Offtopic stuff from the Ukriane war thread1

They're ballistic missiles because they follow a ballistic trajectory. i.e. they're not powered throughout their flight

But nowhere does it say that they can't correct their ballistic trajectory

ALAMO wrote:
It is not a ballistic missile, because it can maneuver at both active and passive phases.
It still uses a ballistic trajectory, that can be changed/adjusted if needed.

I dare say that principle applies to a great number of BALLISTIC missiles of various classes.
Ever since the V-2 rockets some form of TV was implemented to do coarse corrections during flight.
Mind you without TV the rocket would probably end up near the launch pad when the motor runs out!

ALAMO wrote:
True!
V2 used two gyroscopes that controlled deviations and sent signals to two electric motors that corrected 8 fins to keep on the path.

Also true! But lets not forget that the V2 was also the first rocket to use graphite vanes that also helped to control the flight path of the rocket.

Well that's a whole page of interesting but way off topic discussion that I waded through in the hope of finding something relevant to Ukraine..

Paging Garry to move it somewhere else.

Making a HGV is the easy part btw.

Taming the plasma sheath, so you can pass through data through the radio opaque shroud is the hard part.

Otherwise you are limited to nuclear payloads or cassette warheads.

Only two countries have demonstrated this capability.
Russia and Yemen.

Yemen I doubt makes their missiles per se and HEAVILY doubt they are manoeuvrable once heading to the target directly.

They are assembling it.  Most of their earlier missiles were jerry rigged AD missiles like S-75 missiles being used as ballistic.  Now I think most are just Iranian missiles being assembled in Yemen.  The guidance is most likely gyroscopes.

Unless there is examples of the missiles seen.

Iskander was always said to be a quasi ballistic missile.

It is a ballistic missile, unless we are talking about the maneuvering subsonic version.

What?

Do you think a ballistic missile is just a rocket powered missile?

The Iskander is rocket powered but unlike most similar missiles it has its rocket motor running from launch to impact. Its external fins are fixed and are only for stabilisation. When the rocket motor stops burning in an Iskander or Kinzhal then it can no longer manouver... it will just continue on its trajectory like a rock.

A ballistic weapon is unpowered for most of its flight.... like a bomb. Even a guided bomb has a ballistic flight path with control surfaces that can steer it one way or another but it does not "fly" like a cruise missile.

The Iskander flys like a cruise missile to its target... it climbs to high altitude and then flies towards its target and then dives on it like a cruise missile.

A ballistic missile is accelerated to high speed, during which it climbs to altitude... and then the engine stops and it continues on its way towards its target in a parabolic flight path and then falls in the general direction of the target... onboard guidance and navigation equipment and terminal seekers can be used to operate external flight controls to manouver the weapon to hit the target directly but it is only flight correction before impact... it is not manouvering or evading.

The iskander flys all the way to the target and has onboard sensors to detect air defences for which it can release jammers and decoys and also manouver to evade interception and steers itself to its aim point to hit the target.

The subsonic version is a cruise missile and not ballistic either.

Change the soft to keep a ballistic trajectory and you have a 700-800km range ballistic missile.

The rocket motor burns all the way till impact 500km away, so if you made it a ballistic weapon you could use the fuel right up to 500km to accelerate and climb, which means the remaining energy from very high altitude and very high speed could be used to extend range to probably 1,000km but you would have to add external control fins to steer the missile on its ballistic return to earth and to get close to the target and counter the spin of the earth and crosswinds etc.

Yes, that's true. The apogee of the parabola is about 50 km. The question is whether there is enough air at that altitude to maneuver the aerodynamic controls.

It doesn't have aerodynamic controls... it has thrust vector fins inside the rocket motor. The tiny tail fins are fixed strakes to stabilise the missile in flight.

Iskander M and Kinzhal, despite their aeroballistic trajectory, are still ballistic missiles, I don't know where any doubts arise from.

Ballistic means unpowered... like a thrown rock. Iskander is powered all the way to the target like a plane or a cruise missile.

SSMs are considered ballistic missiles.

Tomahawk has a ground launched missile... is it a ballistic missile?

There are SRBM and MRBM and IRBM and ICBM... short range, medium range, intermediate range, and also intercontinental range BALLISTIC MISSILES.

But there are also SRCM and MRCM and IRCM and ICCM.... short range medium range intermediate range and intercontinental range cruise missiles that are NOT ballistic because they fly using wings.

The thing is that flying above Mach 5 and you get body lift that makes wings unnecessary... in fact it creates more drag than lift.

If you had a mach 5 aircraft then it would have wings but they would count against it at mach 5 plus speeds.

The Iskander flies at mach 6 to mach 7 so wings would just add drag and weight.... body lift drag is enough to keep it flying at its normal operational flight speeds and altitudes.

The tiny tail mounted strakes are fixed and are just stabilisers. The actual control surfaces are inside the engine exhaust and work like the thrust vectoring pads in an R-73 AAM that direct the rocket exhaust to manouver the weapon.

It only works while the rocket motor is burning.

Ballistic weapons generally have a first part powered flight and a majority coasting and then falling flight unpowered.

Another reason Kinzhal and Iskander are not ballistic weapons.

This includes the ATACMS and the previous gen Lance missile sytems.

And Smerch and Grad and FROG-7 and lots of other ballistic weapons... which are different from the Iskander and Kinzhal.

Thrust vectoring only works when the rocket engine is running. The Iskander engine does not work for a time, only for a few dozen seconds. Simple. In the initial phase of flight, the Iskander can maneuver on TVC, but not in the terminal phase.

