India's Anti-Satellite (ASAT) Weapons

[Enquirer]

If it is ballistic I wonder how they will be able to do terminal guidance as the ship will be moving and if the RV is heated up and has a plasma sheath around it ?
The so called Chinese carrier killer at the end of the day "killed" just an outline of a ship.
Any idea how this can be done ?

I was thinking that it would have a RF/SAR-Imaging seeker than an IIR seeker.
Atmospheric reentry is not a big issue because: firstly, the KV will be designed to be sleek (offer least resistance....much like an ICBM warhead); secondly if the seeker can get a target lock at around 100 kms and then plunges in with a 'firing solution' (forward looking), then it can hit the target in less than 10 seconds (the ship could barely more 100m in that time at top speed)!
I think for a sleek aerodynamic design, the RF seeker might still be fully functional till about 40-50kms altitude as the sleek design and rare atmosphere at higher altitudes would not create much plasma....so technically it'll be 5-6 seconds.

 

[Skdas]

I was thinking that it would have a RF/SAR-Imaging seeker than an IIR seeker.
Atmospheric reentry is not a big issue because: firstly, the KV will be designed to be sleek (offer least resistance....much like an ICBM warhead); secondly if the seeker can get a target lock at around 100 kms and then plunges in with a 'firing solution' (forward looking), then it can hit the target in less than 10 seconds (the ship could barely more 100m in that time at top speed)!
I think for a sleek aerodynamic design, the RF seeker might still be fully functional till about 40-50kms altitude as the sleek design and rare atmosphere at higher altitudes would not create much plasma....so technically it'll be 5-6 seconds.

Isn't the problem of finding the target in the first place... Hitting it is trivial...

 

[Enquirer]

Isn't the problem of finding the target in the first place... Hitting it is trivial...

You mean knowing where the target is before missile launch?
That has to be done via other surveillance capabilities. P8I being one; LEO sats will be the best option.

 

[Arihant Roy]

From the high def vid, it looks like we are using Hydrazine based thrusters for both DCS and ACS.

Though an evil substance, Hydrazine based thrusters can have a slower reacting valves due to lower ISP and that's what we can see in the vid too. Lower ISP results in more fuel burn hence bigger fuel tanks, hence bigger KKV.

I am sure this is what we did in 2 years... Give it another 5 and a good amount of DARPA style funding, DRDO will too have a hovering style KKV (like Raytheon one) and an unkil saying "aaall-right" as the background score of its test video.

Raytheon EKV and Leap too use hydrazine as a monopropellant. Hydrazine N2O4 combo. Hydrazine has a ISP of around 220. It's not exactly high and again not too low.

The reason for the humonguos KKV and the huge volume of propellant carried is to give the kill vehicle sufficient divert capability. The KKV can keep up with a maneuvering RV or the last stage that is rapidly changing trajectory because of the rather high amount of fuel carried .

Also the second stage coupled with the high divert capability enables the missile to be retargted in flight to take on a different set of targets.


Watch this video.



PDV MKII will have a double digit improvement in divert capability of the kill vehicle as compared to PDV. Plus there is a huge increase in the defended area. As a result, the no of batteries required to be deployed to protect a particular region will decrease.

 

[Enquirer]

From the high def vid, it looks like we are using Hydrazine based thrusters for both DCS and ACS.

Though an evil substance, Hydrazine based thrusters can have a slower reacting valves due to lower ISP and that's what we can see in the vid too. Lower ISP results in more fuel burn hence bigger fuel tanks, hence bigger KKV.

I am sure this is what we did in 2 years... Give it another 5 and a good amount of DARPA style funding, DRDO will too have a hovering style KKV (like Raytheon one) and an unkil saying "aaall-right" as the background score of its test video.

Highly doubt hydrazine was used.
That’s a fav fuel of ISRO and India’s first gen missiles (liquid fueled).

Hydrazine is a BAD fuel for defense products as it cannot to prefilled in the missile due to its corrosive nature. Even if one were to assume that LEO sat takedowns have sufficient lead times to fill fuel from external tanks, we need to keep in mind that this KKV is a actually further refinement of PDV’s KKV which requires instant reaction time (also there are high chances that this KKV will become part of BMD too)

 

[Arihant Roy]

Raytheon EKV and Leap too use hydrazine as a monopropellant. Hydrazine N2O4 combo. Hydrazine has a ISP of around 220. It's not exactly high and again not too low.

