President Putin revives Project Pluto.

[AtomKraft]

Sorry about the alliteration, but it seems that Russia is developing a nuclear powered supersonic cruise missile.

He might think it's his own idea, but it's been done before....in 1964- SLAM- Supersonic Low Altitude Missile

The '64 missile was a true airborne dreadnought designed to bomb the Russkis back to the Stone Age with up to 26 nukes, and the ability to drop them one at a time on very widely separated targets.
With the bombs gone, it could then be programmed to charge around the country at very low level, for possibly months at a time gradually destroying all life with a combination of its Mach 3 shock wave and highly radioactive exhaust.
When that was all used up, the grand finale was for it to crash into its last target leaving it highly radiated and probably uninhabitable.

I hope Mr. Putins' new idea is more moderate in nature....

[John Hill]

Can't Trump just tell Putin that he is not allowed nuclear weapons?

[AtomKraft]

For the edification of anyone who's interested.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto



https://jalopnik.com/the-flying-crowbar ... 1435286216

[Boac]

Don't fret, y'all - get your defence kit here https://www.westsussextoday.co.uk/news/ ... -1-8400125

[AtomKraft]

Experts aghast. Goodness!

https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/ ... mited-rang

To be fair, Pluto/ SLAM/ Flying Crowbar was about as mad as these things get. A true 'Doomsday' weapon.
If the US has to face Mr. Putins' version of it, at least they can claim that they thought of it first!

[Boac]

Can anyone explain SIMPLY how to propel a missile by nuclear means?

[Cacophonix]

Experts aghast. Goodness!

https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/ ... mited-rang

To be fair, Pluto/ SLAM/ Flying Crowbar was about as mad as these things get. A true 'Doomsday' weapon.
If the US has to face Mr. Putins' version of it, at least they can claim that they thought of it first!

About as mad as the whole concept of nuclear war itself with the concepts of non ballistic hypersonic flight profiles plus the extension of the salted bomb thrown in for extra insanity!

Salted nuclear weapons

Sady with the various dingbats in power in America and the weakness of the Russian gangster state, and its inferiority complex, the world has become a far more dangerous place what the erosion of Cold War communications protocols and Trump's clear mental instability and stupidity!

According to the Kremlin, Russia was spurred into action by U.S. Pres. George W. Bush’s Dec. 13, 2001 decision to withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. However, while the Russians are developing a host of new weapons, there will likely be little overall impact on the strategic balance between Moscow and Washington.

The real problem is that these developments strain the hard-won arms control regime that played a decisive role in helping bring the Cold War with the Soviet Union to a close. Moreover, as tensions between the United States and Russia continue to increase, the two great powers seem to be drifting into what can only be described as a new Cold War.

“During all these years since the unilateral US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, we have been working intensively on advanced equipment and arms, which allowed us to make a breakthrough in developing new models of strategic weapons,” Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin said during a March 1 address to the Federal Assembly.

Let me recall that the United States is creating a global missile defense system primarily for countering strategic arms that follow ballistic trajectories. These weapons form the backbone of our nuclear deterrence forces, just as of other members of the nuclear club.”

To counter what the Kremlin sees as the United States’ goal of undermining Russia’s strategic nuclear deterrent, Moscow has embarked on a program to develop new weapons capable of defeating any new American ballistic missile defense system.

“Russia has developed, and works continuously to perfect, highly effective but modestly priced systems to overcome missile defense. They are installed on all of our intercontinental ballistic missile complexes,” Putin said. “In addition, we have embarked on the development of the next generation of missiles.”

Among those weapons is the formidable Sarmat heavy liquid-fuelled intercontinental ballistic missile, which is being developed as a replacement for the massive 210-ton R-36M2 Voevoda, which is appropriately called the SS-18 Satan by NATO. The weapon flies on novel trajectories to thwart any attempt at interception by missile defenses.

