The art of creating workable anti-ABM countermeasures is not as easy as many seem to think.

A lot of it depends on the guidance system being employed by the ABM system itself. A radar guided system like System A-135 or the old US Safeguard system will be easier to spoof than something using an IIR seeker.

The next stage is to realise the floor of that room is beginning to sag, requiring an expansion into the garage, then into the loft…

Being now semi-retired, I’ve trying to fight a war against a similar lifetime of accumulated paper – I’m not sure if the solution is a rubbish skip or a flamethrower.

Part of my problem is boxes full of back issues of AFM, AirInternational, and various Jane’s titles. Most of them have been retained due to the presence of one article, and I think the solution may be to start scanning those bits and tossing the lot of them.

Exactly but since with ballistic missiles speed is a function of range. . .

The point is that the capability of the target determines the size and configuration of the interceptor, hence the difference between ATBM and ABM systems.

Few general questions (for Sean specifically :p ).
-What happens if a BM armed with a nuclear warhead is intercepted? What is the general trend in dealing with such a scenario? Is the missile programmed to explode the warhead on interception?

First off, while I do have a Master’s degree in space studies (making me a certified rocket scientist now 😀 ), I have not been involved with nor do I necessarily know a lot of the inner detail workings of an operational ICBM’s warhead/bus assembly. Want me to give you a diatribe on the intercept dynamics of an ABM system, or discuss the inner workings of a rocket motor or satellite communications system, that I can do. That being said, my open-source library is rather exhaustive (I have a whole room in the house to myself) and I can make a few educated guesses based on what I do know and have access to.

1. If a missile is intercepted, the warhead has to be damaged to make a difference. Typically they are armed by barometric pressure and accelerometers. That means that the warhead must be at a given altitude and a given speed before it is truly armed and able to detonate. Your barometric pressure sensor can also be used to detonate the warhead at a given altitude for an airburst, but that’s another story. Anyway, if you damage the warhead and do not completely destroy it, then it may very well still detonate (where it does so is anyone’s guess, as you’ve probably screwed up its ballistic flight path to some degree by either smacking into it or detonating an explosive near it). The issue there is that if the warhead is sufficiently damaged, your critical mass will not be able to go supercritical when the warhead fires and you will not get a genuine nuclear explosion. You will end up with at best some sort of radiological event. This is why ABMs try to obliterate the warheads completely, either through explosive force or kinetic energy.

As to the second part, as far as I know the warheads are not primed to detonate upon interception. For one, I don’t think they’re necessarily that smart, apart from the actual workings of the nuclear warheads the RVs are really not all that sophisticated when it comes down to it. At any rate an exoatmospheric nuclear detonation might be negative for any satellites in the area, but may or may not cause any damage to anything on the ground (EMP), depending on the yield and the altitude.

-What would be the aftermath of a successful interception in which BM prematurely explodes in the atmosphere over/near target area.

Again, that will depend on the yield of the warhead and the altitude of the detonation. A megaton-class warhead detonated in the upper atmosphere is going to cause one hell of an EMP event. But a smaller kiloton-class weapon may or may not have any significant effect. Beyond that you’re talking about radiological effects, and that is a lot more complicated.

-What would be the case if the warhead is not triggered but missile gets hit? Would the explosion from a kinetic hit trigger the warhead?

Like I said before, these things are not proximity or contact fuzed weapon systems. They go off typically on cue from a barometric pressure sensor (meaning they probably aren’t detonating exoatmospherically unless they’re intended to, as in an ABM weapon or ASAT). So if you smack into the warhead with enough kinetic force to damage it, at worst it’ll eventually detonate somewhere but it won’t be able to go nuclear thanks to the damage to the triggering mechanisms and other innards in the warhead that have to maintain an absurd degree of precision to make the critical mass go bang.

Now now, while I did get GA and GD confused, you know all too well that “scurillous” is most definitely NOT the word to which I was referring 😀

Is the Su-33 prototype involved in the deployment?

Looking at the thread as a whole, I think one or two people need to calm down a bit.

And before the trickle of scurrilous gossip becomes a flood, do remember that Key Publishing won’t be paying anyone’s legal costs…… 😎

Cheers 😀

GA

I thought you weren’t allowed to use that word on GA anymore :diablo:

Beyond that I do agree with Steve to a point: when you reach the stage in your career where you just can’t perform at the level that your fans have come to expect, it is really time to gracefully exit the scene with your legacy fully intact. How many bands have resurfaced and not been up to par with their former selves? Look at Heaven & Hell, I went ot one of their shows this summer and you’d have thought it was 1980, they were fantastic. Same goes with the Sex Pistols, which is just wrong on some level. But there are always countless bands who reappear for the obligatory reunion/cash-in that are shadows of their former selves. Hope that wasn’t the case with Zep, though I could care less for their catalog they are undisputed icons insofar as the history of rock is concerned.

Went into FYE looking for something that I forgot about today, and picked up the soundtrack to Aliens vs Predator – Requiem (the movie’s out in a week and a half). Composed and conducted by a guy named Brian Tyler, who I have never heard of until now, this is a really great score. I’ve been a fan of the films for years and years, and got into the soundtracks around the time Alien 3 was released (that one is my all-time favorite film score, hands down). This is a really great piece of music, you can hear influences from all the other scores in the series’, not necessarily overtly so to the extent where they’ve been ripped off, but on a more subtle layer. Very, very well done. If you’re a fan of the films, film scores, or orchestral music in general, you should give this a listen. Plus, the individual track names are just classic. Take track 3, for example: Decimation Proclamation. Fits the film, fits the music!

Of what? Me drinking French beer, or me sending you copies?

No on the first, I’m not much of a beer drinker anyway (beer is, basically, too weak)

Yes on the second, but you’re going to wait like everyone else until I get my article in order!