Say, 10 minutes or longer the blue touch paper to be ignited and double, triple, quadruple cross checked by the Silo commanders, who then run through the launch sequence with lots of redunancy checks and calling back to home plate "Hey, are we REALLY REALLY REALLY in a war?"
This...is actually very close to the real figure.
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/1934 ... -aerospace
Aerospace Systems Analysis, McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Company, Arms Control Implications of Strategic Offensive Weapons Systems, Volume IV, Technological Feasibility of Launch on Warning and Flyout Under Attack, Prepared for U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, ACDA ST/196, June 1971, Secret, Excised Copy
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The most important and the most surprising of the delays is the 11 minutes required by the launch control crew to receive, decode, authenticate and execute the launch command. This time delay is not a minimum or even the average of all launch crews but rather it is an interval which has been established by Air Force Doctrine to insure that no crew attempts to launch before all crews have completed their pre-launch functions."
There are two reasons why this interval is determined by the slowest crew.
The first results from a fail-safe mechanism built into the Minuteman control. Within each squadron (50 missiles and 5 launch control centers [LCC]) the LCC's are interconnected so that any LCC can cancel a launch command issued by any other LCC. Thus, if even one crew in a squadron has not completed processing of the launch command it can (and must) cancel any other crew's command.
The second reason results from the requirement for a common time reference for all the missiles. This common reference is required in order that the coordination built into the missile targeting can be accomplished; this, in turn, is required to avoid fratricide at multiply-targeted aimpoints and to insure proper sequencing of RV's which are attacking defense units, etc.
It is understood that at one time this interval was fixed at six minutes but some crews were incapable of meeting this standard. The 11-minute delay in the launch control center, together with the four minutes required to process code and transmit the launch command, mean that 15 minutes are required to get Minuteman out of their holes after the decision to launch is made."
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Username: MarkSheppard
Nickname: Slightly oblivious
Posts: 1204
Date: 12/17/05 4:27
Wizards of Armageddon by Kaplan
Interesting book; I'm about halfway through it; it should be the companion book to Shield of Faith by B. Bruce Briggs; in that it fills in the offensive side while Briggs deals with the defensive side.
Some points:
1.) It seems that for most of the history of targeteering, there has been an unhealthy obsession with making a nuclear exchange "viable", IOW, all this focus on "counter-force", to make nuclear wars "cheaper" in terms of lives lost.
The big problem I can see with this counter-force obsession is this:
HOW does the other side know that you're targeting his military forces?
A massive ICBM/SLBM launch or bomber swarm headed towards military targets looks just the same as a strike plan on industrial complexes (aka city busting) until it's very late in the game, so why would he feel restrained to limit his retaliation to your military bases? Oh, I know we could inform the Soviets that we're hitting their military bases only, but would they believe it?
2.) Targeteering seems to be a rather fatalistic business; it seems to me that the only person who had a remotely optimistic outlook was 'Dr. Strangelove' himself, Herman Kahn; this may be explained by the fact in 1945-1947 when Bernard Brodie published The Ultimate Weapon, defenses against nuclear bombers were few and very limited; by the time Kahn came along and wrote OTW, we had at least a workable CONUS air defense, and were working on ABM.
3.) It's fun reading the various' Services rivalries over Nuclear Weapons and their employment; the USN abhored nuclear weapons and called them "immoral" throughout the 1940s, but when they got their own carrier-delivered nukes, and started up Polaris in the 50s; they immediately changed their tune to "Nukes are good!". The Army of course, hated Nuclear Weapons, because it made the Army sort of superflous except as a tripwire force, denying Army generals their chance to have a large field army.
4.) Thomas Power is an incredibly colorful character.
From Page 245-246:
From Pages 268-269:There was still one major obstacle: the Strategic Air Command. On paper, SAC was merely one of several commands under the Air Staff's wings; in truth, it was a fiefdom, not easily challenged much less defeated. And the commander of SAC in 1960, General Tommy Power, abhorred any departure from the strategic-bombing traditions of World War II. Power, too, had flown bombing sorties over Japan in 1945, and when LeMay was appointed SAC Commander, he selected Power as deputy. Power saw the virtue of the H-bomb in its stupendous size and power, and any strategy that deliberately diminished that was perverse, almost traitorous.
Power was a brutal, easily angered man who struck Air Staff officers outside SAC as dim-witted and insensitive to the dilemmas that the bomb raised. Once, when Herman Kahn was briefiing Power on the long-term genetic effects of nuclear weapons, Power suddenly chuckled, leaned forward in his chair and said "You know, it's not yet been proved to me that two heads aren't better than one." Even Kahn was outraged, and sternly lectured Power that he should not discuss human life so cavalierly.
.....
At Tommy White's repeated urgings, General Power finally agreed to hear Kaufmann's counterforce briefing. It took place at SAC Headquarters in Omaha on December 12, 1960. Not two minutes into the lecture, Power interrupted with a long, angry tirade against everything that Kaufmann was saying.
"Why do you want us to restrain ourselves?" Power bellowed. "Restraint! Why are you so concerned with saving their lives? The whole idea is to kill the bastards!" After several minutes of this, he finally said, "Look. At the end of the war, if there are two Americans and one Russian, we win!"
Kaufmann, his patience exhausted, snapped back, "Well, you'd better make sure that they're a man and a woman." At that point, Power stalked out of the room. The briefing was over.
This post shall not be carried in aircraft on combat missions or when there is a reasonable chance of its falling into the hands of an unfriendly nation, unless specifically authorized by the "Moderator."In mid-December, Secretary of Defense Tom Gates, along with several Pentagon officials and the Joint Chiefs, listened to one of Tommy Powers aides run down all the facts and figures of SIOP-62 in a lengthy briefing. They heard it two days in a row the first by themselves, the second with a slightly broader audience including the service secretaries. After the second presentation, Gates asked the Chiefs what they thought. Tommy White of the Air Force, naturally, thought it was splendid. The Army and Navy Chiefs, George Decker and Arleigh Burke, privately thought it excessive, but they knew when they were outgunned and Burke personally was contemplating how to take over the SIOP when the new Kennedy Administration came into office; so they too , though less enthusiastically, expressed general approval.
Then General David Shoup, Commandant of the Marine Corps, spoke up. The Marines had virtually no involvement in the nuclear game, so Shoup could take a position as close as posible to that of an outsider while still sitting on the JCS. The day before, during the first JSTPS briefing, Shoup had been bothered by a graph that showed tens of millions of Chinese being killed by the U.S. attack. He had asked General Power what would happenif the Chinese were not fighting in the war. "Do we have any options so that we don't have to hit China?" he inquired.
"Well, yeh, we could do that," Power reluctantly replied, squirming in his front-row seat, "but I hope nobody thinks of it because it would really screw up the plan."
...
The capper came from General Tommy Power. Not the least appalling detail of SIOP-62 was the virtual obliteration of the tiny country of Albaniaeven though it had dramatically dissociated itself from the policies of the U.S.S.R.simply because within its borders sat a huge Soviet air-defense radar, which, according to the SIOP, had to be taken out with high assurance. As Power was leading McNamara and his entourage outside the briefing room after finishing the presentation, he smiled at McNamara and said, with a mock straight face, "Well, Mr. Secretary, I hope you don't have any friends or relations in Albania, because we're just going to have to wipe it out."
McNamara stopped in his tracks for a moment and glared at Power with all the contempt he could muster.
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Username: Hoahao
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 4749
Date: 12/17/05 13:56
Re: Wizards of Armageddon by Kaplan
Now that's MY kind of humor!!
"You know, it's not yet been proved to me that two heads aren't better than one."
I've always liked Powers. One of the first books on nuclear war I bought was one of his on the bomber always getting through.
"Power saw the virtue of the H-bomb in its stupendous size and power, and any strategy that deliberately diminished that was perverse, almost traitorous."
Stuart probab;y resembles this remark... I do.
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Username: Mike Kozlowski
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 3295
Date: 12/17/05 16:49
Re: Wizards of Armageddon by Kaplan
...Keep in mind, however, that according to legend, Power was the inspiration for GEN Jack D. Ripper in Dr Strangelove.
Mike
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Username: Seer Stuart
Nickname: The Prince of Darkness
Posts: 4354
Date: 12/18/05 20:27
Re: Wizards of Armageddon by Kaplan
The big problem I can see with this counter-force obsession is this: HOW does the other side know that you're targeting his military forces?
There is no way he can possibly know. That's why any talk of graduated response is nonsense - and that leads us staight to "one flies, they all fly." The other side cannot know what is being targeted and why so their only logical assumption is that everything is going to be hit. The various strategies; where we go and what we do are all methodologies by which we decide what we hit; they're nothing to do with influencing enemy actions. We hit what we want for our reasons, they hit what they want to for their reasons.
Targeteering seems to be a rather fatalistic business.
Ahh - you noticed!
Thomas Power is an incredibly colorful character.
That's one way of putting it. "Interesting" would be another.
"Power saw the virtue of the H-bomb in its stupendous size and power, and any strategy that deliberately diminished that was perverse, almost traitorous."
I wouldn't phrase it like that, I would say that Power appreciated that the critical importance of the Fusion device was that it opened up a range of possibilities that hadn't been opened before. Using these devices meant that a range of target options and possibilities were now available and that delivery systems and techniques that weren't previously viable now were. Any train of thought that neglected to fully consider and evaluate such new options was perverse, almost traitorous.
Power suddenly chuckled, leaned forward in his chair and said "You know, it's not yet been proved to me that two heads aren't better than one." Even Kahn was outraged, and sternly lectured Power that he should not discuss human life so cavalierly.
Our idea of humor tends to edge towards the further extremities of ghoulish and this would be a classic example. The whole exchange (answer and mock outrage) is the sort of exchange that went on all the time. Still does. Trouble is that it tends to shock the weaker spirits who visit us. We try to reassure them (don't worry, the initiation won't kill you, the fall to the bottom of the crater will) and convince them of our regard for the sanctity of life (atmosphere catch fire? If it does, just file a complaint. We'll deal with it when we get the chance).
"Why do you want us to restrain ourselves?" Power bellowed. "Restraint! Why are you so concerned with saving their lives? The whole idea is to kill the bastards!" After several minutes of this, he finally said, "Look. At the end of the war, if there are two Americans and one Russian, we win!" Kaufmannhis patience exhaustedsnapped back, "Well, you'd better make sure that they're a man and a woman." At that point, Power stalked out of the room. The briefing was over.
I can actually see why Power blew his top at this one. He was the practical man, charged with the practical execution of policy and he saw precisely the same problem with counterforce as you did with your first comment. How do you use a stragey that was conceived as a methodology for determining what we do to influence what the other guy does? Power was making a very valid point; the whole point of going to war is to win it. In some ways, we can see the germ here of today's obsession with not only trying to wage war without killing civilians (which is fine and right) but by killing the minimum of the enemy armed forces (which is insane and wrong). Power put it in extremes, but he was fundamentally correct. He was saying the same thing that Nathan Bedford Forrest said with his "War means fighting and fighting means killing."
Not the least appalling detail of SIOP-62 was the virtual obliteration of the tiny country of Albaniaeven though it had dramatically dissociated itself from the policies of the U.S.S.R.simply because within its borders sat a huge Soviet air-defense radar, which, according to the SIOP, had to be taken out with high assurance.
Why is this appalling? If Albania was an integrated part of the Soviet air defense system, of course it had to be taken out. If it had dissociated itself from the USSR, why was that radar still there? All the Albanians had to do to get off the hook was get rid of it.
As Power was leading McNamara and his entourage outside the briefing room after finishing the presentation, he smiled at McNamara and said, with a mock straight face, "Well, Mr. Secretary, I hope you don't have any friends or relations in Albania, because we're just going to have to wipe it out."
