Full Version: What's a Thor Shot?
I should expand on those "hide-a-Thor" suggestions. You're probably not going to deceive people who look hard at satellites and catalogue their activities. You may manage some "hiding in plain sight" tricks, but you can't fool everyone all the time.
"Of course, the whole point of a doomsday machine is lost if you keep it a secret! Why didn't you tell the world, eh?"
The SLID and other missile defense systems.
It looks like the SLID is not being produced any more. Not sure why, but the idea was basically a rocket system that was mounted on vehicles or towed on trailor and had a radar to spot and track incoming artillery. The bullet shot from cannon style artillery. Then fire one of these rockets with solid heads to bump the artillery shell just enough to push it off course.
There are a lot of weapons int he works for space based missile defense systems. Railguns, regular lasers, other missiles, particle beams and the x ray laser. Ideally they would shoot the missile before it clears the launch platform. Or at least over the enemies on terroritory. So even if the weapon we would use to shoot down the nuke was city busting, do you think wed care? They fired a nuke in our general direction to achieve just that goal. So worrying about whats below the missile when shot at is of little concern.
The airborne laser is supposedly to shoot down theater missiles, I suppose if we have them floating around enemy terroritory it could shoot down stategic missiles. Its quiet possible to have those flying lasers to shoot down MIRVs, but that would be a desperate and last ditch effort.
And I agree when would you use a fighter to chase down ICBMs? The Brits used fighters to chase down and kill V1 rockets, but when Germany moved to V2s they had no chance. The V2 is the basis for many of the American space rockets used in the mercury an apollo missions. If the fighters couldnt chase down that rocket, how would we do it today?
I can see in the future having much better missile defense rockets and other weapons. If the dems didnt block the funding in the 80s we might have been much further along then we are now in that field of study.
As for shooting down satellites. In one of the SR books I remember it being mentioned and in an article about future weapons, there will be satellite dazzeling lasers. Big lasers aimed upt o blind spy sats adn such. But even today we have the Pegasus Missile. Its carried on a wide variety of aircraft including the B52. It is capable fo being fired into orbit from these air craft and chase down satellite.
It looks like the SLID is not being produced any more. Not sure why, but the idea was basically a rocket system that was mounted on vehicles or towed on trailor and had a radar to spot and track incoming artillery. The bullet shot from cannon style artillery. Then fire one of these rockets with solid heads to bump the artillery shell just enough to push it off course.
There are a lot of weapons int he works for space based missile defense systems. Railguns, regular lasers, other missiles, particle beams and the x ray laser. Ideally they would shoot the missile before it clears the launch platform. Or at least over the enemies on terroritory. So even if the weapon we would use to shoot down the nuke was city busting, do you think wed care? They fired a nuke in our general direction to achieve just that goal. So worrying about whats below the missile when shot at is of little concern.
The airborne laser is supposedly to shoot down theater missiles, I suppose if we have them floating around enemy terroritory it could shoot down stategic missiles. Its quiet possible to have those flying lasers to shoot down MIRVs, but that would be a desperate and last ditch effort.
And I agree when would you use a fighter to chase down ICBMs? The Brits used fighters to chase down and kill V1 rockets, but when Germany moved to V2s they had no chance. The V2 is the basis for many of the American space rockets used in the mercury an apollo missions. If the fighters couldnt chase down that rocket, how would we do it today?
I can see in the future having much better missile defense rockets and other weapons. If the dems didnt block the funding in the 80s we might have been much further along then we are now in that field of study.
As for shooting down satellites. In one of the SR books I remember it being mentioned and in an article about future weapons, there will be satellite dazzeling lasers. Big lasers aimed upt o blind spy sats adn such. But even today we have the Pegasus Missile. Its carried on a wide variety of aircraft including the B52. It is capable fo being fired into orbit from these air craft and chase down satellite.
| QUOTE (Austere Emancipator @ Aug 16 2006, 01:15 PM) |
| I'm not following. How do fighter aircraft help in shooting down ballistic missiles? I've not heard of an air-to-air weapon capable of intercepting high-velocity targets. I have to say, reading up on the THAAD system, it seems quite likely that in 60 years they could reliably hit a Thor shot with missiles at very high altitudes, up to more than 100km away, unless they can somehow allow the projectile to defend itself against such threats. |
Well, that's a simple answer: You don't chase the damn missile. You send the fighters out to either hit it when it starts to come down or as it's going up, or to eyeball it incase your lovely targetting systems are not working on it. If you have fighters capable of going to its level of atmosphere, shoot it down en-route or eyeball it from there. But in all cases, you're comming from where it's going or simply waving as it shoots out of sight.
Oh, and I'm taking the game into consideration with my posts, which is where the Thor shot exists. In reality? In reality, we should have portable railguns perfected by that time, so you'll have people with portable weapons capable of taking out tanks in a single shot. To be honest, I don't think ICBM's will even be around in sixty years. Too high of an expense when you can probably build smaller and cheaper and get just as much devastation when you're done.
Finally, fighters do something that technology cannot: They let people actually come close and see the missile. If technology is failing you, having a human up there telling where to aim your missile defense system will help.
| QUOTE (Cray74) |
| That problem is, "The MIRVs move quickly, presenting a difficult targeting solution, and the ground-based anti-missile systems have a short time to engage." Those issues ARE solvable by 2064, or 2070, for the following reasons: 1) 60 more years of development time, and the developers do need time and experience 2) 60 more years of technological improvement in computers and targeting software to handle the tricky interception 3) 60 more years of improvement in anti-missile missile hardware 4) SR has a demonstrated capability to put large quantities of mass into space, opening the way for boost- and coast-phase weapons 5) SR has a number of man-portable and vehicular energy weapons ideally suited for rapid engagement of targets from space. The wonderful, magnificent ability of light-speed beams to point-n-shoot without the headaches of projectile-based engagement should give them an enormous edge in accuracy. Between points 4 and 5, SR should have no trouble frying missiles rapidly from space-based platforms. The particle beam weapons (PAWS, was it?) are especially ideal because it's impossible to stop high-energy (say, 200 to 1000MeV) protons with a MIRV-mass warhead, and those protons would fry or even fizzle the warhead. |
#1, #2, and #3 also apply to the people making ICBMs. The time spent developping targetting software also means time spent developping target-jamming software. And the same anti-missile hardware today being developped for fighters and other craft could tomorrow be improved and stuck in missiles. All of those improvements in computer technology simply leave more room to add in more toys to your missiles. To add to that is improvements in fuel technologies, allowing you to either build smaller missiles or missiles of the same size but with a lot more computer equipment in them.