The reason for the humonguos KKV and the huge volume of propellant carried is to give the kill vehicle sufficient divert capability. The KKV can keep up with a maneuvering RV or the last stage that is rapidly changing trajectory because of the rather high amount of fuel carried .

Also the second stage coupled with the high divert capability enables the missile to be retargted in flight to take on a different set of targets.


Watch this video.



PDV MKII will have a double digit improvement in divert capability of the kill vehicle as compared to PDV. Plus there is a huge increase in the defended area. As a result, the no of batteries required to be deployed to protect a particular region will decrease.

Edit - Not as a monopropellant. As a bipropellant. Oxidizer MMH combo.

The EKV carries oxidizer tanks. The RKV on the other hand uses solid propellants.

 

[Skdas]

Highly doubt hydrazine was used.
That’s a fav fuel of ISRO and India’s first gen missiles (liquid fueled).

Hydrazine is a BAD fuel for defense products as it cannot to prefilled in the missile due to its corrosive nature. Even if one were to assume that LEO sat takedowns have sufficient lead times to fill fuel from external tanks, we need to keep in mind that this KKV is a actually further refinement of PDV’s KKV which requires instant reaction time (also there are high chances that this KKV will become part of BMD too)

The yellow plume from the DRDO captive test vid was a dead give away... And I agree, it's literally devil's piss.

 

[happylion]

You mean knowing where the target is before missile launch?
That has to be done via other surveillance capabilities. P8I being one; LEO sats will be the best option.

But how will the information be passed one especially if there is a hypersonic war head.In the example you quoted 100 meters would not cut it for a ship - it owuld have to be single digit meters to have a meaningful kill. A true aircraft carrier killer would have to be accurate to " break the spine" of the carrier which is indeed difficult due to the multiple isolatable compartments that will prevent it from capsizing. See how USS Cole with that big rent in it continued to float along merrily even with that huge gash in it. Smaller ships of course could be finished but then they will all the more be difficult to target unless they have accurate guidance.
Probably a lot of these have to be overcome before true ballistic ship killers are produced. Hypersonic guided missiles would be differentin the sense that they are still guided through .
I wonder how the Avanguard is fed targeting information though it will be used against fixed targets so could be entirely preprogrammed.

 

[happylion]

FWIW when we talk of hypersonic boost glide weapons we must not forget we have one - Shaurya albeit its range is around 700 Kms

 

[Jameson Emoni]

WION chews out America on its hypocrisy.
...............................

The NASA chief took it upon himself to pick a quarrel with ISRO. I do not think his views are approved by US government.

 

[Enquirer]

But how will the information be passed one especially if there is a hypersonic war head.In the example you quoted 100 meters would not cut it for a ship - it owuld have to be single digit meters to have a meaningful kill. A true aircraft carrier killer would have to be accurate to " break the spine" of the carrier which is indeed difficult due to the multiple isolatable compartments that will prevent it from capsizing. See how USS Cole with that big rent in it continued to float along merrily even with that huge gash in it. Smaller ships of course could be finished but then they will all the more be difficult to target unless they have accurate guidance.
Probably a lot of these have to be overcome before true ballistic ship killers are produced. Hypersonic guided missiles would be differentin the sense that they are still guided through .
I wonder how the Avanguard is fed targeting information though it will be used against fixed targets so could be entirely preprogrammed.

Did I mention 'firing solution'? It already estimates where the ship would be in the seconds ahead!
Also 100m is the distance a ship could possibly traverse once the lock is acquired....not necessarily when the lock is lost due to plasma (if any. I totally doubt if it'll come to that)

 

[shuvo@y2k10]

I think quasi-ballistic missiles with depressed trajectory like our K series (land variants) can be used to target ships but mid-couse guidance should be provided by OTOH ground radars, awacs and satellites.

