China's Carrier Killer Times 3: Using one Missile, Fire Three Warheads...Yikes

Considering the popularity of the thread on China's carrier killer missile, I though you all might get a kick out of this as well. China could make the missile into a MIRV weapon. Basically, they fire the missile, above the earth it splits into three and then hits three targets. Don't think its possible, as this article shows, the technology is sitting in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum:

the-diplomat.com...

it doesnt supprise me in the least.

"Why have one when you can have two at twice the price?"

Well whats better than one successful launch, having it split up into lots of smaller even faster projectile explosives?

ten bucks on them fitting tactical nukes to those ballistic missiles anyway, just because "they can"

reply to post by travis911

Maybe we need to redefine FTW to For Triple Win? Beautiful people, beautiful country, beautiful culture. Never been there but would love to visit. My ex went there for a month (holiday) and loved it. Do they have problems? Sure, but which country doesn't?

reply to post by Biigs

Hmmz, not so sure about the nuke part though I dare say they could technically do so it they wanted to. They ain't no dumbos by any stretch of the imagination. As a "ship killer" I'm sure a good amount of high-explosive possibly combined with high-tech steel penetrating copper thingamajiggums would blow it to smithereens. But let's hope it doesn't come to that.

With three you get eggroll?

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Seriously, I find it a sad commentary on the state of humanity when all our inventive energy is spent on finding ways to kill more people efficiently, instead of for the betterment of all mankind.

reply to post by travis911


Building a shotgun instead of a rifle says that terminal homing is problematic. Anything moving this fast is not very maneuverable, so it would have a better chance of a hit with multiple warheads or could engage three targets in a specific footprint by timing the disengagement of the warheads from the bus. I would expect that claims of successes are exaggerated.
The safest way to defend against something like this is to attack it in the boost phase when it is moving relatively slowly rather than wait to defend in its terminal phase.

reply to post by pteridine


dont forget about inertia, these rockets are pretty big and moving VERY fast, the kinetic force from just the mass of the payload would likely rip a boat in two anyway let along the detonation.

But like i already speculated before, i would not be surprised if they pack a few small tactic nukes into those things, they arnt cheap but compared to US air craft carrier they are peanuts.

The US has had multiple headed nukes for years now. One rocket, multiple heads with different destinations-targets.

reply to post by mysterioustranger

Yes...you've said it. A missile with multiple warheads is not something new. US have it Russia have it so what if China has it too. These people should face facts and should not get unduly excited so easily. New and more efficient weapons would be manufactured over time in the future so it is a sad but sure thing. Money spent on these weaponry could be put to better use but unforturnately the situation in the world today dictates otherwise. Just as the US and Americans believe they have to defend their homeland so does other countries. Its a natural thing to do.

Originally posted by Biigs
reply to post by pteridine

 

dont forget about inertia, these rockets are pretty big and moving VERY fast, the kinetic force from just the mass of the payload would likely rip a boat in two anyway let along the detonation.

Most ballistic missile warheads tip the scales at a few hundred pounds (the W56 1.2 megaton warhead from a 1990s-era LGM-30F was about 700 lbs), and the warheads aren't going to be moving at 'meteor strike' velocities. A dud strike would probably tear a 'boat' to pieces, but a ship the size of an aircraft carrier would be somewhat less damaged. Such an impact might be problematical...any damage to the flight deck is going to be serious in terms of operational capability, even if it doesn't endanger the ship's actual survival, and any penetration into the hangar deck is going to be messy, full stop. On the other hand, modern U.S. CVs and CVNs have proven remarkably hard to sink. A look at the fires aboard the USS Forrestal and the USS Enterprise will give you some idea of just how hard.

But like i already speculated before, i would not be surprised if they pack a few small tactic nukes into those things, they arnt cheap but compared to US air craft carrier they are peanuts.

Not a smart move. Ballistic missiles with conventional warheads are already a dicey proposition...after all, the target of the missile has no way to know whether the incoming 'care package' is conventional or nuclear until the warhead goes off (best case) or initiates (nuclear case). With a purely conventional spread of warheads, you don't do nearly the damage of a nuclear strike, but you also don't immediately escalate the war to a full-up "laydown at the O.K. Corral". With a nuclear strike, your target is *gone*, but the war suddenly got a lot more deadly. "Mixing in" a few tactical nuclear warheads with a conventional package gets you the worst of all worlds. Your target might survive the use of tactical nuclear devices, particularly a dispersed and well-defended target like a carrier task force, and you've just crossed the nuclear threshold, which means that the highly irate surviving members of the task group will more than likely respond with any and all means at their disposal. A Ticonderoga and a couple of Arleigh Burkes is already bad for your health, even without the carrier they're escorting...but when the entire sales and marketing staff of the Curtis LeMay Canned Sunshine Company shows up for a house call, it's going to be ugly. The question isn't whether or not a few tactical nuclear devices are cheaper than a U.S. aircraft carrier....it's whether or not you're willing to trade a few naval bases and their associated population centers for said carrier.

The MRV's we know were meant to hit cities not tiny specks in the ocean.I can see one hitting the target but cant see multiple targets that small being hit accurately.

If a carrier gets sunk then they will respond very unreasonably with nukes.

When the nukes start flying carriers will be useless anyways

Originally posted by TheMindWar
If a carrier gets sunk then they will respond very unreasonably with nukes.

When the nukes start flying carriers will be useless anyways

I'm not sure that the sinking of an aircraft carrier by conventional means would result in a nuclear response. The 'nuclear threshold' is a line that all the major powers have (thankfully) shown considerable resistance to crossing. I wouldn't rule out a nuclear response, but I wouldn't consider it a certainty. On the other hand, if that carrier group is attacked by nuclear weapons, then you'd almost certainly see some form of 'in kind' response.

As for carriers being useless in a nuclear war, I wouldn't necessarily leap to that conclusion, either. Assuming that the carrier group commander is smart (a fairly safe assumption), finding the carrier group is a technical challenge...once you've found it, realizing what you've found is another challenge...then actually coordinating and executing an attack on a fast-moving target with layers of defense that extend outward for tens (if not hundreds) of miles is yet another. Fighting a carrier task group isn't a trivial exercise, even with nuclear weapons.

As I (and others) have noted in other threads...it's probably going to be much easier for an enemy to simply wear down the carrier's air wing until it has to retire from the theater.