What if we still “suffer”?
Much has already been written about what the last day of this world will be like. It is clear that if all countries with nuclear weapons, they decide to use it, then there will be no peace. Some will end sooner, others in Africa will suffer a little longer under nuclear winter conditions.
However, now we will talk about that moment, very short in time, when missiles have already started, and civilization is still alive. That is, about possible resistance and attempts to survive by any means.
If you leave all these bunkers with food and water supplies, filters and other life support systems, all these are ways to prolong the agony and nothing more, so now we will talk about attempts to destroy the missiles that will fly from the enemy.
In general, a lot has been written about how many missiles one side or another can launch. But how many will the States really be able to shoot down when it comes to day “X” and hour “H”?
If we take the quantitative composition of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces, we get this picture:
- land mine and mobile complexes are armed with 342 launch vehicles (missiles);
- submarines have 176 carriers;
- strategic aviation – 77 carriers (according to international agreements, an aircraft is considered as one carrier, and cruise missiles are considered as warheads).
A certain number of launch vehicles (especially boats and aircraft) may be under repair, so let's take the numbers of 595 launch vehicles and 2 warheads/cruise missiles and assume that a fifth of them did not launch for some reason. Breakdowns, scheduled repairs, upgrades, technical failures and the like. There will be somewhere around 776-450 carriers with 500 charges.
So how about we reflect this?
Let's start in order, in the sequence in which the rockets fly. They choked.
The first stage is takeoff. In this area, all missiles and aircraft are very vulnerable, but since the takeoff takes place quite far from American soil, everything is fine here. A missile flying out of the water can still be neutralized by a nearby ship, but this situation in itself is already quite fantastic.
So the ICBMs will calmly overcome the boost phase and go into space, from where they will begin their inexorable flight to American soil.
And this is where the first American anti-missile system comes into play: Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD).
This is the latest strategic missile defense system, commissioned in 2005. GMD is designed to intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles and their warheads in space beyond the Earth's atmosphere.
A three-stage rocket, almost 17 meters long and weighing 13 tons, puts into orbit a kinetic transatmospheric interceptor, which, accelerating to 10 km/sec on a collision course, crashes into a warhead, which flies at no less speed and thereby destroys it.
One missile, one interceptor, one warhead. Tests carried out in the USA showed that the effectiveness of this anti-missile system is about 50%.
Now for the funny stuff. There are currently 44 such interceptor missiles deployed in the United States. 40 in Alaska and 4 in California. They plan to build another two dozen, and in the future increase this number to a hundred, but you can start giggling here.
Next, we begin re-entry into the atmosphere, which means the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) complex comes into action.
The United States now has as many as three THAAD batteries, each of three launchers with a total of 24 interceptor missiles. That is, 72 interceptor missiles in one salvo. The complex is already 20 years old, but everything is going smoothly with it too. There is definitely one complete round of ammunition in stock and a stock of the second is being slowly created. But will it be possible to recharge the batteries – that’s the question.
The “Ted” interceptor (that’s what they call it) is also kinetic, and during testing it showed itself to be very good; out of 14 launches, 11 were successful, the target missiles were intercepted, and 3 launches failed due to problems with the targets. But, it is worth noting that the launches were on targets that imitated Soviet R-17s (which are Scud according to NATO classification), that is, in fact, the day before yesterday of rocket technology.
The effectiveness of THAAD against modern missiles, which can not only jam radars and maneuver, is difficult to assess. It is one thing to destroy a Houthi medium-range ballistic missile used to attack an Emirati oil facility near the al-Dhafra airbase, and another thing to try to work on the Mace or Voevode. There is a difference, and it is critical.
In general, the presence of three batteries for 72 launchers looks about as impressive as 44 interceptors in mines in Alaska and California. Look above at the number of targets and we understand that this is 1/10 of Russian capabilities. That is, all long-range interceptors, in the most ideal case, will hit 10% of Russian carriers. Will the remaining 90% be enough to create a radioactive inferno in America's place? More than.
And now the rockets are already approaching the atmosphere, entering it and the last act of our performance begins. As they say, at close range.
At close range we have the MIM-104 “Patriot”, its modification PAC-3.