More ghoulish humor. The only point I'd fault Power on here is cracking a gallows-humor joke to a man who was notorious for not having any sense of humor.
Nations do not survive by setting examples for others.
Nations survive by making examples of others
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Username: MarkSheppard
Nickname: Slightly oblivious
Posts: 1208
Date: 12/18/05 21:35
Re: Wizards of Armageddon by Kaplan
There is no way he can possibly know. That's why any talk of graduated response is nonsense - and that leads us staight to "one flies, they all fly."
I was talking with Sea Skimmer over this a while back, and he said something that caused me to think; all the exercises you've done that have led you to the "if one flies, they all fly" maxim have been just that, exercises. There's been no true threat of nuclear armageddon literally hanging over the participant's heads.
With that in mind, I do think there is a very small envelope in which you can have a nuclear exchange and have it not escalate to "they all fly".
1.) It has to be very limited exchange of one or two devices each side.
2.) They all have to be tactically delivered devices either by artillery or by fighter/bomber.
3.) The targets have to be outside both powers' homelands.
4.) The targets have to be near small unimportant urban areas; if you hit a major German city with a tac nuke, NATO wouldn't limit their response to just WARPAC units on the battlefield, but would hit a major WARPAC city, leading to escalation and full-scale war.
So you could possibly have an exchange of battlefield nukes somewhere in West/East Germany as a result of a conventional war, and the exchange sort of leads to a quick de-escalation of the war as both sides stare the nuclear genie down for the first time in an actual war.
That said, the envelope that this could happen in would once again, be very statistically small.
We hit what we want for our reasons, they hit what they want to for their reasons.
Saying that in the late 1950s and early 1960s at RAND would not have been popular; there really wasn't any money or contracts to be done in studying how to destroy the USSR efficiently with the least amount of devices after the SAC-designed targeting plan had been rationalized, removing the two bombs on the USSR's Railroad Director and his Deputy, despite them being in the same building. However, studying the "strategy" of counterforce allowed you to look like you were producing original research.
The book also mentions that Kennedy's 1962 campaign had several RANDites working for it surreptiously, writing policy statements for them; and that they gave Strange the idea of Action/Reaction/Counterforce.
Ahh - you noticed!
One of the stories in the book is during the early development of Super; and one of RAND's analysts doing targeteering of Europe with the H-Bomb in a war, and coming to the conclusion that even if he targeted everything to try and avoid civilian casualties, about 8 million would die anyway; and he ended up in his bedroom after work everyday staring at the wall.
That's one way of putting it. "Interesting" would be another.
As Mike K put it, he was probably the inspiration for Jack D Ripper; and since he was also CINCSAC right after LeMay, a lot of Power stories have probably transferred over to LeMay out of association, giving LeMay an unduly deserved reputation.
In some ways, we can see the germ here of today's obsession with not only trying to wage war without killing civilians (which is fine and right) but by killing the minimum of the enemy armed forces (which is insane and wrong).
Well, the book traces this obsession right to two people: Daniel Ellsburg of Pentagon Papers infamy and Robert Strange McNamara.
Page 278 of the book details how on April 7, 1961, Ellsberg finished writing a national security policy draft for Strange McNamara as part of McNamara's "96 Trombones"; and the draft said:
"while limiting the destructiveness of warfare...Specifically, the United States does not hold all the people of Russia, China or the [East European] Satellite nations responsible for the acts of their governments. Consequently, it is not an objective of the United States to maximize the number of people killed in the Communist Bloc in the event of war." and "attacks against high governmental and military command centers, or indiscriminate initial attacks on all major urban-industrial centers would fail to inhibit punitive retaliation by surviving enemy units, but would instead eliminate the possibility that enemy responses could be controlled or terminated to U.S. advantage." plus "In particular, alternative options should include counterforce operations carefully avoiding major enemy cities while retaining U.S. ready residual forces to threaten those [urban-industrial] targets."
In May 1961, McNamara initaled the Ellsburg memo as his own and sent it to the JCS as his initial guidance for SIOP-63.
I wouldn't phrase it like that/Why is this appalling?/
Keep in mind that it's not my words; I'm quoting revelant passages from Wizards of Armageddon.
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Username: Seer Stuart
Nickname: The Prince of Darkness
Posts: 4355
Date: 12/18/05 21:57
Re: Wizards of Armageddon by Kaplan
There's been no true threat of nuclear armageddon literally hanging over the participant's heads.
That's true and there was no real way of simulating it. However, there was a suggestion that the team members on each side would have their wives and children locked in a wooden house with doors and windows sealed; if the exercise ended in nuclear war we'd set the house on fire. This was of course rejected; the cost of rebuilding the house after each exercise was prohibitive. *
*See what I mean about ghoulish humor?
I do think there is a very small envelope in which you can have a nuclear exchange and have it not escalate to "they all fly".
The problem is the one you put your finger on in the first statement; its impossible for the other side to know what;s going on. What makes the situation work the way it does is this. The moment the first bird flies, the other side has no way of knowing what is going on in the other side's mind. Is this really just a limited shot or the first shot in a massive salvo? The problem here is the count-down time. These take time. If we don;t start them and the other side is planning a massive salvo, our birds get hit on the ground and our ability to strike back severely damaged. If we do start our count-downs, we can always stop them. Or so the logic goes.
Now, we hit a difficulty, how do we know the other side isn't doing its countdown? We can't. If we stop ours, we reset to zero and that makes it absolutely certain our birds will be caught on the ground. If he stops his, he knows his birds will be caught on the ground. So, once the countdown has started, neither side can stop without putting themselves at a terrible disadvantage. So the dyanmics of the situation are that once the first bird has flown, both sides have an over--riding need to start their count downs as a precaution; then they have over-riding needs to continue once started. So both sides start, don't stop and launch. One flies, they all fly.
Saying that in the late 1950s and early 1960s at RAND would not have been popular; there really wasn't any money or contracts to be done in studying how to destroy the USSR efficiently with the least amount of devices after the SAC-designed targeting plan had been rationalized, removing the two bombs on the USSR's Railroad Director and his Deputy, despite them being in the same building.
It depends on the level; RAND was essentially an Air force house back then; most of the rest got by quite nicely on Navy and Army contracts. Polaris , for example kept a lot of contractors in caviar and champagne through til the mid-70s.
Keep in mind that it's not my words; I'm quoting revelant passages from Wizards of Armageddon.
I know, my comments were critiques of the quotation, not of you. My apologies if that wasn't clear
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Username: MarkSheppard
Nickname: Slightly oblivious
Posts: 1209
Date: 12/18/05 22:06
Re: Wizards of Armageddon by Kaplan
*See what I mean about ghoulish humor?
Bwhahahah.
The problem here is the count-down time.
So in essence, because of our reliance on ICBMs/SLBMs for nuclear deterrence, we're locked into the "launch them before the other guy launches his" loop. How many times do you burn Strange and his ilk in effigy each day for shifting our deterrence force from manned bombers to missiles?
Polaris , for example kept a lot of contractors in caviar and champagne through til the mid-70s.
Black Sea Caviar?
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Username: Seer Stuart
Nickname: The Prince of Darkness
Posts: 4357
Date: 12/19/05 3:55
Re: Wizards of Armageddon by Kaplan
So in essence, because of our reliance on ICBMs/SLBMs for nuclear deterrence, we're locked into the "launch them before the other guy launches his" loop. How many times do you burn Strange and his ilk in effigy each day for shifting our deterrence force from manned bombers to missiles?
Not often enough.
Its not quite that we have to launch before the enemy strike hits; that's launch on warning and its a very dangerous policy. Its that the time frame for all the decisions is determined by the launch cycles on both sides - the decisions have to be taken knowing that a strike could be on its way. Normally, one takes the decision, waits to the first warheads hit (for a whole clutch of reasons they don;t all arrive at once) so that the attack is confirmed and then go.
Now, that's the problem. Fire one and its a pretty firm indicator that the conflict has gone nuclear (past tense). now the dynamics are such that its pretty well out of control. Command control degrades faster than most outsiders would believe possible (both the US and Soviet systems were very robust but robust means they resist damage, not are invulnerable to it. Second strike systems (bombers and SLBMs) ease the problem a bit but the basic situation remains.
The otehr problem is one we've mentioned before. Once a missile is launched, it is going to hit its target. Unless it malfunctions (statistically appreciable) or is shot down (no chance at all in the US until very recently, some chance in Russia, a launched missile will hit the target it is aimed at with a nuclear weapon. There is no way an ICBM or an SLBM can be aborted. They do not carry destruct systems. Therefore, if the warning screens fill with inbound missiles, that means the targets they are aimed at are gone (and the targeteers short-sell the city bonds for those targets - told you we were ghoulish). That's a psychological pressure to get our stuff headed back.
Its also the enormous, definitive advantage of bombers. Manned bombers can be called back at any time up to the split second before they drop. They make this whole discussion moot.
Damn McNamara.
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Username: swamphen
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 557
Date: 12/19/05 4:16
Re: Wizards of Armageddon by Kaplan
Hmm...too bad we couldn't sell a "scrap all the Minutemen and future ICBM projects, and buy B-2s (and FB-22s?) instead" programme...
Only the part before the comma would get approved.
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Username: Tony Evans
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 2997
Date: 12/19/05 6:33
Re: Wizards of Armageddon by Kaplan
Wasn't the decision to rely mostly on missiles based on their perceived value WRT to deterence credibility, in the sense that bomber penetration was becoming more and more questionable, while missiles were becoming more reliable and accurate?
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Username: The Duchess of Zeon
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 2072
Date: 12/19/05 7:16
That would be a strange reason..
Seeing as the first intercept of a missile by a missile was done within less than five years of the first operational ICBM, and the ICBMs which were operational then were liquid fueled, had to be pre-fueled before launch, and could not be reliably aimed at anything smaller than an urban metropolis.
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Username: Tony Evans
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 2998
Date: 12/19/05 14:57
Re: That would be a strange reason..
Stuart can correct me if I'm wrong -- which is one of the reasons I posed the questioned -- but at the point where McNamara enters the narrative, it was known that solid fueled ICBMs would become the backbone of the force, and it could be reasonably argued that MIRVs would by the end of the decade provide at least one answer to ABMs (since, according to what I've read, there was serious doubt about the technological competence of any Soviet ABM system). At the same time, the successful penetration to target of manned bombers was, rightly or wrongly, becoming a big question mark in a lot of people's minds.
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Username: David Newton
Nickname: Administrator
Posts: 5172
Date: 12/19/05 15:54
Re: That would be a strange reason..
It wrongly became a question mark in peoples' minds. That happened because of people like MacNamara. A bomber at high altitude is considerably harder to shoot down than a ballistic missile. The missile has a predictable track.
As I have said before, anyone with the physics knowledge of a first year A level student can do a calculation that will give a pretty good approximation as to where a ballistic missile will end up. Said calculation will neglect air resistance, Coriolis forces and the like, but it will be accurate to within tens of miles certainly. If someone of 17 with only a very basic knowledge of serious physics can do that, what can a computer simulation do? The answer is predict things very, very, very accurately. If you can know where the missile will be then you can shoot it down relatively easily.
Bombers are not predictable. They have humans on board who can take evasive action. Evasive action with the kind of engagement envelopes we are talking about is extremely effective.
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Username: Tony Evans
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 2999
Date: 12/19/05 16:26
Re: That would be a strange reason..
I think you might get an argument about that from the guys that wound up being the guests of Uncle Ho when they relied on high altitude, ECM/ECCM, and evasion. One of the reasons that satellite recon was developed, after all, was that high altitude jet penetration of Soviet airspace was already getting dicey by 1960.
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Username: swamphen
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 560
Date: 12/19/05 16:55
Re: That would be a strange reason..