#4 doesn't make a difference, as we already have demonstrated that today. If we actually focused a lot of funding there, we could concievably put an orbital weapons platform into space right now.
#5 is nothing new as well. That type of weaponry has been around, at least in concept, for years. The problem is the fact that railguns still need a targetting system to shoot at something and lasers are easily dealt with by smoke. Okay, wow, all I need to do is add a smoke projector to my ICBM along with all of the other anti-targetting equipment I'm already putting in.
| QUOTE |
| I'm sure the orbital weapons platform wouldn't care about devastation, but only platforms built by Hollywood or Anime writers are going to devastate stuff beneath the missile. 200 miles of atmosphere is a damned good shield against wayward particle beams and lasers, and the beams involved are not going to be nuclear-strength city-busters. |
It's also a damned good shield for the missiles you're shooting at. You can either shoot the missile while it's launching and before it has all of its defensive systems online, or try it once it's launched and actively trying not to get shot before it suicides. I'm figuring the people who would be launching ICBMs in the 2064 wouldn't be stupid enough to use missiles made with 1964 standards.
Pretty much, if you want an effective anti-missile platform in orbit, it needs to be able to strike the ground. You have to hit the missiles before they are away from the launch site if you want to guarantee that you have a successful shot. The moment the ECM of the ICBM is engaged, all guarantees are entirely dependent on how advanced the ECM is, how good the Pilot program is, and the weather. If all of those things combine to hate you, you need to eyeball the missile and try to blindshoot it.
| QUOTE |
| That's an absolutely baseless statement. It doesn't work with SR rules, nor reality. |
Based on U.S. missile tests using advanced modern technology in attempts to shoot down missiles, and then advancing the tech about sixty years. The tech of all missiles, not just a select few. The result comes out to about the same, since you have your anti-missile missiles being actively jammed by the very thing they're trying to shoot down.
| QUOTE (LilithTaveril) |
| Finally, fighters do something that technology cannot: They let people actually come close and see the missile. If technology is failing you, having a human up there telling where to aim your missile defense system will help. |
...Wow.
I kinda thought we were on the same page about what constitutes an ICBM, MIRVs, and Thor Shots and what the velocities involved meant, but if you're putting any value on human senses and reflexes (cybered or not) helping to spot and intercept a re-entry vehicle from something as sluggish and low-flying as a fighter...nevermind.
It's kind of like saying a guy with a musket in a hot air balloon is more useful against a B52 bomber than a ground-launched SAM.
Actually, I was looking at some of the sub-orbital fighter ideas I've seen floating around. The idea is simple: If we have the tech to get a plane that high into the air, why can't we attach a gun and some missiles to it and use it to bomb China? Better yet, why can't we use it to check for where that ICBM that just disappeared is? The reasoning behind it is simple: You can't jam natural human eyes with ECM.
Oh, and I wouldn't say that about a musket against a B52. I would say that it's more useful against kevlar than a M16, though.
Oh, and I wouldn't say that about a musket against a B52. I would say that it's more useful against kevlar than a M16, though.
I think the point is that those "natural human eyes" would be nearly useless for this sort of thing, spotting high-velocity suborbital missiles.
By the time you see it it'll be well past you and have impacted on target by the time you can get a defense system to bear.
-karma
By the time you see it it'll be well past you and have impacted on target by the time you can get a defense system to bear.
-karma
| QUOTE |
| Oh, and I wouldn't say that about a musket against a B52. I would say that it's more useful against kevlar than a M16, though. |
Not really. Musket balls are heavy, slow, soft, and round. Even lighter-weight kevlar armor will stop them (although the backface deformation would probably be harsh). Stopping an M16 round, on the other hand, usually requires the addition of hard plates (as they're fast, hard, and pointy).
Depends, once again, on how far sixty years of advancement take us. Considering that it's more than enough time in SR to not only see the thing but to shoot it... In real-life, I would assume you're not looking for the actual missile, but up there looking for some sign of it. Like a "whoosh" as it flies by and nearly knocks you out of the plane. Hear whoosh, push button, THOR shot using your location combined with the missile's speed (based on what ICBMs typically do) hopefully shoots it down. You should at least have an idea of what direction it's going not long after it's launched. This is assuming you don't spot it in the distance and push a button (though, it if were this easy, the THOR shot would have shot it down by now).
| QUOTE (Shrike30 @ Aug 16 2006, 07:09 PM) | ||
Not really. Musket balls are heavy, slow, soft, and round. Even lighter-weight kevlar armor will stop them (although the backface deformation would probably be harsh). Stopping an M16 round, on the other hand, usually requires the addition of hard plates (as they're fast, hard, and pointy). |
And, according to a lot of people I've talked to in actual military service using the M16, easily deflected by kevlar. But, if you want, I can try to look up some firing tests. No guarantees. I'm absolutely sucktastic with a search engine.
| QUOTE (Frag-o Delux) |
| If the dems didnt block the funding in the 80s we might have been much further along then we are now in that field of study. |
Actually, President Bush (Sr) ordered the cutback from a true strategic defense to a smaller, more feasible project. (Indeed, Bush Sr. and Secretary of Defense Cheney were responsible for the largest post-Cold War cutbacks in the US DoD, not the Dems.)
http://www.espionageinfo.com/Sp-Te/Strateg...le-Defense.html
"At the order of President George H. Bush, the program assumed in 1990 a more limited mission: Global Protection against Limited Strikes (GPALS)."