 

[Skdas]

Ok can someone comment, How difficult will it be to put a medium size nuke inside the KKV package and use the entire thing as ABM defeating nuke warhead ?

It would be funny to see KKV like interceptor intercepting this warhead. Both making identical course correction like Ninja warriors, albeit with the background score of divert thrusters firing...!

 

[Kay]

I think quasi-ballistic missiles with depressed trajectory like our K series (land variants) can be used to target ships but mid-couse guidance should be provided by OTOH ground radars, awacs and satellites.

We need a DF-21 equivalent carrier killer.

 

[Arihant Roy]

Ok can someone comment, How difficult will it be to put a medium size nuke inside the KKV package and use the entire thing as ABM defeating nuke warhead ?

It would be funny to see KKV like interceptor intercepting this warhead. Both making identical course correction like Ninja warriors, albeit with the background score of divert thrusters firing...!

You want us to go back to the mid 60s and 70s. Is this what you want?

Read up about A-35 program that defended Moscow. A-35 used ABM-1 Galosh which used a 1 MT nuclear warhead to incinerate the incoming RVs. Then the follow up A-135 program used this similar approach up until recently.

The 51T6 ABM-3 which is an exo atmospheric interceptor of the A-135 used a 10 kT warhead. The 53T6 ABM-4 also used a 10kt fission device uptil the newer 53T6M interceptor came. This uses a conventional warhead and is part of the A-235 system. Look up Gorgon and Gazelle.

You know what they used a nuclear warhead in the first place . Because the interceptors were expected to be nowhere within a km of the incoming RV or end stages. They were expected to miss due to unavailability of high resolution seekers/absence of seekers(Galsoh was a command link guided missile), adequate guidance tech, technology limitations of the 70s and 80s.

Thats why they used nukes so as to ensure even if the warheads are 2-3 kms away, they would be neutralised.

Galosh used a MT warhead because the miss distances involved were even higher.



Plus, I am overlooking radioactive fallout and other things associated with a nuclear blast at such high altitude. READ EMP generation.


And you want us to demote ourselves and install a nuclear warhead in the KKV and create a mess? Make us a laughing stock?
When we have the hit to kill capability with less than 10 cm accuracy to execute a clean kinetic kill without even using explosives ? Like Unkil THAAD and EKV and Leap kill vehicles?
Either you must be joking or it's a poor attempt at being sarcastic.

 

[Aaj ka hero]

You want us to go back to the mid 60s and 70s. Is this what you want?

Read up about A-35 program that defended Moscow. A-35 used ABM-1 Galosh which used a 1 MT nuclear warhead to incinerate the incoming RVs. Then the follow up A-135 program used this similar approach up until recently.

The 51T6 ABM-3 which is an exo atmospheric interceptor of the A-135 used a 10 kT warhead. The 53T6 ABM-4 also used a 10kt fission device uptil the newer 53T6M interceptor came. This uses a conventional warhead and is part of the A-235 system. Look up Gorgon and Gazelle.

You know what they used a nuclear warhead in the first place . Because the interceptors were expected to be nowhere within a km of the incoming RV or end stages. They were expected to miss due to unavailability of high resolution seekers/absence of seekers(Galsoh was a command link guided missile), adequate guidance tech, technology limitations of the 70s and 80s.

Thats why they used nukes so as to ensure even if the warheads are 2-3 kms away, they would be neutralised.

Galosh used a MT warhead because the miss distances involved were even higher.



Plus, I am overlooking radioactive fallout and other things associated with a nuclear blast at such high altitude. READ EMP generation.


And you want us to demote ourselves and install a nuclear warhead in the KKV and create a mess? Make us a laughing stock?
When we have the hit to kill capability with less than 10 cm accuracy to execute a clean kinetic kill without even using explosives ? Like Unkil THAAD and EKV and Leap kill vehicles?
Either you must be joking or it's a poor attempt at being sarcastic.

Where will the kill vehicle nuclear warhead will detonate....... in ISS orbit or in earth lower atmosphere?
Can you answer me.

 

[Skdas]

You want us to go back to the mid 60s and 70s. Is this what you want?