A very strong modification, it must be admitted that the PAC-3 also aimed at the sacred - that is, at ballistic missiles. They tried to shoot down Iranian works with “Patriots” back in the last century, but the Americans themselves came to the conclusion that the damaging effect of the high-explosive fragmentation warhead of the complex was not enough to disable the missile.
Thus, the third kinetic interceptor appeared in PAC-3 - the ERINT anti-missile missile.
Thus, the idea of a kinetic interceptor, that is, a crowbar launched at high speed towards a missile or warhead, won in the minds of the American military. Of course, this is controversial because it requires precision aiming, satellite guidance, and so on. In order for an anti-missile to hit the target so accurately, truly ultra-precise calculations are needed, because this is reminiscent of trying to hit a flying projectile with a pistol bullet.
ERINT is the same scrap as the previous two, but with nuances. In general, this is a rocket more than 4,8 m long, 254 mm in diameter and weighing 316 kg. Single-stage, with solid fuel engine. Guidance is carried out by an active radar seeker, a homing head, with the help of which the missile independently searches for a target and reaches the point of collision with it. The firing range reaches 20 km. The interception altitude is 15 km.
True, apparently realizing that everything is not so simple, the ERINT kinetic interceptor was taken and equipped with an additional warhead. And each missile carries a so-called Lethality Enhancer: a small expulsion charge and 24 heavy tungsten submunitions. When a missile misses a target, the explosive explodes and the elements must fly apart in a transverse plane, increasing the affected area.
The United States has 480 PAC-3 Patriot launchers, this is a very decent figure, and if you consider that 104 ERINT missiles can be placed in one launch cell for the MIM-4, it turns out that if you load all the launchers with anti-missiles, the figure is quite: 7800 rockets.
But here’s the question: is there that much? Of course not. You can release it, but is it worth it? Let's see: the range of the PAC-3 is 20 km. This is for a ballistic non-maneuvering target. In the final part of the trajectory, the warhead in any case flies at hypersonic speed, that is, 4-5M. That is, 1,5 km/s. Considering that warheads fly through the atmosphere in 5 minutes, there is practically no room for error.
But there is such a thing as a “complex ballistic situation.” This is when the BBs do not simply fly towards their targets, separated and directed by the separation stage, but fly in the company of dipole reflectors, blocks EW, inflatable decoy balloons, fragments of fairings and parts of the breeding stage... In general, all this magnificence is called "multiple ballistic targets in a complicated ballistic environment."
That is, a huge hemorrhoid for ballistic computers, calculating the optimal meeting point of the anti-missile and the obscurantism rushing from space. And this is really difficult, because for 6-10 warheads there will be fifty or even more flying nearby, I don’t understand what, which on the screens will look the same as a warhead. And even 7 thousand anti-missile missiles are not very impressive, because we will be talking about identifying out of 10 targets those 000 that need to be actually destroyed. And there’s not much time for everything.
And everyone already understands that “Patriot” is not a panacea. It’s not for nothing that there are not “Patriots” standing around the White House, but NASAMS. Oh, not for nothing...
But I want to live...
And so in May, the Missile Defense Agency announced that Lockheed-Martin (in partnership with Rocketdyne/L3Harris) had been selected over arch-rival Northrop-Grumman to lead a $17,7 billion second-generation nuclear missile program. , called Next Generation Interceptor (NGI). The first of 20 NGIs the Pentagon plans to purchase could be delivered by 2027.
The fact that in the United States they understand that everything is not as it should is only confirmed by the fact that reviews of the competitors’ projects were considered in an emergency mode and the decision was made a year earlier than planned.
Compared to the current stockpile of 44 ground-based silo interceptors (GBIs) deployed in Alaska, future NGI missiles should exhibit a much lower failure rate and lower cost. They should also be better able to recognize decoys and target missiles that are maneuvering.
But above all, Pentagon documents confirm that each NGI interceptor will carry multiple EKVs instead of just one. This could not only increase the speed of intercepting conventional missile targets, but also allow NGI interceptors to combat enemy multiple warhead (MIRV) missiles. In theory.
In practice, how NGI will cope with the warheads of the very popular SS-19 Stiletto in the USA (this is our UR-100N UTTH or RS-18 under the START Treaty), of which there are six and also a package of means for overcoming missile defense, is a question. Especially if you delve into what this package is.