Oh, and I'll say this now: Don't be shocked if my next post leaves even SR's skewed attempted at reality and enters a version of Lala Land where Einstein committed suicide while trying to figure out the laws of physics. I'm growing bored with the seriousness of my argument.
| QUOTE (LilithTaveril) |
| Actually, I was looking at some of the sub-orbital fighter ideas I've seen floating around. |
Doesn't matter. That's just a faster platform for the pilot to "blink and miss it" when the MIRV or Thor Shot zips by.
| QUOTE (Cray74) |
| ...Wow. I kinda thought we were on the same page about what constitutes an ICBM, MIRVs, and Thor Shots and what the velocities involved meant, but if you're putting any value on human senses and reflexes (cybered or not) helping to spot and intercept a re-entry vehicle from something as sluggish and low-flying as a fighter...nevermind. |
A Thor Shot. The last thing you never see or hear.
Okay, one more serious post: Cray, I know that. When you end up needing them to not blink, then good chances are you're already in much deeper than you thought was possible and are relying on them to dig an escape tunnel.
| QUOTE (LilithTaveril) |
| In real-life, I would assume you're not looking for the actual missile, but up there looking for some sign of it. Like a "whoosh" as it flies by and nearly knocks you out of the plane. Hear whoosh, push button, THOR shot using your location combined with the missile's speed (based on what ICBMs typically do) hopefully shoots it down. You should at least have an idea of what direction it's going not long after it's launched. This is assuming you don't spot it in the distance and push a button (though, it if were this easy, the THOR shot would have shot it down by now). |
Er, a THOR shot would be the absolute last thing I would want to use to shoot down an inbound ICBM. Well, maybe not the last thing, but it'd be on the list of "do not use vs ICBMs".
THOR shots are really good against one type of target. The kind that doesn't move.
They're not much different than a fellow pitching a crowbar off a skyscraper to hit something on the street, albeit this crowbar might have computer assisted targeting and flight surfaces to steer it.
Against an ICBM? Try imagine someone next to you shooting a bottle rocket down from the top of that skyscraper, and then you dropping the crowbar a second later to try and hit the bottle rocket. If nothing else the bottle rocket will be traveling at a significantly higher velocity than the free-falling crowbar.
You ideally want to have a defense system that travels towards an oncoming missile, not one that chases the missile from behind.
Also, okay, you saw the ICBM and pressed the button. What's aiming the defense system to actually HIT the ICBM? Any situation where ther's enough jamming to prevent electronic detection is for sure going to also prevent electronic targeting. You'd be back to aiming with your eyes, which means the missile WILL have passed you in your little aircraft and be out of your visual range before you can even toggle the aiming reticle to "on".
-karma
| QUOTE (KarmaInferno @ Aug 16 2006, 07:32 PM) |
| Er, a THOR shot would be the absolute last thing I would want to use to shoot down an inbound ICBM. Well, maybe not the last thing, but it'd be on the list of "do not use vs ICBMs". |
Note: THOR may or may not have been used by a very lazy person as a synonym for "massive spacial weapon array that can shoot at things in atmosphere." That said, it's about like shooting a missile using a pistol. You don't aim for where it is. You aim for where it will be. Doesn't matter if it's a THOR shot, a laser cannon, or a railgun except in how far ahead you have to aim.
And, now, onto the scheduled silliness.
| QUOTE |
| THOR shots are really good against one type of target. The kind that doesn't move. |
Well, good to know that the THOR shot can't be used against anything in the universe.
| QUOTE |
| They're not much different than a fellow pitching a crowbar off a skyscraper to hit something on the street, albeit this crowbar might have computer assisted targeting and flight surfaces to steer it. |
Add a couple of roman candles for boosters and then try it. Much better accuracy.
| QUOTE |
| Against an ICBM? Try imagine someone next to you shooting a bottle rocket down from the top of that skyscraper, and then you dropping the crowbar a second later to try and hit the bottle rocket. If nothing else the bottle rocket will be traveling at a significantly higher velocity than the free-falling crowbar. |
That's why you stick the crowbar in a railgun and fire it.
| QUOTE |
| You ideally want to have a defense system that travels towards an oncoming missile, not one that chases the missile from behind. |
/me looks back at all of her previous posts, and then proceeds to slap Karma.
| QUOTE |
| Also, okay, you saw the ICBM and pressed the button. What's aiming the defense system to actually HIT the ICBM? Any situation where ther's enough jamming to prevent electronic detection is for sure going to also prevent electronic targeting. You'd be back to aiming with your eyes, which means the missile WILL have passed you in your little aircraft and be out of your visual range before you can even toggle the aiming reticle to "on". |
The gerbils. The gerbils you stick inside the THOR platform that run its engines are what aims it. They do so using the bizarre powers they'll get when Hellcows invade Area 51 and hold it hostage in exchange for the Necronomicon as part of their plot to ressurect Bill Gates and take over the world.
