Strategic Defense Initiative Report - 1989
Always full of little gems these reports.
Always full of little gems these reports.
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Cold War History Declassified
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Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) - Think Defence
GMLRS is a precision-guided rocket system currently in service with the Royal Artillery.
www.thinkdefence.co.uk
Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) History
The evolution of MLRS, from the grid square removal service to GMLRS, the 70km Sniper, is a perfect illustration of the trends in complex weapons over the last twenty-odd years.MLRS and GMLRS have their origins in a joint German (MBB), Italian (Oto Melara) and British (Hunting Engineering) project that proposed a tracked launcher that could fire six unguided 280mm rockets with a range of 40-60km, called RS-80. 6m long rockets.
Each RS-80 rocket could carry either a single warhead or more commonly, a submunition dispenser.
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US claims they averted ‘WW III’ by keeping a mission secret for over 50 years
On November 18, 1952, US Naval officer Royce Williams shot down 4 Soviet jets
www.livemint.com
Vol. I - Executive Summary
Vol. II - Configuration Development
Appendix A - Aerodynamic Configured Missile Reference
Appendix B - Relations Between Aerodynamic Characteristics and Performance
Appendix C - Low Radar Signature Concepts
Vol. III - Missile Aerodynamic Prediciton Rationale using the Supersonic/Hypersonic Arbitrary Body Program
Vol. IV - Phase I Experimental Program
Vol. V - Phase II Experimental Program
Vol. VI - Phase III Experimental Program
The Intercontinental Cruise Missile
First ever ICBM intercept.
www.lockheedmartin.com
Striking a Bullet with a Bullet: HOE
U.S. Army officials staring at their radar screens on June 10, 1984, watched in breathless anticipation as two American missiles—one launched from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, the other from a missile range in the Marshall Islands—hurtled toward each other far above the vast...
F-117 Stealth Fighter? The truth about air-to-air combat in the Nighthawk - Sandboxx
The Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk, often referred to as the "stealth fighter," was the world's first operational stealth aircraft, born out of a program so secretive that the plane itself was flying combat missions for seven entire years before it was formally unveiled to the public. Because of the...
www.sandboxx.us
ASALM-PTV accidentally reached about Mach 6 in that runaway ramjet burn, starting from a Mach 2.5 ramjet takeover at end of rocket boost, after a 20,000 foot launch for that first test. The original intent for the first test was for the vehicle to fly a racetrack pattern, at 20,000 feet and a sedate Mach 2.5, to fuel exhaustion, using simple timed turns, in order to check out the ramjet systems. Because of the throttle runaway problem, it left the range and reached fuel exhaustion at hypersonic speed, before the first timed turn could occur.
We found it 3-4 days later, stuck like a big steel dart, in a farmer's field, about 10 miles outside the airbase. The final telemetry from the vehicle just before we lost it, translated as "I am at Mach 6 and still accelerating as my skin begins to melt. I just ran out of fuel. Goodbye." Well, at least the other ramjet systems besides the throttle control worked just fine, obviously. So we counted that one as "half-successful".
The other 6 ASALM-PTV flight tests were letter-perfect, including the design cruise missile mission: subsonic air launch, supersonic climb to cruise altitude (80,000 feet), high supersonic cruise (Mach 4) for a long range, and high-supersonic dive (terminal about Mach 5) onto its target.
In the case of ASALM, at low altitudes the Mach number is rather low: around 2.5 to 3. The higher cruise Mach number of 4 takes place only in the thinner, colder air up around 80,000 feet. On a "standard day", at 20,000 feet Mach 2.5 the worst case is soakout to the recovery temperature, which is very near the stagnation temperature of 547 F (286 C). At 80,000 feet Mach 4, it is around 1211 F (655 C). These are temperatures that a Martensitic stainless steel can handle without too much loss of strength. However, at Mach 6 and 20,000 feet for the throttle runaway incident in flight test 1, these temperatures were quite unsurvivable for steady-state exposure, at 3209 F (1765 C), which neatly explains the telemetry about the skin beginning to melt during this brief transient event.
HIBEX had a short conical body and was powered by a solid-propellant rocket motor. Its design goal was the capability to intercept ICBM reentry vehicles at altitudes of less than 6100 m (20000 ft), where the RV would travel at about 3 km/s (10000 fps). The initial acceleration of HIBEX was almost 400 g. At least seven HIBEX rockets were fired at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) between February 1965 and January 1966, and the test results were used in the development of the operational Sprint missile.
In 1968, DARPA began the UPSTAGE (Upper Stage Acceleration and Guidance Experiment) program, which flight-tested a highly manoeuverable second stage for HIBEX boosters. Between November 1971 and August 1972, five UPSTAGE tests were conducted at the WSMR. The flights evaluated stage separation, guidance & control systems, and structural and aerodynamic properties. Then new laser gyros were used in the guidance and control section, because conventional mechanical ones were too slow for the required reaction time and acceleration. The UPSTAGE stage was a solid-propellant rocket, which weighed about 140 kg (300 lb), and used "finlet" injections for transverse thrust. It was command-guided from the ground, and achieved lateral accelerations of up to 300 g and command response times in the order of milliseconds. This performance would have been necessary to intercept MaRVs (Manoeuvering Reentry Vehicles).
Mach 8 in 1s.
AdKEM
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