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Comment by stygianguest | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone know what the precision of these missiles are? I don't suppose they could be used for precision strikes in e.g. Afghanistan, or could they?

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ICBMs are reasonably accurate - a couple dozen meters - but there are far, far better options.

There are already plenty of airborne/seaborne cruise missiles and guided bombs in the region, with nearly pinpoint accuracy and much faster time-on-target. Much cheaper and less likely to start a nuclear war with Russia, too.

I don't think anyone knows the accuracy of this particular missile because no one seems to know whose missile it was.

Indeed, there are no conventionally-armed ICBMs or SLBMs, for precisely this "likely to start a nuclear war" reason.

As someone who's worked with ICBMs, I can say ceejayoz is incorrect. They are accurate to the low single-digit meters. Basically the tip top of GPS (and in some cases terrain avoidance radar) technology.

Very precise indeed, the reentry vehicles need to be able to change targets in midflight and evade anti-ballistic missile systems. Accuracy is crucial, as you need a much larger nuke to blow something up if your warhead is far way from the target

If you had an unlimited budget you could use space rockets to drop tiny bombs from the other side of the world, but it doesn't really make sense (like killing mosquitos with shotguns). Anyway, the payload is coming down at several kilometers a second, so that 'precise' strike will still destroy a large area from its kinetic energy alone.

The other problem with using ICBM's to drop conventional bombs / kinetics weapon is that Russia might get a little 'antsy' when we are launching rockets at Afghanistan.

Good point. Russia has the ability to detect our ICBM's, but they cannot distinguish the warhead, so it'd be impossible to determine whether we were nuking them or dropping a deuce on Afghanistan.

You guys are actually testing these right now - conventional warheads on ICBMs (SLBMs technically). Gates announced them (kinda) back in April. I believe the term they like to throw around is "prompt conventional global strike". Bush tried really hard to get a bunch of monies into these projects.

You have to admit, it does have kind of a boyish sci-fi type of appeal. Knock down a building from the other side of the world within 20 minutes.

But practically, it's quite possibly the worst idea ever. The ballistic missile tests we conduct right now are already announced well in advanced with missile tracks specifically chosen so it couldn't be mistaken for an actual strike. The limitations in use would be ridiculous. I mean, you'll have to aim around Russia and China. And even then, it's still playing with fire.

"And we have prompt global strike affording us some conventional alternatives on long-range missiles that we didn't have before." - Gates

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36362669/ns/meet_the_press/page/...

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