TheImmortal
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Speeds of around Mach 20-25 are orbital velocity speeds depending on your weight and altitude... Feel free to look it up and do your own calculations! So any missile capable of reaching those speeds will be an ICBM and not a 2500km missile!
Kinetic energy also has it's own formula feel free to look that up too and do your own calculation so if a 2000lb mass hits something at Mach 10 that impact alone will create 5,336 MJ of thermal energy which is a power equal to 1.28 tones of TNT now if I change that speed to Mach 20 the power would equal to 5 tones of TNT so basically you would have the power of a very tiny tactical nuke (smaller than Davy Crockettt) without the radioactive fallout with far better penetration capability which is even better than a nuke so you really wouldn't need explosives if you could actually achieve those speeds without burning up on impact....
If my calculations are wrong feel free to point them out!
And yes a missile with 8 RV's will be expensive but in terms of price if produced at home it wouldn't be much different than the cost of 8 missiles that can only carry 1 RV with launch platforms and everything else that they would need! And that's far more doable than something that would need to reach speeds of Mach 10 or higher within the atmosphere without it burning up
1) Incorrect the Missile doesn’t have to be an ICBM. Since HGV ride their own shockwaves during decent it allows to them to DOUBLE their range as they “glide” or “skip” at 50-100 KM alititude.
2) Assuming the KE of Shahab-3 warhead is based on release height (apogee) of the Missile. Do you have any relevant data?
Assuming the Shahab-3 releases 1000kg warhead at an apogee of 400 miles altitude that means it will achieve speeds of roughly Mach 10 before impact. However that doesn’t take into account atmospheric friction. Assuming standard atmospheric reduction of 30% on speed (US/Russia ICBM rates). That drops terminal velocity to Mach 7, that translates to KE of .75 TNT.
HOWEVER that is NOT the final step. That is merely the KE PRIOR to impact. To get actual impact force it relies on long the object travels AFTER impact. An object that has greater penetration has LESS force. In fact the most impact force is dealt by an object that BOUNCES on impact thus transfering greater change of momentum.
So how long does a 1000kg Emad warhead travel after impact? That is great question and one I don’t know. So what I did was just guess. Assuming a Emad warhead travels even 10 meters penetration upon impact....that reduces the KE of the object to MERELY .03 Tons of TNT.
I could be wrong here so feel free to double check my math.
Now if Iran develops a 3000KM and launches into straight into the air it will reach apogee of roughly 1500 KM which would translate to impact force of .35 tons of TNT almost a 10 factor fold increase. However, this assumes an highly efficient warhead with near zero atmospheric friction (unrealistic).
Now back to your Davey crocket which had a yield of 10-15 tons. For Iran to achieve even half that (5 tons). It would need an Missile with the following:
6,000KG warhead with ZERO speed loss due to atmospheric friction
Mach 22 speed
10 meter penetration on impact (unrealistic)
Even if the above factors hold then it achieves 4.5 tons TNT of IMPACT force.
Again check my math, as this isn’t my area of expertise.
This is why I am against Iran’s current BM strategy. It simply doesn’t make sense. If Iran wants to stay non-nuclear then it needs to focus on KE warheads with maximum impact transfer and HGV vehicles for greater probability of success as well as speed.