Philip Culmer liked this
James D Sena, QCB, GCE, OG, CGM
Rear Admiral, RHN
Senator for Life, DuQuesne Tower
Rear Admiral, RHN
Senator for Life, DuQuesne Tower
Frankly, at the time I looked at the base concept and dismissed it as too catastrophic. I have not given it any further thought, but you do raise some interesting questions. I suppose if the missile was not entirely a 'rock' but had a dim brain and could steer, that might alleviate a lot of my issues. And we have come a very long way in developing tiny computers that cold fit the bill to do just that sort of thing. The cost, computational size, computing power, and power requirements of a 'computer' in 1966-67 was excessive for anything much smaller than an ICBM. Even for that, it was a major portion of the cost of a Minuteman II. Compared to the computer in a cell phone today, those Minuteman computers were almost as smart as a spanner of the wrong size.Philip Culmer wrote: ↑Thu Nov 23, 2017 4:38 pm
As I understand it, part of the intention was for such missiles to have some manoeuvrability; ... and could potentially divert planned strikes up until a fairly late stage of the "delivery" process. I suppose part of the question is how much planning time you have, how much manoeuvrability, and how much your missile is vulnerable to windage.
Well, it could be dispersed, anyway, which might dilute the damage somewhat. You're still going to have 3.9m3 of titanium hitting somewhere with a lot of KE, even if it is over a wider area, and in smaller pieces. There's also the issue of a fuze that can withstand the amount of heat building up - though that may be less than I'd imagine, thinking about it.With a 2 cm hole drilled end to end and packed with C-4 and an electric fuse, it could be destroyed right down to target level to abort the major impact caused by 3.9 m3 of titanium hitting the surface.
Sadly, I am afraid you are right. Still, the overall international community does have some pacifying effect on most rational regimes. The remaining ones who flout the agreements tend to stand out pretty clearly, as does the US with regard to the international global warming emissions agreement. It couldn't hurt to try.Philip Culmer wrote: ↑Thu Dec 07, 2017 8:16 amI agree with you about the need for an international agreement, but I suspect it would be somewhat pointless. As with similar international conventions and protocols, anyone who is actually in a position to deploy KEWs would most probably either refuse to subscribe, or sign up and then ignore it.