Oh, and on a serious note: This is actually solved with a little something I like to call "math." The computer doesn't know where the object is. But, using the trajectory, speed, and last known position of said object, the computer can extrapolate where the object both is and will be. Thus, the whole reason for sending fighters up in the first place is to get data for the computer to do that with. If the sky is clear and the orbital platform has cameras, it can track it potentially by either pictures or by the inteference (extrapolating where it is by determining where it only possibly can be from where it's not).
| QUOTE (Cray74) | ||
Actually, President Bush (Sr) ordered the cutback from a true strategic defense to a smaller, more feasible project. (Indeed, Bush Sr. and Secretary of Defense Cheney were responsible for the largest post-Cold War cutbacks in the US DoD, not the Dems.) http://www.espionageinfo.com/Sp-Te/Strateg...le-Defense.html "At the order of President George H. Bush, the program assumed in 1990 a more limited mission: Global Protection against Limited Strikes (GPALS)." |
I dont really feel like digging into it, because itll skew the conversation into politics. But when Reagan first proposed the idea, Ted Kennedy and a bunch of dems started calling it Star wars instead of the stategic defense initiative and mocked it as a fantasy that would do nothing but make the Soviets think we were tring to make their nukes obselete thus be able to do first strike attacks and not worry about retaliation. A lot of people feared thats what the reds would think so they stopped funding it. Later to get things even little things like the Patriot Missile system Bush the first made consessions. Certain projects had to be dropped in order to keep other projects running. Stealth planes were one of the projects meant to be kept running so they dropped things like remote viewing and a bunch of other projects I cant remember at the moment.
| QUOTE |
| Oh, and I'll say this now: Don't be shocked if my next post leaves even SR's skewed attempted at reality and enters a version of Lala Land where Einstein committed suicide while trying to figure out the laws of physics. I'm growing bored with the seriousness of my argument. |
If the conversation bores you so much why not just stop posting, I have done it before and you can too.
And using a Roman Candle would be like strapping an old misfiring car engine to the rocket. Roman candles shoot off projectiles, youll need a thrusting form of fireworks. Like more bottle rocket, the big shits.
I just like the idea of Thor shots being a weapon youd keep in space to take out things like airports, major road sections (like the mixing bowl in DC) and other hardened sites (like NORAD). Not things like planes, missiles or individual tanks. The cost to me would be prohibitive and just a collasal waste of resources. Taking out ICBMs would be asier to do with laser/particle based weapons.
I would have a series of different munitions on the Thor Shot arsenal. Solid long rods for hardened site penetration, then canister like rounds that would open up like a mile above the target and release a flechette style attack on the area below, peppering run ways with smaller but just as dense rods shattering road ways and runways in a large area. You wouldnt really need air superiority to take out those soft targets before you sent in your airsupport. You could take out airstrips and sensor stations from space. Barring they dont take out your Thor platform first. But you could park your bird next to another persons bird so itll be really tricky for them to take it out. I believe they mentioned the Azzies did it with their death channel broadcasting satellites in one book. The programs broadcasted around the world were Azzie death games, illegal around the world in most cases, so they parked the sat next to some other countries bird so itll be hard to take out without causeing a major incident.
Mmm. Food for Thor thoughts:
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/icbm/Pea...lgm118_6.jpgjpg
[edit]Apparently, my 2 separate links got smooshed together by the automatic URLization of the forums. Toshiaki got them straightened out.
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/icbm/Pea...lgm118_6.jpgjpg
[edit]Apparently, my 2 separate links got smooshed together by the automatic URLization of the forums. Toshiaki got them straightened out.
Is that the right link Cray, I keep getting a page not found error?
Those are images of several MIRVs released by a Peacekeeper ICBM, reentering atmosphere.
| QUOTE (Oracle) |
| Those are images of several MIRVs released by a Peacekeeper ICBM, reentering atmosphere. |
Yes, they are.
| QUOTE (LilithTaveril) | ||||
And, according to a lot of people I've talked to in actual military service using the M16, easily deflected by kevlar. But, if you want, I can try to look up some firing tests. No guarantees. I'm absolutely sucktastic with a search engine. |
The Box of Truth is your friend.
| QUOTE (LilithTaveril) |
| Oh, and on a serious note: This is actually solved with a little something I like to call "math." The computer doesn't know where the object is. But, using the trajectory, speed, and last known position of said object, the computer can extrapolate where the object both is and will be. Thus, the whole reason for sending fighters up in the first place is to get data for the computer to do that with. |
Trajectory, speed, and position as recorded by what?
You've already set up a condition where electronic detection won't work.
Are you suggesting you figure all this out by eye? In the split second where you can actually see the ICBM? Or perhaps the targeting computer can magically figure out trajectory, speed, and position from the spotter saying "Uh, hey, I just saw a missile, heading somewhere over there."
If you're using optical electronic sensors to figure it out, hooked into that targeting computer, why do you even need a human eye in the loop? And an abysmally slow human reaction time to slow things down? Even with all the cyber-boosting in the world a computer is going to be able to react faster than a guy with his hand on a button.
Hell, you don't even need to mount that optical sensor on an aircraft. They can work just fine from the ground. We have cameras today that can read license plates from orbit.
It also sounds like you might be unclear on what a Thor Shot is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bomba...nt#Project_Thor
It's a telephone pole made of tungsten. It's used for dropping a lot of pain down on hardened bunkers, bridges, taking out whole city blocks at a time. It's a WMD. It's for when you want a tactical nuclear strike but don't want the associated radiation.
It's an ICBM pre-parked in orbit.
It is not, in any way, a defense system.
You're basically suggesting we use one ICBM to hit another ICBM.
And to target it using your eyes.
-karma
The National Institute of Justice ballistic body armor ratings system is also your friend, along with sources like the Kevlar Survivors' Club.
Since they've got long range, reliable ABMs that travel at up to and beyond Mach 8, HyStrike can't be far behind. Having seen what LOSAT could do, I can't help wondering what a HyStrike impact on a hardened target looks like.
Since they've got long range, reliable ABMs that travel at up to and beyond Mach 8, HyStrike can't be far behind. Having seen what LOSAT could do, I can't help wondering what a HyStrike impact on a hardened target looks like.
| QUOTE (KarmaInferno) |
| It's a WMD. It's for when you want a tactical nuclear strike but don't want the associated radiation. |
It's not a WMD. The article that you referenced says that it is a conventional weapon, since it does not incorporate chemical, biological or nuclear payloads. It's essentially dropping a rock on someone from a balcony. It's just a very big rock (or Tungsten) dropped from space.