Read up about A-35 program that defended Moscow. A-35 used ABM-1 Galosh which used a 1 MT nuclear warhead to incinerate the incoming RVs. Then the follow up A-135 program used this similar approach up until recently.

The 51T6 ABM-3 which is an exo atmospheric interceptor of the A-135 used a 10 kT warhead. The 53T6 ABM-4 also used a 10kt fission device uptil the newer 53T6M interceptor came. This uses a conventional warhead and is part of the A-235 system. Look up Gorgon and Gazelle.

You know what they used a nuclear warhead in the first place . Because the interceptors were expected to be nowhere within a km of the incoming RV or end stages. They were expected to miss due to unavailability of high resolution seekers/absence of seekers(Galsoh was a command link guided missile), adequate guidance tech, technology limitations of the 70s and 80s.

Thats why they used nukes so as to ensure even if the warheads are 2-3 kms away, they would be neutralised.

Galosh used a MT warhead because the miss distances involved were even higher.



Plus, I am overlooking radioactive fallout and other things associated with a nuclear blast at such high altitude. READ EMP generation.


And you want us to demote ourselves and install a nuclear warhead in the KKV and create a mess? Make us a laughing stock?
When we have the hit to kill capability with less than 10 cm accuracy to execute a clean kinetic kill without even using explosives ? Like Unkil THAAD and EKV and Leap kill vehicles?
Either you must be joking or it's a poor attempt at being sarcastic.

I think you got me wrong or my post wasn't conductive of my idea.

I want the divert mechanism and the IR sensor to be on a Mt warhead destined to a ground/sea target under heavy ABM cover. The extra sensor and thrusters allows it to dodge other KKVs fielded against it.

And it's seriously outlandish to use a nuke against a BM warhead, that may or may not contain a nuke...

 

[cyclops]

........................... . .. ...... .......

 

[Arihant Roy]

And it's seriously outlandish to use a nuke against a BM warhead, that may or may not contain a nuke...

All these time, nuke warheads were used in ballistic missile defense interceptors.
For example
Galsoh
51T6 ABM-3
53T6 ABM-4
It's the same story with US ballistic missile defense programs. Spartan.

Only recently, did they swap 10 kT nuclear warheads with conventional ones in the 53T6M and the upcoming PL-19.

It may seem outlandish to you, but this was how it was all these days.

I want the divert mechanism and the IR sensor to be on a Mt warhead destined to a ground/sea target under heavy ABM cover. The extra sensor and thrusters allows it to dodge other KKVs fielded against it.

Well you must understand, these divert thrustershad been used as a reaction control system since there isn't any atmosphere . It's space. So your aerodynamic control surfaces wouldn't work. But when you are talking about a anti ship missile ballistic missile, you won't be needing DCAS. Control surfaces like all movable canards, etc would work fine. Why do you need to add weight and complexity when there are simple means at hand.


K-15 and it's land based variant Shaurya can be used as an anti ballistic missile. But no one wants to brandish this capability since it is going to raise eyebrows from the Goras. A few mods can turn the Shaurya into a robust and accurate asbm . Like A5 is said to have a 5000 km range so that Theresa May is comfortable and can sleep well at night knowing that no Indian missiles can ever reach UK or come within 500 kms of Buckingham Palace.

 

[Chinmoy]

But how will the information be passed one especially if there is a hypersonic war head.In the example you quoted 100 meters would not cut it for a ship - it owuld have to be single digit meters to have a meaningful kill. A true aircraft carrier killer would have to be accurate to " break the spine" of the carrier which is indeed difficult due to the multiple isolatable compartments that will prevent it from capsizing. See how USS Cole with that big rent in it continued to float along merrily even with that huge gash in it. Smaller ships of course could be finished but then they will all the more be difficult to target unless they have accurate guidance.
Probably a lot of these have to be overcome before true ballistic ship killers are produced. Hypersonic guided missiles would be differentin the sense that they are still guided through .
I wonder how the Avanguard is fed targeting information though it will be used against fixed targets so could be entirely preprogrammed.

Spine of any AC is its flying deck. Once you take out the deck, it would simply loss its utility in the flotilla. So you don't essentially need a warhead with 0 CEP. You just need something to carry a package near enough to do the damage.