Re: missiles

A thread of 2 messages, 7 April 1990 to 8 April 1990, in the order they were sent.

#1190 Re: missiles

Mark, at 50 to 70 km/sec a 100 kg warhead won't even be *noticed*.  The
kinetic energy of the impact of a 1 ton missile at those velocities is
equivalent to a *small* nuclear warhead.

Ever see a picture of the Barringer Meteor Crater in Arizona? Your
missiles could make a crater like that. It was made by a body that
probably massed 100 times as much, but it was only traveling about
10 km/sec. So your missile would have the same energy if it was
going only *10* times as fast (E= m*v^2/2)

The kinetic energy of the missile is equal to converting 1/36 of a gram
of matter to energy. (assuming a 1 metric ton missile at 70 km/sec).
And if the missile is attacking from the front, the energy depends not
on the square of the missile's velocity, but on the square of the
*sum* of the velocities!)

To put it simply, you *can't* armor against kinetic energy weapons.
Not when the velocities are tens to *hundreds* of km/sec.

#1191 Re: missiles

Actually, for penetration, a kinetic energy weapon would
probably be better than a small nuclear device since all
the damage would be concentrated in the immediate area of
impact (could punch thru more armor).

To get an idea of just how much energy is in one of your
high velocity missiles, I did a quick back of the envelope
calculation.

Assuming only the warhead is left (and it won't matter much
if it's explosive or just dead weight), at 50 km/s to 70 km/s
you get 125 GigaJoules and 245 GigaJoules respectively.

How much is that?  Take the Love Boat (or any other smallish-
medium ocean liner) and drop it (on Earth of course) from a
height of about half a kilometer.  That should be about right.

And imagine all that energy in the space of a 100 kg mass.


Hey, I finally tracked down the address to this mailing list
and got myself subscribed.  It's great to be here!
- --
John H. Kim
[email removed]