I think you might get an argument about that from the guys that wound up being the guests of Uncle Ho when they relied on high altitude, ECM/ECCM, and evasion. One of the reasons that satellite recon was developed, after all, was that high altitude jet penetration of Soviet airspace was already getting dicey by 1960.
Note what's missing there: high speed. A Mach 2+ aircraft at 60,000+ feet is extremely difficult to intercept.
(BTW, the current issue of Air & Space Smithsonian has an article on the B-58, the "vunerable to SAMs" canard is trotted out there too...)
One of the reasons that satellite recon was developed, after all, was that high altitude jet penetration of Soviet airspace was already getting dicey by 1960.
For subsonic U-2s...
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Username: p620346
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 223
Date: 12/19/05 18:23
H-bombs
I would say that Power appreciated that the critical importance of the Fusion device was that it opened up a range of possibilities that hadn't been opened before. Using these devices meant that a range of target options and possibilities were now available and that delivery systems and techniques that weren't previously viable now were. Any train of thought that...
It is my understanding that prior to the development of the H-bomb the US could not have fought a nuclear war with the USSR since yield was directly proportional to the amount of fissile material used and there was never enough fissile material available.
The H-bomb changed this because most of its yield came from the secondary and fissile material was only needed for the primary "spark plug". A relatively tiny amount of fissile material, such as the 0.1kt 155mm nuclear shell, was enough to serve as the primary of a 25-50mg H-bomb.
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Username: edgeplay cgo
Nickname: Fix bayonets
Posts: 5053
Date: 12/19/05 19:50
Re: That would be a strange reason..
I think you might get an argument about that from the guys that wound up being the guests of Uncle Ho when they relied on high altitude, ECM/ECCM, and evasion.
SAC had a few aces up its sleeve, or would have with the B-70 and its ilk, that were not available over NVN. Flying at high mach numbers and flaming radars with nuclear missles, were two options not available in the Strange Little War.
Dennis
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Username: David Newton
Nickname: Administrator
Posts: 5173
Date: 12/19/05 20:55
Re: That would be a strange reason..
Was an SR-71 ever shot down? Not that I am aware of. That was the only aircraft in the USAF with the kind of performance I am referring to.
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Username: Tony Evans
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 3000
Date: 12/19/05 22:16
Re: That would be a strange reason..
Note what's missing there: high speed. A Mach 2+ aircraft at 60,000+ feet is extremely difficult to intercept.
Are we talking about the actual bomber force that existed, or vaporware?
(BTW, the current issue of Air & Space Smithsonian has an article on the B-58, the "vunerable to SAMs" canard is trotted out there too...)
All aircraft were vulnerable to nuclear tipped SAMs, which are exactly what would have been flying in a real shooting match.
For subsonic U-2s...
And RB-47s, which performed similarly to the actual B-52s that would have had to do the job.
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Username: Tony Evans
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 3001
Date: 12/19/05 22:23
Re: That would be a strange reason..
SAC had a few aces up its sleeve, or would have with the B-70 and its ilk, that were not available over NVN. Flying at high mach numbers and flaming radars with nuclear missles, were two options not available in the Strange Little War.
Just as nuclear armed SAMs weren't available against RB-47 and U-2 penetrations...
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Username: drunknsubmrnr
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 1444
Date: 12/19/05 22:26
Re: That would be a strange reason..
Are we talking about the actual bomber force that existed, or vaporware?
The B-58 and RS-71 existed and were in production with that type of performance. The B-70 existed in prototype form, and could have been built.
All aircraft were vulnerable to nuclear tipped SAMs, which are exactly what would have been flying in a real shooting match.
Not that vulnerable, at that speed and height.
And RB-47s, which performed similarly to the actual B-52s that would have had to do the job.
The B-52 flies about 50 mph faster and 10 000 feet higher than the RB-47. It also carries a LOT more EW equipment.
Kevin
Wholesale theft is a submarine tradition
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Username: Tony Evans
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 3002
Date: 12/19/05 22:26
Re: That would be a strange reason..
Was an SR-71 ever shot down? Not that I am aware of. That was the only aircraft in the USAF with the kind of performance I am referring to.
And not the type of aircraft that would have been carrying the bombs. So what's your point?
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Username: Seer Stuart
Nickname: The Prince of Darkness
Posts: 4360
Date: 12/19/05 23:17
Re: Wizards of Armageddon by Kaplan
Wasn't the decision to rely mostly on missiles based on their perceived value WRT to deterence credibility, in the sense that bomber penetration was becoming more and more questionable, while missiles were becoming more reliable and accurate?
Certainly, the existing generations of bombers were facing obsolescence, just as the B-36 had faced obsolescence six or seven years earlier. That's why the next generation, the B-70 et al was being developed.
Adding to the complexity of the mix was the problem that the projected advances in anti-aircraft missile performance were grossly overstated.
It was, for example, believed that SAMs with nuclear warheads, speeds of mach 10 - 15, ranges of 200 plus miles and altitudes of up to 100,000 feet would be commonplace standards by 1967. Or so the McNamara acolytes claimed.
In fact, performance of that level has never been achieved and nuclear-tipped SAMs turned out to have problems all of their own (the big reason for nuclear warheads on tactical wepaons in the late 1950s and early 1960s was that guidance systems weren't very accurate and a very big warhead was needed to get a kill.
By the way, that's why in "The Great Game" and "Crusade" nuclear weapons (some real, mostly simulated) are used for relatively tactical purposes - taking out SAM sites and fighter interceptors. At that time the guidance systems in use simply weren't good enough to do any better. By the time the B-70 came along, they were improving.
I think you might get an argument about that from the guys that wound up being the guests of Uncle Ho when they relied on high altitude, ECM/ECCM, and evasion. One of the reasons that satellite recon was developed, after all, was that high altitude jet penetration of Soviet airspace was already getting dicey by 1960.
At risk of sounding like President Clinton, it all depends on the definition of high.
Over Vietnam, "high" meant over 30,000 feet; in B-70 terms, high meant over 70,000. "Fast" meant Mach 1.3 - 1.6; whatever the aircraft could do clean, they were limited by their loads of bombs and external fuel tanks. Fast, to a fully loaded B-70 meant Mach 3.2 - and possibly faster. One of the reasons why the USAF had problems over 'Nam was that most of their effort had gone into ESM/ECM for the strategic force and tactical forces had gone short. As far as I know, no SR-71 was ever endangered by Soviet air defenses - and its performance fell short of that of the B-70.
Also, the bombers wouldn't have operated the way they did over Vietnam; they'd have made their penetrations behind a wall of ARMs and AAMs. In a way, Vietnam can be compared to two fencers jousting, a strategic air assault would have given one of those fencers an industrial-size chainsaw. There's another point as well; the loss rate over Vietnam, especially of the big bombers, was small as a percentage of missions flown. This marks a critical difference between conventional Vietnam-style operations.
In a conventional bombing campaign a loss rate of 10 percent is a catastrophe for the offense - its unsustainable.
In a nuclear bombing campaign, a loss rate of 10 percent is a catastrophe for the defense, it means there isn't a country left to defend any more.
Put another way, if we'd thrown 2,000 B-70s at the USSR and 1,800 got through the defenses to make their laydowns, nobody in Russia would be congratulating the defense on their achievement.
All aircraft were vulnerable to nuclear tipped SAMs, which are exactly what would have been flying in a real shooting match.
The problem here is command loops. It takes time for the search radars to make the detection, identify the target, localize it, determine its course, speed and altitude, transmit that information through the command loop to the air warfare center, get a decision made, get that decision back down the command loops to the missile firing units, get their fire control radars locked on targets, fire the missiles, the missile gets to the target and initiates.
Remember, that missile has to get its warhead within the lethal radius of that warhead - which, even for a nuke, isn't appallingly large. Now, the question is, how far can the aircraft move in the time that command loop takes to function? The obvious answer is the unit time taken by that comamnd loop to function multiplied by that unit time. If the answer is greater than the range of the missile, the defense has a real problem
Look at it this way (all figures are hypothetical and for illustration only).
You're a missile battery commander, your radars have a range of 200 miles, your missiles 100 and your command loop takes five minutes from initial detection to missile arrival.
Your operators spot a B-70 inbound on an attack run. By the time you get to fire, its already overflown you and is fifty miles behind you and increasing the range at 40 miles per minute. Even if you fire a nuclear warhead, you can't possibly hurt him.
There's an interesting calculus to this (one you're probably quite familiar with). The overall performance of the system isn't related to the performance of the best parts of that system, its determined by the performance of the worst. thus, improving the performance of one part of the system isn't a good approach to improving its perofrmance as a whole. A 5 percent improvement across the whole system is much more productive than a 100 percent improvement in one isolated element of the system. So, to improve the air defense system to cope with B-70 style aircraft needs a major improvement across the whole system.
One approach is to increase the range of the surveillance radars; the further they can see, the more time the defenses have to react. Unfortunately doing so means that the radars have to be more powerful, that makes them better targets - and makes taking them out more disastrous for the defense (now you can see why nobody important was upset by the concept of emulsifying Albania). So a major possible improvement brings with it penalties as well as benefits.
Another way around things is to speed up the communications links.
Now we have a real problem.
Putting nuclear warheads into the equation slows the command links down; how much depends on a lot of things but it is a lot.
This is the primary, essential reason why the UK never put nuclear warheads on its air defense missiles. Doing so would have delayed the command links so much the missiles would never have been launched.
In fact, in the 1980s when the arrival of ultra-fast anti-ship missiles drove a need to speed up command loops, the first thing people did was scrap nuclear-tipped surface-to-air missiles.
Also, another thing became apparent, it turned out that nuclear weapons were very effective against non-manoeuvering targets; they were not so useful against manoeuvering ones. Nukes are great for shooting down missiles, much less so against bombers.
And not the type of aircraft that would have been carrying the bombs.
Actually, Tony, there was a bomber version of the SR-71 - appropriately enough the B-71. It was never built but essentially it was identical to the SR-71 only it carried air-to-surface missiles in its bays rather than recon gear. Remember also, the original designation of the SR-71 was RS-71 RS standing for reconnaissance-strike.
In summary, the alleged vulnerability of the bombers was a canard obtained by comparing the performance of existing bombers against the projected performance of hypthetical next-generation weapons. Then, the performance of the next generation defenses was greatly exaggerated and the adoption of tactics intended to aid penetration eliminated. In short McNamara cooked the books.
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Username: David Newton
Nickname: Administrator
Posts: 5174
Date: 12/20/05 0:33
Re: That would be a strange reason..
Oh yes it was. The aircraft itself was not, but the B-70 had that kind of performance and it was a nuclear bomber.
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Username: WarshipAdmin
Nickname: Greg
Posts: 2327
Date: 12/20/05 0:37
Bombers can't manouevre
What's the turning radius of a bomber at M3 at 70000 feet? *
Let's say it can pull 0.2g . v=3*330 (ignoring M(h)), ie 1000 m/s. that means r is 500 km. 300 /miles/ radius.
Is that so much harder to track than a ballistic warhead?
If the SAM has thrusters rather than relying on fins then the bomber is wasting time by maneuvring.
[* OK this is a trick question. at max altitude a bomber has a manouevring reserve of essentially zero, that is, by definition at maximum altitude all of its lift is devoted to staying up.]
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Username: David Newton
Nickname: Administrator
Posts: 5175
Date: 12/20/05 0:57
Re: Bombers can't manouevre
Yes. The key thing is that a bomber can change course in a unpredictable way. A ballistic missle can't do that. I also don't recall seeing it said that 70,000 feet was the maximum altitude of the B-70 and similar.
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with mustard.
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Username: techwriter
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 821
Date: 12/20/05 1:09
Re: Wizards of Armageddon by Kaplan
Stuart,
What you write makes me think that I'd be good at this kind of analysis...either that, or you're such a good writer ("explainer" of things to the layman) that you make me think I would be.
