Maneuverable Atmospheric Reentry Vehicles

[Kane]

Ok so ive been struggling for quite a few days trying to find information pertaining to MaRVs, such as their design, yield and deployment but as with MIRV weapons it is exceedingly difficult to find quality information or pictures of any of these weapons. There are a few papers published by Chinese sources pertaining to the design and development of MaRVs but since i really dont feel like learning Chinese I thought id post a new topic to see if anyone could help me in the right direction. Any insight on these secretive weapons would be greatly appriciated.

 

[quellish]

Ok so ive been struggling for quite a few days trying to find information pertaining to MaRVs, such as their design, yield and deployment but as with MIRV weapons it is exceedingly difficult to find quality information or pictures of any of these weapons. There are a few papers published by Chinese sources pertaining to the design and development of MaRVs but since i really dont feel like learning Chinese I thought id post a new topic to see if anyone could help me in the right direction. Any insight on these secretive weapons would be greatly appriciated.

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,5728.0/highlight,marv.html
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,8981.0/highlight,marv.html
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,722.0/highlight,marv.html

 

[Austin]

Lightning Bolts
First Maneuvering Reentry Vehicles
by William Yengst

link

"History shows that demands of wartime military and political leaders have often motivated development of new and advanced technologies. The German desire to attack American cities with long-range variants of V-2 missiles during the latter years of World War II stimulated development of maneuvering reentry vehicle concepts. In the mid-1960s, these concepts were secretly refined and tested by the United States to provide accurate delivery of strategic nuclear warheads at intercontinental ranges and to assure their penetration of newly developed Soviet anti-ballistic missile defenses.

First Maneuvering Reentry Vehicles, by William C. Yengst, describes the initial feasibility programs to test three alternative designs for implementing hypersonic maneuvers and accurate guidance of long-range reentry vehicles. It identifies the political and military motivations, environmental challenges, design difficulties, innovative technology solutions, test failures, and spectacular successes. It also summarizes development of operational maneuvering reentry vehicles prepared for U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Army long-range missile systems during the 1980s. The technology has been adopted and further refined by foreign nations (India, China and Russia) in building their latest missile systems. Therefore, it is important to understand the capabilities and performance characteristics of future potential threats.

Written as a first-hand account of the technology's evolution, the book honors the dedicated engineers and scientists who worked to make these programs a success."

308 pages - $16.99 (paperback)
$10.99 (digital download)

 

[Skybolt]

Uh, well, MaRV means Manouverable Re-entry Vehicle, no atmosheric in the acronym.
BTW, there are two types of MaRVs: Evading MaRV, that try to foil ABMs using violent terminal manouvers but falling more or less along the ballistic flightpath, and so having an accuracy less than a non-monouvering vehicle, and Homing MaRVs, that use manouvering capabilities to enhance accuracy. Based on the type of manouvering aids, there are one and two-dimensional MaRVs. And, MaRV not always are MIRVs....The Pershing II warhead was a Homing MaRV, with radar scene matching guidance supplementing the inertial one.

 

[quellish]

Lightning Bolts
First Maneuvering Reentry Vehicles
by William Yengst

link

I just started reading this, WELL worth it for anyone interested in RVs or hypersonic flight. There are a lot of questions that have been asked on the forum that are answered in the book.

 

[sferrin]

On the way from Amazon as we speak. ;D

 

[bobbymike]

So question; has there been any unclassified reports or information on just how accurate you can deliver a warhead from CONUS to an intercontinental destination? If I have missed a previous discussion about this I apologize.

 

[quellish]

So question; has there been any unclassified reports or information on just how accurate you can deliver a warhead from CONUS to an intercontinental destination? If I have missed a previous discussion about this I apologize.

It's covered in the book. CEP for certain RVs is given. To a large extent, the information to figure that out oneself is in the public domain though.

From the end of the book:
"However, if the missile is designed to deliver highly accurate conventional or low yield nuclear warheads and perform high-g evasive maneuvers, it is better to employ a moderate accuracy autopilot for booster guidance and achieve high accuracy with an MRV that includes terminal fixes (e.g. map matching or GPS)."

That just serves as a good summary of what we're talking about. "Highly accurate" here meaning a CEP similar to a LGB.

One of the points you should take away after reading the book is that in the 60s it was the *guidance* technology more than anything else that limited MARVs. Guidance systems at the time could not do 100g out of the box, and were large and heavy to begin with. Today that is much less of a factor, GPS is lightweight and cheap. You do not *have* to solve the ionization issues to get a very small CEP, though there are solutions out there.

 

[bobbymike]

Book ordered from Amazon should arrive Tuesday wheee!!!