Penetration aid
Encyclopedia
Intercontinental ballistic missile
An intercontinental ballistic missile is a ballistic missile with a long range typically designed for nuclear weapons delivery...
(ICBM) warhead's chances of penetrating a target's defenses. These can consist of both physical devices carried within the ICBM, as well as tactics that accompany its launch, and may include one or more of the following:
- the MIRV bus carrying the nuclear warheads can have some form of stealth technologyStealth technologyStealth technology also termed LO technology is a sub-discipline of military tactics and passive electronic countermeasures, which cover a range of techniques used with personnel, aircraft, ships, submarines, and missiles, to make them less visible to radar, infrared, sonar and other detection...
, thereby hindering detection before the warhead reentry vehicles are released. - chaffChaff (radar countermeasure)Chaff, originally called Window by the British, and Düppel by the Second World War era German Luftwaffe , is a radar countermeasure in which aircraft or other targets spread a cloud of small, thin pieces of aluminium, metallized glass fibre or plastic, which either appears as a cluster of secondary...
: Chaff wires may be deployed over a large area of space, creating a large, radar-reflecting object that will obscure incoming warheads from defensive radar. - decoyDecoyA decoy is usually a person, device or event meant as a distraction, to conceal what an individual or a group might be looking for. Decoys have been used for centuries most notably in game hunting, but also in wartime and in the committing or resolving of crimes.-Duck decoy:The term duck decoy may...
s: Decoys consist of mylar balloons that can be inflated in space and are designed to have the same radar characteristics as the warhead. Because the warhead and the decoy balloons may be at different temperatures, the warhead and the balloons may both be surrounded by heated shrouds that put them all at the same temperature. This defeats attempts to discriminate between decoys and warheads on the basis of temperature, which can confuse an enemy's missile defense systems. - Incidental or deliberate fragmentation of the final-stage rocket booster can cloud the enemy's radar by projecting a radar cross-section much larger than the actual missile.
- radarRadarRadar is an object-detection system which uses radio waves to determine the range, altitude, direction, or speed of objects. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The radar dish or antenna transmits pulses of radio...
jammers: These are transmitters that can be deployed on the decoys and the warhead to jam the frequencies used by defensive radars. - nuclear radar blackout: A nuclear device may be deliberately exploded in space by the attacker in order to provide a radar blackout that will allow subsequent warheads to pass through the enemy's defenses undetected.