The removal of the associated radiation is, by definition, why it is NOT a WMD.
| QUOTE (LilithTaveril) |
| And, according to a lot of people I've talked to in actual military service using the M16, easily deflected by kevlar. But, if you want, I can try to look up some firing tests. No guarantees. I'm absolutely sucktastic with a search engine. |
Any current body armor that qualifies as NIJ Class III or IV includes ceramic or steel plates that is intended cause rifle ammunition to deform before the kevlar behind the plate gets a chance to try and stop the (now misshapen) bullet. Class IIIA or lighter armors are usually made entirely of kevlar, and are not rated to stop rifle ammunition. This doesn't mean that they won't occasionally do so, but it's not what they're intended to do, nor should they be relied on to do so.
The Class III or IV portion of body armor is usually considered to be the parts protected by the plate. A rifle bullet striking the front of the armor and hitting the plate would probably be stopped... but were it to strike a short distance away (say, under the plate at the waist, or under the arm where there is no plating for flexibility reasons) it would likely go through the kelvar at this location, as the kevlar is not rated to stop the bullet.
Shotgun slugs are probably the closest modern equivalent to musket balls... while they're a larger caliber, their velocities are higher and they can be much harder than a soft lead ball would have been. Finding wholly-kevlar armor that stops shotgun slugs is not difficult.
| QUOTE (Shrike30) |
| Any current body armor that qualifies as NIJ Class III or IV includes ceramic or steel plates that is intended cause rifle ammunition to deform before the kevlar behind the plate gets a chance to try and stop the (now misshapen) bullet. |
Depending on the particular armor setup and the exact nature of the projectile threat, the bullet is quite likely to be stopped by the steel or ceramic plate(s) alone. You can see the results of test shots on a steel (level III) and ceramic (level IV) plates here, on the BulletProofMe.Com site.
Based on various sources, I'd say the probability of a level III-A vest stopping a 5.56x45mm FMJ at 2700+fps at most angles of incidence is extremely low. IIRC, the Kevlar Survivors' Club has a report of an incident where a single 5.56x45mm FMJ penetrated a flexible ballistic shield and still through a vest, both presumable III-A. It includes several accounts where flexible body armor could be considered to have slowed down a rifle FMJ enough that the resulting wound was not lethal, but none that I could find where a direct rifle FMJ impact was actually stopped by flexible armor.
There should really be a sticky thread called "everything you wanted to know about guns and armor (and more). then instead of 3 page discussions we'd have one line links.
The presence or absence of radiological/biologial/toxic hazards may indeed be the current definition of "WMD", but that doesn't make it make sense.
By that definition, a ballpoint pen that can dispense enough Sarin to kill everyone in a room is more of a "Weapon of Mass Destruction" than a van with several hundred pounds of an ANFO-buckshot cocktail in the back.
Scale of effect has to come into play somewhere.
By that definition, a ballpoint pen that can dispense enough Sarin to kill everyone in a room is more of a "Weapon of Mass Destruction" than a van with several hundred pounds of an ANFO-buckshot cocktail in the back.
Scale of effect has to come into play somewhere.
It does. The Scale of Effect is based on how much citizen fear it can generate. Saren gas is scarier than big booms. 
You know, since WMDs are so associated with terrorist actions, I can actually buy that.
Regarding Thor shot damage, we have a lot of the math already done for us by all the "Deep Impact" web pages out there. The biggest difference is shape: Potato 'o death vs tungsten dart.
I think the shape would lose less energy entering the atmosphere, but would give up it's energy more slowly, since it can penetrate the ground better than a generic rock shape. To me, this would result in a longer, but less intense explosion.
Engineers: would that difference make much of a difference in the destructive output? Or can we just calculate thor shots as small, iron meteorites?
I think the shape would lose less energy entering the atmosphere, but would give up it's energy more slowly, since it can penetrate the ground better than a generic rock shape. To me, this would result in a longer, but less intense explosion.
Engineers: would that difference make much of a difference in the destructive output? Or can we just calculate thor shots as small, iron meteorites?
And while a Thor shot definitely blows the f*** out of the thing that it hits, it really doesn't do damage on a mass scale. It doesn't blow up people a mile away, or kill everything downwind, or kill anything that goes there for the next 50 years, or spread into a pandemic, or anything. It just blows up one thing. That one thing might be a bunker, or a capitol building, or an aircraft carrier, but anyone a few hundred yards away behind some decent cover will be fine, and once the debris hits the ground the area is "safe".
It's comparable to a very large bomb, but not remotely comparable to nuclear fallout, pandemic, or long term environmental destruction.
edit: In response to calculating destructive power compared to a potato shaped Thor shot: Give it the mass that it has, and the material, but it would have a higher terminal velocity than a potato. Not sure by how much, though.
It's comparable to a very large bomb, but not remotely comparable to nuclear fallout, pandemic, or long term environmental destruction.
edit: In response to calculating destructive power compared to a potato shaped Thor shot: Give it the mass that it has, and the material, but it would have a higher terminal velocity than a potato. Not sure by how much, though.
| QUOTE (KarmaInferno @ Aug 17 2006, 10:08 AM) |
| Trajectory, speed, and position as recorded by what? You've already set up a condition where electronic detection won't work. Are you suggesting you figure all this out by eye? In the split second where you can actually see the ICBM? Or perhaps the targeting computer can magically figure out trajectory, speed, and position from the spotter saying "Uh, hey, I just saw a missile, heading somewhere over there." If you're using optical electronic sensors to figure it out, hooked into that targeting computer, why do you even need a human eye in the loop? And an abysmally slow human reaction time to slow things down? Even with all the cyber-boosting in the world a computer is going to be able to react faster than a guy with his hand on a button. Hell, you don't even need to mount that optical sensor on an aircraft. They can work just fine from the ground. We have cameras today that can read license plates from orbit. |
I was kinda figuring on something you're not with the suggestion of cameras: Trying to locate the missile while it's over open water. Yes, it's certainly possible to anchor cameras in the middle of the ocean, but it's not really worth the money to do it, especially since it's outside of your nation's territory for most of it. By the time the missile is over land and you can use cameras on it, you're probably already in a situation where you don't have a chance to stop it.
| QUOTE |
| It also sounds like you might be unclear on what a Thor Shot is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bomba...nt#Project_Thor It's a telephone pole made of tungsten. It's used for dropping a lot of pain down on hardened bunkers, bridges, taking out whole city blocks at a time. It's a WMD. It's for when you want a tactical nuclear strike but don't want the associated radiation. It's an ICBM pre-parked in orbit. It is not, in any way, a defense system. You're basically suggesting we use one ICBM to hit another ICBM. And to target it using your eyes. |
There's a list of very specific reasons why I used the THOR shot in my post instead of the other options.
