A few developements on the table for the Trident D-5.

Sounds like this is becoming more of a reality

http://www.defencetalk.com/news/publish/article_006373.php

UK Trident Enhancement

R.S.Norris/H.M.Kristenson(NB:Greenpeace),Br.Nuclear Forces,Bulletin,Atomic Scientists,61/6,11/05,P78. “In 4/05 a former Los Alamos National Laboratory warhead designer and 3 colleagues claimed that there is a serious flaw in the W-76 warhead that could cause it to explode with a reduced yield or possibly not at all. Officials from NSA Los Alamos, and other experts say there is no problem with the warhead and maintain that the W-76 is reliable, but the issue is of obvious concern to (UK). (HMG) confirmed in 2002 that staff from (DPA)’s Nuclear Weapons (IPT) held discussions with their U.S. counterparts “on W76 warhead, relevant to the safety and reliability of (UK’s) Trident warhead.” In 7/05 (HMG) announced that it intends to spend >£1Bn. during the next 3 years to ensure “continued reliability and safety(of)the existing Trident warhead stockpile.” “

So: should UK PM take this chance to turn his SSBNs into launchers of ballistic HE? Or scrap them? Another in 1964 chose not to replace Valiants, when their wings were found cracked, and to redeploy men and bases to “tactical” duties.
US seems confident to ignore this scaremongering:K.A.Lieber/D.G.Press,The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy,Foreign Affairs,3/4/06 “The improvements to the U.S. nuclear arsenal offer evidence that US is actively seeking primacy. USN is upgrading the fuse on the W-76 nuclear warhead, which sits atop most U.S. FBMs. Currently, the warheads can be detonated only as air bursts well above ground, but the new fuse will also permit ground bursts (detonations at or very near ground level), which are ideal for attacking very hard targets such as ICBM silos. Another USN research program seeks to improve dramatically the accuracy of its FBMs.
One might assume that the W-76 upgrades are designed to be used against targets such as rogue states’ arsenals of weapons of mass destruction or terrorists holed up in caves. But this explanation does not add up. US already has more than 1,000 warheads capable of attacking bunkers or caves. If US’ nuclear modernization were really aimed at rogue states or terrorists, the country’s nuclear force would not need the additional 1,000 ground-burst warheads it will gain from the W-76 modernization program. The current and future U.S. nuclear force, in other words, seems designed to carry out a preemptive disarming strike against Russia or China.”

If you had to approve upgrade to match USN, would you?

Me? I think the Foreign Affairs writers have confused a transient problem – well-heeled criminals chasing drug/oil bonanza – with sovereign Threat. A peer could return – Russia/Kazahkstan/Ukraine/China are sane today, but in 1907 so was Germany. I would spend what it takes to stay in front.

I think you will find your reading comprehension skills have failed you once again.

Let? You mean the same treaty that “let’s” Russia keep the SS-18? FFC. The US will deploy whatever it wants. Russia hardly has room to whine.

We don’t whine just remind, the U.S. we are building our own MONSTER NUKES, and we’ve had our own MOAB BOMBS scince the 60’s also. 😀

Then there is the issue of re-entry which can heat up the tip of the rod up to 3000 degree Fahrenheit. Maintaining structural integrity of the rod at these temps is a major challenge. Ablative cooling probably needs to be part of the concept, but that comes with reduced accuracy, since you can’t control that process. Other possibility could be a fairing, but seperation is unpredictable and it eats up speed on a massive scale.

Last remark: Remember X-41 and the FALCON programme.

I think the heating issue would be a no brainer for them. The nose cap of the shuttle doesn’t erode significantly upon reentry and the nose caps of RVs are made of the same stuff. The substructure of the Mk21 (Peacekeeper RV) is aluminum. That latest probe that brought space dust back to earth reentered at something like 38,000mph and while the apex of the heat shield looked a bit weathered the shape didn’t appear to have changed much at all.

Going back to the issue of the slug penetrator:

A Mk.5 RV is about 70in long. In an UGM-133 they are travelling atop a bus. SO if I assume that the warhead compartment of the D-5 is about 100 long, that gives us the max length of the slug. (If somebody has better information about the possible warhead length, please feel free to fwd them).

The next issue is the optimum length to diameter ratio of the slug penetrator. It has to be long and slim, let’s say the same ratio as the GBU-39, which is 12 to 1 (or a little more than on a GBU-28). Anyway, let’s say 10 to 1, which brings us to 100in length and 10in diameter, to make it easier.

Steel alloys have a specific gravity of let’s say 8, which gives a max weight of around 2200lb, or one metric ton per slug penetrator. Well below max throw weight of an UGM-133. When doing it a little smaller, it could carry three slugs over the full distance.

Then there is the issue of re-entry which can heat up the tip of the rod up to 3000 degree Fahrenheit. Maintaining structural integrity of the rod at these temps is a major challenge. Ablative cooling probably needs to be part of the concept, but that comes with reduced accuracy, since you can’t control that process. Other possibility could be a fairing, but seperation is unpredictable and it eats up speed on a massive scale.

Last remark: Remember X-41 and the FALCON programme.

The real problem is that you’re talking about one or two SSBNs at sea at a given time maybe. That gives you 16 conventional warheads tops to mess with. This kind of “global quick strike” capability is an outstanding idea, but this is the wrong way to do it. This should be a foreign policy tool, not a cool military toy to toss into the arsenal. Do you realize the implications if we put a Mach 25 aerospace craft into operational service, and built 50 of them?

We’d be broke? (Kidding. . .sortof.) Anybody remember the “flamming pumpkinseeds” AvWeek article from the late 80’s early 90’s? Basically an external burning suborbital vehicle that could carry a hundred or so nukes. You figure something like a W-80 is pretty damn light and if you’re going that fast and that high you don’t need to worry too much about the added airframe size and weight of a stabilization/deceleration chute so you could be tossing these 300lb 200kt warheads out like Johnny Appleseed for thousands of miles. A quick search delivered the goods:

http://www.fas.org/irp/mystery/pde.htm right there at the top.

