Feasibility of Using ICBM's...

[TheMuffinKing]

as orbital deployed mass driver weapons. Can an ICBM be modified to have a solid projectile as a warhead? Basically using a giant lead core jacketed or depleted uranium tip as the payload. It would be one hell of an arrow...

[Surlethe]

The issue, I think, is how much of the potential energy can you convert into explosive force? I'm fairly sure it could be used as a bunker-buster, but getting one into orbit would be incredibly expensive, and you'd only have probably three or four available at all. I would question their value as a weapon when compared with their cost.

[Batman]

Um-ICBMs already HAVE mostly solid 'projectiles' for warheads. It's apparently much more effective for them to go boom. Not that ICBMs are orbital in the first place, of course (which I suspect Surlethe was getting at).

[Sea Skimmer]

as orbital deployed mass driver weapons. Can an ICBM be modified to have a solid projectile as a warhead?

You could have a jar of cookies for a warhead if you want, more then one ICBM design has turned into a space booster rocket.

Basically using a giant lead core jacketed or depleted uranium tip as the payload. It would be one hell of an arrow...

The last ICBMs the US built cost an estimated 70 million dollars each not counting R&D, with a 8710 pound throw weight and 100 meter CEP. That would probably allow the missile to be effective (provided that one large warhead could be made as accurate as the small RVs it was designed to carry) as a kinetic weapon but with that kind of price tag its not economical at all. You could more then fill a cruiser with Tomahawks for that price

[Batman]

70 million? Ouch.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

as orbital deployed mass driver weapons. Can an ICBM be modified to have a solid projectile as a warhead? Basically using a giant lead core jacketed or depleted uranium tip as the payload. It would be one hell of an arrow...

An ICBM has a peak altitude of something like 1200 kilometers, and a warhead mass of something like 1500 kilograms. It also has a forward velocity of over 8 km/sec. If it came down at a 45 degree angle, it would hit the ground at better than 6 km/sec, with a resulting KE of ~29 gigajoules. This works out to be a seven ton bomb, which is only about twice as potent as a large truck bomb and costs roughly 1000 times as much. (Assuming $50 million for the ICBM and $50,000 to buy a box truck and stuff it with explosives.)

Of course, this assumes that the ICBM comes down in a vacuum (neglecting the effects of aerodynamic drag.) The actual kinetic energy at impact will be significantly lower because of this.

[PayBack]

The issue, I think, is how much of the potential energy can you convert into explosive force? I'm fairly sure it could be used as a bunker-buster, but getting one into orbit would be incredibly expensive, and you'd only have probably three or four available at all. I would question their value as a weapon when compared with their cost.

I thought I read somewhere that the US is actually looking at having satellites containing rods of tungsten or some hard metal for that very purpose.. though not just bunker busting but for the ability to take out almost any target without risk to pilots and no lag between go and throw.

[PayBack]

Further to the above...

"Colloquially called "Rods from God," this weapon would consist of orbiting platforms stocked with tungsten rods perhaps 20 feet long and one foot in diameter that could be satellite-guided to targets anywhere on Earth within minutes. Accurate within about 25 feet, they would strike at speeds upwards of 12,000 feet per second, enough to destroy even hardened bunkers several stories underground.

No explosives would be needed. The speed and weight of the rods would lend them all the force they need.

The Pentagon won't say how far along the project, or variants of the idea, may be in development."

[Aaron]

I thought I read somewhere that the US is actually looking at having satellites containing rods of tungsten or some hard metal for that very purpose.. though not just bunker busting but for the ability to take out almost any target without risk to pilots and no lag between go and throw.

I believe that project was canned.

[PayBack]

Ah no that's what you're meant to believe.

Very possibly, as it's be bloody expensive (not that that's ever been a concern) though I think their "better" idea is to use small nukes for bunker busting though the FAS and other groups of scientists are saying that's insane and they can't get them deep enough to stop fallout.

I'm not sure if these have also been canned but the FALCON and it's successor sound interesting...

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/03209/206344.stm

[Aaron]

Ah no that's what you're meant to believe.

Very possibly, as it's be bloody expensive (not that that's ever been a concern) though I think their "better" idea is to use small nukes for bunker busting though the FAS and other groups of scientists are saying that's insane and they can't get them deep enough to stop fallout.

I'm not sure if these have also been canned but the FALCON and it's successor sound interesting...

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/03209/206344.stm

Yeah the FALCON project has been mentioned several times already. Neat idea, hopefully funding will hold out, but with the curent commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan the US has been canceling alot of projects lately, although alot of pie in the sky ones have remained.

[phongn]

as orbital deployed mass driver weapons. Can an ICBM be modified to have a solid projectile as a warhead? Basically using a giant lead core jacketed or depleted uranium tip as the payload. It would be one hell of an arrow...

You could, but it'd be hideously expensive and might not be accurate enough to do the job. There's also the issue of various other nations wondering if the US just tossed a nuclear-tipped missile at someone.

[Simplicius]

What about the political consequences? The association of ICBMs with nuclear warheads might put a damper on their use as a vehicle for any other kind of weapon. A ballistic missile's usefulness as a long-range conventional strike platform would be severely constrained by the political and military structure that has grown up around the paranoia of first-strike obliteration; since early-warning systems don't say "No worries guys, that one's kinetic-kill only", and the fear generated by that ambivalence would be enough to raise opposition to such a project.

The Cold War's only 16 years over, and people are still afraid of nuclear weapons.

[Uraniun235]

Further to the above...

"Colloquially called "Rods from God," this weapon would consist of orbiting platforms stocked with tungsten rods perhaps 20 feet long and one foot in diameter that could be satellite-guided to targets anywhere on Earth within minutes. Accurate within about 25 feet, they would strike at speeds upwards of 12,000 feet per second, enough to destroy even hardened bunkers several stories underground.

No explosives would be needed. The speed and weight of the rods would lend them all the force they need.

The Pentagon won't say how far along the project, or variants of the idea, may be in development."

*snort* That was a Cold War-era wank project. I have a military sci-fi anthology in which a couple of essays masturbate quite furiously to the potential of such a system (they called it THOR).

[Sea Skimmer]

Rods from God was such a great idea.. if not for the fact that a pound of diamonds is cheaper then putting one pound in orbit. Drowning America’s enemies in a river of liquid gold would be a bit more affordable.

[Winston Blake]

as orbital deployed mass driver weapons. Can an ICBM be modified to have a solid projectile as a warhead? Basically using a giant lead core jacketed or depleted uranium tip as the payload. It would be one hell of an arrow...

Since the destructive energy you get in the end has to come from the energy used to lift the penetrator up the gravity well in the first place, all the chemical energy in that fuel sitting on the launch pad is probably better used in high explosive directly, rather than having to get stuff into orbit and back.

argh, run-on sentences ftw

[Patrick Degan]

Can an ICBM be modified to have a solid projectile as a warhead? Basically using a giant lead core jacketed or depleted uranium tip as the payload. It would be one hell of an arrow...

It's essentially swapping out the far more useful nuclear warhead(s) for what essentially is a dummy payload. The question is, why would you want to?