies.

@sferrin - thanks for the information on the other missile systems. I did not know that solid rockets of diameters of up to 260" were not only built but tested! The other thing that came to mind was that this was over 40 years ago. The US was doing things like this and the Soviets could not produce reliable solid propellant until decades later.

It makes me ask the question "did the US purposely hamstring its weapons R&D and production to assuage the Soviets?" Before someone calls the Black Helicopters on me there is a book called "Strategy and History" by Edward Luttwak that, on pg 215 says that defense Secretary McNamara stopped a lot of triad modernization (including the WS-120, the Air Force's counter SS-9/SS-18) due to his post Cuban Missile Crisis "fears".

It also says the biggest hits were taken by the Air Force - hmmm, Air Force hurt by Sec. Defense, I have heard that same "commentary" a little more recently.
 
Ah, McNamara... the basic problem was that during his tenure the US went from a flexible response doctrine in nuclear matters (that means, "nuclear warfighting") to first Assured Destruction and then Mutually Assured Destruction. When you are starting to think in term of MAD (which, BTW, Soviets never accepted) the "how much is enough" question has a simple answer: what you need to completely destroy the other part even absorbing a full force blow. If you think you already have that kind of capability and have only to maintain it, weapons development must go in direction of passive survivability, and the more your forces are standardized the better (why have a pistol, a carbine, a machine gun and an howitzer when a good six-rounds can kill everyone ?). Actually it was much more compicated than that: 1) the momentum behind ABM was enormous, and it was shelved (partally, actually) only in the face of a treaty (that McNamara pushed very hard, since he considered ABM destabilizing in the face of MAD); 2) the counterforce doctrine pushed by McNamara in mid-60s actually required more Titans, not more Minutemen. And so on. Moreover, McNamara did a lot of force modernization, think of MIRV (which is counterforce not MAD, but he thought of it in term of force multiplier to limit the growth in numbers of mssiles). He opposed ICBM and bomber development (but up to a point, what about AMSA ?), but he went full speed ahead in SLBMs. Nike-X TECHNOLOGY and then Sentinel DEPLOYMENT was strongly supported by him, and in face of Vietnam it is doubtful that there were enough resources to push a Nike-X anti-URSS deployment in any case.
Post-Cuba there was only Jupiter and Thor retirement (doubtful value weapons, anyway, after Polaris). MMRBM was cancelled on EUROPEAN political issues (the NATO indipendent Nuclear Force issue) not US' and considering what now we know on the extense of the clandestine communist armed network in Western Europe it would have been rather difficult to defend from communist insurgents and spetsnatz commandos (one of the studies still classified in Strat-X was about the danger of "unconventional warfare" against nuclear deterrent forces EVEN IN THE CONTINENTAL US..). The US administration in 1966 started a plan to counter that network with infiltration and nastier things. McNamara mistakes were big (think of the opposition to nuclear carriers and commonality), but he didn't do only mistakes. The greatest of all was that he wasn't rational to the end. He had a very Ford-esque bias: standardization, whch he ended to think of in term of homogenization, of ends to means, not the opposite.
 
Skybolt - I have just ordered the latest Curtis LeMay biography. I wonder how much of the post Cold War weapons race it will cover. By the way do you have any suggestions or is there a definitive book on Cold War "nuclear weapons and their delivery systems", but with the political aspects discussed as well? It may be a few different books but your suggestions would be helpful as you obviously know this stuff in great detail.

From Spacewar.com: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Russia_military_says_no_nuclear_warhead_cuts_below_1500_reports_999.html

Reduction of nuclear forces to 1500 deployed warheads. Assuming this happens anyone care to speculate on deployment. I would eliminate the "nuclear bomber" option - we still need the NGB though - so my force would be 450 warheads on a NEW single warhead ICBM (with the ability to carry more warheads if the future changes) and 1050 on the Trident subs broken down as 11 subs X 24 missiles with four warheads each (six missiles would have three warheads but close enough) I have not speculated on what the SSBN-X (that Sec Def Gates wants to accelerate) would look like but my "guess" will be 16 or even 12 SLBM tubes but only one for one replacement with Trident, which would leave more warheads per missile as an option.
 