I’m still wondering where Hypersoar is. You could do the same thing with that.

Latest from Janes Missiles and Rockets April 2006

Thats now two newer reports from Janes since the original in JDW that indicates 4 warheads per missile x 24 missiles. Might be time to concede Sferrin.

Daniel

Yes and no. I’ll conceed that the best numbers we have available to us is the four per missile. However how do explain the AvWeek article? It wasn’t simply a typo:

“Planners are proposing a $500-million program to Congress that would put two Trident D-5 sea-launched ballistic missiles, equipped with conventional warheads, on each of a number of submarines that will serve as mobile launch platforms. A total of 24 missiles would be converted if Congress approves the program.

Two types of warheads are under development, neither of them explosive. They can be delivered at a range of up to 6,000 mi. with an accuracy of 10 meters (32.8 ft.) in 12-24 min., the official says. The first is a solid slug called a “slump.” It has greater penetrating power against hard targets than any conventional weapon the U.S. has today; and it has completed testing. The second warhead is a flechette-like device using steel rods that saturate a larger, above-ground target. It is about 70% developed. Moreover, “there is no reason technically” why a conventionally armed ballistic missile can’t carry multiple warheads, he says.

The Air Force Research Laboratory is investigating stronger metals that would be more effective in high-speed penetrators, the kind of munition a long-range, hypersonic ICBM would deliver.

The work on the experimental steels would be done by North American Hoganese. The service plans to buy the steel in 5-ton increments, but officials won’t say the total quantity it wants to purchase. The experimental steel would be used on future penetrator programs.”

Now four warheads do not constitute “flechettes”. If these “flechettes” were simply an unguided shotgun-like blast you might use them to take out a building that you KNEW the guy was in (doubt you’d want to blow that wad of cash on a hunch). Honestly though if they aren’t guided it makes it a whole lot harder to come up with likely targets. The reason I’m leaning towards them being guided is the idea has been around for decades (hell I can think of two sci-fi books the idea has been used in with no effort at all: Niven’s “Footfall” and Hamilton’s “Night’s Dawn Trilogy”). I’ve got a MilTech issue from back in the 80’s that talks about using something like that on a TRIDENT to take out airfields. The ultimate in this concept was the “dead airfield in a can” so-to-speak. Basically a Saturn V (no BS) packed with all sorts of goodies to drop on an airfield. ’bout the only thing I can think of that would be worth something like that is a big base of Backfires and all the runways, HASs, and bunkers that go with it. From a practical stand point though I think it would be just shy of the dude jumping off a cliff with a set of boards strapped to his arms hoping to fly.

The real problem is that you’re talking about one or two SSBNs at sea at a given time maybe. That gives you 16 conventional warheads tops to mess with. This kind of “global quick strike” capability is an outstanding idea, but this is the wrong way to do it. This should be a foreign policy tool, not a cool military toy to toss into the arsenal. Do you realize the implications if we put a Mach 25 aerospace craft into operational service, and built 50 of them?

One or two? US SSBN forces is typically quoted as two thirds on station. Thats about 8 subs. Plus as has been pointed out in many other threads SSBNs can launch in port if needed.

Daniel

The real problem is that you’re talking about one or two SSBNs at sea at a given time maybe. That gives you 16 conventional warheads tops to mess with. This kind of “global quick strike” capability is an outstanding idea, but this is the wrong way to do it. This should be a foreign policy tool, not a cool military toy to toss into the arsenal. Do you realize the implications if we put a Mach 25 aerospace craft into operational service, and built 50 of them?

Latest from Janes Missiles and Rockets April 2006

US considers conventional warhead strategic missiles
David C Isby
The long-standing US policy goal of developing a conventional capability for intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) has been given new impetus, writes David C Isby. The current Fiscal Year 2007 (FY07) budget request includes funding to develop a near-term capability, while a request for information (RFI) to industry is intended to identify technologies and capabilities that would contribute to an objective capability around 2020.

This increased interest in a global quick-reaction capability, able to function given little or no warning, reflects the support given to the concept by the Combatant Commander of the US Strategic Command (STRATCOM), Marine General James Cartwright, as well as language in the FY06 defence authorisation bill conference report and the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR).

What is being termed the Prompt Global Strike (PGS) programme includes both a near-term and objective capability. The former will be provided by the US Navy (USN), using modified SLBMs. In the longer term, the US Air Force could use modified Minuteman III ICBMs, or have a conventional-warhead capability designed into the proposed next-generation ICBM being considered for eventual replacement of the land-based strategic missile force.

According to press reports, the USN has planned and budgeted in the Future Years Defense Plan (FYDP) over FY07-11 to develop and then implement a plan to put up to four conventional warheads on up to 24 of its 336 Trident D-5 SLBMs. This would allow two conventional missiles to be carried by each of 12 submarines. Initial funding of USD500 million has been included in the most recent FY07 budget request.

The QDR calls for this conventional-warhead capability to become operational in two years. The short timeframe for development suggests the use of off-the-shelf re-entry vehicle designs, which would make integration with GPS guidance potentially problematic.

Conventional versions of the D-5 have proven controversial in the past. The US Congress expressed its concerns in FY03 and FY04 legislation that included studies on conventional SLBMs, citing issues in areas of arms control, regional balance destabilisation and strategic warning.

US Air Force Space Command issued a RFI notice to industry on 27 January 2006 to identify sources of possible concepts and technologies applicable to an objective capability around 2020. This information will be fed into a forthcoming Analysis of Alternatives, scheduled for later this year. Because of the longer period involved and the potential for integration with a new missile design, it is thought that technological approaches that have been discussed in recent years, such as hypervelocity GPS/INS-guided winged penetrator payloads, are more likely be exploited by this project rather than in the USN plan for a near-term D-5 modification.

