Thread: Destroying an in-flight ICBM

Once an intercontinental ballistic missile (nuclear) has been launched from a missile silo, it cannot be recalled, nor is there a self-destruct option to destroy it.

In my WiP, a Minuteman III ICBM has been launched from Minot AFB, North Dakota. Its target is the Kremlin. The distance between the two is just shy of 5,000 miles. The Minuteman III travels at 15,000mph. With an additional fifteen to ready it for launch, it will take just thirty-five minutes to strike Moscow. It cannot be stopped by conventional means.

My original solution was to launch a batch of F-15 Eagles from Ramstein AFB in Germany, loaded with anti-ballistic missiles, and destroy the in-flight ICBMs. The problem with this is that the flight-pattern of an ICBM is through space. It only re-enters orbit in the terminal phase. In this case, it would be already over Russia before it reached an altitude from which the Eagles could destroy it. Even then, the Eagles would not have the speed to get from Germany to Russia in that time.

My second option is to launch an ABM from an aircraft carrier stationed in-and-around Russia. My problem with this is the credibility of a U.S. battleship being there. In a post-Cold-War time, do the United States still have fleets in Russian waters?

If anyone has any suggestions (please be realistic) I would gladly appreciate them. Or if you can point me to some documentation or a site where someone might know, you would have my gratitude.

Sam - You could have the F-15s taking part in an international air show in Moscow, but you would have to explain why they went there fully armed. Or maybe they were TDY at a Russian base on some sort of technical exchange mission.

Thanks for the suggestion, Garza, but even if I could explain a squad of fully armed fighter planes in Moscow, I doubt they would have anti-ballistic missiles in their armament. I was thinking of a special squadron stationed at Ramstein who had ABMs as a part of their weapons. This squadron would have been created as part of the U.S. Safeguard system. I can't see it working, though. It seems too unrealistic and I'm worried it'll be a cop-out.

There are other alternatives which I've discovered since posting. The first is to use the Navy's Aegis Ballistic Missile Defence System and launch a missile from a USS cruiser somewhere in Russian waters. That depends on two things: First, proximity to the missile. RIM-161 SM-3 missiles (those used by the Aegis system) have an operational range of 500 kilometres. Second, I don't know if the U.S. still have cruisers patrolling Russian waters. OX would tell me it's my story and I could say they had, but I'm not so sure.

Another possible option is to use the Boeing YAL-1 Airborne Laser, a megawatt-class chemical oxygen iodine laser (COIL) on-board a modified Boeing 747-400F aeroplane. The problem with this is that it only works during boost phase (the 2-5 minutes between launch and entry into space). It's not viable in my story.

I think the Aegis one is the solution, but I still have my concerns.

Why is it needful to have the U-S bring down the missile? I presume part of the plot involves the Russians not being capable, or not being informed of the missile's flight. Suppose an Aegis-armed cruiser is on a friendly visit to Turku, Finland, at the time of the crisis?

I don't want to give too much of the plot away because there are people here who might buy the book (I hope ) but the ICBMs have been fired by the U.S. by mistake. The President is trying to find a way to neutralise them before the start of World War III. On the other side, the Russians are readying theirs. Unless the President and his advisers can find a way to stop theirs, the Russians will have no choice but to launch a retaliatory strike.

Why would the cruiser have to be in Russian waters considering the time/flight involved? (I'm asking because I don't know, not because I'm trying to give you a hard time.) It seems that the second missile to stop the first should be able to come from outside Russian waters?

Or, and it's an ugly hack, but would it be possible to 'find out' that there are armed satellites orbiting because of an old almost-forgotten secret project that could launch a missile to stop the one inbound to Moscow? If your book involves only present-day tech and facts this may not work. (Of course, I wouldn't rule something like that out entirely)

I'm sure there are sites with a lot of factual knowledge (speed and ability, etc) which it sounds like you've already been finding. Sounds like you're about to the point where an interview with an expert would be good research...if you can dig one up. I don't know if you could find someone in the know who might agree to Skype with you for that but it's a thought.

