Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile.
Right - I get the “Inter-Continental” and the “Missile” parts of the term, but why “Ballistic”? What does “ballistic” mean in this context?
And, what does that word add to the meaning of the description of this type of missile? Are there inter-continental missiles that are not ballistic?
It means it follows a ballistic trajectory after termination of powered flight. In other words, it will follow a path to its target using only the action of gravity. (Simplified).
As opposed to a cruise missile, which uses powered flight throughout.
“Ballistic” refers to the trajectory of the missile. No, there are no inter-continental missiles that do not follow a ballistic trajectory (as far as I know). But there are other missiles of this type, like SLBMs, submarine-launched ballistic missiles.
Also, not all missiles follow a ballistic trajectory. Cruise missiles are aerodynamically guided. Therefore ballistic missiles have their own category, which is probably the reason for the descriptor.
It means that the missile is not powered throughout its entire flight. There is a powered stage when the missile is propelled by its rocket engine, but once the powered stage ends, the missile will follow a ballistic trajectory, meaning a trajectory which is followed by an object that is subject to gravity but not powered.
ICBMs are sort of lobbed as opposed to cruise missiles.
I guess like lawn darts vs frisbees.
Ballistic means that the missile or only powered at the beginning of the flight. The rest of the flight is governed by gravity and air resistance. A cruise missile is powered and actively controlled throughout the whole flight.
But once they re-enter the atmosphere, doesn’t it guide itself to some degree? I’m thinking about the multiple warhead missiles. MIRV?
Hmmm… after looking at this Wiki
Perhaps not.
so they’re like honkin’ big mortars?
Nope. Even MIRVs are just chucked to land where they may, the warhead just blows up a bit before it blows up for real (though I’m not sure what method is used to trigger the MIRV separation - could be time, barometric pressure…that’s about all that comes to mind).
Ok, that was a terrible analogy. Even though it is an unusual example, of course a frisbee is a ballistic vehicle. Let’s say lawn dart vs RC helicopter.
Space crew capsules can be shaped in such a way that to create lifting forces. Rolling them allows some limited steering. Perhaps nuclear payloads can do that too.
Also, enipla’s link says:
“It takes up a ballistic trajectory that will deliver a reentry vehicle containing a warhead to a target, and then releases a warhead on that trajectory. **It then maneuvers **to a different trajectory, releasing another warhead, and repeats the process for all warheads.”
Bolding mine.
“Some warheads may use small hypersonic airfoils during the descent to gain additional cross-range distance.”
If they can gain distance with airfoils, they can steer.
It’s also difficult to believe that an ICBM can travel 10 000km and down an atmosphere with all the weather-related vagaries that implies and still have a 50% chance of landing within 100m without some correcting guidance on the way down.
Did you miss this?
Bolding mine.
Well, he surely won’t now.
Kinda, but steering involves somebody doing the steerage, doesn’t it ? At the distance (and speed) these things are chucked, radio guidance wouldn’t do the trick and unless the US military picked up helpful tips from their time in Japan I don’t expect a pilot on these things :). So I’m thinking the airfoils are automated and used for the warheads to get further separation from each other, but not real guidance.
I mean it’s a kill_fucking_everybody saturation nuke and if they’re ever launched they’ll be launched 10 to a target, they don’t really need pinpoint accuracy.
The list of ICBMs on the wiki thing says that China has one with a 15000km range, which means the can hit any target on the big ball. It seems that all ICBMs are built with at least some MIRV capability.
A preprogrammed computer can. Inertial navigation system, GPS and star-guidance can be used by the steering computer to calculate its position, direction and velocity and figure out the needed corrections. Two of those are available even in the advent of radio communication loss.
Despite the power of nukes, accuracy was/is important given the distances involved, the potential hardening of targets and the fact that increasing accuracy twofold can allow a fourfold reduction in payload for the same effect.
Ah yes I guess a JDAM-like system works fine too. Forgot about those.
Frisbees aren’t ballistic, since they’re subject to significant non-gravitational forces.
Yet another onboard steering system…
The Scud-D (NATO nomenclature) wasn’t intercontinental but used video. It compared the picture of the target seen to computerized images as a way to correct for the errors induced during flight.