Thats now two newer reports from Janes since the original in JDW that indicates 4 warheads per missile x 24 missiles. Might be time to concede Sferrin.

Daniel

:rolleyes:

Are you saying the guidance and manouvering systems can be tiny, but they make them huge because they want to?.

My god Garry are you really that dense? The tailcone on a JDAM is mostly air and they’re cramming guidance systems into 2.75″ rockets these days and even micro-UAVs have GPS built in.

Sorry, but that is a joke. But even if it could manage that it isn’t good enough for a kinetic weapon… a tank gun with a CEP of 100m would be useless with APFSDS rounds.

Ah. Looks like you have a reading comprehension problem after all. As I said, “A D-5 is going to land it’s warheads inside 100m WITHOUT terminal guidance. All you need is a guidance and control system that has enough authority to fine tune the flight path at the end. If it’s GPS based it can be SMALL.”

So your tank gun analogy is based on poor reading skills as I pointed out that it would need to have terminal guidance and together with the previous posts it’s obvious I’m referring to the submunitions that need the terminal guidance.

So they can’t have a quick response attack system now because they didn’t have one during the cold war… well that settles it doesn’t it?.

They can but they won’t.

If you put them all on 1 or two boats then you can only reach the range of the missiles from the location of each of the two boats. US SSBNs are deployed all around the world, from the pacific to the atlantic and many other paces you’d never expect to find them. Having two conventional missiles on each makes sense because you have made your coverage global.

Thing is though you don’t NEED global coverage. It’s not like they’re going to need to be able to hit Nebraska or the UK. They wouldn’t waste it on anything in South America. Pretty much everything you’d be interested in is in Northeast Africa and South Asia. Park a couple SSBNs in the south Indian Ocean and you can hit everything you’d likely need to. If you only have two on a sub then chances are most of your missiles are going to be in a location where you can’t use them. If you want then stick two on a sub in the Pacific and two on a sub in the Atlantic but keep the bulk of them in the Indian Ocean.

But if what you say is true and each weapon carries 100 warheads how can you justify ever firing 1,000 warheads?.

If you wanted to blunt an attack over the Taiwan Straight.

Equally ten missiles launched from a single submarine is going to look more like a nuclear attack than one or two missiles.

Not really. Missiles coming from MULTIPLE directions are what’s likely to set alarm bells ringing.

How many JDAMs weigh 30kgs and fly from space?.

What’s that got to do with anything? I guess SDBs are impossible because there are 2000lb JDAMs and “you know those things weigh two THOUSAND pounds and you want me to believe you can cram that guidance system in a bomb a TENTH the weight?” :rolleyes: Here’s a 12 oz. micro-UAV that’s got GPS guidance.

http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/app4/mite.html

Of course since you “YAWN, I cant be bothered” with Western systems I guess it should be no surprise that you think a guidance system needs to weigh hundreds of pounds since all you’re looking at is Russian stuff right?

So it is a billion dollar Durandal? This is part of a quick response strategic system… a more realistic target would be a missile sitting on a launch platform or a VIP in a building/bunker.?.

A billion dollars? Could you please show me where a D-5 costs a BILLION dollars? And for the 100 warhead variety (if it exists) that’s enough to do some significant damage to an airbase. Especially if it’s one where say all of your AWACS are parked. Or Flankers or J-10s. Wouldn’t be worth wasting on a bunch of decrepit Q-5s. Back in the good old days I’d say a D-5 for a dozen or so Backfires would be a good trade wouldn’t you?

Yes, because over the last 20 years or so the main problem the US has had is its inability to take on enemy ships at sea or in harbour… NOT!.

If China decides to make a move on Taiwan it’s not going to be stupid like Saddam and give us six MONTHS to build our forces in theater. It’s going to be FAST because they’ll want to get a foot hold on Taiwan and have it be essentially a done deal before we can get enough forces in the area to deal with it. 100 guided KE penetrators on a D-5 gives you the opportunity to break that attack up.

The real problems have been hitting Saddam when he is visiting his mistress, or Osama Bin Laden at meeting venue x. Everything else they seem to be able to deal with….

But you have to admit all we’ve really be dealing with are the little sh!ts. Saddam had a lot of stuff back in ’91 but then he didn’t know how to use it. China would be an ENTIRELY different can of worms.

Yeah, right. The real problem is that if you are targetting Saddam you might know which building he is in but which part of the building? If you actually do get inches CEP, which I doubt, which hair on his head will you aim for… and what happens when he gets up from his chair to take a leak… 30m away from where your munition is aimed at.

So essentially you’re claiming that you’re not interested in learning anything about western systems but at the same time you still know all about them? :rolleyes: SDBs have regularly hit within 36-48″ of their target.

http://www.xmission.com/~sferrin/sdb_impacts.wmv

Not every single one is within just a couple feet but even if you put two, three, or even four or five for each target that’s a lot of damage you can do.

When an SSBN launches you need to track by radar the missile at a few points on its trajectory to determine where its missiles are going. A chinese sub sailing along minding its own business and then an SLBM launches in front of it… through the periscope it IDs the missile as a Trident and then hears the launch of a second and a third. .

ROTFLMAO!!! You read too many techno-thrillers. Now the US has Chinese SSNs tailing our boomers?

A total of 4 are fired. Would that sub captain think it was a war against China or Russia? How do they know 4 is all they will fire? Could they save some chinese lives today?.

So now you’re telling me some Chinese sub commander is going to go berserk and sink any SSBN launching a missile even if he doesn’t know if it’s a test or even where the thing is aimed at? :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

ICBM warnings are based on radars dedicated to detect ballistic missiles on high flight profiles. To detect low flying cruise missiles AWACS aircraft and/or air defence network radars are required. That is what they are for.

Actually ICBM warnings are generally done with satellites. The radars are for tracking the things.