I love this Site!
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Username: Seer Stuart
Nickname: The Prince of Darkness
Posts: 4362
Date: 12/20/05 1:20
Bombers Manouevering
OK this is a trick question. at max altitude a bomber has a manouevring reserve of essentially zero, that is, by definition at maximum altitude all of its lift is devoted to staying up.
Not so. There are many different definitions of the maximum ceiling of an aircraft. The ones defined by the USAF are
Combat ceiling. The altitude at which a fully loaded aircraft (ie one with a full load of bombs and fuel can maintaina rate of climb of 500 feet per minute.
Service ceiling. The altitude at which a combat loaded aircraft (one witha full load of bombs and a 2/3 load of fuel can maintain a rate of climb equivalent to 100 feet per minute.
Absolute ceiling. The altitude at which a combat loaded aircraft can no longer maintain a detectable rate of climb.
All of the above are maximum altitudes so your "trick question' has just collapsed.
The absolute ceiling of an SR-71 or B-70 is well in excess of 90,000 feet. Its not a useful figure. The combat ceiling of a B-70 was believed to be in excess of 80,000 feet.
Let's say it can pull 0.2g . v=3*330 (ignoring M(h)), ie 1000 m/s. that means r is 500 km. 300 miles radius.
The first prototype XB-70 was stressed to 1.5 G with a 2.0 G limit (in other words it could pull up to 1.5 G with no problems but would need to be grounded for inspection if it pulled 2.0. The second prototype was stressed to 2.25 with a 2.5 limit. Service aircraft were to be built to a 3.75 G limit with a 4.5 G limit. Like to recalculate for a standard production B-70
Is that so much harder to track than a ballistic warhead?
Yes it is, enormously harder. With a ballistic missile we know exactly what spot in the sky the missile occupy at every part of its flight path. We don't even need a guidance system to hit it; we can just arrange for something to be in that spot at the appropriate time. We can, for example, hit it with a simple, normal IRBM. Been done.
In essentials the circle of probability occupied by a ballistic missile is a dimensionless dot. It MUST be where it's ballistic path predicts it will be. In contrast, the ability of a bomber to change course means that the circle of probability is large; we can't predict exactly where it will be, we can simply define the area in which it will be. As the bomber gets faster, that area gets bigger. This is very important because the homing system of the missile has only a limited acquisition range. If its outside that range, it can't lock on. Also, it has a limited angle of acquisition; if the target is outside that arc, it can't detect it and will go ballistic into the ground. This means the missile has to be fired into a "basket" that enables it to pick up and lock onto the target. The larger the area of probability determined by the bomber's speed and turning ability, the smaller the chance that the interceptor missile will be able to lock on. Even then, the geometry of the intercept has to be such that the missile can intercept the target. If the gemoetry is unfavorable, the missile uses all its fuel in a tail-chase and goes ballistic. By the way, if its nuclear-tipped and salvage fuzed, the bomber just destroyed its first ground target without firing a shot.
If the SAM has thrusters rather than relying on fins then the bomber is wasting time by maneuvring.
That's a red herring; the method of missile manoeuvering has nothing to do with it. In some respects, pif-paf thruster guidance is actually counter-productive - it allows the engagement of very agile targets but it gains that advantage by burning large quantities of fuel. Against a target that just burns past the defense, it really doesn't matter.
New story starting very shortly (probably just after Christmas) called Ride of The Valkyries. Some of the story will show just how the B-70s were supposed to penetrate an enemy defense.
The B-70 wasn't invulnerable, far from it. It could, however, penetrate very sophisticated defenses and its advantages in other areas made it a much preferable solution to ICBMs
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Username: WarshipAdmin
Nickname: Greg
Posts: 2329
Date: 12/20/05 2:22
Re: Bombers Manouevering
I'll have build a model of the atmosphere etc to get an idea of the maneuvering envelope vs altitude, but it won't be pulling several g at high (in context) altitude. It'll stall. Ah, I suppose the plot I am looking for is corner speed vs altitude.
SR71 manual has a lot in it
http://www.sr-71.org/blackbird/manual/6/6-22.php
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Username: Seer Stuart
Nickname: The Prince of Darkness
Posts: 4365
Date: 12/20/05 4:00
Re: Bombers Manouevering
Beware, the SR-71 is a different beast from the B-70 in a lot of ways. Remember, for example, that a B-36 at its normal operating altitude could out-turn a F-86. That's because it had big wings (lots of wing area, lots of lift) and enough excess power to pull turns that would make the smaller aircraft stall out. I don't know if you're stll reading the TBO fiction but a lot of these issues are dealt with there.
The B-70 had the same large wings and high excess power characteristics and had a few wrinkles thrown in that added to its characteristics. Also, we're not talking about an aircraft that was flying on the edge of a stall but one that had a significant performance margin in hand.
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Username: Tony Evans
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 3003
Date: 12/20/05 4:02
Re: Wizards of Armageddon by Kaplan
A couple of questions:
I've always heard that supersonic bombers couldn't open their bays at supersonic speeds, and that one of the reasons for ASM development was that even if supersonic speeds aided penetration, establishing a bomb run for gravity bombs would have been the kiss of death. Any truth in that?
Also, aircraft flying at high machs can't afford any kind of violent pitch or yaw maneuvers. Get the pointy end even a little bit out of the wind and the aircraft tears itself apart. So one of the perceived advantages of nuclear SAM warheads was that they could induce unacceptable pitch and yaw departures at a considerable distance from the center of detonation. Your opinion?
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Username: swamphen
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 563
Date: 12/20/05 5:33
Re: Bombers Manouevering
1. Build time machine.
2. Convince "Mac" that landfill management is The Next Big Thing.
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Username: declan64
Nickname: Root
Posts: 1345
Date: 12/20/05 9:42
Re: That would be a strange reason..
I think you might get an argument about that from the guys that wound up being the guests of Uncle Ho when they relied on high altitude, ECM/ECCM, and evasion. One of the reasons that satellite recon was developed, after all, was that high altitude jet penetration of Soviet airspace was already getting dicey by 1960.
From what I understand , the rate of loss among the bomber force in the period between 67 and 73 was dependent on a number of things.
Improper use of doctrine , having the 52's fly at 30 k and in box formation , to the north vietnamese shot gunning sam-2's over hanoi and using command detonation , and others falling prey to anti aircraft artillery.
Soviet airspace probably was very unsafe , but I assumed that was the reason for the development of the hounddog missile , blasting open lanes of ingress and egress with multi kiltoton warheads , several hours after being bombarded with the sluggers.
As a multi headed hydra , the soviet air defense grid would probably have been still dangerous , but several days into the engagement , it probably would have been porus as hell.
Declan
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Username: kdahm
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 443
Date: 12/20/05 17:01
Re: Bombers can't manouevre
Try reducing it to a two dimensional model.
What speed and maneuverability does a ship need to evade a 35kt homing torpedo? How about a 50kt torpedo?
Turn it around
From what angles can a sub fire a 35kt or 50kt torpedo to intercept a 30kt vessel? What if the vessel increases speed to 40 knots? If the vessel changes course?
Assume reasonable torpedo ranges for the above.
Karl
BTW - an airliner should be designed to stresses of at least +1g, if I recall the design tables correctly. Why would a military plane settle for 0.2g?
In the course of any project, at a certain time it becomes necessary to shoot the engineers and build the damn thing.
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Username: Seer Stuart
Nickname: The Prince of Darkness
Posts: 4366
Date: 12/20/05 17:23
Re: Wizards of Armageddon by Kaplan
I've always heard that supersonic bombers couldn't open their bays at supersonic speeds, and that one of the reasons for ASM development was that even if supersonic speeds aided penetration, establishing a bomb run for gravity bombs would have been the kiss of death. Any truth in that?
None at all. One of the reasons (there were a few others) for developing ASMs was to strike at targets in support of penetration. Remember how we spoke of the need to develop long range radars to increase the time available to react to fast-penetrating bombers? If those radars light up early and give their position away, they can then be engaged by stand-off missiles. That knocks a hole in the radar screen and the bombers can penetrate it. Of course, that can be countered by having a multiply-redundant radar network so that the same area is covered by different radars, preferably working on different frequencies. The trouble is that once we do that, we've increased the complexity of the net and that increases the time taken to complete the command loops.
As for opening bomb-bays, that's no problem. Its a demonstrated art, been done a number of times at very high speeds by a variety of different aircraft. Dropping the bomb can be a problem in that getting the device to separate from the aircraft can be difficult. The old A-5 Vigilante had that problem; it could drop its bombs OK but the bomb went into a stagnation area and followed the aircraft along. That's something that B-70 weapons trials would have had to address. It might have been a complete non-problem (ie clean separation and drop) it might have taken some work
Also, aircraft flying at high machs can't afford any kind of violent pitch or yaw maneuvers. Get the pointy end even a little bit out of the wind and the aircraft tears itself apart.
That doesn't sound right to me. It certainly doesn't apply to any aircraft I know of. MiG-31s and MiG-25s can certainly manoeuver at high speeds. It seems weird to me taht manoeuvers acceptable at Mach 2.2 would be instantly catastrophic at Mach 3.0. I think the statement is incprrect - it might be a derivation from the use of civilian airliners (Concorde) which are not built the same way as military birds. There are a lot of things subsonic civilian aircraft can't do that military aircraft take for granted.
So one of the perceived advantages of nuclear SAM warheads was that they could induce unacceptable pitch and yaw departures at a considerable distance from the center of detonation. Your opinion?
In a word, implausible. When we were calculating the PKs for nuclear-tipped anti-aircraft missiles (in this case specifically Standard) that wasn't a consequential factor. The shock wave from the initiation could do a lot of damage within a specific radius but the idea that turbulence at longer ranges could do what you suggest wasn't a factor worth any great consideration. I'm sorry, I can't put specific numbers on that for you.
Nations do not survive by setting examples for others.
Nations survive by making examples of others
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Username: WarshipAdmin
Nickname: Greg
Posts: 2336
Date: 12/20/05 23:58
Re: Bombers can't manouevre
Because at its true maximum altitude (ie the highest it can fly with a given fuel load) it has zero spare lift to initiate a turn. So it is committed to a straight line. As it burns fuel, it develops an excess of lift which can be used to fly higher, turn, or reduce power.
The SR71 pilots were instructed to descend by 4000 feet, from memory, before initiating a turn.
Actually the most useful definition of max altitude is the one that relates to a minimum climb rate. With a bit of maths you can turn that climb rate into an excess power, which can then be turned into a turning rate. I haven't done that yet, but that's the fastest approach.
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Username: Seer Stuart
Nickname: The Prince of Darkness
Posts: 4369
Date: 12/21/05 0:41
Re: Bombers can't manouevre
Actually the most useful definition of max altitude is the one that relates to a minimum climb rate. With a bit of maths you can turn that climb rate into an excess power, which can then be turned into a turning rate. I haven't done that yet, but that's the fastest approach.
Unfortunately though, that's not what we get from the books. The performance specs usually quote either Combat Ceiling or Service Ceiling; to get Absolute Ceiling is very rare. Getting multinational comparisons is even worse.
Each nation defines an aircraft's ceiling a different way (for example, as far as I can make out, the German definition of service ceiling is very close to the US definitition of Absolute Ceiling). This gets really serious with bombers because their performance stats with altitude don't degrade as fast as fighters (they start off much lower but degrade slowly, heance a B-36 out-turning an F-86 at 49,000 feet, something it couldn't even dream of doing at 25,000). So, with bombers, small changes in definitions result in major changes in listed performance.
Nations do not survive by setting examples for others.
Nations survive by making examples of others
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Username: David Newton
Nickname: Administrator
Posts: 5177
Date: 12/21/05 1:12
Re: Bombers can't manouevre
In other words the only way to compare things is to see the figures quoted at the same altitude.
