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grover posted:Your post basically just described a star fix device, but didn't describing how it was possible to get a 3D fix from star observations in space, which was my real question. There's simply not enough parallax for that. Shimazu had a great point about measuring the angle to the earth's horizon to calculate altitude, though; if altitude is known, then a star fix just might be helpful for more than figuring out which way the missile is pointed. I've seen no indication the earth's horizon was ever used for missile guidance, though- this link (and others) just describe the star fix. It seems your 'real question' now has more to do with launch point accuracy, which is all good and proper of course, but the discussion was fixating itself (heh) on celestial navigation for establishing an accurate fix for your launch trajectory, which is moot since the system actually in use sets your horizontal alignment from which you can calculate the correct vertical inclination in flight. Or something, hey, I was trained in the liberal arts and all this stuff is hard enough to get right without people sperging off into the wrong direction. quote:Ah, now that's more like it, great link! The rest of the post you quoted from above was interesting, too. If I'm reading that right, though... it's basically saying you can't get an accurate 3D position from a star fix, just attitude, which was my initial thought and why I posed the question. The missile can still use that attitude fix to make minor trajectory adjustments, but it can't give you an accurate missile position. Which means it can't compensate for the sub not knowing exactly where it was when it launched. To get back to the discussion two pages ago: so a possible problem with putting all of your nuclear eggs in a submerged basket is that the systems that were in place to do external INS resets have gone away? McKenzie & Spinardi describe how an electrostatically supported gyroscopic monitor provides a number of internal resets for the ship's INS before it finally reaches the point where accuracy in the order of magnitude of the earlier systems (IE assured destruction-level, albeit from far greater range) is no longer provided. This at least buys time for the sub. Aren't there other methods of providing external resets besides GPS left? Or has it all been whittled away in the post cold-war bonanza. Something like ERCS maybe?
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Feb 12, 2013 00:41
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You could use radar or visual fixes if you're close enough to land; I doubt a celestial fix would be precise enough. I don't claim to be any good at it, but my best fix was something like a mile off. Omega, Transit and LORAN went away because they had severe limitations. In a MAD context, Omega and LORAN antennas would have made for pretty easy targets. Didn't Transit have a stupidly low availability? Like you'd get a fix every six hours or so? That's fine if you're just correcting your INS, but for the rest of us... Heh.
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Feb 12, 2013 00:53
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You can certainly do better than a mile by celestial, I got fairly good at it sailing when I was 16 or so. I will admit I was cheating and used gps time, which was a lot easier than tuning in WWV and hoping your stopwatch or "chronometer" was actually performing as advertised. No idea if you can do well enough to use for launching a missile, but celestial done well can be quite accurate. Being dead certain about your fix is another matter though, and we always did double check with the gps.
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Feb 12, 2013 03:04
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Godholio posted:You know better than that...the system doesn't work this way. I have a dream...that one day this department will rise up and live out the true meaning of its purpose: "To provide for the defense of the United States, based on a realistic strategic threat assessment." I have a dream, that one day in the halls of the five sided wind tunnel the subordinates of former CSAFs, the subordinates of former CNOs, and the subordinates of former CSAs will be able to sit down at a table with unified agreed upon funding priorities as opposed to service parochialism. I have a dream that one day even the District of Columbia, a waste filled District, bloated with the spending of pork and service funding battles, will be transformed into an oasis of thriftiness and defense reform. I have a dream that our four services will one day live in a department where they are not judged by how much of the budget they can eat up, but by what they contribute to the common defense. I have a dream today.  I know that's not how it works, but that's how it should work goddammit. \/ Well, remember, this is a world where we deny an entire career field for VSP and then turn around and RIF half of them 6 months later \/ iyaayas01 fucked around with this message at 03:49 on Feb 12, 2013 |
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Feb 12, 2013 03:06
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^ Yeah, and I shouldn't have gotten RIF'd based on an OPR with a #1 strat. Thank god I did, though.grover posted:
Not all INS systems are that bad.
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Feb 12, 2013 03:39
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If money is no object, there's really no insurmountable reason not to use EO or RF sensors to guide your RVs.