So if I was Putin wouldn’t I be asking why they are attacking my nuclear defence… if they are attacking my SS-18s then government centres and comms systems will be next and then will either coem a demand for unconditional surrender or the nuclear attack to finish us off.
In which case obviously as soon as the ballistic missiles were clearly seen to be heading for SS-18 silos the silos would be emptied before any ballistic missile reached them….

Actually if it were a REAL nuclear attack the command centers would be the first things targeted. And Putin knows this. If Russia’s SS-18s were taken out he’d be mighty pissed but if it was with conventional weapons he’s not going to uncork the nuclear genie. Besides this part is academic. The US wouldn’t try to do that with Russia. You asked what such a system could be used for and I told you. Apply it agains China or Iran if you like but the principle is the same.

I could see them trying but would expect the same response from China… an attempt to take out their nuclear capability would more than likely result in that capability being used before it could be elminated completely.

Can you seriously say that the Chinese government would kill millions of it’s citizens over a couple of missiles? Do you really believe that? Hell even Saddam didn’t use chemical weapons in ’91 and we were blowing up anything we could find. And he HAD them in ’91.

There have been plenty of false alarms… but this wouldn’t be a false alarm. It would be detected by Radar, IR and optical tracking systems.

:rolleyes: Go back and read your history.

But if you can hit a target within inches of an aim point why do you need saturation? .

If you want to hit a LOT of aimpoints fast. Who says they’re saying they want to “saturate” a missile silo? It could be a nuclear facility with a lot of buildings but maybe we don’t know which building the goodies are in. Maybe it’s an airbase that has China’s AWACs and it’s the base we want to “saturate”. Maybe it’s a Chinese missile field and we want to put four on each silo. There are a lot of possiblities.

This is supposed to be “conventional ‘prompt global-strike’ (PGS) mission under which the US is seeking a capability to strike high-payoff targets anywhere in the world at very short notice.”.

Wouldn’t you say taking out the enemy’s AWACS or ICBMs or breaking up an invasion are high payoffs?

In other words it is an extension of armed UAVs but with global capability with a high kinetic factor added in. A global scaple and you want to make it a shotgun.

More like I’d want to make it a box of scalples not just one or two.

If you can’t kill a short warning high payoff target with 4 warheads, what makes you think 100 warheads will improve your chances of hitting the target and not flattening the neighbourhood?.

12 minutes wasn’t fast enough to nail Saddam, why would they think 30 would be? They aren’t going to waste a missile like that on a building that they “think” a guy might be in.

100 warheads might be great for an airfield but for hitting one car then the other 99 warheads become a liability.

Which is why they won’t be using it to hit a car.

The sea one is easy to explain… the camera was very close to the water when the picture was taken, making the splash look like it was on the horizon. Perhaps taken from a sub periscope?.

Take another look at the detail of the plume. That is a LARGE spash. The top end is off-center because the wind has shifted it.

The land one… would assume that this range has had buildings built on it to test the effects of nuclear blasts on building materials and city designs. The fact that this weapon didn’t have a live warhead means such things went untested but then they are hardly going to pull everything down when the test ban treaty prevented open air nuclear testing… of course they couldn’t use the land for people anyway as it would be irradiated.

I’d question whether they had enough money to be setting up cities all over the place just to nuke :rolleyes: In fact when they were testing effects like that everything was built specifically for each test. They don’t just build neighborhoods “just in case we might want to nuke it some day” :rolleyes:

Why do only 4 nuclear warheads fit? Is it because of the shape and guidance and manouvering systems they use to get the accuracy they achieve limit the physical space inside the nose of the missile? Do you think a conventional weapon would need similar guidance and manouvering capability, or would it just rely on speed?

You can fit more than 4 warheads in an SLBM. At any rate the number of warheads is dependant on a whole mess of factors related to the missile’s size.

That will hint that it is a conventional weapon, but you won’t really know till impact. The US could give all its nuclear warheads this unique IR signature to delay the Russian reaction to a nuclear attack… even five minutes could be critical.

Sure we could do that. We could just build hundreds of warheads and launch vehicles over the treaty limits too, but we aren’t doing that. We could even put nuclear warheads in geostationary orbits over critical targets.

If the Russians have agreed to limit to 120 SLBMs and they have 7 Typhoon class SSBNs sailing around operational who is to say they don’t actually have 140 SLBMs instead of 120? If you can’t tell or prove otherwise till the weapons impact it is not a very good SAL agreement.

Arms limitation agreements are pointless anyway, the only real benefit is that each nation gets to spend less money on weapons development and can spend that money in other areas.

Guidance systems don’t HAVE to be huge.

Are you saying the guidance and manouvering systems can be tiny, but they make them huge because they want to?

Going from analog to digital meant huge reduction in size, but going from Pentium 3 to Pentium 4 doesn’t really make that much difference.

A D-5 is going to land it’s warheads inside 100m WITHOUT terminal guidance.

Sorry, but that is a joke. But even if it could manage that it isn’t good enough for a kinetic weapon… a tank gun with a CEP of 100m would be useless with APFSDS rounds.

Even so I doubt they’d adopt a launch on warning policy. They didn’t even do that during the Cold War.

So they can’t have a quick response attack system now because they didn’t have one during the cold war… well that settles it doesn’t it?

They’d do it the same way we’d have to do it. If you have 7 Typhoons then it would count as 140 SLBMs unless they’ve physically disabled the other tubes and they’d be subject to inspection. If we decided to make some conventional warhead MMIIIs they’d displace the nuclear ones we’re allowed. We wouldn’t get to have them in ADDITION to the others for the very reason you mention.

So you are agreeing with me… but the point is this was directed at SOC… who wasn’t agreeing with me.

If you read that *I* claimed it then yeah, you have bad reading skills. The writer of the article claimed it.