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with mustard.
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Username: WarshipAdmin
Nickname: Greg
Posts: 2339
Date: 12/21/05 11:36
Re: Bombers can't manouevre
True, but bear in mind that I'm far more interested in deriving the energy diagram for a generic aircraft from first principles than worrying about decimal points.
The mantra that ballistic missiles are 'easy' to intercept, and high altitude bombers are 'hard', is also interesting. Or, in another sense, what extensions in performance to an effective ABM system do you have to make before it is a viable anti-high-altitude-M3bomber SAM? If we take a system that can intercept a ballistic warhead, what else do we have to do to intercept a high altitude bomber? My gut feeling is not so much, missile wise, rather a lot in terms of radar and so on.
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Username: David Newton
Nickname: Administrator
Posts: 5178
Date: 12/21/05 12:58
Re: Bombers can't manouevre
I would agree with your instincts on that. The key with dealing with fast, unpredictable objects is to get as much warning that they are there as possible to give you time to decide what to do and to execute the decision. However, as Stuart has indicated, for an air defence system it is not as simple as that to say the least.
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Username: Jeremy M H
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 308
Date: 12/21/05 14:59
Re: Bombers can't manouevre
There are multiple problems that a SAM must overcome to hit a bomber rather than a ballistic object.
First you have to get it to altitude with either a motor still working or enough energy left to manuver to hit the target.
Second you have to have one fast enough to get to that altitude within your firing loop, otherwise you have to tail chase. A missle that does mach 5, going straight up & not losing any speed as it climbed, and still having that speed to engage will climb to 70,000 feet in about 12 seconds. Assume it takes you 20 seconds from accusition to fire the missile. The bomber doing Mach 3 will have covered about 20 miles in the time it took from accusition to firing to the missile getting up there.
Reduce your missile speed to mach 3 and the problem becomes more daunting. You climb time is now around 20 seconds. If your accusition time stays the same the bomber is now moving 25 miles in the time it took you to locate, fire and get the missile up there. This is in the ideal firing solution for the defense, the missle goes straight up, and the target is there waiting when the missile is fired. Assuming you have not wallpapered your entire nation with missile systems the bombers are likley to try to fly between gaps in the system.
Say we have to cover that 70,000 feet but the bomber is now just 10 miles of lateral range from us. Envision it on a tanget to a circle 10 miles out from our launcher. The closest shot we are going to have is when the tangent touches our circle. Our flight time is the same for our Mach 5 Missile. It takes about 35 seconds to complete our firing cycle and get the missle to that ideal targeting point. That means the bomber has moved about 22 miles in that time. That Mach 3 Missile takes even longer.
Now ten miles of lateral range is not very much. To assure yourself of such a shooting solution pretty much means you have to put a SAM site every 20 miles around your coast. Not to mention these are going to be big missiles that are not cheap.
This does not even take into account the fact that the bomber can turn away from a missle. If your missle only does Mach 3 and the bomber is doing anything around that you are going to have a huge amount of trouble actually hitting it.
Adding ASMs to the equation makes it even more difficult. Your costal or border defense can stay the same, but anything around a city is now useless. If the bomber never needs to get closer than 50 miles to the city you now have to get your SAMs located far from the city, which means you need a lot to not have gaps in the coverage, or you have to get the thing downrange 20-30 miles at least.
Now, if the bombers start wipping out your SAM sites based on intel the whole mess starts to fall apart. If on our coast we have our sites spaced every 20 miles so we can actually engage the bombers and the bombers use ASM's to nuke three of those sites into oblivion we are in a whole world of hurt. If they fly right over the middle site we suddenly are talking about taking crossing shots from 30 miles downrange, probably without the benifit of local targeting radars, meaning we have to wait longer to fire and are likley to end up with our SAM's trying to tail chase the bombers. This situation get worse the more launch sites and radards we take out in our initial penetration.
Hence we must build our defense in depth. But even then the bombers need only punch holes through a narrow gap in the defense, and they can come from pretty much any direction. Increasing the density of the SAM belt makes it harder but much more expensive for the defenders.
"The Luftwaffe, the Washington Generals of the History Channel" Homer Simpson
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Username: Seer Stuart
Nickname: The Prince of Darkness
Posts: 4372
Date: 12/21/05 17:44
Defense against bombers.
I'm far more interested in deriving the energy diagram for a generic aircraft from first principles than worrying about decimal points.
Do remember that at least three Nobel prizes have been won by people worrying about decimal points
Or, in another sense, what extensions in performance to an effective ABM system do you have to make before it is a viable anti-high-altitude-M3 bomber SAM?
Actually, the differences are so profound that we can't go that way at all. It is impossible to convert an ABM into a reliable anti-aircraft missile. However, the reverse is true; once we have built an anti-aircraft missile capable of engaging a high-speed, high altitude aircraft, that missile is already an effective ABM interceptor.
This is the cause of a major dispute within the ABM treaty (when that treaty existed). The train of development of anti-aircraft missiles was such that they had already gained the capability to intercept ballistic missiles. Therefore, on paper, virtually every modern SAM was a potential ABM.
The only comment from the Soviets was a rather weak "well we promise we won't use them that way."
Patriot is a good example of how an anti-aircraft missile could be used to shoot down ballistic missiles (and Patriot was deliberately "cooled down" during so as not to contravene the ABM treaty. Much of the development work in Patriot over the last few years has been to put back the capabilities that were taken out).
If we take a system that can intercept a ballistic warhead, what else do we have to do to intercept a high altitude bomber?
We have to give it the ability to find, engage and attack a target that might be anywhere within a large area of sky and is trying hard not to get hit as distinct from an object that is at a precisely defined point in space and time and is doing nothing to defend itself. The defense point is another one that tends to get overlooked. The bomber has a whole range of defense aids with operators to use them effectively. The missile has none.
Nations do not survive by setting examples for others.
Nations survive by making examples of others
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Username: Seer Stuart
Nickname: The Prince of Darkness
Posts: 4373
Date: 12/21/05 17:47
Defense systems
Jeremy, that's a splendid summary of the situation.
Nations do not survive by setting examples for others.
Nations survive by making examples of others
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Username: MarkSheppard
Nickname: Slightly oblivious
Posts: 1219
Date: 12/22/05 13:02
Re: Wizards of Armageddon by Kaplan
When we were calculating the PKs for nuclear-tipped anti-aircraft missiles (in this case specifically Standard) that wasn't a consequential factor.
Was that the SM-2(N) version with W81 (Low kiloton fission) warhead originally planned for IOC in 1987?
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Username: Seer Stuart
Nickname: The Prince of Darkness
Posts: 4375
Date: 12/22/05 17:36
Re: Wizards of Armageddon by Kaplan
It was a bit before 1987 but essentially yes.
Even with AEGIS, having nuclear-tipped Standards on board showed everything down - whether one was going to use them or not. the catch was, once one has a nuclear variant of a weapon on board, one has to treat every unit of that weapon as it its nuclear, regardless of whether it is or not. So nuclear-tipped weapons slow conventional systems down as well as nuclear ones.
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Username: Tony Evans
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 3004
Date: 12/22/05 20:36
Re: Wizards of Armageddon by Kaplan
I'm not so sure the slowdown was that noticeable. On the Long Beach the GMMs got live birds on the rail PDQ when they needed to, and most of the surety measures were implemented during that procedure.
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Username: drunknsubmrnr
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 1448
Date: 12/22/05 21:01
Re: Wizards of Armageddon by Kaplan
There's a big difference between prepping for launch and actually engaging a target. We had a significant decision loop on the Athabaskan, and that's with a VLS and no nuclear birds.
Kevin
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Username: Seer Stuart
Nickname: The Prince of Darkness
Posts: 4376
Date: 12/22/05 21:04
Re: Wizards of Armageddon by Kaplan
I'm not so sure the slowdown was that noticeable. On the Long Beach the GMMs got live birds on the rail PDQ when they needed to, and most of the surety measures were implemented during that procedure.
Remember a ship is a very favorable environment for an air defense system. Everything is close together, the command loops are well established and well-rehearsed and the ship is defending a defined and benign environment (no valleys or mountains to disrupt coverage etc).
However, you're right; individually the delays resulting from adding nuclear weapons to the mix aren't that great. The problem is that they tend to multiply thoughout the system as a whole. Also, at the speed the B-70s would be coming in (40+ miles per minute), even small delays have a significant impact on engagement possibilities.
You were on Long Beach during her Talos and Terrier days? If she'd already gone to Standard, her nuclear surface-to-air weapons provisions would have been deleted by then.
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Username: Tony Evans
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 3005
Date: 12/22/05 23:52
Re: Wizards of Armageddon by Kaplan
Remember a ship is a very favorable environment for an air defense system...
I was responding specifically to the discussion of Standard missile armed ships.
You were on Long Beach during her Talos and Terrier days? If she'd already gone to Standard, her nuclear surface-to-air weapons provisions would have been deleted by then.
Ummm...lets just say that even though there were mostly SM-2 ERs stored in it, the "Terrier" magazine was a special weapons exclusion area until sometime in 1989.
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Username: Andras Schneider
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 81
Date: 12/23/05 15:33
Re: Wizards of Armageddon by Kaplan
Alright, since were talking about the Terrier BTNs again.
Back when Stuart was writing Crusade I asked why didn't the destroyers use a BTN against the incoming missiles. IIRC, the answer was that only cruisers had the nukes. Rereading Crusade recently, I found this passage-
Surrounding the amphibs, shielding them from potential attack were a group of destroyers, missile-armed with nuclear warheads in their magazines. Their nuclear-tipped Terrier missiles could devastate a target but Gunnery Sergeant Esteban Tomas knew that only his Marines could go ashore and take possession of the area.
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Username: Seer Stuart
Nickname: The Prince of Darkness
Posts: 4379
Date: 12/23/05 16:20
Re: Wizards of Armageddon by Kaplan
I asked why didn't the destroyers use a BTN against the incoming missiles. IIRC, the answer was that only cruisers had the nukes. Rereading Crusade recently, I found this passage.
Surrounding the amphibs, shielding them from potential attack were a group of destroyers, missile-armed with nuclear warheads in their magazines. Their nuclear-tipped Terrier missiles could devastate a target but Gunnery Sergeant Esteban Tomas knew that only his Marines could go ashore and take possession of the area.
U.S. Policy was (and remains) that it will neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons on its warships. Thus, since the destroyers carried Terrier missiles and Terrier was nuclear-capable, the destroyers could, on paper have nuclear weapons. It's also common knowledge that the USN intended to use nuclear-tipped Terriers as shore bombardment weapons (the above comments apply to both @ and TBO - @ nuclear weapons policies were amazingly loose in the 1950s and early 1960s, TBO just reflects that).
So the Gunny assumes that the destroyers are carrying nuclear-tipped Terriers; he's putting two and two together and getting five. In fact, the destroyers carry only conventional Terriers; nuclear firepower would be added by cruisers, probably with nuclear-tipped Talos. Its just one minor mistake made by the characters in a whole catalogue of errors that end up by bringing about disaster.
Nations do not survive by setting examples for others.
Nations survive by making examples of others
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Username: Andras Schneider
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 82
Date: 12/23/05 17:22
Re: Wizards of Armageddon by Kaplan
Ok, that's what I thought had happened, an error by a character.