“Sarmat will replace the Voevoda system made in the USSR. Its immense power was universally recognized. Our foreign colleagues even gave it a fairly threatening name,” Putin said.

“The capabilities of the Sarmat missile are much higher. Weighing over 200 tons, it has a short boost phase, which makes it more difficult to intercept for missile defense systems. The range of the new heavy missile, the number and power of its combat blocs is bigger than Voevoda’s. Sarmat will be equipped with a broad range of powerful nuclear warheads, including hypersonic, and the most modern means of evading missile defense. The high degree of protection of missile launchers and significant energy capabilities the system offers will make it possible to use it in any conditions.”

What makes the Sarmat particularly formidable is the weapons’ ability to fly a trajectory over the South Pole, completely bypassing any current U.S. missile defense system. “It can attack targets both via the North and South poles,” Putin said. “Sarmat is a formidable missile and, owing to its characteristics, is untroubled by even the most advanced missile defense systems.”

While the Sarmat was well known to Western experts, the Putin highlighted a host of non-ballistic missiles — some of which were known and some of which are new — that would bypass American missile defenses. One such weapon is a nuclear-powered cruise missile — a prototype of which the Russians have already tested.

“One of them is a small-scale heavy-duty nuclear energy unit that can be installed in a missile like our latest X-101 air-launched missile or the American Tomahawk missile — a similar type but with a range dozens of times longer, dozens, basically an unlimited range,” Putin said. “It is a low-flying stealth missile carrying a nuclear warhead, with almost an unlimited range, unpredictable trajectory and ability to bypass interception boundaries. It is invincible against all existing and prospective missile defense and counter-air defense systems.”

Putin also highlighted the Status-6 intercontinental-range nuclear torpedo, which would be powered by a compact nuclear reactor and carry a massive 100-megaton warhead.
“We have developed unmanned submersible vehicles that can move at great depths—I would say extreme depths—intercontinentally, at a speed multiple times higher than the speed of submarines, cutting-edge torpedoes and all kinds of surface vessels, including some of the fastest,” Putin said.

“It is really fantastic. They are quiet, highly maneuverable and have hardly any vulnerabilities for the enemy to exploit. There is simply nothing in the world capable of withstanding them. Unmanned underwater vehicles can carry either conventional or nuclear warheads, which enables them to engage various targets, including aircraft groups, coastal fortifications and infrastructure.”

Putin also pointed to a heretofore-unknown hypersonic dual-capable nuclear and conventional air launched cruise missile called the Dagger — or Kinzhal in Russian — which Russia recently tested. Indeed, Putin said that the weapon is already starting to enter service with the Russian military.

“Its tests have been successfully completed, and, moreover, on December 1 of last year, these systems began their trial service at the airfields of the Southern Military District,” Putin said.

“The unique flight characteristics of the high-speed carrier aircraft allow the missile to be delivered to the point of discharge within minutes. The missile flying at a hypersonic speed, 10 times faster than the speed of sound, can also maneuver at all phases of its flight trajectory, which also allows it to overcome all existing and, I think, prospective anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense systems, delivering nuclear and conventional warheads in a range of over 2,000 kilometers. We called this system Kinzhal.”

Meanwhile, Putin also mentioned that Russia has successfully tested a hypersonic boost-glide vehicle, which could also be used to carry a nuclear payload to intercontinental ranges.

“A real technological breakthrough is the development of a strategic missile system with fundamentally new combat equipment — a gliding wing unit, which has also been successfully tested,” Putin said. “Let me assure you that we have all this and it is working well. Moreover, Russian industrial enterprises have embarked on the development of another new type of strategic weapon. We called it the Avangard.”

https://warisboring.com/russias-new-doo ... -defenses/

Caco

[Cacophonix]

Can anyone explain SIMPLY how to propel a missile by nuclear means?