You quoted an article where another writer claimed something. I then gave my own opinion that differed from that writers opinion and then you used that writers option to claim I was wrong… well actually you claimed I had no right to an opinion and that the writer is by definition right, because they have studied it and mine was just an opinion.

I then found someone else who had studied the problem and had an opinion similar to mine… but no appology from you strangely enough…

That’s why I don’t get why they’re spreading them all around. It seems to me it would make sense to just keep them on the SSGN modified Ohios.

If you put them all on 1 or two boats then you can only reach the range of the missiles from the location of each of the two boats. US SSBNs are deployed all around the world, from the pacific to the atlantic and many other paces you’d never expect to find them. Having two conventional missiles on each makes sense because you have made your coverage global. Very few around the world know where SSBNs are at any one time so shifting a few extra to a particular area will not raise tensions or make targets more cautious. SSBNs by definition are always on alert and always listening for launch commands. The weapons themselves can be retargetted in minutes and will come from unexpected directions at very short notice.

Put ten on each one and they’d still have room for 84 Tomahawks.

But if what you say is true and each weapon carries 100 warheads how can you justify ever firing 1,000 warheads?

Equally ten missiles launched from a single submarine is going to look more like a nuclear attack than one or two missiles…

How do you figure? A D-5 could put the cluster within 100 meters of the target. If they were terminally guided it’s not like they’d have to defy the laws of physics to be as accurate as a JDAM.

How many JDAMs weigh 30kgs and fly from space?

An airbase. A rail yard. A port. Three or four holes punched in a destroyer is likely going to mission kill it even if it doesn’t sink it. There are all kinds of targets you could use it for.

So it is a billion dollar Durandal? This is part of a quick response strategic system… a more realistic target would be a missile sitting on a launch platform or a VIP in a building/bunker.

100 30kg darts coming down on a carrier deck. . .well it’s almost a certainty some of them are going to hit something that goes *BOOM* on their way through. Fuel tanks, ordinance, drive shafts, engine room. There are a lot of ways to mission kill a ship without necessarily sinking it.

Yes, because over the last 20 years or so the main problem the US has had is its inability to take on enemy ships at sea or in harbour… NOT!

The real problems have been hitting Saddam when he is visiting his mistress, or Osama Bin Laden at meeting venue x. Everything else they seem to be able to deal with…

The one thing that make me go “hmm” is that SDBs are routinely achieving accuracies measured in inches with GPS. While any RVs will be going significantly faster than an SDB to a computer it’s trivial. Of course you have to deal with how fast can the controls respond but if you’re going after a stationary target it’s really going to be just a matter of fine tuning the trajectory as the bus will have got you close.

Yeah, right. The real problem is that if you are targetting Saddam you might know which building he is in but which part of the building? If you actually do get inches CEP, which I doubt, which hair on his head will you aim for… and what happens when he gets up from his chair to take a leak… 30m away from where your munition is aimed at.

Are you claiming Chinese SSNs do blue-water patrols thousands of miles away from the mainland? Or even the Russians these days? Honestly though in this instance I agree with you with one possible exception that being of course the China/Taiwan scenario.

When an SSBN launches you need to track by radar the missile at a few points on its trajectory to determine where its missiles are going. A chinese sub sailing along minding its own business and then an SLBM launches in front of it… through the periscope it IDs the missile as a Trident and then hears the launch of a second and a third. A total of 4 are fired. Would that sub captain think it was a war against China or Russia? How do they know 4 is all they will fire? Could they save some chinese lives today?

So why would it be any different with Russian ICBM warning systems?

ICBM warnings are based on radars dedicated to detect ballistic missiles on high flight profiles. To detect low flying cruise missiles AWACS aircraft and/or air defence network radars are required. That is what they are for.

If you were Putin and you absolutely KNEW that if you nuked the US they’d nuke you back would you go ahead and kiss your butt goodbye or would you accept the loss of the SS-18s knowing that if the US escelated to nukes you could still wipe them out with your mobile ICBMs and SLBMs and KNOWING that the US knew that?

So if I was Putin wouldn’t I be asking why they are attacking my nuclear defence… if they are attacking my SS-18s then government centres and comms systems will be next and then will either coem a demand for unconditional surrender or the nuclear attack to finish us off.
In which case obviously as soon as the ballistic missiles were clearly seen to be heading for SS-18 silos the silos would be emptied before any ballistic missile reached them…

With China (for the moment anyway) I could see the US trying to take out the few missiles it has that could reach the US with a conventional strike if things really turned ugly.

I could see them trying but would expect the same response from China… an attempt to take out their nuclear capability would more than likely result in that capability being used before it could be elminated completely.

Doubt it. There have been all kinds of false warnings over the years that could have started WWIII if that were the case. On both sides. Whatever they may say the reality of it is NOBODY is going to risk nuclear distruction on a “oops, my bad”.

There have been plenty of false alarms… but this wouldn’t be a false alarm. It would be detected by Radar, IR and optical tracking systems.

And I certainly don’t see how you can “saturate” a target with FOUR weapons.

But if you can hit a target within inches of an aim point why do you need saturation? This is supposed to be “conventional ‘prompt global-strike’ (PGS) mission under which the US is seeking a capability to strike high-payoff targets anywhere in the world at very short notice.”

In other words it is an extension of armed UAVs but with global capability with a high kinetic factor added in. A global scaple and you want to make it a shotgun.

If you can’t kill a short warning high payoff target with 4 warheads, what makes you think 100 warheads will improve your chances of hitting the target and not flattening the neighbourhood?

100 warheads might be great for an airfield but for hitting one car then the other 99 warheads become a liability.

As I said, kind of a head scratcher. As for the water one the thing looks MILES distant yet the size of the “splash” is so large it’s hard to imagine it coming from an RV no matter HOW fast the thing was going.

The sea one is easy to explain… the camera was very close to the water when the picture was taken, making the splash look like it was on the horizon. Perhaps taken from a sub periscope?