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Feb 12, 2013 04:30
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iyaayas01 posted:And even if we were interested in first strike, the current D5s are more than capable of serving as a first strike counterforce weapon...i.e., they are accurate enough that they can target enemy silos, not just be used as city busting countervalue weapons, and responsive enough that they could be used for a first strike, not just as second strike retaliatory weapons. As for warheads, the Minutemen aren't MIRV'd anymore, so there's less than 500 warheads currently deployed on Minutemen, while there are over 1,000 deployed on Tridents. And this is a dumb point regardless because like I said earlier, we don't need a counterforce weapon in today's geopolitical environment, all we need is a countervalue one. The amount of money to maintain the minutemans is incredibly small in comparison to its naval counterpart.
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Feb 12, 2013 06:16
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 says that L-M is going to make sure that the Minuteman IV won't fit in MMIII silos, though.EDIT: Nevermind, evidently the MMIV's been canceled.
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Feb 12, 2013 06:23
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daskrolator posted:The amount of money to maintain the minutemans is incredibly small in comparison to its naval counterpart. I think the additional cost for SSBNs over silos is worth it though since they can do things other than sit-in-a-cornfield-and-get-guaranteed-nuked.
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Feb 12, 2013 06:25
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The operational uses for SSBNs other than "sit here, hide, wait to fire" are essentially non-existent. You can convert them to SSGNs but that's to some degree a gimmick; they're cool missile trucks but are still very restricted in capability, especially compared to something like a future Virginia with VPMs. The maintenance costs, for ship and missiles, even if the boat sits pierside, are distinctly non-trivial. There was a kind of groovy idea that instead of building SSBN(X) at all they could just put 3 or 4 SLBM tubes in each Virginia class, and move the missiles around so the boats could share patrol duty. This got shot down for a couple of reasons, many of which were essentially administrative hassles rather than design concerns. Also, with only 4 missiles, you can't allocate nearly as many MIRV spots to load parachute-dropped candy and treats in the first-arriving re-entry vehicles, so you have significantly less chance of getting all the kids to come running outside first before the actual warheads fall.
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Feb 12, 2013 06:38
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Snowdens Secret posted:This got shot down for a couple of reasons... Chief amongst which is that doing this would be less lucrative to certain powerful Congressional Districts than building a whole new boomer class.
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Feb 12, 2013 06:47
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[quote="Snowdens Secret" post=""412451247"]There was a kind of groovy idea that instead of building SSBN(X) at all they could just put 3 or 4 SLBM tubes in each Virginia class, and move the missiles around so the boats could share patrol duty. This got shot down for a couple of reasons, many of which were essentially administrative hassles rather than design concerns. Also, with only 4 missiles, you can't allocate nearly as many MIRV spots to load parachute-dropped candy and treats in the first-arriving re-entry vehicles, so you have significantly less chance of getting all the kids to come running outside first before the actual warheads fall. [/quote]This is actually a rather brilliant idea from a strategic deterrent perspective. Even nuclear SLCMs would be pretty effective, and Virginias can launch those with comparatively few modifications.
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Feb 12, 2013 11:54
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Certifying ships and subs to carry nuke warheads is a tremendous pain in the rear end for similar reasons as when certifying aircraft. Having a reactor already is irrelevant, as the regulations and agencies have no overlap. I think they de-certified the entire 688 class ages ago because it wasn't worth the cost and effort.
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Feb 12, 2013 13:25
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http://www.nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/ This link came up on a Goon gaming jabber server. It allows you to get a sense of just how much space nuclear weapons can affect by overlaying blast radii on top of Google Maps. It was rather chilling to discover that a third of my home province can be covered by the largest yield device.
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Feb 12, 2013 13:52
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Itchy Itchiford posted:Sadly most of the pics on my phone did not turn out Is it just me or does that Catalina have two different props on it? Also, what's the bottom plane?
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Feb 12, 2013 15:04
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hopefully the boy's ipod pics will be better:
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slothrop posted:Is it just me or does that Catalina have two different props on it? Also, what's the bottom plane? An Grumman F4F Wildcat, and I think next to it is one of those battleship-launched seaplanes (someone correct me if I'm wrong.)