1) It's not an ICBM. Even if the shot misses and strikes the ground beneath it, it's not going to cause massive devastation.
2) It's not going to be stopped by atmosphere, unlike lasers and railguns.
3) It doesn't need a targetting system lockon, like lasers and railguns do to be effective from extreme distances.
4) It still preserves some of the missile afterwards so you can recover it and get an idea of what they put in it that made your targetting systems worthless. Even with most of the systems destroyed, you can improve at last one system potentially enough to make the difference for next time. Of course, it may be hard to figure out from all of the little pieces what system was what...
5) It doesn't vaporise the missile and scatter the payload all over the atmosphere, like a railgun would. Really, considering what a railgun does to a tank, using one on something carrying nuclear warheads is a fucking stupid idea.
6) As noted on your source, you don't have to be using the full-size version, but can be using one of the smaller ones.
Finally, read your own source. Here, let me quote it to you:
| QUOTE |
| The larger device is expected to be quite good at penetrating deeply buried bunkers and other command and control targets. The smaller "crowbar" size might be employed for anti-armor, anti-aircraft, anti-satellite and possibly anti-personnel use. |
The whole point of the THOR system is to have orbital weapons capable of taking down both moving and stationary targets. The idea of using it against ICBMs probably isn't even original.
Terminal velocity won't really come into effect, since air friction won't be remotely able to slow the object down to the point where air resistance equals gravity.
I don't think shape or material will make much of a difference. As long as the object doesn't burn up or break apart or does anything else that affects the kinetic energy it is carrying when it hits the target, it won't matter. At that velocity, you're looking at kinetic energies so large that nothing else matters. When it hits something, the immediate heat generated would vaporise anything. How much kinetic energy you get to deliver is interesting - the material doesn't matter beyond that, it's like asking what should we coat our nuke in, potatoes or tungsten? It just doesn't matter.
Of course, delivering kinetic energy from orbit to ground is considerably easier with tungsten rods than sacks of potatoes. But a column of spacejunk encased in something sufficiently heat resistant would easily do the job.
I don't think shape or material will make much of a difference. As long as the object doesn't burn up or break apart or does anything else that affects the kinetic energy it is carrying when it hits the target, it won't matter. At that velocity, you're looking at kinetic energies so large that nothing else matters. When it hits something, the immediate heat generated would vaporise anything. How much kinetic energy you get to deliver is interesting - the material doesn't matter beyond that, it's like asking what should we coat our nuke in, potatoes or tungsten? It just doesn't matter.
Of course, delivering kinetic energy from orbit to ground is considerably easier with tungsten rods than sacks of potatoes. But a column of spacejunk encased in something sufficiently heat resistant would easily do the job.
| QUOTE (LilithTaveril) |
| 5) It doesn't vaporise the missile and scatter the payload all over the atmosphere, like a railgun would. Really, considering what a railgun does to a tank, using one on something carrying nuclear warheads is a fucking stupid idea |
Getting hit by a railgun and a THOR is exactly the same. They're both kinetic energy weapons. Except a THOR is a lot more powerful than your "average railgun" (whatever that is) and a THOR certainly vaporizes anything it hits.
What does a railgun do to a tank, anyway? I've never seen pictures. 
| QUOTE (Smokeskin @ Aug 17 2006, 05:33 PM) | ||
Getting hit by a railgun and a THOR is exactly the same. They're both kinetic energy weapons. Except a THOR is a lot more powerful than your "average railgun" (whatever that is) and a THOR certainly vaporizes anything it hits. |
They're both kinetic energy weapons. The difference is the amount of speed involved. A THOR shot actually travels much slower than that of a railgun and does proportionally less damage. A railgun using the same ammo as a THOR shot would probably be equivolent to the Death Star. So, no, being hit by them is not "exactly the same thing."
Also, one thing I'm considering is that a THOR shot won't be stopped by an ICBM, meaning that it won't bleed off the kinetic energy. Most of the damage of kinetic energy weapons, like THOR shots and railguns, comes when they hit the target and are forced to come to a stop, causing them to rapidly bleed off the kinetic energy. With a portable railgun, this pretty much vaporizes a tank. With a THOR shot, this can mimic a low-yield nuclear blast if you use the larger versions. But, the point is that most of the damage still requires that stop. If it just shoots through what it hits, all you get is a normal explosion as only a fraction of the kinetic energy bleeds off. So, a THOR shot won't vaporize an ICBM. If you hit the right spot in an ICBM, most of the payload should be intact afterwards.
