Why are ICBMs ballistic?

[Mark R]

I mean, at the moment, you just lob them into a sub-orbital trajectory at your enemy. The prob with this, is that the enemy can see this, and can work out where it is going to land, and your missile is also at the mercy of potential atmospheric disturbances, so it might not quite get the right spot.

Seeing as the missiles are already sub-orbital, and can go a good distance around the globe, why don't you just stick a little more fuel on them and get them into a stable orbit. Do that, and they'll go anywhere you want. And more importantly, the launch trajectory doesn't give any clues as to where it's going. All you need to do is, once it's in a stable orbit - just deorbit it with a guided rocket burn, and it's 'adios muchachos' to your enemy, who only gets half the warning time of a ballistic launch.

Surely the guidance systems aren't that complex? Afterall, the concept of strategic warfare is surely the way things are going. This means you want a nice surgical strike on the most important targets, and guidance would give you that.

 

[Savij]

Energy and fuel...it takes a lot of fuel for a small change in energy.

 

[PottedMeat]

Does going into even 1 orbit and deorbit at will == space based weapon -> aren't there treaties against that?

If you're firing off ICBMs I think you've already exhausted land or sea based first strike weapons like cruise missiles or aircraft.

 

[NetWareHead]

Originally posted by: PottedMeat
Does going into even 1 orbit and deorbit at will == space based weapon -> aren't there treaties against that?

If you're firing off ICBMs I think you've already exhausted land or sea based first strike weapons like cruise missiles or aircraft.

Yep...orbital weapons are banned. The soviets did design one and it went into orbit as a spaced based weapon, ready to release warheads at given notice. To comply with the treaty, they deorbited the system before a full orbit was made to "comply" with the treaty. Realistically, ICBMs are considered first strike weapons...Some of them have a flight time of less than half an hour and at the speeds they move are extremely hard to intercept. Historically SLBMs were considered second strike weapons, but given the great improvement in guidance systems and accuracy, combined with the sub's mobility and stealth, they are now considered first strike weapons.

Cruise missiles could be used in some strategy where you factor in the long flight time of the cruise missle (says 1-2 hours) and rely on its stealthy features to avoid detection. In that situation you could use them as a first strike weapon, most likely striking at command and control facilities as well as radar and early warning stations. I've also read several strategies where the arrival/strike of cruise missiles is quickly followed up by launch of ballistic missiles which can then disable the enemy's first strike weapons.

 

[NetWareHead]

Originally posted by: Mark R
I mean, at the moment, you just lob them into a sub-orbital trajectory at your enemy. The prob with this, is that the enemy can see this, and can work out where it is going to land, and your missile is also at the mercy of potential atmospheric disturbances, so it might not quite get the right spot.

Reentry vehicles now have manuverability. With the exception of older MIRV warheads, new emerging RV can out-manuver ABM defenses, some use radar guidance in the final phases of flight and others can change course so they do not rely on a purely ballistic path.

Originally posted by: Mark R
Seeing as the missiles are already sub-orbital, and can go a good distance around the globe, why don't you just stick a little more fuel on them and get them into a stable orbit. Do that, and they'll go anywhere you want. And more importantly, the launch trajectory doesn't give any clues as to where it's going. All you need to do is, once it's in a stable orbit - just deorbit it with a guided rocket burn, and it's 'adios muchachos' to your enemy, who only gets half the warning time of a ballistic launch.

You do realize that ICBMs can be tracked not only during their launch phase (first warning) but also during their orbit. NORAD (and the Russians) keeps tabs on pretty much anything of significance in earth orbit with powerful radars, satelites included. So whether or not you put a weapons system into orbit or suborbital flight, it can be seen by radar. Just because a satelite is in orbit does not make it stealth. We even deorbited a satelite recently with a missile fired from a navy cruiser that made the hit in space.

As far as the range goes, the actual specs on many ICBMs are secret, even though their are published specs. I'm sure that these missiles are more than capable of putting and keeping their payloads into orbit if need be, it just it doesnt make tactical/strategic sense to do so.

Also look at the flight path of a typical ICBM flight. Whther it is launched from USA or Russia, it is flying over the north pole and landed in respective country. The missile is not suborbital because of design limitations, it just needs to be in orbit over the north pole/Canada before it begins the descent phase.

