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New laser could cram GPS alternative into a shoebox

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Re: New laser could cram GPS alternative into a shoebox

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really get this argument: if you have a metric precision munition in an ICBM then even an inert warhead is going to be enough to penetrate and destroy due to the kinetic energy coming from the hypersonic nature of the reentry vehicle (and even if kinetic energy itself wasn't sufficient, a conventional payload would be) Nuclear bombs are useful because you don't need precision to get the effectiveness, but if…

Not if the silo can withstand a direct hit from anything short of a nuclear bomb going off nearby. ICBMs aren't that precise- or they didn't used to be- and that's why you'd compensate for that with nuclear warheads. Or, alternatively, early ICBMs would have seemed nearly pointless to develop before nuclear weapons existed to put on them. If a superfuze or a super-IMU means that you can kill one silo with one nuke, t…

> Not if the silo can withstand a direct hit from anything short of a nuclear bomb going off nearby

But this kind of silos simply doesn't exist.

Yes you could theoretically imagine such a silo, but because the threat of a conventional bunker buster payload hasn't been very realistic when it comes to nuclear silos, they aren't designed to deal with such a thread and instead focus on protection against the kind of overpressure that is caused by an nuclear explosion occurring around.

Re: New laser could cram GPS alternative into a shoebox

#102
post #51

If Sandia is revealing this, they probably have a secret version that is already being loaded into cruise missiles and ICBMs. Seeing what’s happening over in Ukraine, it has to be clear to every military in the world that GPS is no longer of much practical use on its own.

US military systems have always been based primarily on inertial guidance as a matter of policy. They may take optional GPS corrections for small improvements in precision but they don't rely on them. GPS was never really designed to be a navigation system, even though you can use it for that; the military designed it to be a measurement system. The Soviets could have destroyed it the day it was built, it was strictl…

Yes, for sure intertial and star guidance has been in use in ICBMs forever. But if the inertial guidance is far more accurate, perhaps this changes what you can do with conventional ICBM munitions. For instance being able to target something 10,000 miles away in a GPS-denied place with a 2,000 pound chemical explosive rather than using a cruise missile. Now you can take out someone’s leadership from US soil without using a nuclear warhead.

Re: New laser could cram GPS alternative into a shoebox

#103
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US military systems have always been based primarily on inertial guidance as a matter of policy. They may take optional GPS corrections for small improvements in precision but they don't rely on them. GPS was never really designed to be a navigation system, even though you can use it for that; the military designed it to be a measurement system. The Soviets could have destroyed it the day it was built, it was strictl…

Yes, for sure intertial and star guidance has been in use in ICBMs forever. But if the inertial guidance is far more accurate, perhaps this changes what you can do with conventional ICBM munitions. For instance being able to target something 10,000 miles away in a GPS-denied place with a 2,000 pound chemical explosive rather than using a cruise missile. Now you can take out someone’s leadership from US soil without u…

… acknowledge all the problems with launching an ICBM and the adversary not knowing what type of warhead it carries, of course… just ignore me.
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