Thanks
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Username: Cowboy 455
Nickname: New Guy
Posts: 4
Date: 5/20/06 23:34
Wizards of Armegedon
I think that to be realistic. Nuc SAMS had many applications, and is why they didn't dissapear until the end of the cold war. They added a dimension which made planning a nightmare, and they would have been replaced when the time came if necessary. :rolleyes:
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Username: MarkSheppard
Nickname: Slightly oblivious
Posts: 1624
Date: 5/23/06 3:24
B-70 Turn Radius
The first prototype XB-70 was stressed to 1.5 G with a 2.0 G limit (in other words it could pull up to 1.5 G with no problems but would need to be grounded for inspection if it pulled 2.0. The second prototype was stressed to 2.25 with a 2.5 limit. Service aircraft were to be built to a 3.75 G limit with a 4.5 G limit. Like to recalculate for a standard production B-70
Found a freeware program to calculate turn radius.
----------
Altitude of 15.15 miles
Weight of 521,056 lbs
wing area of 6,297.15 sq ft
Wing Lift:
5.211E+05 lbs
732.07 lift coefficient
G Load of 1
Airspeed of 2,360 MPH
Bank Angle of 75.35 deg
Turn Radius of 31,826 meters (19.77 miles)
Wing Lift of 1.91E+06 lbs
Lift Coefficient 0.5966
G Load of 3.7061
-----------
Second Set:
Altitude of 15.15 miles
Weight of 521,056 lbs
wing area of 6,297.15 sq ft
Wing Lift:
5.211E+05 lbs
732.07 lift coefficient
G Load of 1
Airspeed of 2,360 MPH
Bank Angle of 77.19 deg
Turn Radius of 25,826 meters (7.87 miles)
Wing Lift of 2.350E+06 lbs
Lift Coefficient 0.7261
G Load of 4.5099
-----------
This post shall not be carried in aircraft on combat missions or when there is a reasonable chance of its falling into the hands of an unfriendly nation, unless specifically authorized by the "Moderator."
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Username: M21A1 Sniper
Nickname: Unus offa unus iuguolo
Posts: 5037
Date: 5/24/06 19:50
Re: Defense against bombers.
"Actually, the differences are so profound that we can't go that way at all. It is impossible to convert an ABM into a reliable anti-aircraft missile."
Why though?
Would not mating the SM-2 warhead and guidance package to the SM-3 just result in a uber long range uber fast SM-2?
I can certainly see why the existing SM-3 EKV would be wholly unsuitable for AAW, but mated to the SM-2 goodies, what then becomes the problem?
Of course on the flip side the 3d stage booster of the SM-3 is probably(?) easily retrofittable to any standard missile i would imagine, and putting that 3d stage on the existing SM-2MRIII would basically be the same result as adding the SM-2 gizmos to the SM-3, wouldn't it?
I obviously need some 'splainin' done about this....LOL.
"Excuse me sir, i'm going to need your car keys."
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Username: M21A1 Sniper
Nickname: Unus offa unus iuguolo
Posts: 5038
Date: 5/24/06 19:52
Re: That would be a strange reason..
And not the type of aircraft that would have been carrying the bombs. So what's your point?
There was a planned B-71, they even did some flight testing and seperation tests i think(or at least, the sep tests were done with the A-12 and heavyweight AAMs).
That woulda been a very neat toy to have.
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Username: M21A1 Sniper
Nickname: Unus offa unus iuguolo
Posts: 5039
Date: 5/24/06 19:58
Re: Wizards of Armageddon by Kaplan
Also, another thing became apparent, it turned out that nuclear weapons were very effective against non-manoeuvering targets; they were not so useful against manoeuvering ones. Nukes are great for shooting down missiles, much less so against bombers.
That makes no sense to me. I would think that if you put a nuke on an SM-2 you'd only end up with an SM-2 that has a MUCH bigger blast radius, which should only increase it's effectiveness against all manner of targets, be they bomber, missile, fighter, or even surface vessel.(Hmmm, nuke armed SM-2s would make for seriously good AShMs, lol).
Not saying you're wrong.....i'm saying that what you're saying is extremely counter-intuitive. Presumably this is an issue of C4i, and not one of actual missile performance?
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Username: M21A1 Sniper
Nickname: Unus offa unus iuguolo
Posts: 5040
Date: 5/24/06 20:01
Re: B-70 Turn Radius
The first prototype XB-70 was stressed to 1.5 G with a 2.0 G limit (in other words it could pull up to 1.5 G with no problems but would need to be grounded for inspection if it pulled 2.0. The second prototype was stressed to 2.25 with a 2.5 limit. Service aircraft were to be built to a 3.75 G limit with a 4.5 G limit. Like to recalculate for a standard production B-70
That's VASTLY more agile than the Sr-71 ever was. No wonder you were so keen on the Valk.
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Username: M21A1 Sniper
Nickname: Unus offa unus iuguolo
Posts: 5041
Date: 5/24/06 20:12
Re: Wizards of Armageddon by Kaplan
So you could possibly have an exchange of battlefield nukes somewhere in West/East Germany as a result of a conventional war, and the exchange sort of leads to a quick de-escalation of the war as both sides stare the nuclear genie down for the first time in an actual war.
That happens in the cold war era book "Team Yankee", a book about the exploits of the 11th ACR during the planned central european front WWIII fight. The author was IIRC a former commander of the 11th.
VERY GOOD book.
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Username: M21A1 Sniper
Nickname: Unus offa unus iuguolo
Posts: 5042
Date: 5/24/06 20:23
Re: That would be a strange reason..
SAC had a few aces up its sleeve, or would have with the B-70 and its ilk, that were not available over NVN. Flying at high mach numbers and flaming radars with nuclear missles, were two options not available in the Strange Little War.
Even still the USAF lost a grand total of 10 B-52s over N. Vietnam.
Considering the total sortie count that's a pretty damned low attrition rate for a plane that in effect is little more than a obsolete airline wrt a flight performance and RCS standpoint!
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Username: M21A1 Sniper
Nickname: Unus offa unus iuguolo
Posts: 5043
Date: 5/24/06 20:25
Re: That would be a strange reason..
Are we talking about the actual bomber force that existed, or vaporware?
The B-58 Hustler was vaporware?
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Username: M21A1 Sniper
Nickname: Unus offa unus iuguolo
Posts: 5044
Date: 5/24/06 20:31
Re: Bombers can't manouevre
If the SAM has thrusters rather than relying on fins then the bomber is wasting time by maneuvring.
I dont think that's true simply because the body of the missile would cause significant drag as it deflected it's course in the air. Drag = reduction in energy, so even finless missiles should be affected negatively by manuever. Probably not as much as finned missiles, but they should still be significantly affected.
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Username: M21A1 Sniper
Nickname: Unus offa unus iuguolo
Posts: 5045
Date: 5/24/06 20:35
Re: Bombers Manouevering
The absolute ceiling of an SR-71 or B-70 is well in excess of 90,000 feet. Its not a useful figure. The combat ceiling of a B-70 was believed to be in excess of 80,000 feet.
The SR-71 is claimed to have typically cruised at 85k feet operationally, so if the Valkyrie would've probably been even higher considering it's much greater total lift.
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Username: M21A1 Sniper
Nickname: Unus offa unus iuguolo
Posts: 5046
Date: 5/24/06 20:37
Re: Bombers Manouevering
Yes it is, enormously harder. With a ballistic missile we know exactly what spot in the sky the missile occupy at every part of its flight path. We don't even need a guidance system to hit it; we can just arrange for something to be in that spot at the appropriate time. We can, for example, hit it with a simple, normal IRBM. Been done.
In essentials the circle of probability occupied by a ballistic missile is a dimensionless dot. It MUST be where it's ballistic path predicts it will be.
It seems to me for this to be true we have to know the exact BC of the RV so that we know the actual deceleration rate upon entry into the atmosphere, because all RVs are not going to decelerate the same. I don't know if that sort of calculation could be made by radar/FC systems, but it would have to be taken into account.
This is my decidedly unexpert take on the matter, but some simple observations seem to really stand out to me:
It seems to me that mating a simple RWR to a deployable braking system(or even some sort of random braking system) would totally monkee any attempt at RV intercepts, and it further seems that if the first incoming ballistic missile is a high yield device set to initiate at very high altitude for purposes of creating an EMP burst to monkee up the defense radars and comms with EM emmisions that all of the subsequent missiles into that target area would be 'golden BBs' as well.
How well could a radar or IR system really be expected to see through a 1Mt high altitude Airburst?
Before we get too crazy belittling ICBMs i'd also point out that while you can recall a manned bomber up until release, in an instance where you're SURE you want weapons on target(like when you just got pre-emptively attacked) that the 20 some minute flight time of ICBMs would be far preferable to the 3-8 hour release time of manned bombers.
And while one ICBM RV might be 'easy' to hit, trying to shoot down a thousand of them at once(such as would've been the case had the US fired only it's Peacekeeper ICBMinventory at a given opponent) is the ultimate exercize in futility.
There is no system around that would have any prayer whatsoever at shooting down 100 ICBM RVs, let alone 1000.
I like the Triad principle just fine. When you combine bombers with naval shooters and ICBMs you end up facing a totally unstoppable offensive force, no matter what your defenses.
We could spend 1 trillion dollars starting right now on existing state of the art BMD, spend 5 years fielding and practicing with the stuff, and Russians would still wipe us off the map in under an hour.
IMO in all out nuclear war(as Stu points out, the only real kind) even a 1% enemy success rate is utterly unnacceptable, because it means wholesale national destruction.
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Username: M21A1 Sniper
Nickname: Unus offa unus iuguolo
Posts: 5047
Date: 5/24/06 20:44
Re: Wizards of Armageddon by Kaplan
MiG-31s and MiG-25s can certainly manoeuver at high speeds.
I'm pretty sure the Mig-25 is an under 2g turner max load at max operational speed and altitudes.
The Mig-31 is much improved in this regard, supposedly able to pull almost 5gs at max operational altitude and speed.
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Username: drunknsubmrnr
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 1577
Date: 5/24/06 21:58
Re: Bombers Manouevering
I don't know if that sort of calculation could be made by radar/FC systems, but it would have to be taken into account.
Normally the ballistic interceptions are exo-stratospheric, but the endo-straospheric ones are controlled by radar/fc systems. Not a problem, especially compared to maneuvering targets.
It seems to me that mating a simple RWR to a deployable braking system(or even some sort of random braking system) would totally monkee any attempt at RV intercepts,
Which part of "ballistic" did you not understand? They can't change their trajectory without missing their targets. The braking system would also create a large amount of virtual attrition, reducing their total throw weight due to the penetration aids that would need to be carried.
it further seems that if the first incoming ballistic missile is a high yield device set to initiate at very high altitude for purposes of creating an EMP burst to monkee up the defense radars and comms with EM emmisions that all of the subsequent missiles into that target area would be 'golden BBs' as well.
Not a problem. Full Stop.
Before we get too crazy belittling ICBMs i'd also point out that while you can recall a manned bomber up until release, in an instance where you're SURE you want weapons on target(like when you just got pre-emptively attacked) that the 20 some minute flight time of ICBMs would be far preferable to the 3-8 hour release time of manned bombers.
That would only be for a complete strategic surprise, which has never been actually pulled off. There is ALWAYS a war warning, which would allow for bombers to fly to their fail-safe points.
Mach 3 bombers at their fail-safe points can actually attack their targets faster than missiles flying from the continental US.
And while one ICBM RV might be 'easy' to hit, trying to shoot down a thousand of them at once(such as would've been the case had the US fired only it's Peacekeeper ICBMinventory at a given opponent) is the ultimate exercize in futility.
The idea is to hit most of them in mid-course, before the RV's separate. After that, leakers (RV's) are taken out with short-range missiles.
There is no system around that would have any prayer whatsoever at shooting down 100 ICBM RVs, let alone 1000.
The US ABM systems were designed for far more capacity than that.
I like the Triad principle just fine. When you combine bombers with naval shooters and ICBMs you end up facing a totally unstoppable offensive force, no matter what your defenses.
You also end up with an unstable force, that will be far more likely to be used. And, you also end up with a force that isn't really good at any one thing, rather than one that is VERY good at something. An all-bomber force would have been far more stable and effective than the mixed bag of nuts we have now.