Why the **** would you make a ballistic missile that can perform amazing turns a few seconds after launch but can't even manouver when it gets to its target area?

The R-73 has thrust vectoring because it has high off boresight capability and if you launch it at a closing target the thrust vectoring allows it to turn extremely hard off the pylon and follow a target flying past the aircraft that launched it and hit it behind while keeping the nose seeker of the missile locked on the target.

For a ground launched ballistic missile there is zero value in being about to use high manouver capability a few seconds after launch... or even a few minutes... because all it will be doing is climbing and accelerating to as high a speed and high an altitude as it can achieve... it wont need to perform any manouvers till it approaches its target... when you claim it wont be running its rocket motor.

Once again. Thrust vectoring on ballistic missiles is called gas-dynamic control. It is on many ballistic missiles. For example, Topol. Iskander can maneuver throughout the entire flight, but on the part without the engine on, it does it with aerodynamic controls.

Show us the aerodynamic controls for the Iskander...

How about these graphite vanes on the good old Elbrus (Scud) that controls the flight path of the missile by redirecting the thrust of the rocket blast. Pretty much thrust vectoring I'd say

Very true, but Scud does not run its rocket motor all the way to the target, and nor does it perform manouvers near the target to evade air defence like the Iskander does and the Kinzhal does... which is why Scuds would get shot down every time up against Russian or Soviet air defences and Iskanders and Kinzhals might not be shot down every time.

The Temp (Scaleboard) seems to have actuators directly linked to the (TV) nozzles.

Which enables it to roll in the direction the target is in at launch, but being a multi stage missile those TVC wont be available when the missile approaches the target area.

Iskander also has similar blades to control the direction of TVC thrust as well as aerodynamic rudders. The aerodynamic controls are marked.

Those are fixed stabilisation fins.

Perhaps the Iskander has some additional small gas generators that are activated for powerful maneuvers when the main engine is turned off. For example, the 9M96 have side gas generators for performing powerful maneuvers before hitting the target.

It is a four ton missile with a flight range of 500km... work it out for yourself... for 800kg a SMERCH rocket can reach 90km and for 815kg it can reach 120km... with four tons of solid rocket fuel it is going to go rather more than 500km if it is ballistic... but it isn't.

Mir wrote:

Arrow wrote:
Most missiles have TVC control.

That's a fact

Most ballistic missiles and space rockets have engine steering to launch and to roll in the direction they need to head because they usually start off flying way to slow for their tiny fins and strakes to turn them in the direction they need to go.

Mir wrote:

Perfect photo... thanks Mir. Proof they don't move. Those square blocks the fins are set into have no mechanism to turn or space to turn... those are fixed strakes.

No it can't.

Like most long range air to air missiles the Iskander has two types of solid rocket fuel... a high energy fast burning type to accelerate and climb and a slower burning lower energy fuel that burns much further... in this case, all the way to the target... which allows thrust vectoring control all the way to impact.

However, even though Iskander maneuvers, it is described as quasi-ballistic, and by the Russians themselves. Here the terminology is a bit blurred.

If it was ballistic, why would they call it quasi ballistic?

The definition of quasi is "seemingly but not actually... in other words Quasi Ballistic means it appears to be ballistic but it is NOT.

They're ballistic missiles because they follow a ballistic trajectory. i.e. they're not powered throughout their flight

It has already been established they don't fly a ballistic trajectory... they climb to about 50km and then level off and fly to the target area and then dive... that is not ballistic.

Ballistic is an artillery shell... it is accelerate to speed and pointed in the direction of the target... it is lobbed up into the air and essentially falls on the target... that is what ballistic means.... unpowered and generally inaccurate.

Modern ballistic missiles obviously have very precise aiming and are able to make small flight corrections before impact to improve accuracy.

If that was the case then Iskander would be easy to shoot down... like ATACMS are getting shot down now because they are just guided ballistic missiles.

So why are Iskander and Kinzhals getting through if they are just useless ballistic rockets?

Russian bias... maybe Gaijan is cheating and faking the numbers...

It still uses a ballistic trajectory, that can be changed/adjusted if needed.
Point.

No, it doesn't... if it was ballistic then it would go higher and be much easier to shoot down.

True!
V2 used two gyroscopes that controlled deviations and sent signals to two electric motors that corrected 8 fins to keep on the path.

Most such missiles used gyroscopes for part of the navigation system to roll in the direction of the target or into an orbital path, and also to stop it going anywhere else with liquid fuels sloshing around and changing the cg as they burned.

Paging Garry to move it somewhere else.

Trying to decide between an Iskander thread or talking bollocks thread because this is not the first discussion on this...

Iskander was always said to be a quasi ballistic missile.

And what is the definition of quasi?

Apparently being but not actually being.

It can also mean almost... but not actually.

In other words quasi ballistic means seems ballistic but isn't, or almost ballistic... but isn't.

Moving off topic stuff... 3,2,1..

GarryB wrote:Perfect photo... thanks Mir. Proof they don't move. Those square blocks the fins are set into have no mechanism to turn or space to turn... those are fixed strakes.

So you completely ignored my first image of the Iskander fins that indicates otherwise?!

Here is another clear picture of the fins on the Iskander. The areas marked in blue seems to indicated moveable fins.



The Iskander-E as well...



Iskander-M again...they don't look fixed at all.

Arrow wrote:
The small jets marked in red are interesting. Could it be for corrections in a very thin atmosphere?

Yes definitely small thrusters.