About the only addition that THOR shots have that railguns don't is plasma from entering the atmosphere, and depending on how fast it's going, this may not even be a problem.
| QUOTE (James McMurray) |
| There should really be a sticky thread called "everything you wanted to know about guns and armor (and more). |
We already have all that information in one location. But people keep asking the same things just a little bit differently every time, so answers need to be tailored. And it's not as though anyone ever bothers to read more info-heavy linked articles anyway.
| QUOTE (Smokeskin) |
| How much kinetic energy you get to deliver is interesting - the material doesn't matter beyond that, it's like asking what should we coat our nuke in, potatoes or tungsten? It just doesn't matter. |
That depends on what you're hitting with it. If you only need to destroy a lightly fortified surface structure, then (assuming it reaches the target intact, at the same velocity and the same mass) rock and tungsten probably would achieve about the same results. If you need to penetrate 100 meters of rock of 50 meters of concrete, though, shape, toughness, etc. certainly matter. If the projectile completely breaks up on impact, it will not penetrate nearly as far as the "tungsten telephone pole" style projectile mentioned above.
| QUOTE (LilithTaveril) |
| A THOR shot actually travels much slower than that of a railgun and does proportionally less damage. |
That depens on the railgun, don't you think? There's no law that states all railguns must fire their projectiles faster than 5km/s.
| QUOTE (LilithTaveril) |
| With a portable railgun, this pretty much vaporizes a tank. |
Based on what, exactly?
| QUOTE (LilithTaveril) |
| If it just shoots through what it hits, all you get is a normal explosion as only a fraction of the kinetic energy bleeds off. So, a THOR shot won't vaporize an ICBM. If you hit the right spot in an ICBM, most of the payload should be intact afterwards. |
Why would a railgun cause any more damage to the ICBM? And why are you talking about explosions -- apart from a possible fireball from any unburned rocket fuel in the missile if still in the athmosphere, there should be no explosion on such an impact.
| QUOTE |
| If it just shoots through what it hits, all you get is a normal explosion as only a fraction of the kinetic energy bleeds off. So, a THOR shot won't vaporize an ICBM. |
Your various assertions about the effectiveness of "portable railguns" and other such things aside, it may (or may not) be true that being struck with a Thor shot wouldn't vaporize an ICBM.
However, I have a hard time believing that between the shockwave of the rod passing through the atmosphere, the sheath of plasma that would form around the rod due to the superheated gasses flowing around it, and the damage caused by the ICBM's attempt at forward motion through a chunk of space temporarily occupied by a "tungsten telephone pole," the ICBM might not find it's functionality slightly impaired.
The railguns they are testing at the base up the road from me dont do anything that spectacular to a tank. Other then treat their armor like a paper being shot by a BMG.
Forgive me if the numbers are off, its been 5 or 6 years since I read the article. I think they said they can shoot a shot at 10km per second, and penetrate 4 foot of armored steel. The jet propulsion lab shoots theirs at 9 km per second. The people shooting at 10km say it fries the system everytime, so they dont do it. They are still looking for better materials.
The tank doesnt explode because of the shot, usually if the round misses the ammo or fuel in the tank its the rapid heating of the air and decompression in the cabin that kills the people in it. Even with conventional weapons during the first gulf war, the military repeatedly hit the same tanks with missiles and then had our own tanks shoot the tanks when they got close. Only then realizing th etank was killed on the first shot, but so little damage was done to the outside of the 3 or4 times killed tank it was hard to tell from satellite and recon photos that the tank was killed the first time around.
Normally trying to take an inflight object out of the sky you dont really want to hit it directlly, much like taking out submarines. Getting a direct killing blow is hard. So most anti aircraft and sub weapons aim for the general area hopeing to then do enough damage to wreck the vehicle. Even the new partiot missiles dont kill by direct hit. They actually explode and shoot out chunks of metal out to rupture the enemy missiles. Much like flak, SAM missiles, deepth charges and torpedos. So using a railgun in the first place would be a step back really.
I also alays imagined the Thor shot to be a generic term for things like chunks of space debris and orbital railguns. I like the idea of railguns in space shooting back into earth to kill people much funner. Though hitting someone with a huge chunk of garbage pretty funny also.
EDIT: I meant to describe the railgun shot. Its basically a Discarding Sabot. The sheath is obviously a conductive material with a tungsten/DU flechette in the center. Nothing more, just a rod of dense material in a Sabot that is accelerated to ungodly speeds.
Forgive me if the numbers are off, its been 5 or 6 years since I read the article. I think they said they can shoot a shot at 10km per second, and penetrate 4 foot of armored steel. The jet propulsion lab shoots theirs at 9 km per second. The people shooting at 10km say it fries the system everytime, so they dont do it. They are still looking for better materials.
The tank doesnt explode because of the shot, usually if the round misses the ammo or fuel in the tank its the rapid heating of the air and decompression in the cabin that kills the people in it. Even with conventional weapons during the first gulf war, the military repeatedly hit the same tanks with missiles and then had our own tanks shoot the tanks when they got close. Only then realizing th etank was killed on the first shot, but so little damage was done to the outside of the 3 or4 times killed tank it was hard to tell from satellite and recon photos that the tank was killed the first time around.
Normally trying to take an inflight object out of the sky you dont really want to hit it directlly, much like taking out submarines. Getting a direct killing blow is hard. So most anti aircraft and sub weapons aim for the general area hopeing to then do enough damage to wreck the vehicle. Even the new partiot missiles dont kill by direct hit. They actually explode and shoot out chunks of metal out to rupture the enemy missiles. Much like flak, SAM missiles, deepth charges and torpedos. So using a railgun in the first place would be a step back really.
I also alays imagined the Thor shot to be a generic term for things like chunks of space debris and orbital railguns. I like the idea of railguns in space shooting back into earth to kill people much funner. Though hitting someone with a huge chunk of garbage pretty funny also.
EDIT: I meant to describe the railgun shot. Its basically a Discarding Sabot. The sheath is obviously a conductive material with a tungsten/DU flechette in the center. Nothing more, just a rod of dense material in a Sabot that is accelerated to ungodly speeds.
| QUOTE (Frag-o Delux) |
| Even the new partiot missiles dont kill by direct hit. |
Correct, but check out THAAD and the RIM-161 SM-3. Both are pure kinetic kill ABMs, and apparently work quite well. A missile is probably a bit easier to steer to a target than an orbital tungsten telephone pole, however.