Such a missile would function according to the traditional ramjet principle with a radioactive core providing the heating element in the engine usually provided by exotic jet fuels (or even esoteric rocket fuels)! Normal solid rocket boosters would propel the ramjet to speeds where the air was compressed to the requisite amount and heat (in known designs to date at between += Mach 3 and Mach 6) and then the nuclear fuel would be made critical and the whole white hot nuclear core would provide the additional energy required to further energise the already heated compressed air to keep the thrust going for as long as the energy source was provided (potentially months) or the engine or the missile simply failed due either thermal or aerodynmaic stress. Simple in concept, very difficult to do using current materials in practice! The key to the whole design and concept is the ability to defeat anti missile strategies by making non ballistic launch and evasion profiles available to the aggressor.

Project Pluto.JPG (115.89 KiB) Viewed 664 times

Originally carried out at Livermore, California, the work was moved to new facilities constructed for $1.2 million on 8 square miles (21 km2) of Jackass Flats at the NTS, known as Site 401. The complex consisted of 6 miles (10 km) of roads, critical assembly building, control building, assembly and shop buildings, and utilities. Also required for the construction was 25 miles (40 km) of oil well casing which was necessary to store the approximately 1,000,000 pounds (450,000 kg) of pressurized air used to simulate ramjet flight conditions for Pluto.

The principle behind the nuclear ramjet was relatively simple: motion of the vehicle pushed air in through the front of the vehicle (ram effect), a nuclear reactor heated the air, and then the hot air expanded at high speed out through a nozzle at the back, providing thrust.

The notion of using a nuclear reactor to heat the air was fundamentally new. Unlike commercial reactors, which are surrounded by concrete, the Pluto reactor had to be small and compact enough to fly, but durable enough to survive a 7,000-mile (11,000 km) trip to a potential target. The nuclear engine could, in principle, operate for months, so a Pluto cruise missile could be left airborne for a prolonged time before being directed to carry out its attack.

The success of this project would depend upon a series of technological advances in metallurgy and materials science. Pneumatic motors necessary to control the reactor in flight had to operate while red-hot and in the presence of intense radiation. The need to maintain supersonic speed at low altitude and in all kinds of weather meant the reactor, code named “Tory”, had to survive high temperatures and conditions that would melt the metals used in most jet and rocket engines. Ceramic fuel elements would have to be used; the contract to manufacture the 500,000 pencil-sized elements was given to the Coors Porcelain Company.

The proposed use for nuclear-powered ramjets would be to power a cruise missile, called SLAM, for Supersonic Low Altitude Missile. In order to reach ramjet speed, it would be launched from the ground by a cluster of conventional rocket boosters. Once it reached cruising altitude and was far away from populated areas, the nuclear reactor would be made critical. Since nuclear power gave it almost unlimited range, the missile could cruise in circles over the ocean until ordered “down to the deck” for its supersonic dash to targets in the Soviet Union. The SLAM as proposed would carry a payload of many nuclear weapons to be dropped on multiple targets, making the cruise missile into an unmanned bomber. After delivering all its warheads, the missile could then spend weeks flying over populated areas at low altitudes, causing tremendous ground damage with its shock wave. When it finally lost enough power to fly, and crash-landed, the engine would have a good chance of spewing deadly radiation for months to come.

On May 14, 1961, the world’s first nuclear ramjet engine, “Tory-IIA”, mounted on a railroad car, roared to life for a few seconds. Three years later, “Tory-IIC” was run for five minutes at full power. Despite these and other successful tests the Pentagon, sponsor of the “Pluto project”, had second thoughts. The weapon was considered “too provocative”, and it was believed that it would compel the Soviets to construct a similar device, against which there was no known defense. Intercontinental ballistic missile technology had proven to be more easily developed than previously thought, reducing the need for such highly capable cruise missiles. On July 1, 1964, seven years and six months after it was started, “Project Pluto” was canceled.