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Feb 12, 2013 15:57
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slothrop posted:Is it just me or does that Catalina have two different props on it? Also, what's the bottom plane? StandardVC10 posted:An Grumman F4F Wildcat, and I think next to it is one of those battleship-launched seaplanes (someone correct me if I'm wrong.)
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Feb 12, 2013 17:10
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movax posted:
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Feb 12, 2013 17:37
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slothrop posted:Is it just me or does that Catalina have two different props on it? Also, what's the bottom plane? The propellers can be trimmed. One's trimmed wide, the other narrow.
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Feb 12, 2013 22:50
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evil_bunnY posted:If you nerds had listened when the teacher taught about displacement you'd have stuck bubble wrap in the hulls like the cook kids. Or bought the lego kits that came with waterproof hulls and mounting points for small battery powered motors.
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Feb 12, 2013 23:11
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Watching all the various videos of this morning's Chelyabinsk meteor airburst, I can't but be thankful this didn't happen during the Cold War. It seems like this might've been the ideal accidental trigger of a nuclear war, especially without all the instantly available video footage and internet descriptions.
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Feb 15, 2013 12:43
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:Watching all the various videos of this morning's Chelyabinsk meteor airburst, I can't but be thankful this didn't happen during the Cold War. It seems like this might've been the ideal accidental trigger of a nuclear war, especially without all the instantly available video footage and internet descriptions. Imagine the political effects of a slightly larger rock coming down near one of the US IRBM bases in the early '60s.
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Feb 15, 2013 19:02
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Frozen Horse posted:Imagine the political effects of a slightly larger rock coming down near one of the US IRBM bases in the early '60s. Or the Kola Peninsula or Engels-2. Or Mount Whatsitsface where the Soviets buried their "Dead Hand" retaliatory system. Overall I think humanity has been extremely lucky for the last few millenia regarding rocks falling from the sky. Vincent Van Goatse fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Feb 15, 2013 |
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Feb 15, 2013 19:19
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Frozen Horse posted:Imagine the political effects of a slightly larger rock coming down near one of the US IRBM bases in the early '60s. What was the one that launched from an explosion out of it's silo in Arkansas or was it Bama?
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Feb 15, 2013 20:40
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gfanikf posted:What was the one that launched from an explosion out of it's silo in Arkansas or was it Bama? http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=2543
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Feb 15, 2013 23:32
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Epiphyte posted:It's not really a launch, but a Titan II exploded in its' silo while undergoing maintenance and blew the warhead bus like 100 yards away Can this cost number really be right? Encyclopedia posted:In early October 1980, cleanup operations gathered tons of debris from around 400 acres surrounding the launch complex and pumped some 100,000 gallons of contaminated water from the silo. The total cost to replace Launch Complex 374-7 was estimated at $225,322,670, while demolition and cleanup were expected to cost $20,000,000. Ultimately, the Air Force decided to seal the complex with soil, gravel, and small concrete debris.
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Feb 16, 2013 00:34
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daskrolator posted:The amount of money to maintain the minutemans is incredibly small in comparison to its naval counterpart. I'm asking because I don't know and I'm too lazy to go look up the actual figures, what's a general ballpark guesstimate for total money, here? Because while I believe you that the amount of money we spend on the Minuteman fleet is less than we spend on maintaining the Ohios, I find it hard to believe that it's "incredibly small" in comparison and that the monetary savings would be so small that it still wouldn't be worth retiring the fleet and going to a Diad or (even better, IMHO) a boomer only deterrent.
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Feb 16, 2013 20:09
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Are the Israeli and French nuclear programs now submarine only, or do they still have air capability also? I think the French made some nuclear stores for the smaller Mirage strike fighters after they took the Mirage IV off that duty but I don't know if that's still the case. (click for much larger)
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Feb 16, 2013 21:26
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StandardVC10 posted:Are the Israeli and French nuclear programs now submarine only, or do they still have air capability also? I think the French made some nuclear stores for the smaller Mirage strike fighters after they took the Mirage IV off that duty but I don't know if that's still the case. Israelis have the Jericho series of ballistic missiles that are nuclear capable, and I would be shocked if their F-16 and/or F-15Is weren't nuke capable, as they certainly have nuclear weapons that are capable of being carried by a strike fighter. The primary deterrent for the French are their SLBMs, but they have the nuclear tipped ASMP cruise missile that is carried by the land based Mirage 2000Ns and Rafales as well as carrier based Rafales.