My understanding of the thoughts for using railguns against aerial targets would be to use them kind of like Phalanx guns. Get a dense enough cloud of projectiles moving quickly enough in a given area, and one of them should hit the object you're trying to stop. Pretty much like having a missile go up there and blow a cloud of flak at the target, except the spread pattern starts at ground level, and can be controlled by the gunner/gunnery system.
| QUOTE (Austere Emancipator) | ||
That depens on the railgun, don't you think? There's no law that states all railguns must fire their projectiles faster than 5km/s. |
True. I'll read up on a few more articles on it, but so far every one of them I've seen states a railgun as vaporizing a tank.
| QUOTE | ||
Based on what, exactly? |
/me points up.
| QUOTE | ||
Why would a railgun cause any more damage to the ICBM? And why are you talking about explosions -- apart from a possible fireball from any unburned rocket fuel in the missile if still in the athmosphere, there should be no explosion on such an impact. |
Actually, exactly what I was talking about. Plasma + rocket fuel.
| QUOTE (Shrike30) |
| Your various assertions about the effectiveness of "portable railguns" and other such things aside, it may (or may not) be true that being struck with a Thor shot wouldn't vaporize an ICBM. However, I have a hard time believing that between the shockwave of the rod passing through the atmosphere, the sheath of plasma that would form around the rod due to the superheated gasses flowing around it, and the damage caused by the ICBM's attempt at forward motion through a chunk of space temporarily occupied by a "tungsten telephone pole," the ICBM might not find it's functionality slightly impaired |
Railguns are not that effective when, last I checked, they can't be fired more than once without service to repair rail damage. Otherwise, U.S. soldiers would be using them in combat right now. But, other than that, they've proven very effective in tests thus far. They really don't stack up well compared to a portable missile launcher.
Oh, and yeah, I had figured plasma. Kinda why you want to hit the back end of the ICBM. Hitting the front end might be effective if the warheads are not armed. Take out the payload in one shot... But, also very risky.
| QUOTE (Frag-o Delux) |
| The railguns they are testing at the base up the road from me dont do anything that spectacular to a tank. Other then treat their armor like a paper being shot by a BMG. |
They fire at 3km/s. Not 10. If it were 10km/s, I'd be a little worried about whatever's behind the tank.
Oh, I get a lot of my information about U.S. railgun testing from what I believe to be trustable news sources, but at the same time, I will admit it may be a bit off in some areas.
I have seen the pure kinetic systems I mean you have mentioned further up in this thread already. But I think the prevailing form of technology is close enough is good enough. As I poiinted out myself Boeing had the SLID and HLID systems. So yeah there are pure kinetic systems but I think most are I said close is good enough.
Im not sure about the advances of railgun technology in the last few years, I have been involved in other things. But curently Im not aware of a rapid firing railgun, Im pretty sure they havent even made a semi automatic railgun yet. Im sure theyll figure something out if thats a path theyll want to take.
Personally I think railguns would be used for hardened targets and slow moving targets. There would be much better choices of weapons to take on aerial targets, mostly lasers. The Boeing airborne laser is really cool and does a nice job already, even though its still in development and testing.
I like the idea they had in the the SR3 Pirates book with the ANDREWS. It replaced the phalanx and uses a particle beam. Large clouds of lead seems a bit archiac in the future.
EDIT:
But I think the prevailing form of technology is close enough is good enough. As I poiinted out myself Boeing had the SLID and HLID systems. So yeah there are pure kinetic systems but I think most are I said close is good enough.Im not sure about the advances of railgun technology in the last few years, I have been involved in other things. But curently Im not aware of a rapid firing railgun, Im pretty sure they havent even made a semi automatic railgun yet. Im sure theyll figure something out if thats a path theyll want to take.
Personally I think railguns would be used for hardened targets and slow moving targets. There would be much better choices of weapons to take on aerial targets, mostly lasers. The Boeing airborne laser is really cool and does a nice job already, even though its still in development and testing.
I like the idea they had in the the SR3 Pirates book with the ANDREWS. It replaced the phalanx and uses a particle beam. Large clouds of lead seems a bit archiac in the future.
EDIT:
| QUOTE |
| They fire at 3km/s. Not 10. If it were 10km/s, I'd be a little worried about whatever's behind the tank. Oh, I get a lot of my information about U.S. railgun testing from what I believe to be trustable news sources, but at the same time, I will admit it may be a bit off in some areas. |
Im pretty sure the numbers where 9 and 10 km/s. These arent ground based railguns, I mean these systems arent being developed solely for the use on ground vehicles and shot at other ground vehicles. These railguns were part of the SDI program. I have been blessed or cursed (how ever you want to see it) but I have friends all over the place. A few of them are or were based in Aberdeen Proving Grounds, just up the road from me. Its one of the main railgun testing centers. He never showed me any classified docs, but these things were shooting well over the 3 km/s mark.
I am 100% certain they fired it at least once at 10km/s and it blew the gun and most of it parts to dust. The projectile still cleared the barrel and hit its target though. lol
And why are you so preoccupied with what maybe behind your target? I dont think that is a real concern of the military when developing weapons. Especially for a weapon that they could effectively make shore batteries out of or put on motorized carriages to fire into harden bunkers.
| QUOTE (LilithTaveril) |
| I'll read up on a few more articles on it, but so far every one of them I've seen states a railgun as vaporizing a tank. |
Linky? Any of the sources say why going from 1.7km/s to 3km/s with a far smaller projectile suddenly makes massive composite armor plating "vaporize"?
| QUOTE (LilithTaveril) |
| Actually, exactly what I was talking about. |
Which is the same thing that would happen if the ICBM was hit by a far smaller but faster projectile from a railgun.
| QUOTE (Austere Emancipator) | ||
Linky? Any of the sources say why going from 1.7km/s to 3km/s with a far smaller projectile suddenly makes massive composite armor plating "vaporize"? |
Actually, none that I can find now. It's pretty embarassing to have your information a year ago but not to have it now. Here's one I found that comes close:
http://experts.about.com/e/r/ra/Railgun.htm
And, with that, I'm backing out of the argument. Next time, I'm grabbing my sources first and then arguing.
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