The subs are stealthy, but difficult to control and VERY expensive, with weapons that can be fairly easily intercepted.
The land-based missiles have the disadvantages of the subs, and aren't stealthy.
The bombers are extremely expensive, leading to a shortage of them.
Conversely, an all-bomber force would be more stable, and less expensive. They don't need the ruinously expensive command and control links that the submarines and land-based missiles do.
We could spend 1 trillion dollars starting right now on existing state of the art BMD, spend 5 years fielding and practicing with the stuff, and Russians would still wipe us off the map in under an hour.
Unlikely. They don't have a whole lot left to hit the West with any more.
IMO in all out nuclear war(as Stu points out, the only real kind) even a 1% enemy success rate is utterly unnacceptable, because it means wholesale national destruction.
On the contrary, a 1% success rate is a 99% failure rate for the enemy. Do you have ANY idea of just how much that mucks up your targetting? If they think that 99% of their weapons will be stopped, they're going to have to saturate everything they've got against just a few targets. That means the rest don't get hit.
Kevin
Wholesale theft is a submarine tradition
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Username: drunknsubmrnr
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 1578
Date: 5/24/06 22:00
Re: Defense against bombers.
I think what you're looking for is the SM-2 Block IVA, not the SM-3. The Block IVA is (was) a somewhat modified SM-2 for ABM work.
Kevin
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Username: M21A1 Sniper
Nickname: Unus offa unus iuguolo
Posts: 5050
Date: 5/24/06 23:34
Re: Bombers Manouevering
Which part of "ballistic" did you not understand? They can't change their trajectory without missing their targets. The braking system would also create a large amount of virtual attrition, reducing their total throw weight due to the penetration aids that would need to be carried.
Weren't most nukes destined for air bursts vs penetrating bursts?(i dont know, i just seem to vaguely remember reading that somewhere before?).
The part about missing....what would happen if the MIRV was reprogrammed to drop the RV directly over the target so as to allow it to fall 'straight down'? Is that even possible? If it is, the braking thing might work. If it's not, then yeah...i fully see your point.
Not a problem. Full Stop.
Hmm, that part is interesting. I woulda thought that seeing through all those highly intense EM waves with your own EM waves would be pretty impossible, but....you would know better than me.
On the contrary, a 1% success rate is a 99% failure rate for the enemy. Do you have ANY idea of just how much that mucks up your targetting? If they think that 99% of their weapons will be stopped, they're going to have to saturate everything they've got against just a few targets. That means the rest don't get hit.
In a nuke war with russia in 1988 say- at the height of the cold war, stopping 9900 of the 1000 deployed soviet strategic warheads they sent our way meant that the United States was still going to suffer a hundred hits by LARGE innefficient devices, suffer millions of casualties(maybe 10s of millions depending on where those missiles hit), probably also suffer a complete economic collapse, and be a shattered and devastated shell of itself REGARDLESS.
That's some 'victory'.(better than the alternative no doubt, but OUCH!)
PS: This is what i could find with a real quick search on the current Russian arsenal(well, circa 2002): Authorized deployed delivery vehicles: 1600
The current Russian nuclear stockpile is estimated to include about 5,000 deployed strategic weapons, about 3,500 operational tactical nuclear weapons, and more than 11,000 stockpiled strategic and tactical warheads, for a total arsenal of about 19,500 nuclear warheads. Unlike the United States, Russia possesses these reserves at least in part because dismantling the warheads has proven prohibitively expensive. And unlike the United States, Russia continues to produce limited numbers of new nuclear warheads, largely because its warheads are designed to have far shorter operational lives and therefore must be replaced more frequently.
http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2002_06/ ... june02.asp
Here's a link for Soviet deployed forces in 1988 that i got the 10k figure above from.
http://www.fas.org/irp/dia/product/smp_88.htm
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Username: M21A1 Sniper
Nickname: Unus offa unus iuguolo
Posts: 5051
Date: 5/24/06 23:40
Re: Defense against bombers.
No i mean the SM-3 ABM. The three stage ABM with an IIR HTK vehicle.
If you replaced the IIR HTK vehicle with a TVM(or active) seeker with a conventional warhead, why would that not work for AAW?
On paper it looks like it should work great. SM-3 reportedly has amazing flight performance(Mach 8.2, 160nm range and 200k + foot cieling are the figures that come to my mind)
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Username: MarkSheppard
Nickname: Slightly oblivious
Posts: 1625
Date: 5/24/06 23:55
Re: B-70 Turn Radius
That's VASTLY more agile than the Sr-71 ever was. No wonder you were so keen on the Valk.
Found this listing in the SR-71 FM:
SR-71 Flight Manual Says (Summarized up different loadings)
http://www.sr-71.org/blackbird/manual/5/5-8.php
Mach 2.0 Or less: From -0.2G to 3.5Gs
Mach 2.0 to 2.6: -0.1G to 2Gs
Mach 2.6 to 3.2: -0.1G to 1.5G
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Username: drunknsubmrnr
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 1580
Date: 5/25/06 14:13
Re: Bombers Manouevering
what would happen if the MIRV was reprogrammed to drop the RV directly over the target so as to allow it to fall 'straight down'
You just instantly cancel it's forward motion? Not in this physical universe, not even with some type of braking rocket. It takes a whacking great missile to get the warhead going that fast, it'll take one as large to slow it down again to drop the RV's "straight down".
In a nuke war with russia in 1988 say- at the height of the cold war, stopping 9900 of the 1000 deployed soviet strategic warheads they sent our way meant that the United States was still going to suffer a hundred hits by LARGE innefficient devices, suffer millions of casualties(maybe 10s of millions depending on where those missiles hit), probably also suffer a complete economic collapse, and be a shattered and devastated shell of itself REGARDLESS.
You'd see most of those initiations on just a few targets. The US would be hurt, but not crippled.
I think you'll find that the consensus opinion on the current Russian stockpiles reliability is rather low. ie if they hit the West with 100 weapons, a significantly high number would fizzle.
Kevin
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Username: drunknsubmrnr
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 1581
Date: 5/25/06 14:31
Re: Defense against bombers.
It would work fine for AAW. It's called the SM-2.
This shows that an AAW weapon can be modified for ABM work. You'd have a lot of trouble engaging an aircraft with a pure ABM system.
Kevin
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Username: Cowboy 455
Nickname: Regular
Posts: 17
Date: 5/25/06 14:47
Re: Wizards of Armageddon by Kaplan
SAMs have had a history of being possible "dual use", and William T. Lee wrote on this subject a lot before his death.
A CIA analyist, he claimed that there was much disagreement within the CIA over the Soviet SA-5 and SA-10 series with respect to ABM potential. Nuclear warheads were on these "strategic Sams", and the absense of any treaty prohibited "battle management" cooridnation is difficult to prove without access to the system.
His book; "The ABM Treaty Charade: A Study in Elite Illusion and Delusion" shows clearly how the Soviets never adhered to the ABM treaty, and may have had more ABM potential that they claimed.
http://www.jinsa.org/articles/articles. ... 52,170,440
http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/congres ... 60927l.htm
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Username: Seer Stuart
Nickname: The Prince of Darkness
Posts: 4907
Date: 5/25/06 23:30
Re: Bombers Manouevering
It seems to me for this to be true we have to know the exact BC of the RV so that we know the actual deceleration rate upon entry into the atmosphere, because all RVs are not going to decelerate the same. I don't know if that sort of calculation could be made by radar/FC systems, but it would have to be taken into account.
By the time the thing gets to re-entry, the errors caused by that problem are within the lethal radius of a nuclear warhead. With conventional hit-to-kill the guidance system makes the small changes necessary. Still, its better to hit the thing mid-course though - if nothing else, the atmospheric effects are so much prettier. The point is that even as late as advanced re-entry (where the errors you describe become significant) the variance in position is still tiny compared with a manoeuvering bomber.
It seems to me that mating a simple RWR to a deployable braking system(or even some sort of random braking system) would totally monkee any attempt at RV intercepts
Firstly, its impossible to put an RWR onto a re-entry vehicle - to work it would have to be in front of the heat shield
Also, the only thing a missile has running in its favor is sheer speed, the advanages gained by slowing it down are much less significant than the resulting increase in vulnerability.
To give you some idea, a lot of the early RVs came in subsonic and it was technically possible to hit them with anti-aircraft gunfire. Nobody ever actually tried it but both the US and Russia looked at it.
and it further seems that if the first incoming ballistic missile is a high yield device set to initiate at very high altitude for purposes of creating an EMP burst
Pulse, not burst. Its important; an EMP is a very transient thing; it lasts a minute fraction of a ssecond and then its gone. Hardening a radar against EMP adds about 5 percent to the total cost of the radar; overall the cost of hardening a system is between 10 and 15 percent of the total. There's also a VERY nasty point about EMP used as a defense disabling system - nobody knows whether it will work at all. Are you going to risk your entire attack plan on a physical phenomena that nobody knows will work?
to monkee up the defense radars and comms with EM emmisions that all of the subsequent missiles into that target area would be 'golden BBs' as well.
What you're describing here is called SREE (Source Region Electronic Effects). These will cause a shadow to appear ona radar screen. However, the reason for that shadow is that SREE is essentially random, incoherent electronic emissions - the electronic equivalent of white noise.
How we get around that is that we use specific settings on the radar that give the radar pulses patterns that cannot occur naturally. We then use data processing to eliminate anything that doesn't have those particular pulses.
Its like your keyless remote entry on your car. Your car recognizes only the pulse from your keyless pad and ignores the others being used in the car park.
How well could a radar or IR system really be expected to see through a 1Mt high altitude Airburst?
Crystal clear - its been done.
Before we get too crazy belittling ICBMs i'd also point out that while you can recall a manned bomber up until release, in an instance where you're SURE you want weapons on target(like when you just got pre-emptively attacked) that the 20 some minute flight time of ICBMs would be far preferable to the 3-8 hour release time of manned bombers.
Two things here. Once we launch an ICBM, its gone, its on its way. Unles sits shot down it WILL hit its target. Contrary to popular belief there are no abort systems or self-destructs on ICBMs. So we have to be very sure we know what we're doing before we light the blue touchpaper and retire to a safe distance (like Mars). With bombers, we can launch, send them to their recall points and have them wait. A Valkyrie orbiting its fail safe point is less than 30 minutes from its target; a missile sitting in its North Dakota silo is a bit longer than that.
And while one ICBM RV might be 'easy' to hit, trying to shoot down a thousand of them at once(such as would've been the case had the US fired only it's Peacekeeper ICBM inventory at a given opponent) is the ultimate exercize in futility.
Actually, it isn't. We hit the bus before it starts to discharge its RVs. Takes all the warheads out at once.
There is no system around that would have any prayer whatsoever at shooting down 100 ICBM RVs, let alone 1000.
The old Nike-Zeus-XE system could have handled a 1000 missile attack. At best 3 - 5 missiles would have got through the Zeus screen. That's why we had Sprint
In a nuke war with russia in 1988 say- at the height of the cold war, stopping 9900 of the 10000 deployed soviet strategic warheads they sent our way meant that the United States was still going to suffer a hundred hits by LARGE innefficient devices, suffer millions of casualties(maybe 10s of millions depending on where those missiles hit), probably also suffer a complete economic collapse, and be a shattered and devastated shell of itself REGARDLESS.
And still a hundred times better off than it would have bene without the BMD screen.
HOWEVER
Things don't work like that. Now we're into what I used to do for a living.
Targeteering isn't just dumping X number of warheads on somebody's turf. We don't do things like that.
There is an identified target list which splits down into a series of levels. They can be defined as
Absolutely must hit
Must hit
want very badly to hit
want to hit
should hit
could hit
my mother-in-law lives there
In the event of a non-defended target, all we have to do is decide which targets get which warhead; given the chance of a missile not working (statistically very significant) what we shoot at is what we hit. So, life is quite easy.