The land one… would assume that this range has had buildings built on it to test the effects of nuclear blasts on building materials and city designs. The fact that this weapon didn’t have a live warhead means such things went untested but then they are hardly going to pull everything down when the test ban treaty prevented open air nuclear testing… of course they couldn’t use the land for people anyway as it would be irradiated.

Why do only 4 nuclear warheads fit? Is it because of the shape and guidance and manouvering systems they use to get the accuracy they achieve limit the physical space inside the nose of the missile? Do you think a conventional weapon would need similar guidance and manouvering capability, or would it just rely on speed?…

Guidance systems don’t HAVE to be huge. A D-5 is going to land it’s warheads inside 100m WITHOUT terminal guidance. All you need is a guidance and control system that has enough authority to fine tune the flight path at the end. If it’s GPS based it can be SMALL.

That will hint that it is a conventional weapon, but you won’t really know till impact. The US could give all its nuclear warheads this unique IR signature to delay the Russian reaction to a nuclear attack… even five minutes could be critical..

Even so I doubt they’d adopt a launch on warning policy. They didn’t even do that during the Cold War. Hell BOTH sides for some dumbass reason did nuclear testing during the Cuban Missile Crises. I can’t think of anything more likely to cause the big one to go up and yet sanity still reigned.

If the Russians have agreed to limit to 120 SLBMs and they have 7 Typhoon class SSBNs sailing around operational who is to say they don’t actually have 140 SLBMs instead of 120? If you can’t tell or prove otherwise till the weapons impact it is not a very good SAL agreement…

They’d do it the same way we’d have to do it. If you have 7 Typhoons then it would count as 140 SLBMs unless they’ve physically disabled the other tubes and they’d be subject to inspection. If we decided to make some conventional warhead MMIIIs they’d displace the nuclear ones we’re allowed. We wouldn’t get to have them in ADDITION to the others for the very reason you mention.

Well, if Sferrin links to the article he read and it confirms what he said then neither of us have bad reading skills… he just has bad manners claiming I have bad “reading skills” just because I don’t agree with what he has claimed….

If you read that *I* claimed it then yeah, you have bad reading skills. The writer of the article claimed it.

I like the idea of using existing on patrol vessels as they need to be on patrol anyway and they need to be alert 24/7 to launch anyway so they are really geared to this sort of mission anyway. Using a few converted older vessels or perhaps a modification of SSNs with 2-4 tubes for such weapons means you have more subs you need to keep at sea 24/7 based all around the world to ensure decent coverage. The SSBNs are already there and listening for orders anyway.

That’s why I don’t get why they’re spreading them all around. It seems to me it would make sense to just keep them on the SSGN modified Ohios. Put ten on each one and they’d still have room for 84 Tomahawks. Also I don’t get why they said the South Atlantic. If you check Google Earth you can’t really hit anything important from the South Atlantic and what you can hit is at the limit of range even for a D-5. Put them in the South Indian ocean though and you can hit everything.

If you are putting 100 bundled DU sabot darts in a trident then you might as well throw them by hand from orbit regarding accuracy.

How do you figure? A D-5 could put the cluster within 100 meters of the target. If they were terminally guided it’s not like they’d have to defy the laws of physics to be as accurate as a JDAM.

I doubt it would have 100 targets worth hitting at a time.

An airbase. A rail yard. A port. Three or four holes punched in a destroyer is likely going to mission kill it even if it doesn’t sink it. There are all kinds of targets you could use it for. Especially if all you’re trying to do is slow down your adversary until you get your heavy forces in theater. Back in the 80’s there were all kinds of missile concepts floating around for taking out airbases but they’d have had to shotgun it because minature guidance systems still had a ways to go. Now it could be “I want two on that HAS, two on that one, and that one, four on the control tower, 15 over on this tank farm, . . .” and so on and so forth. Granted a control tower would be a lousy target for a KE weapon but you get the idea.

Well, if you look at the effect of a penetrator that penetrates a tank, puching somethign hard traveling at very high speed into an enclosed place can do a surprising amount of damage. I very much doubt we are talking about 100 x 30kg darts… it is rather more likely 300-400kg darts travelling at rather more than any curent tank gun can manage to fire its rounds at today.

Those are more the kinds of targets I was thinking of. In that regards a silo is very similar to a tank. Hard to get into but once you’re in just about anything you do will damage what’s inside. Weapons bunkers and HASs are very similar. 100 30kg darts coming down on a carrier deck. . .well it’s almost a certainty some of them are going to hit something that goes *BOOM* on their way through. Fuel tanks, ordinance, drive shafts, engine room. There are a lot of ways to mission kill a ship without necessarily sinking it.

With that sort of weight with accuracy of maybe 10-20m or less then you can look at hitting and taking out point targets. Especially if all four penetrators are going after the same target.

The one thing that make me go “hmm” is that SDBs are routinely achieving accuracies measured in inches with GPS. While any RVs will be going significantly faster than an SDB to a computer it’s trivial. Of course you have to deal with how fast can the controls respond but if you’re going after a stationary target it’s really going to be just a matter of fine tuning the trajectory as the bus will have got you close.

Not so much without warhead, but without guidance and with only very basic stabilisation and no manouver capability (unless you want to reduce mass for all these small penetrators by adding guidance and manouver rockets… x 100 means it isn’t a great penetrator, which was its great advantage in the first place…).

There’s a video out there of an ATACMs missile dispursing it’s payload of BATs. An RV could work in a similar way. The D-5 puts the payload on a trajectory that will get it to the target area and then the RV dispurses it’s submunitions which then go after the individual targets. You wouldn’t need a propulsion system on it. It could be something as simple as a DU dart with a CC nose cap and a tilting drag-cone at the tail with a small guidance system and battery pack back there. Think compact JDAM with a long-rod penetrator instead of a bomb. Two big questions as I see it are could a GPS reciever that small receive the signal through the plasma sheath and can you deploy submunitions during reentry without everything flying to pieces.

