North Korean ICBM altitude question

News-media has been stating that the altitude of this rocket was 1700 miles. At first, I thought they were confusing altitude with range. 1700 miles up? Nearly nine million feet? The International Space Station circles the Earth at about 200 miles high. What am I overlooking or missing here?

 

They sent it very high and short. Effective range is 4100 miles at 500 miles up....
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

They blasted it up through a bunch of LEO satellites, including the ISS at ~230 nm,using most of the propulsive Delta V to go up (~1500 nm) instead of downrange. ICBMs usually apogee at 3-4M' (~500-650 nm), using most of their Delta V to go downrange. Many ICBMs actually have enough Delta V to put a small satellite into orbit.

 

So... was this just a Roman candle? All thrust and no steering?

Matt

 

Like a metaphoric "2-pump chump" of rockets? And all that matters is good video footage of successful launches to air on state TV in the evening? That kind of altitude from an ICBM is crazy. Wouldn't think you would have to design the package for re-entry into Earth's atmosphere.
Of the Western countries with ICBMs, do the missles have guidance technology resulting in accuracy within 1 meter? Is NK's program still in a primitive "point 'n shoot" stage?

Thanks for everyone's replies!

 

Yes, of course it has steering...

The engine nozzles swivel to provide directional stability. Many rockets of this type do that.

It was programmed for this flight profile. They did not want it to hit anything.

 

This handwringing about Kim Ill Dung and north Korea brings back memories of Hitler's rise in 1937. Nobody did anything but to worry and just let it happen.

 

In general, ICBMs fly what is known as a min energy profile followed by releasing reentry vehicles from a precision release platform that points very accurately. The RVs themselves are unguided, for the most part, and follow a very precise ballistic trajectory after release. CEPs for our and foreign systems are classified, but in general, ours have been better than theirs. Since most of these systems are air-bursts, 1 meter accuracy is overkill. The US (and other nations) are working on guided nuclear weapons and RVs for improved accuracy.

 

In the future, it will be a success (from NK's point of view) if they hit any American area with special ordnance. It does not have to be a bullseye directed at Los Angeles City Hall.Alaskan wilderness would be good to go (from the NK perspective).

 

Then crazy Kim would enjoy 200 cruise missiles returned to him.

 

NK is a tough nut to crack. 200 cruise missiles will not do much to 10,000-15,000 artillery tubes aimed at the 25M+ people in the Seoul area. Tactical nukes are about the only effective counter to that, and nobody wants to go there. Sort of like the entire Warsaw Pact from the olden days crammed into one little area only 135 nm wide. Fulda Gap all over again.

One answer now is to just shoot down every missile they launch. No telling what the response would be, though.

 

Do wind velocities make much of a difference in the accuracy?

Obviously high altitude winds can be significant, and I would think a 150kt wind on even a fairly small projectile would make some difference in where it ends up.

 

Don- At the velocities these RVs reenter, winds make very little difference. Spin it up on your whiz wheel and use mach 10 or about 6000 knots as an average and you will see the winds do not push one much. Time of flight in the winds at those velocities (~23,000 fps down to ~ 5000 fps) is pretty short, too. Conversion factor for knots to fps is ~1.69, 6076.1/3600.

 

It would be just like Iraq. Cruise missiles and stealth would take out the SAM sites, then bombers would go in and take out everything else. The real problem would be the nukes, depending on how many they have. Just setting them off in the atmosphere might kill everyone in Japan from the fallout. Like Pearl Harbor, and 911, we should have seen this coming.

 

Nope, not at all like Iraq, and I was there for Desert Storm dropping bombs. When that war started, we already had a huge contingent of US ground, naval and air forces forward deployed in Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations. Not so in Korea. Plus the North Koreans will fight much harder than the Iraqis did.

 

There was no huge contingent already there when the Gulf War started.

Fighting troops are not going to be the problem with NK. It's the nukes.

 

I think the bigger problem with NK will be there willingness to release the full extent of their armament against SK at the first hint of western aggression. Nuclear, chemical, biological, or whatever....all missiles will fly at once.




Mark

 

NK's ultimate aim, will result with multiple dispersed 3-stage ICBM's sitting on alert. It will be real fun, when they can attach solid-fuel ICBM's, to road mobile trucks. Dr. Falken, shall we play shell games .

 

scary stuff going on

 

Why do you suppose they ditched it in the Sea of Japan?

It seems both riskier in terms of hitting something, and also a miss at making a more agressive statement, as in we can almost reach California, but certainly Hawaii.

Why wouldn't they dump it in the Pacific?

Or: who is their message addressed to?

Matt

 

Spice- Of course there was a huge contingent there when Desert Storm started, look it up. We started moving forces there in August 1990, shortly after Kuwait was invaded. I flew down from RAF Lakenheath in late August, 1990 with the first contingent of F-111Fs to Taif, Saudi Arabia. We carried our own PGMs with us because there were none prepositioned in Saudi Arabia at that time. We moved huge numbers of forces into the Persian Gulf for four months before the war kicked off on 16 January 1991 and we trained extensively during those 4 months. By the end of October we had 64 F-111Fs and all the parts, munitions, personnel, etc we needed to fight an extended conflict. Other units of aircraft were scattered all over the Persian Gulf by October. Ground, air and sea forces from multiple nations were ready to go when the war kicked off.

Did you miss the part where I said I was there?

Fighting troops will indeed be a problem if a war kicks off in North Korea, especially if it has limited warning. We are heavily outnumbered and outgunned by the North Koreans, and our land and naval air forces have a limited capability to stop an invasion before it gets into the Seoul area's vast population.

 

I was a contractor myself at the time, so I remember it well. Saddam could have marched right into KSA with nothing to stop him. In fact I was surprised he didn't, and it was a fatal tactical error on his part. We have many more assets in SK/Japan now by comparison. But ground troops won't matter much when you start tossing nukes around. And that's the way it's looking right now. In fact US strategy has been to move a number of troops out of SK, which is prudent, IMO.

 

Korea would be different. Hopefully the NK's don't push the lines back to Pusan. Tuff call for tactical air power to stop armor, infantry, and artillery. Just a single A-10 Sq - the 25th Fighter Squadron is stationed in SK. Of course, additional CONUS units would be deployed.

 

There's plenty of assets close by like these Lancers on Guam. And this is exactly what they're training for.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/07/08/united-states-north-korea-strategic-bombers/461535001/


And yes, tactical air power is effective.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhmXleZXAr0

 

Spice- Long drive from Guam to NK and the B-1B is susceptible to advanced and even older air defenses. All our air bases in South Korea will be vulnerable to ballistic missiles, too, that are a lot more accurate than the Scuds were in Desert Storm. THAAD may not be able to get all, or even most, of them. Plus those Bones are just TDY there, not permanently stationed. This is not SWA, where the bad guys generally have no air forces or air defenses (except the Syrians and Russians) and the Bones can just cruise overhead dropping JDAMs. A-10s will have a rough time, too. The F-22s from Alaska and Hawaii will help, but numbers are very limited and not sure we want to risk them from airfields at risk. They can only carry a small number of weapons, too. SDBs will help.

I am afraid you just do not get how bad it could get there in the short term. Nor did you understand how Desert Shield and Desert Storm unfolded. Contractor for what?