From Wikipedia

See here for source PDF's...

http://www.theblackvault.com/documentar ... t-engines/#

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DG4f2umclk

Good simple introduction here...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpOa3B03gYg

Caco

PS - It really is high time that AtomKraft resurrected his famous "Missile Thread" here at ops-normal. I know that an acquaintance who had previously worked for Denel Dynamics in South Africa on indigenous missile projects there had commented favourably on the interesting content on the thread as it was before it was desecrated back on TOP some years back.

[AtomKraft]

Boac.
Sure!

It's a fascinating subject, and for those who wonder how a nuclear ramjet works: it works exactly the same as a normal chemically fuelled one.
So,
1. It can't work from rest, so needs a good shove up to about Mach 3 to start. In both cases done with a booster.
2. Once at speed, the Mach 3 air gets heated and pressurised by the shape of the inlet duct only. There's no moving parts except for the centre body. Nothing rotates.
3. In a chemical ramjet, liquid fuel gets added next. But in the Nuclear ramjet, the air passes through multiple tubes in a critical reactor. The effect is the same, the already hot air, gets heated by the fuel- but the nuclear fuel lasts thousands of times longer than any chemical fuel.

As will be mentioned above, the hard part is building a reactor that runs hot enough without melting. It's been done, 54 years ago......called Tory II-C

Unfortunately, if you go anywhere near it, or it goes anywhere near you, it's curtains. There's no shielding at all!

The really weird thing is that the thing is extremely robust, built like a locomotive (to handle the monstrous aero loads) and enormously powerful. Plus it takes months to run out of gas.

Thus, the nickname 'Flying Crowbar'. Tools don't get much simpler than a crowbar, or more rugged.

SLAM was designed to be about as rugged 'as a bucket of rocks'.

I hope Putins' at the wind up....

[Cacophonix]

Same atomic heating principle has been used with previously designed (but not always necessarily built) turbojet engines as well...

The General Electric XNJ140E nuclear turbojet was proposed in March 1960 to meet then-current DoD guidelines for the nuclear aircraft program. It utilized a single X211 turbojet mated to a beryllium oxide reactor, a change from the prior XMA-1 engine standard which had one reactor powering two X211 turbojets. Ground test for the XNJ140E was scheduled for December 1962, with flight testing to begin in a Convair NX-2 in 1965.

The XNJ140E was designed for a lifespan of 1000 hours under power, at which point it was to be removed from the aircraft and overhauled. The XNJ140E-1 was to be the developmental model, and would have had an estimated dry weight of 60,600 pounds. Of that, 18,320 pounds were turbojet, while 42,230 pounds were reactor, shield and controls.

The reactor assembly was 33 inches long and 62 inches in diameter, formed from 25,000 hexagonal tubes made from yttria-stabilized beyllia containing uranium. Peak operating temperature was to be 2530 degrees F. The reactor was capable of at least 121 megawatts for a nuclear-only runway takeoff, providing 35,310 pounds of thrust at Mach 0 and at sea level. For cruise at 35,000 feet and Mach 0.8, 50.5 megawatts would provide 8,120 pounds of thrust.

http://www.aerospaceprojectsreview.com/blog/?p=894

Nuclear Turbo Jet.JPG (109.42 KiB) Viewed 657 times

The issue, as noted by AtomKraft above with respect to the ramjet, was the intense radioactivity that would have doomed the crew to a very quick death without shielding which would have made a manned aircraft too heavy to be useful (not to mention the disaster that would have occurred when such an aircraft crashed!

Caco

[Boac]

Well, theory aside, I remain unconvinced of the ability of a nuclear core to input sufficient heat to power a machine at Mach 10 or so. How are the necessary flight controls powered? Where can I buy one....

[AtomKraft]

One of the big- insurmountable actually, problems with SLAM, was how to reach our enemy without overflying our friends.
This is much less of a problem for the Russians.
Another is where to test it?
Again, as the largest landmass, maybe the Russkis could find somewhere, although it would certainly be a challenge. If one of these blighters gets loose, it doesn't bear thinking about...
It could be tested with a conventional fuel ramjet for sure- but never at design range.