Bobby, it couldn't be a single book, and probably it would be an entire library... :D Actually there wasn't a single "arms race" but many, and all interwined in complex ways. Moreover, what it would be needed is a single point of view covering of the matters, but this is not possible if you really want to go in detail. Third, there are big holes in the documets available (lost, classified, unknown, think this: how you find out the "existence" of a program if it is in the black world ? And, having uncovered it, how you'll explain the rationale for money, big money, being spent on it ? And why are certain roads not taken, even if they were actually very promising. Think at the work in early ABRES in first half of the '60s on ballistic re-entry vehicles with ECMs: it worked fine, why not use them ? They also did radiation-homng re-entry vehicles, and even home-on-jam ones.. This is a technology that has all but disappeared.). Fourth, an "ideal" Cold War history book would have to "use" what we now know in terms of documents etc. but putting the facts and interpretation in the contest of the times: now we know what the opposite part was doing, and what happened next, but people back then didn't know, or knew only scketchy, and the intepretation of what they thought they knew was different from ours, and from each other of the people involved. And putting oneslef in the shoes of people living in the past is no easy matter, the past is a stranger land, even for people still living and acting then (I am thinking of McNamara himself). When you say this it seems very natural and rational, but I assure you that it isn't so straightforward for the absolute majority of historians. Just think that Furet did this FOR THE FIRST TIME regarding the French Revolution in the '70s, and historians (some) are doing the same regarding the prodromes to WW1 only since 10 years. Imagine what happens in a subject as the Cold War. All this said, I think that good starting points are the classic: "The Common Defense" by Huntington (yes, that Huntington) on 40s and 50s seen from the early '60s; "Poltics and Force levels" by Desmond Ball, on the gyrations of the Kennedy administration (Ball thought that the Johnson one was a mere appendix of Kennedy's in this matter, I disagree, but that's life); "Making the MIRV", by Ted Greenwood (one of those rare academic historians that actually UNDERSTANDS weapon technology); "Ballistic Missile Defense", by Benson Adams on the complex evolution of ABM in the US during the late 50s and the 60s seen from 1971 by a Booz Allen analyst sympathetic with ABM concept (a rare bird). Lastly, "Inventing Accuracy" by Donald McKenzie, ostensibly on the evolution of inertial guidance, but full of insights on missile technology evolution and strategic concepts. McKenzie started as a critical sociological scientist but ended up LOVING the matter he was studying. Unfortunately, he never continued in same topic studies, probably feeling that his academic career would suffer..
Lastly: the SSBN-X will probably be a stretched Virginia-class, BUT the missiles could be a mix of weapon types (Trident D-5 and new IRBMs). As for the ICBM, at that force level, updated Minutemen would be ok. I don't see any usefulness in doing a 92" missile to carry a single re-entry vehicle, even a MaRV with terminal guidance. My opiinion.
 
Thanks Skybolt ;D Will take a look at Amazon but will probably have to dig deeper for some of the titles. I came of age during Reagan and started to more closely follow weapons development starting then. However, I am constantly amazed by what was being worked on in the 50's, 60's and 70's. Not to sound conspiratorial but it sometimes appears the US did not deploy a lot of promising technology and it is hard to figure out why (hence my book request to you) I suspect there was incredibly complex geopolitical considerations that sought a "slightly better than parity" with the Soviets strategy. Was there a fear of looking too strong?

Have you read the book "Star Warriors" about early SDI development at Lawrence Livermore? The scientists interviewed had a great disdain for all things Soviet. If I was to read between the lines it seemed that the scientists were actually being held back in developing what was possible to develop.

Secret Projects is a great website for discussion of this issue and other technology issues.

And from Spacewar today: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Raytheon_Awarded_Contract_For_ONR_Free_Electron_Laser_Program_999.html

Thought I would add this short story as we were discussing it a few posts ago.
 

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