Northrop-Grumman's loss of the NGI contract was completely surprising, given that the company has a larger presence in the space sector than Lockheed. And even more so after Northrop-Grumman acquired rocket manufacturer Orbital ATK in 2018, which builds launch vehicles for the current GBI interceptors (the division is now renamed Space Systems). Northrop-Grumman also has a major contract to build America's next-generation LGM-35A Sentinel intercontinental-range ballistic missile, also known as Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent, or GBSD.
But they say that it was the Sentinel program that did not work in the company’s favor. Everything is as usual there: slight shifts to the right and slight excesses of expenses. And Lockheed-Martin, which, although not a space company, has extensive experience in the field of ballistic missile interceptors and air defense (THAAD, Patriot PAC-3 and AEGIS combat system) and probably played a role. Well, maybe someone offered a lower price. And this is now very critical.
Can the new NGI missile protect the US from nuclear attack? Well, it can give some part of the population some confidence that it can. And this is also important. It is impossible to solve the problem of a nuclear strike on the country's territory by increasing the number of interceptors from 44 to 64 at the expense of two dozen NGIs, which are planned to be purchased in the foreseeable future.
The Pentagon initially planned an interim GBI upgrade called the Block 3 Redesigned Kill Vehicle (RKV), which was estimated to cost $5,8 billion. But the program was canceled in 2019, along with the dependent Multi-Object Kill Vehicle program, designed to combat MIRVs and decoys. Saving is sometimes a good thing.
But having saved $5,8 billion, almost immediately the Americans came up with the NGI plan, which included a completely new interceptor missile that would not, in theory, inherit the shortcomings of the GBI design. It is estimated that the delivery of 21 new missiles in 2027-2028 will cost $17,7 billion. It’s difficult to talk about savings here.
But it’s even more interesting if you take and use a calculator. In general, we know that all types of weapons in the United States tend to rise in price, and the closer to the end of the contract, the more so. In our particular case, it turns out that one missile with an NGI interceptor will cost almost a billion! Billion dollars!
Of course, if these billions save, say, Washington from a nuclear strike... In fact, no, they won’t. Even if the entire batch of 21 interceptors is stationed near the American capital, we will simply send 30 missiles.
The mystery of strategic missile defense: too little to repel anything serious, too much money. But it’s worth lifting the veil of not just secrets, but...
The GMD's planned future force of 64 interceptor missiles remains focused on defending against a small-scale ICBM attack from North Korea or Iran should the latter ever deploy a nuclear-tipped ICBM-class missile. These countries are not expected to be able to build enough ICBMs to defeat the GMD.
The small size of US interceptor missiles was intended to reassure Russia and China (possessing thousands and hundreds of nuclear warheads, respectively) that GMD was not intended to tip the balance provided by other countries' much larger nuclear arsenals.
However, neither China nor Russia have ever gotten around to it. In general, it is logical, because where there are 64 interceptors, there are 164. And 1640. Therefore, it is not surprising that new ballistic missiles, hypersonic gliding aircraft, strategic nuclear unmanned torpedoes and exotic cruise missiles. Which will also be able to carry nuclear warheads. And even if they can’t, who, in the confusion of the last day, will carefully look at what and how much is flying there?
This is the so-called “balloon effect,” in which advances in the ability of Americans to shoot down intercontinental ballistic missiles causes adversaries to redirect nuclear weapons to new delivery systems. Or increase the number of conventional warheads on conventional missiles, achieving results solely through quantity.
An interesting effect is obtained: the United States seems to have anti-missile defenses in case they are attacked by Iran, which somehow creates an ICBM with a flight range of about 12 km. Despite the fact that today Iranian ballistic missiles fly a maximum of 000 km. Or North Korea, which is doing a little better, Hwangsong-3 flies 000 km, but the distance to the USA is still the same 10-4 km.
In general, the argument looks unhealthy.
But the main thing is that if a full-scale launch is actually carried out, neither missile defense nor Defense, not hundreds of aircraft. Of course, aircraft will be able to intercept some of the cruise missiles, that's indisputable. But ICBMs with MIRVs will still do their job.
And here the question arises: is it worth fencing the garden at all, if all these billions are wasted, and they will not save you from a normal blow? However, you and I know the answer to this question very well.
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