There was a book or a rather long short story, I forget which, based on that idea some years ago. Finally the decision was taken by the leaders in both countries that each side would have to sacrifice one city, so when the bomb hit Moscow, another hit New York, and that was the end of it.

Foxee - The old High Frontier idea was scrapped as unworkable. With today's technology it might have a chance.

I still like the idea of an Aegis cruiser sitting in Turku harbour, or even in St. Petersburg harbour. Once the missile rolled over at apogee tracking it would be easy.

Originally Posted by Foxee

Why would the cruiser have to be in Russian waters considering the time/flight involved? (I'm asking because I don't know, not because I'm trying to give you a hard time.) It seems that the second missile to stop the first should be able to come from outside Russian waters?

Or, and it's an ugly hack, but would it be possible to 'find out' that there are armed satellites orbiting because of an old almost-forgotten secret project that could launch a missile to stop the one inbound to Moscow? If your book involves only present-day tech and facts this may not work. (Of course, I wouldn't rule something like that out entirely)

I'm sure there are sites with a lot of factual knowledge (speed and ability, etc) which it sounds like you've already been finding. Sounds like you're about to the point where an interview with an expert would be good research...if you can dig one up. I don't know if you could find someone in the know who might agree to Skype with you for that but it's a thought.

Because the Aegis system on a cruiser can't destroy the ICBM while it's in space. It has to wait for it to re-enter orbit, and when it does that it will be close to or over Russian soil.

I'd love to get talking to an expert. I just don't know where I'd start looking for one.

Ballistic missiles do not orbit. They are sub-orbital. Somewhere in my files I have a few articles I wrote in the 60s and 70s on the science of knowing where something will land when you throw it up - that's ballistics - and the technology needed to turn that scientific knowledge into a practical weapon. The articles were fairly comprehensive, based on extensive interviews, and while the technology has changed, the science has not. I'll try to find the articles or find my references to where and when they were published. But we're talking 40 years ago, so don't hold your breath.

Remember that a ballistic missile is not a guided missile. It is only powered for a short time after launch and the laws of physics are what take it where you want it to go. It is moving slowest as it reaches apogee, then picks up speed on the way down.

Why can't the Americans warn the Russians and they destroy it? If the Russians don't have systems we know of capable of doing it give them systems we don't know of, after all would they tell us about them?

Originally Posted by garza

Ballistic missiles do not orbit. They are sub-orbital.

From Wikipedia:

Modern ICBMs typically carry multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs), each of which carries a separate nuclear warhead, allowing a single missile to hit multiple targets. MIRV was an outgrowth of the rapidly shrinking size and weight of modern warheads and the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties which imposed limitations on the number of launch vehicles (SALT I and SALT II). It has also proved to be an "easy answer" to proposed deployments of ABM systems—it is far less expensive to add more warheads to an existing missile system than to build an ABM system capable of shooting down the additional warheads; hence, most ABM system proposals have been judged to be impractical. The first operational ABM systems were deployed in the U.S. during 1970s. Safeguard ABM facility was located in North Dakota and was operational from 1975–1976. The USSR deployed its Galosh ABM system around Moscow in the 1970s, which remains in service. Israel deployed a national ABM system based on the Arrow missile in 1998,[12] but it is mainly designed to intercept shorter-ranged theater ballistic missiles, not ICBMs. The U.S. Alaska-based National missile defense system attained initial operational capability in 2004.[13]

ICBMs can be deployed from TELs such as Topol.