Originally posted by: Mark RSurely the guidance systems aren't that complex? Afterall, the concept of strategic warfare is surely the way things are going. This means you want a nice surgical strike on the most important targets, and guidance would give you that.

Again, what is the point of a nice surgical strike when your enemy sees it launch and knows it is coming? The outer space treaty banning orbital weapons addresses this specifically.

 

[ElFenix]

stealth cruise missiles can be practically 0 warning.

 

[Hacp]

If you're going to launch ICBMs, its gonna be at a city. Cities can't fucking move.

 

[NetWareHead]

Originally posted by: Hacp
If you're going to launch ICBMs, its gonna be at a city. Cities can't fucking move.

Modern ICBMs have the accuracy and speed to take out enemy ICBMs in their silos. That is the value of ICBMs and what makes them so valuable. You can hit your enemy's ICBMs before he launches them. Unless the city has a critical target of substantial military value (some kind of command, control or intellingence or even a bomber or sub base) big cities are usually struck by SLBMs, cruise missiles or strategic bomber launched/dropped weapons.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: NetWareHead

Originally posted by: Hacp
If you're going to launch ICBMs, its gonna be at a city. Cities can't fucking move.

Modern ICBMs have the accuracy and speed to take out enemy ICBMs in their silos. That is the value of ICBMs and what makes them so valuable. You can hit your enemy's ICBMs before he launches them. Unless the city has a critical target of substantial military value (some kind of command, control or intellingence or even a bomber or sub base) big cities are usually struck by SLBMs, cruise missiles or strategic bomber launched/dropped weapons.

there is a reason that the single ABM system allowed to the US under the ABM treaty protected missile silos. anyone who has studied this knows you take out the military targets, not the cities, first. once you hit the cities there is no going back.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

What's the point? These are weapons that can wipe out an entire city and they're going to hit within 50 feet of their predicted target even without any late course corrections.

 

[judasmachine]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
stealth cruise missiles can be practically 0 warning.

I'm sure they're working on them. They do have a at least a prototype stealth UAV, so I doubt the engineering would be too hard to work out.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: judasmachine

Originally posted by: ElFenix
stealth cruise missiles can be practically 0 warning.

I'm sure they're working on them. They do have a at least a prototype stealth UAV, so I doubt the engineering would be too hard to work out.

working on them? we already had them. we scrapped the AGM-129 a couple years back.

 

[DrPizza]

Why are ICBMs ballistic?

Uhhhhhhh, "Intercontinental ballistic missiles"??

If they weren't ballistic, they'd be called something else? Maybe that's why?
(I was going for the easy answer.)

 

[NetWareHead]

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: NetWareHead

Originally posted by: Hacp
If you're going to launch ICBMs, its gonna be at a city. Cities can't fucking move.

Modern ICBMs have the accuracy and speed to take out enemy ICBMs in their silos. That is the value of ICBMs and what makes them so valuable. You can hit your enemy's ICBMs before he launches them. Unless the city has a critical target of substantial military value (some kind of command, control or intellingence or even a bomber or sub base) big cities are usually struck by SLBMs, cruise missiles or strategic bomber launched/dropped weapons.

there is a reason that the single ABM system allowed to the US under the ABM treaty protected missile silos. anyone who has studied this knows you take out the military targets, not the cities, first. once you hit the cities there is no going back.

Interesting point...although the Russians have their ABM system protecting Moscow.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: NetWareHead

Interesting point...although the Russians have their ABM system protecting Moscow.

obviously, they thought we were crazier than we thought they were

 

[NetWareHead]

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt
What's the point? These are weapons that can wipe out an entire city and they're going to hit within 50 feet of their predicted target even without any late course corrections.

Late course corrections are needed when incoming RVs encounter an ABM system. Even modern day SAMs like the Patriot system and the Russian S-400 have ABM capability.

Also, when used in a first strike role, accuracy is critical when striking an enemy missile silo. I dont know the specifics as to how much overpressures the silo blast door can take vs other specifics such as an airburst, groundburst or earth penetrator warhead and the warhead's power. But in general, knocking out a missile while it's still in its silo is the goal and accuracy will accomplish that. When striking a city or soft target accuracy wont matter that much.

