Which major subcontractors will support Boeing and Northrop ? For propulsion, with whom Orbital ATK and Aerojet-Rocketdyne will partner respectively?
I know there have been several rounds of modernizations on the Minuteman III, for amongst other reasons to replace obsolete hardware which cannot be readily obtained anymore. What new features would justify a new land-based ICBM?
Quote from: Mike Jones on 08/23/2017 09:26 pmWhich major subcontractors will support Boeing and Northrop ? For propulsion, with whom Orbital ATK and Aerojet-Rocketdyne will partner respectively?The Air Force doesn't want the primes pairing up with the propulsion vendors yet.
They have to consider kinetic kill vehicles and beam weapons to get by. So like any other system the choices are usually stealth, electronic warfare, armor, and maneuverability. It will be interesting to see what they come up with.
Quote from: Eric Hedman on 08/23/2017 11:19 pmThey have to consider kinetic kill vehicles and beam weapons to get by. So like any other system the choices are usually stealth, electronic warfare, armor, and maneuverability. It will be interesting to see what they come up with.Kinda hard to do stealth during reentry with the plasma sheath of hot gasses that will envelope the reentry vehicle. Think it's going to have to rely more on maneuverability and countermeasures.Being a clean sheet and ground based, hopefully they will include the mass margins needed for countermeasures.
Quote from: butters on 08/23/2017 10:00 pmI know there have been several rounds of modernizations on the Minuteman III, for amongst other reasons to replace obsolete hardware which cannot be readily obtained anymore. What new features would justify a new land-based ICBM?The fact that the Minuteman III is exceptionally long in the tooth, even with all its upgrades it's still basically a 50/60s design. The Airforce have been quite clear they need a missile to last into the 2070s, the Minuteman cannot achieve that.
Quote from: kevin-rf on 08/24/2017 02:50 pmQuote from: Eric Hedman on 08/23/2017 11:19 pmThey have to consider kinetic kill vehicles and beam weapons to get by. So like any other system the choices are usually stealth, electronic warfare, armor, and maneuverability. It will be interesting to see what they come up with.Kinda hard to do stealth during reentry with the plasma sheath of hot gasses that will envelope the reentry vehicle. Think it's going to have to rely more on maneuverability and countermeasures.Being a clean sheet and ground based, hopefully they will include the mass margins needed for countermeasures.It's weird how any modern ICBMs with countermeasures are described as having stealth features, I remember reading an article on a fairly decent site about one of the latest Russian ICBMs and that was stated as incorporating stealth features.
Radar stealth can be useful before reentry. It can prevent midcourse intercept. Once the warhead is in reentry it would be easy to spot, but there's only a couple of minutes for terminal intercept.
Quote from: RonM on 08/24/2017 05:02 pmRadar stealth can be useful before reentry. It can prevent midcourse intercept. Once the warhead is in reentry it would be easy to spot, but there's only a couple of minutes for terminal intercept.Terminal intercept from ICBM speeds is really difficult.
Quote from: Zed_Noir on 08/25/2017 09:36 pmQuote from: deruch on 08/24/2017 10:36 pmQuote from: RonM on 08/24/2017 05:02 pmRadar stealth can be useful before reentry. It can prevent midcourse intercept. Once the warhead is in reentry it would be easy to spot, but there's only a couple of minutes for terminal intercept.Terminal intercept from ICBM speeds is really difficult.Only if you are thinking of conventional interceptor warheads.Always thought that the Midgetman ICBM is also capable as Anti-Ballistic missile.Since Minuteman III was designed to carry MIRVs and now by treaty only carries single warheads, perhaps Midgetman's time has come.Pegasus is a sort of Midgetman derivative in part, and Pegasus propulsion served as the starting point for OBV, used for today's GBI. Full circle! - Ed Kyle
Quote from: deruch on 08/24/2017 10:36 pmQuote from: RonM on 08/24/2017 05:02 pmRadar stealth can be useful before reentry. It can prevent midcourse intercept. Once the warhead is in reentry it would be easy to spot, but there's only a couple of minutes for terminal intercept.Terminal intercept from ICBM speeds is really difficult.Only if you are thinking of conventional interceptor warheads.Always thought that the Midgetman ICBM is also capable as Anti-Ballistic missile.
Quote from: edkyle99 on 08/25/2017 09:50 pmQuote from: Zed_Noir on 08/25/2017 09:36 pmQuote from: deruch on 08/24/2017 10:36 pmQuote from: RonM on 08/24/2017 05:02 pmRadar stealth can be useful before reentry. It can prevent midcourse intercept. Once the warhead is in reentry it would be easy to spot, but there's only a couple of minutes for terminal intercept.Terminal intercept from ICBM speeds is really difficult.Only if you are thinking of conventional interceptor warheads.Always thought that the Midgetman ICBM is also capable as Anti-Ballistic missile.Since Minuteman III was designed to carry MIRVs and now by treaty only carries single warheads, perhaps Midgetman's time has come.Pegasus is a sort of Midgetman derivative in part, and Pegasus propulsion served as the starting point for OBV, used for today's GBI. Full circle! - Ed KyleAdvance apologies if these questions veer OT. (If it gets too political, then it would be better thread-splintered to *.)Point of international law: Are land-based MIRVed missiles still banned by treaty?I see that Russia has deployed MIRVed land-based ICBMs since they withdrew from the START II treaty.Would the US be within its current treaty obligations if it returned to a land-based MIRV ICBM? (This could very well be politically improbable, but legally and technically possible?)Would the old argument for/against MIRV offensive missiles (and against/for large scale ABM systems) still apply--that they would overwhelm any "realistic" ABM system in a full-scale nuclear assault?Technology has vastly improved since the end decades of the Cold War. And, we have other potential nuclear-ICBM-armed adversaries than just Russia.
Quote from: russianhalo117 on 08/25/2017 10:45 pmCurrently MM-III flies with 10 of its 11 MIRV slots occupied. I believe that Minuteman 3 only had 3 MIRVs when first deployed. Most test flights since START 2 carry a single inert warhead, presumably simulating the currently deployed situation, though there was a MIRV test last year. In 2014, the U.S. announced that it had removed the last MIRV from its deployed Minuteman 3 missiles. http://allthingsnuclear.org/emacdonald/the-end-of-mirvs-for-u-s-icbms - Ed Kyle
Currently MM-III flies with 10 of its 11 MIRV slots occupied.
If the design requirements cited by previous posters are real, this program will be far too expensive for the USAF to afford, especially in competition with the OHIO-class SSBN replacement program. The only way in which Minuteman III or IV is behind the times is that has no mobile launcher like Topol/Topol-M/Yars, and mobile deployment on public roads is politically impossible in America. Anti-ABM features seem pointless, since nobody but the USA has a serious ABM program or the budget to fund one. Even our systems perform poorly in carefully staged tests. So I predict this program will never go beyond a paper study.
