MISSILE Flashcards
what are missile components
propellent war head guidance control
explain missile physics
Physics Basics
Momentum is quantity of motion of a moving body,
it is measured as a product of its mass and velocity
Formula
p = mv
p= momentum m= mass v= velocity
Force is equal to Mass x acceleration
Unit of force is Newton
unit of mass is kg
unit of acceleration is metre per second square
Acceleration is a rate of change of velocity of an object with respect to time.
Propulsion is the action of driving or pushing forward.
Thrust is a reaction force describe quantitatively by Newton’s third law when a system accelerate mass in one direction, the accelerated mass will cause of force of equal magnitude but opposite direction to be applied to that system.
So thrust is a force and its unit is Newton’s since it is a force but in opposite direction.
- Missile is a type of ammunition which can be guided from launch pad to target. A missile is a self-contained, self-propelled projectile with guidance system. Missiles are usually powered by rocket motor but need not be. Cruise missiles are propelled wholly or partly by jet engines.
- A Rocket designed to be installed in a vehicle (car, aircraft, spacecraft) as a propulsion system is technically, a “rocket motor” or a “rocket engine”
- Rocket is a self-propelled projectile without onboard guidance systems.
What is Counter Measure and Counter counter measure
Since aircraft designers usually want their aircraft to both takeoff AND land, they must adopt methods of protecting their planes against missiles. These techniques are called countermeasures (abbreviated CM) and consist of devices or methods intended specifically to spoof or fool incoming missiles. The missile designers, on the other hand, won’t get paid if their missiles don’t work, so they must develop counter-countermeasures (abbreviated CCM) that help their missiles ignore the counter measures.
To keep things from getting really confusing, designers usually don’t refer to CCCM’s or anything with more than two C’s. In general, CM usually refers to something an aircraft uses, while CCM refers to something a missile uses.
What is IR Guided Missile
IR guided missiles. missiles track the heat sources of an aircraft, which usually means the hot engines. There are several countermeasures that can be used against IR guided missiles, the three most common being infrared signature suppression, infrared flares infrared jamming.
What is Infrared signature suppression?
Infrared signature suppression is simply what it sounds like. If the infrared signature of an aircraft is low enough, a missile can have trouble finding the aircraft and tracking it. Here is an entertaining way to think of an IR missile versus an aircraft. Picture yourself as the IR missile…be the missile. Humans can’t see in infrared naturally, so we will use the visible spectrum in our example. Picture the aircraft you are after as a flashlight, which is a pretty good approximation of what a missile seeker would actually see. It is dusk, not very sunny but not yet dark. Just as in the visible spectrum, there is ambient infrared light in the atmosphere too
Let’s pretend you are hunting a MiG, which has big, hot jet engines. These engines would be comparable to the headlights of a car and are pretty easy to see against the background. In comparison, let’s pretend you are now hunting a helicopter, one with a new infrared suppressor. Instead of a bright light, it looks more like a cheap flashlight with rundown batteries. It’s a bit harder to see, isn’t it? When you consider that a missile doesn’t have quite the brain power you do, it gets even harder to see.
What are flares?
Now let’s look at infrared flares. IR flares are nothing more than fancy road flares designed to emit IR radiation that mimics that of an aircraft. They are used as decoys. When an aircraft is being threatened by an IR missile, it ejects flares in the hopes that the missile will go after the flare, and not the aircraft. Be the missile again…picture a bright flashlight traveling across your field of view. Suddenly, several other light sources “break off’ from the flashlight, and they look quite a bit like the flashlight you were following, and maybe even brighter. If you are a “dumb” missile, which light source do you go after?
What is Infrared jamming?
Infrared jamming is a technique that confuses a missile. Jammers are usually mounted on the aircraft they protect, and a common system is the ALQ-
144 (often called the “Disco Ball”). To understand how these systems work, picture yourself in a disco hall (like you didn’t see that one coming). All of the lights are out.
Picture John Travolta holding a small flashlight, right in front of the disco ball. As long as the disco ball is turned off, you can pick out the flashlight just fine. As soon as someone turns on the disco ball, though, you’d be hard pressed to tell what the flashlight was, and what the disco ball was.
Other jamming systems have the ability to “saturate” a seeker. Imagine yourself in the same dark room, with the same small flashlight. You can pinpoint the flashlight just fine, until someone turns on a World War II searchlight in your face. Now you can’t see much of anything, let alone the small flashlight.
What are the type of different missile guidance systems
Command guidance
homing or seeker guidance
beam Rider guidance
inertial navigation guidance
Why guided missiles are used what is its importance
Any weapon system should have as high a single shot kill probability as possible .
unguided weapons fails due to excessive mis distance,
due to incorrect direction of takeoff, by pertubration by wind or weather, or unpredictable movement of target after launch of missile.
To avoid all these problem a guided missile is the better solution.