These are quick response weapons that are not intended for use agaisnt Russia or China… if they were then putting them on SSBNs would mean that any shadowing Russian or Chinese sub might simply open fire on the SSBN… just in case.

Are you claiming Chinese SSNs do blue-water patrols thousands of miles away from the mainland? Or even the Russians these days? Honestly though in this instance I agree with you with one possible exception that being of course the China/Taiwan scenario.

The Russian AWACs monitoring the Iraq war would have sent the necessary launch warning if it had been needed.

So why would it be any different with Russian ICBM warning systems?

First you talk about a strike on SS-18 silos and then you claim they wont start WWIII..

If you were Putin and you absolutely KNEW that if you nuked the US they’d nuke you back would you go ahead and kiss your butt goodbye or would you accept the loss of the SS-18s knowing that if the US escelated to nukes you could still wipe them out with your mobile ICBMs and SLBMs and KNOWING that the US knew that? With China (for the moment anyway) I could see the US trying to take out the few missiles it has that could reach the US with a conventional strike if things really turned ugly.

Well if an SLBM is detected heading toward Russia from a US SSBN it will start WWIII… they won’t wait to see if it is conventional or nuclear armed.

Doubt it. There have been all kinds of false warnings over the years that could have started WWIII if that were the case. On both sides. Whatever they may say the reality of it is NOBODY is going to risk nuclear distruction on a “oops, my bad”.

He has used his brain to think something through. You on the other hand are saying… it was in AW&ST so it must be true…

Actually he hasn’t used his brain at all. He dismissed it out of hand without giving it a thought. He certainly hasn’t offered up any reason why it couldn’t be true. And I certainly don’t see how you can “saturate” a target with FOUR weapons.

On a similar note I’ve included two pics of MMIII impacts. Both of them seem like head-scratchers to me. The land impact is amidst several buildings which makes you wonder why they’d put them in the target area yet at the same time a camera just “happens” to be pointing at the impact? My first thought was “whoa did they ever miss the range with that one” but then why the camera that happened to be set up to record it? As I said, kind of a head scratcher. As for the water one the thing looks MILES distant yet the size of the “splash” is so large it’s hard to imagine it coming from an RV no matter HOW fast the thing was going. :confused:

I didn’t see anywhere where the author went into why only four warheads would fit.

Why do only 4 nuclear warheads fit? Is it because of the shape and guidance and manouvering systems they use to get the accuracy they achieve limit the physical space inside the nose of the missile? Do you think a conventional weapon would need similar guidance and manouvering capability, or would it just rely on speed?

Not necessarily. You can give the conventional missile a unique IR signature.

That will hint that it is a conventional weapon, but you won’t really know till impact. The US could give all its nuclear warheads this unique IR signature to delay the Russian reaction to a nuclear attack… even five minutes could be critical.

If the Russians have agreed to limit to 120 SLBMs and they have 7 Typhoon class SSBNs sailing around operational who is to say they don’t actually have 140 SLBMs instead of 120? If you can’t tell or prove otherwise till the weapons impact it is not a very good SAL agreement.

Yeah, my readin skills are rubbish…

Well somebody’s are. Your article from JNI and the one sferrin posted from JDW are two different sources, each giving two different sets of numbers. Somebody’s got some wrong data.

Well, if Sferrin links to the article he read and it confirms what he said then neither of us have bad reading skills… he just has bad manners claiming I have bad “reading skills” just because I don’t agree with what he has claimed.

Or, hell, just build a new dedicated conventional boomer fleet of four to six boats. You might even be able to convert old 688s.

I like the idea of using existing on patrol vessels as they need to be on patrol anyway and they need to be alert 24/7 to launch anyway so they are really geared to this sort of mission anyway. Using a few converted older vessels or perhaps a modification of SSNs with 2-4 tubes for such weapons means you have more subs you need to keep at sea 24/7 based all around the world to ensure decent coverage. The SSBNs are already there and listening for orders anyway…

A DU sabot dart weighs about that too. I guess since a meteor can barely make it through some plywood the sabot round wouldn’t have a chance against a TANK would it?

If you are putting 100 bundled DU sabot darts in a trident then you might as well throw them by hand from orbit regarding accuracy.

Obviously the post-boost vehicle isn’t likely to have enough fuel onboard to perform 100 individual warhead releases.

I doubt it would have 100 targets worth hitting at a time.

AvWeek also mentioned the steel rods warhead which kinda lends weight to the higher number as it’s difficult to imagine “saturating” a target with FOUR weapons.

Well lets look at what sort of targets you would use a SLBM to engage. Do you think they will be firing such a weapon against a tank park? Or do you think the target will be OBL in a bunker? In the latter case 4 heavy guided penetrators would do a rather better job than 100 or 1,000 unguided penetrators that are much much lighter.

you can penetrate a bunker but you only can do little damage to what is inside without any warhead.

Well, if you look at the effect of a penetrator that penetrates a tank, puching somethign hard traveling at very high speed into an enclosed place can do a surprising amount of damage. I very much doubt we are talking about 100 x 30kg darts… it is rather more likely 300-400kg darts travelling at rather more than any curent tank gun can manage to fire its rounds at today.

With that sort of weight with accuracy of maybe 10-20m or less then you can look at hitting and taking out point targets. Especially if all four penetrators are going after the same target.

Really? Why don’t you tell us all why the idea is physically impossible? (Time to grab the popcorn)

Not so much without warhead, but without guidance and with only very basic stabilisation and no manouver capability (unless you want to reduce mass for all these small penetrators by adding guidance and manouver rockets… x 100 means it isn’t a great penetrator, which was its great advantage in the first place…)

Are you going to tell me the SS-18 and CSS-4 are MOBILE?