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Feb 16, 2013 21:44
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Israel has been notoriously secretive about their nuclear program, but during the seventies, their nuclear arsenal was in the form of missiles stored in facilities down near the Dead Sea as well as the ones that could be launched from aircraft (I think they had F-4 Phantoms set up for that). The closest they've ever come to using them was during the Yom Kippur War in 1973, when Prime Minister Golda Meir ordered them readied, saying something along the lines of "If they [Egypt and Syria] arrive in Tel Aviv, they'll discover there's no Cairo or Damascus to go back to." Source for that is either "The Yom Kippur War" by Abraham Rabinovich (a very step-by-step account of the war) or "Eve of Destruction" by Howard Blum (which follows a handful of people and their roles in the war). I've read enough books on the middle east that I've forgotten what comes from where.
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Feb 19, 2013 02:50
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Speaking of secretive nuclear programs, how is Taiwan's nuke program doing? Do most analysts believe that they don't have the Bomb as of yet? Or at least not a reliable delivery system?
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Feb 19, 2013 15:01
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There's no actual plane in this one, but it's the best thing about AWACS I've ever seen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRIg7pxZdA4
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Feb 19, 2013 15:52
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Insane Totoro posted:Speaking of secretive nuclear programs, how is Taiwan's nuke program doing? Do most analysts believe that they don't have the Bomb as of yet? Or at least not a reliable delivery system? I'm pretty sure the joint Taiwan/South Africa/Israel nuclear program resulted in some sort of nuke for Taiwan, not sure how deliverable it is. Edit: they certainly have the technology and the knowledge. If Taiwan decides they need one, the could probably crank one out in a fairly short timeframe . Assuming they didn't keep a couple from back when they had a dedicated program. Smiling Jack fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Feb 19, 2013 |
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Feb 19, 2013 15:54
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What are the hard links between the ROC and possible joint SA/israeli programs again? I'm sure I've read about it somewhere but the depths of it escape me atm.
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Feb 19, 2013 16:03
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There's also the problem that mainland would poo poo an atomic brick if the republic confirmed they had nukes.
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Feb 19, 2013 17:16
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Since this is the Cold War thread I thought I'd take this opportunity to shamelessly plug an article I just got published. It's about Robert Lee Johnson, a sergeant in the US Army who became a KGB spy while stationed in Berlin in the early/mid 1950's, he later went on to become one of the most destructive agents the KGB had ever recruited.
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Feb 19, 2013 18:05
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Nuclear Tourist posted:Since this is the Cold War thread I thought I'd take this opportunity to shamelessly plug an article I just got published. It's about Robert Lee Johnson, a sergeant in the US Army who became a KGB spy while stationed in Berlin in the early/mid 1950's, he later went on to become one of the most destructive agents the KGB had ever recruited. the webpage isn't loading edit: n/m just had to leave it open for a while. THere's some funky stuff on that webpage, or it hated one of my script blockers, or something. edit x2: noooope. Now whenever I try to click through to an article it goes nowhere. Looks like the webpage is either half finished or down. Cyrano4747 fucked around with this message at 18:43 on Feb 19, 2013 |
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Feb 19, 2013 18:38
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I think the server is soiling its underwear because of heavy traffic at the moment, hopefully it should work again soon (works for me at the moment, at least).
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Feb 19, 2013 19:02
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Nuclear Tourist posted:I think the server is soiling its underwear because of heavy traffic at the moment, hopefully it should work again soon (works for me at the moment, at least). Interesting read, thanks for posting this!
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Feb 20, 2013 08:33
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Smiling Jack posted:Edit: they certainly have the technology and the knowledge. If Taiwan decides they need one, the could probably crank one out in a fairly short timeframe . Assuming they didn't keep a couple from back when they had a dedicated program. A couple of nations fall into that basket, Brazil and Argentina jumping to mind.
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Feb 20, 2013 11:40
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