Now we shoot at a defended target. Let's assume our defense system can kill 99 percent of the inbound targets (we'll come back to that later), to make sure of hitting the absolutely must hit targets we have to fire 100 warheads at it.
In fact, we'd have to fire more than that but lets stick with the easy way. So if there are 50 absolutely must hit targets, they will absorb 5,000 warheads (50 hits, 4,950 shot down).
Now here's the catch. Absolutely Must Hit targets are difficult to destroy - they need BIG warheads. Missiles can either carry one big warhead (unitary) or a dozen or so small ones (MIRV).
So to get all those extra missiles to hit our AMH targets we have to strip 10 warheads off a missile and put one big one on. So those 4,950 shot down missiles have actually eliminated 49,500 warheads that haven't got a missile to carry them.
Only, nobody had 49,500 missiles. What all this means is that a defense system quickly stacks the odds so that the attacker can't hit all his absolutely must hit targets.
However, 99 percent is probably unattainable so the obvious question is, what percentage hit rate is neede dto make an attack unworkable? The maths are unbelievably complex (Crays did a lot of the early crunching) but answer is stunning; a 30 percent hit rate will make an attack impractical. The attacker will not be able to hit all the things he must hit.
So even a thin level of missile defense offers a high degree or protection - the best sort of protection; it doesn't shoot all the inbounds down, it stops them ever being fired.
Nations do not survive by setting examples for others.
Nations survive by making examples of others
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Username: MarkSheppard
Nickname: Slightly oblivious
Posts: 1632
Date: 5/26/06 2:00
Re: Bombers Manouevering
Stuart, do you have a detailed rundown of the G-limits the B-70 was to have at different speeds? I know you've said the production ones would be stressed to 3.7G, with max of 4.5, but at what point was that?
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Username: M21A1 Sniper
Nickname: Unus offa unus iuguolo
Posts: 5058
Date: 5/26/06 7:13
Re: Bombers Manouevering
- if nothing else, the atmospheric effects are so much prettier.
LOL, you slay me Stu.
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Username: MarkSheppard
Nickname: Slightly oblivious
Posts: 1633
Date: 5/26/06 8:26
Re: Bombers Manouevering
A Valkyrie orbiting its fail safe point is less than 30 minutes from its target; a missile sitting in its North Dakota silo is a bit longer than that.
About 70 minutes.
30 Minutes for the enemy RVs to hit and confirm that we're in a war.
Say, 10 minutes or longer the blue touch paper to be ignited and double, triple, quadruple cross checked by the Silo commanders, who then run through the launch sequence with lots of redunancy checks and calling back to home plate "Hey, are we REALLY REALLY REALLY in a war?"
Then when they fly, they take another 30 minutes to strike home.
So a Bomber can be dropping it's bombs and firing it's missiles by the time the ICBMs are just lifting off.
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Username: M21A1 Sniper
Nickname: Unus offa unus iuguolo
Posts: 5059
Date: 5/26/06 8:27
Re: Bombers Manouevering
Stu and Kev, thanx MUCH to both of you for kindly critiquing(dismantling?) my posts....because they were little more than a vieled attempt to get you both to answer some questions in a lot more detail than i'd get if i just asked vanilla questions.
The truth is that 90+% of what i know about IADS and strategic issues i know cause of you two.
Again, thanx, both of you.
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Username: MarkSheppard
Nickname: Slightly oblivious
Posts: 1644
Date: 6/2/06 5:50
B-71
Actually,Tony, there was a bomber version of the SR-71 - appropriately enough the B-71. It was never built but essentially it was identical to the SR-71 only it carried air-to-surface missiles in its bays rather than recon gear. Remember also, the original designation of the SR-71 was RS-71 RS standing for reconnaissance-strike.
I think you mean B-12. The following was cribbed from a Crowood Aviation book on the SR-71:
F-12B: Production Version of the YF-12A; the USAF ordered 93~ or so of them on 14 May 1965. They were armed with four AIM-47s in an internal weapons bay, or could carry three AIM-47s and one M61 Vulcan in an alternate weapons configuration. Top speed was Mach 3.5 (2,600 MPH) at 90 to 100,000 feet (!).
Congress actually allocated $90~ million to the acquistion of it; and the USAF really really wanted them; but McNamara saw no need for the F-12B and refused to free up the money.
Best part was...it was actually proposed for intercepting incoming RVs from ICBMs. They actually did test the preliminary parts of this plan and proved with the YF-12A that the AN/ASG-18 fire control radar could lock onto Minuteman ICBMs launched from Vandenburg AFB on several occasions.
FB-12: A fighter bomber version, similar to the F-12B; it held two AIM-7E or -7F Sparrows in the two front weapons bays, and two AGM-69A SRAMs in the rear weapons bays. The Radars it would have carried were the AN/AWG-10, AN/APQ-114 (later used on the F-111A and -111B), and the AN/APQ-130 (later used on the F-111D).
B-12: A dedicated Strategic bomber version of the A-12. Was killed by Curtis E. LeMay, who did not want any challengers for the B-70. It was revived later as the RS-71. It had a rotary launcher holding four nuclear stores.
RB-12: Early designation, later became the RS-71.
RS-71: Carried Four SRAMs, was competitor to the RS-70 version of the B-70.
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Username: M21A1 Sniper
Nickname: Unus offa unus iuguolo
Posts: 5100
Date: 6/2/06 18:14
Re: B-71
I've seen Kelly Johnson say in an interview that not buying the armed versions of the SR-71 was the biggest mistake in the history of DoD.
You could probably make a good argument for that.
Even now, what could even hope to stop an SR-71 firing a conventionally(or otherwise) warhead equipped AGM-69"C" derivitave missile from the kind of stand off range one would get with an 85k foot mach 3 release? Or even a JDAM or SDB from that launch profile?
I'm thinking beyond the Mig-31(if even that), nothing.
A definite whoops moment.
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Username: MarkSheppard
Nickname: Slightly oblivious
Posts: 1645
Date: 6/2/06 23:43
Re: B-71
I think you mean B-12. The following was cribbed from a Crowood Aviation book on the SR-71:
Flipped through a few more SR-71 books at the B&N near me while I was driving my brother around; it appears we're both correct; the terms B-71 and B-12 were both used.
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Username: Larry
Nickname: Official USAF Sycophant
Posts: 1558
Date: 6/8/06 22:57
Re: Wizards of Armageddon by Kaplan
Another factor was the perceived fear, largely held by the same analysts at RAND and other think tanks that gave us these other policy gems, was the SAC's bombers were terribly vulnerable on the ground, and the entire US-bomber based deterrence force could be wiped out by a few Soviet missiles.
Ideas such as airborne alert and defense (both passive and active) were discounted in the case of bombers; later, passive defense became a key selling point in favor of ICBMs.
It's utterly ridiculous; virtually all the same measures of defense for missiles could apply equally well for bombers, with bombers having the incredibly advantage of being inherently far more mobile than any land-based missile.
I wish I had 8 AMRAAMs like the Eagle, I'd be havin so much fun it'd be illegal, like a guy who ain't been laid for months, I'd shoot those suckers all at once! I wish I had 8 AMRAAMs like the Eagle.
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Username: Larry
Nickname: Official USAF Sycophant
Posts: 1559
Date: 6/9/06 0:04
Did "The Business" really help the US?
I recently read this book as well, and I was struck by a fact, as presented in the book, that I pinged Stuart on a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, in the interim, I was out of the country for 2 1/2 weeks, so I missed this discussion.
Kaplan's history of strategic analysis is almost entirely devoted to the workings at RAND from 1945 until the early 1970's. Insofar as the book goes, it seemed plain to me that much of the analysis provided by this particular portion of "The Business" was fundamentally ill-conceived and that the repercussions of this analysis was disastrous, and nearly ruinous, to the US.
Mark has done a good job of illustrating some of the idiocies that came out of RAND; counterforce targetting, graduated response, message sending to try to control a conflict, and, perhaps worst of all, the strong favor given towards missiles that RAND drew from its analyses.
This analysis, which was incredibly pseudo-scientific at best, and a complete grab-ass at worst, was just the kind of number crunching that McNamara loved.
As a result, the thinking at RAND had a huge impact on the defense policies of the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, which led to all of the unfavorable policies (for the US), we have seen described in this thread and before on this board.
These very influential analysts essentially threw away all the strategic wisdom the Eisenhower had tried to instill into the US strategic posture, and replaced it with fuzzy minded OVER-analyzed theorems that have proven to be completely without merit in the real world.
Our resident denizen of "The Business" has claimed that his line of work gave the US an enormous strategic advantage. We are all certainly aware of his antipathy of the line of thinking that grew out of these RAND analyses of the 1950's and 1960's. Hell, most of our opinions on strategic warfighting issues have been shaped very largely by his very well spoken and reasoned opinions.
However, Kaplan's book makes it very plain that at least a very significant part of "The Business," and definitely its most well-recognized part (RAND), contributed notions to the US defense community that were incredibly harmful.
Since RAND's theories are well documented, where did the countervaling opinions come from? And why did the RAND concepts become, at least publically, the accepted position of the US regarding strategic nuclear warfare, whereas more sound theories have remained largely in the background?
In reading Kaplan's book, the constant analyzing and reanalyzing of issues, largely to get a damn check, seems to be just so much churn, when in reality, the fundamentals of sound strategic thought had really been largely settled by the mid-1950's.
Any system of analysis that causes one to feel that defending a nation against an attack is inherently destabilizing, whereas leaving one's nation entirely vulnerable, and seeking to maintain and even expand that vulnerability through negotiated treaties, is utterly insane.
Given what seems so obvious to a genius like myself ;D , how could it come to be that RAND's theories were so influential within "The Business", at least through the 1960s?
I wish I had 8 AMRAAMs like the Eagle, I'd be havin so much fun it'd be illegal, like a guy who ain't been laid for months, I'd shoot those suckers all at once! I wish I had 8 AMRAAMs like the Eagle.
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Username: Larry
Nickname: Official USAF Sycophant
Posts: 1560
Date: 6/9/06 0:13
Re: That would be a strange reason..
USAF lost 10 B-52s vs. 792 sorties flown, a loss rate of 1.3%.
That is a very sustainable loss rate.
The fact of the matter is that most of the losses occurred in the first few days of Linebacker II, when the idiot staff types had the bombers coming in along very predictable courses, all in a great big WWII-like line, and it was the later bombers in the stream that got shot down. Once tactics were changed, to put bombers over the city from different approact vectors and in a much more concentrated period of time, the losses dropped to virtually nil.
The North Vietnamese fired well over a thousand SAMs to shoot down those 10 bombers, as well, completely exhausting their supply by the end of the raids.
I wish I had 8 AMRAAMs like the Eagle, I'd be havin so much fun it'd be illegal, like a guy who ain't been laid for months, I'd shoot those suckers all at once! I wish I had 8 AMRAAMs like the Eagle.
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Username: Larry
Nickname: Official USAF Sycophant
Posts: 1561
Date: 6/9/06 19:18
F-22
The F-22 can certainly open all bays at speeds in excess of Mach 1.
I have a video of an AIM-9M launch from the side bay of an F-22 that occurred at M1.5. The JDAM is cleared for release at speeds up to M1.6, as well.
As Stuart said, there is no inherent reason why an aircraft cannot release munitions at speeds greater than Mach 1. It all comes down to the weapons release characteristics of a given airframe.
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Username: M21A1 Sniper
Nickname: Unus offa unus iuguolo
Posts: 5142
Date: 6/10/06 9:56
Re: F-22
F-22 has test fired ARMAAMs in a supersonic roll- while inverted.
I have seen the video.
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