These are quick response weapons that are not intended for use agaisnt Russia or China… if they were then putting them on SSBNs would mean that any shadowing Russian or Chinese sub might simply open fire on the SSBN… just in case.

Did they think WWIII was kicking off when dozens of Tomahawks started heading into Iraq in ’91?

The Russian AWACs monitoring the Iraq war would have sent the necessary launch warning if it had been needed.
First you talk about a strike on SS-18 silos and then you claim they wont start WWIII. Well if an SLBM is detected heading toward Russia from a US SSBN it will start WWIII… they won’t wait to see if it is conventional or nuclear armed.

Well you’re obviously much smarter than everybody else.

He has used his brain to think something through. You on the other hand are saying… it was in AW&ST so it must be true…

Who is the idiot that is building new missile silos? China and russia not for sure… Nk or iran?.

You are aware that well over a thousand silos ALREADY exist aren’t you? (Although it could have dropped. Don’t recall if silos have to be destroyed to comply with one of the treaties). Besides a missile silo was a “for instance”. You were asking what a non exploding RV destroy and I told you.

They don’t need nuclear reinforced missile silos because they can’t imagine to compete with U.S.A. in couterforce scenarios. .

Are you going to tell me the SS-18 and CSS-4 are MOBILE? :p

Are you sure that your brilliant conventional warhead icbm will not alarm the enemy or other nuclear powers to the the level that starts a nuclear retaliation?.

Did they think WWIII was kicking off when dozens of Tomahawks started heading into Iraq in ’91? They could have easily been TLAMs headed for Southern Russia. Did Russia lauch off ICBMs? Obviously not. Guarantee if the US has conventional ICBMs there will be enough transparancy that niether Russia or China will push the button as soon as they see a launch.

Your idea that destroying a nuclear bunker is like destroying a tank is quite strange, also destroying a ship is at all a different matter.

You don’t see the similarites between a tank and a missile silo? Why do you even bother coming here?

According to many sources trident II d-5 missile has a throw weight of 2200 kg including the huge bus vehicle that you need to put in it 100 of this strange piece of stuff, an icbm can’t throw reentry vehicles wherever it want but usually within the limits of an elissoid of about 150x70km. This and other considerations tell me that this idea is a complete absurdity.

Well you’re obviously much smarter than everybody else. :rolleyes:

Depends what’s behind the little hole now doesn’t it? Obviously just putting a tiny hole in a tank is worthless right? Guess you’ve never seen what happens to a tank when it gets slammed by a good sabot round. What do you think is going to happen to a missile in a silo once the silo lid has had a “little hole” punched in it- and then the sabot has continued on to even GRAZE the missile inside?
.

Who is the idiot that is building new missile silos? China and russia not for sure… Nk or iran?
They don’t need nuclear reinforced missile silos because they can’t imagine to compete with U.S.A. in couterforce scenarios. Are you sure that your brilliant conventional warhead icbm will not alarm the enemy or other nuclear powers to the the level that starts a nuclear retaliation? Your idea that destroying a nuclear bunker is like destroying a tank is quite strange, also destroying a ship is at all a different matter. According to many sources trident II d-5 missile has a throw weight of 2200 kg including the huge bus vehicle that you need to put in it 100 of this strange piece of stuff, an icbm can’t throw reentry vehicles wherever it want but usually within the limits of an elissoid of about 150x70km. This and other considerations tell me that this idea is a complete absurdity.

you can penetrate a bunker but you only can do little damage to what is inside without any warhead. .

Depends what’s behind the little hole now doesn’t it? Obviously just putting a tiny hole in a tank is worthless right? Guess you’ve never seen what happens to a tank when it gets slammed by a good sabot round. What do you think is going to happen to a missile in a silo once the silo lid has had a “little hole” punched in it- and then the sabot has continued on to even GRAZE the missile inside?

You can pierce the hull of a ship but the seaman wil quickly close the hole. .

Provided it’s a clean hole and hasn’t hit anything important on it’s way through the ship. And provided it hasn’t started any fires on the way through.

Assumptions on a trident with 100 penetrators without warhead are false and based on very little knowledge of phisics in my opinion .

Really? Why don’t you tell us all why the idea is physically impossible? (Time to grab the popcorn)

the Garryb article is a lot more credible than yours.

Why because you like what it says better? They’re both by the same publication.

A DU sabot dart weighs about that too. I guess since a meteor can barely make it through some plywood the sabot round wouldn’t have a chance against a TANK would it? :rolleyes:

you can penetrate a bunker but you only can do little damage to what is inside without any warhead. You can pierce the hull of a ship but the seaman wil quickly close the hole. Assumptions on a trident with 100 penetrators without warhead are false and based on very little knowledge of phisics in my opinion the Garryb article is a lot more credible than yours.
If you shot at an house whit a sabot the only thing you do is a little hole.

Unless it is correctly shaped to stabilise it it would slow down very very rapidly as it travelled through the atmosphere. Without any sort of guidance and manouver capability you would be aiming at cities, not individual buildings.

The one with all the darts woud be shaped exactly like that. Imagine bascially a big sabot round with a CC nosecap and maybe ceramic fins or even just a conical shaped tail. The steering mechanism could be something as simple as the nose being able to shift slightly from side to side (they’ve tested this method on artillery shells). Obviously the post-boost vehicle isn’t likely to have enough fuel onboard to perform 100 individual warhead releases. There’s no reason it couldn’t deploy four bundles of 25 terminally guided submunitions though. You’d only have four “baskets” you could aim at but you could still get the 100 individual aimpoints. I don’t know where the person came up with four warheads as even with nukes it was good for fourteen or fifteen though typically they only deployed with eight. It’s possible she just read where they’re offloading down to four RVs and made the assumption that it would have to remain the same for the conventional warheads. AvWeek also mentioned the steel rods warhead which kinda lends weight to the higher number as it’s difficult to imagine “saturating” a target with FOUR weapons.