 

[Itchrelief]

How much energy does it take to change a satellite's orbit? I'm guessing it's not chump change if you want to do it quickly. You'd have to keep a whole fleet of them in orbit (where they can all be tracked anyways) to have a good probability of having one near where you want to strike at the time you want to launch it.

Then what happens when its shelf-life is past its sell-by date? I'm sure everyone will be REALLY happy when you start having to de-orbiting these things after they get so old they aren't reliable anymore.

 

[DrPizza]

Originally posted by: Itchrelief
How much energy does it take to change a satellite's orbit? I'm guessing it's not chump change if you want to do it quickly. You'd have to keep a whole fleet of them in orbit (where they can all be tracked anyways) to have a good probability of having one near where you want to strike at the time you want to launch it.

Then what happens when its shelf-life is past its sell-by date? I'm sure everyone will be REALLY happy when you start having to de-orbiting these things after they get so old they aren't reliable anymore.

That's an excellent point. Go to NASA's site and see how often the ISS is going to be nearly directly overhead in your location.

 

[badkarma1399]

ICBM's are strategic weapons. As said before, they generally target cities or soft targets, so accuracy isn't as much of an issue, especially considering the the warheads large destructive range.

Another benefit is one missile can have several warheads each focusing on a different target. Let's say a missile has six warheads. If you're packing these on a submarine, you can have 6 times the firepower over using normal cruise missiles.

 

[foghorn67]

What was that site that showed you the variety of warhead yields placed over popular cities and the projected carange?

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Mark R
I mean, at the moment, you just lob them into a sub-orbital trajectory at your enemy. The prob with this, is that the enemy can see this, and can work out where it is going to land, and your missile is also at the mercy of potential atmospheric disturbances, so it might not quite get the right spot.

It all comes to time to target. If I'm the US and I see the USSR launch balastic missles into stable orbits do you really think I say 'oh, they just went into orbit, so I'll wait until they deorbit and counter attack then'? Both sides know that once a launch is confirmed the other side is going to launch, no benefit to loitering the missles in an orbit and giving the other side even longer to react.

 

[MotF Bane]

Originally posted by: DrPizza

Originally posted by: Itchrelief
How much energy does it take to change a satellite's orbit? I'm guessing it's not chump change if you want to do it quickly. You'd have to keep a whole fleet of them in orbit (where they can all be tracked anyways) to have a good probability of having one near where you want to strike at the time you want to launch it.

Then what happens when its shelf-life is past its sell-by date? I'm sure everyone will be REALLY happy when you start having to de-orbiting these things after they get so old they aren't reliable anymore.

That's an excellent point. Go to NASA's site and see how often the ISS is going to be nearly directly overhead in your location.

Hmm... when I was in fifth grade, the principal announced ISS would be overhead that night. It ended up being a tiny bright speck visible for about 5 minutes.

 

[Colt45]

putting it into orbit isn't going to get it there any faster, which is the whole point of an ICBM.

 

[DrPizza]

Originally posted by: MotF Bane

Originally posted by: DrPizza

Originally posted by: Itchrelief
How much energy does it take to change a satellite's orbit? I'm guessing it's not chump change if you want to do it quickly. You'd have to keep a whole fleet of them in orbit (where they can all be tracked anyways) to have a good probability of having one near where you want to strike at the time you want to launch it.

Then what happens when its shelf-life is past its sell-by date? I'm sure everyone will be REALLY happy when you start having to de-orbiting these things after they get so old they aren't reliable anymore.

That's an excellent point. Go to NASA's site and see how often the ISS is going to be nearly directly overhead in your location.

Hmm... when I was in fifth grade, the principal announced ISS would be overhead that night. It ended up being a tiny bright speck visible for about 5 minutes.

That's the point. He didn't announce that 2 or 3 times a week. "Okay, Russia has launched it's ICBM's at us. Time to retalliate. How long until one of our missiles is heading toward Moscow?" "About 30 more orbits, sir, and it'll be close enough." "Good."

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: DrPizza

Why are ICBMs ballistic?

Uhhhhhhh, "Intercontinental ballistic missiles"??

If they weren't ballistic, they'd be called something else? Maybe that's why?
(I was going for the easy answer.)

My post was gonna be:

"Cause then they'd be called ICG(uided)Ms