ICBMs can be deployed from multiple platforms:

• in missile silos, which offer some protection from military attack (including, the designers hope, some protection from a nuclear first strike)
• on submarines: submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs); most or all SLBMs have the long range of ICBMs (as opposed to IRBMs)
• on heavy trucks; this applies to one version of the RT-2UTTH Topol M which may be deployed from a self-propelled mobile launcher, capable of moving through roadless terrain, and launching a missile from any point along its route
• mobile launchers on rails; this applies, for example, to РТ-23УТТХ "Молодец" (RT-23UTTH "Molodets"—SS-24 "Sсаlреl")

The last three kinds are mobile and therefore hard to find.
During storage, one of the most important features of the missile is its serviceability. One of the key features of the first computer-controlled ICBM, the Minuteman missile, was that it could quickly and easily use its computer to test itself.
In flight, a booster pushes the warhead and then falls away. Most modern boosters are solid-fueled rocket motors, which can be stored easily for long periods of time. Early missiles used liquid-fueled rocket motors. Many liquid-fueled ICBMs could not be kept fuelled all the time as the cryogenic liquid oxygen boiled off and caused ice formation, and therefore fueling the rocket was necessary before launch. This procedure was a source of significant operational delay, and might allow the missiles to be destroyed by enemy counterparts before they could be used. To resolve this problem the British invented the missile silo that protected the missile from a first strike and also hid fuelling operations underground.
Once the booster falls away, the warhead continues on an unpowered ballistic trajectory, much like an artillery shell or cannon ball. The warhead is encased in a cone-shaped reentry vehicle and is difficult to detect in this phase of flight as there is no rocket exhaust or other emissions to mark its position to defenders. The high speeds of the warheads make them difficult to intercept and allow for little warning striking targets anywhere in the world within minutes.
Many authorities say that missiles also release aluminized balloons, electronic noisemakers, and other items intended to confuse interception devices and radars (see penetration aid).
As the nuclear warhead reenters the Earth's atmosphere its high speed causes friction with the air, leading to a dramatic rise in temperature which would destroy it if it were not shielded in some way. As a result, warhead components are contained within an aluminium honeycomb substructure, sheathed in pyrolytic graphite-epoxy resin composite, with a heat-shield layer on top which is constructed out of 3-Dimensional Quartz Phenolic.
Accuracy is crucial, because doubling the accuracy decreases the needed warhead energy by a factor of four. Accuracy is limited by the accuracy of the navigation system and the available geophysical information.

I bolded the important part.

There are several errors in the article, but that's typical for Wikipaedia. A couple of them are kind of silly, even by Wiki standards.

Ballistic missiles do not orbit. They go up, they come down. Leaving and re-entering the atmosphere has nothing to do with establishing an orbit. The MIRVs are, like the primary carrier, powered for only a short time and, again, physics takes over. Onboard guidance systems can correct errors within limits, but launch velocity and trajectory are the critical factors.

I'll try to find some good material for you. There's tons of stuff from NASA, the Air Force, the Navy, and from foreign sources. I still have a few connections from the old days. I'll see what I can find.

I watched a Saturn Five test in Bay St. Louis in the mid sixties. One of the Peenemünde engineers who worked on the design met with a group of the media covering the test and explained in far more detail than was needed the way the booster worked and how it would behave in flight. Between his lecture and the subsequent noise of the booster being fired I came away with a headache, but with some great material for the start of a series of articles.

The U.S. has an aircraft carrier en-route to South Korean waters now in support of the military war games taking place. You could use something like this as your excuse to have U.S. fighters so close to Russia.

A few minutes chasing down some old sources to get new information turned up these papers that are of interest. The first three of these are papers I had already downloaded, the others are the result of a google search.

http://web.mit.edu/stgs/pdfs/White_P...ay_Article.pdf

http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/hand...pdf?sequence=1

Here is an interesting article about radar and the icbm:
Theory Of Radar | Pdf Search Engine Free Ebooks

http://www.sys.virginia.edu/sieds05/...dings/A203.pdf

Here's on on an optical system to improve icbm accuracy:
http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/hand...pdf?sequence=1

Here's one that appears to be directly relevant:
http://www.thebulletin.org/files/20080430_Postol.pdf

As would be expected, if you use Google you turn up a lot from MIT, the old standby and still the best resource for information on ballistic missiles. There are quite a number of papers by Ted Postol, and some by his critics.

Edit - A bit of prejudice there regarding MIT. The work done at JPL and Redstone must also be counted as critical in the overall development of the icbm.

And let's not forget our friends from Peenemünde.

Thanks, Garza. These are brilliant.