Posted on 10/10/2021 4:24:51 AM PDT by RomanSoldier19
Two words depressed trajectory.
Not only is it much faster than a ballistic trajectory the response window for exo and especially endo atmospheric interceptors is drastically reduced. With MARV warheads it’s effectively impossible to intercept a mach 12 MARV that is pulling 100+ G turns in the 30 seconds or so it’s above the radar horizon inbound.
The USA tested the MK500 evador warheads package in the trident right before the cold war ended it was viewed as such a capable first strike weapon it was never fielded since its sole purpose was first strike against hardened targets with a CEP measured in tens of meters which puts even a 5000 psi silo inside the fireball where even concrete is vaporized by the 100+ million Celsius thermonuclear fireball.
https://scienceandglobalsecurity.org/archive/sgs03gronlund.pdf
Given China’s world-wide known crappy craftsmanship and their cheap knock-off’s that fail almost instantly, what’s the over/under on these things blowing themselves up before they ever get a chance to launch a missile at us?
And yet this video that people claim is the Chinese launching a missile shows the missile going up into a ballistic trajectory and not the flatter trajectory that your scenario would require.
Ground observers won’t even see the tip over point for a depressed trajectory it’s at 500,000+ feet up well above the atmosphere.
Figure 2 shows a DP vs ballistic over a 1000nm mile path the scale should be obvious. For longer DP lengths the tip over point is still higher. A DP is still a Newtonian physics governed trajectory there is no lift generated from the atmosphere it is a trajectory that has enough excess speed relative to gravitational vector to arc upwards. Put another way a DP is a sub orbital trajectory with it’s V vector sub parallel to the earth’s surface.
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