Interesting post there Cackers. New to me!

[Cacophonix]

Well, theory aside, I remain unconvinced of the ability of a nuclear core to input sufficient heat to power a machine at Mach 10 or so. How are the necessary flight controls powered? Where can I buy one....

You are so old fashioned Boac and your addiction to kerosene is so passé!

In fact kerosene fuel combustion is difficult to sustain at high Mach numbers whereas the constant nuclear fuel source has no such problem... The Australians (yes they are world leading researchers in this area) were using hydorgen based fuels recently!

The problem with nuclear fuels is that they get too hot and destroy the engine Boac...

Caco

[AtomKraft]

Well Boac, to give you an idea, the temp and pressure rise in a ramjet that's achieved Mach 3 is huge.
Stick fuel in, and it's soon the limits of the material that's your main problem.
The Tory II-C built for SLAM/ Pluto was running within 150c of its own spontaneous combustion temp. Around 2600F.

So how hot do you think the already heated ram air would be by the time it had passed through the reactor?

Pluto could run for months at Mach 3.5 at extremely low level, around 500 feet.

Do you know anything else that can do this, month after month?

[Cacophonix]

Atom I am glad you and I are singing from the same hymn book to our good friend Boac!

Caco

[Boac]

As I say, theory is ok, but to produce thrust you need to increase the energy sufficiently. I just cannot see how air at around Mach3 can collect enough energy during its 'transit' through the core to produce the thrust the tonnage needs. So, how are the controls powered?

[Cacophonix]

As I say, theory is ok, but to produce thrust you need to increase the energy sufficiently. I just cannot see how air at around Mach3 can collect enough energy during its 'transit' through the core to produce the thrust the tonnage needs. So, how are the controls powered?

The air entering a ramjet is shock slowed and is compressed and becomes very hot prior to being passed through the constriction at the neck of the heating stage at such high Mach numbers. The actual calorific transfer in the heating stage is no different to the energy transfer when you burn a conventional fuel. Certain nuclear fuel configurations can even generate plasmas that produce temperatures much higher than conventional jet engine fuels!


Caco

[Boac]

...and the controls?

[Cacophonix]

...and the controls?

Before we get onto the controls I must point you in the general direction of the proposed use of the Breyton cyce in use in high temperature commercial nuclear reactors... lest you think that Atom and I have taken leave of our senses.

First generation gas-cooled reactors included steam generators to accommodate an indirect Rankine cycle for power generation. At the time, the closed Brayton cycle had not been extensively developed, since the majority of gas turbine applications used an open cycle. For nuclear applications, a closed cycle is required in order to retain the process gas for radiological reasons. Recently, the closed Brayton cycle has undergone significant development in the aerospace industry, which has demonstrated its high efficiency. In addition, the direct Brayton cycle is much simpler than an indirect Rankine cycle, which leads to a number of safety and cost benefits. Therefore, the VHTR will use a direct Brayton cycle in order to maximize the safety, simplicity, and economy of its electrical generation.

For process heat applications like hydrogen production, the VHTR will use an indirect cycle with an intermediate heat exchanger (IHX) to supply heat to the process application. An indirect cycle isolates the process heat loop from the nuclear reactor, which allows the process heat systems to be designed and built to non-nuclear standards. In addition, the thermal conditions required for process heat applications can vary significantly from those within the reactor core. These variations include temperature, pressure, and the frequency and/or magnitude of thermal transients. Therefore, an indirect cycle is needed in order to provide a thermal interface between the reactor and the chosen process heat application.

http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2013/ ... chapin.pdf

But getting back to your question Boac, the Space Shuttle (for example) while not a ramjet re-entered the atmosphere and used traditional aerodynamic high Mach number control laws at speeds of up to Mach 9 so this control question has been canvassed and solved in practice many times before...

I am not suggesting these missiles will be able to turn as if in a dogfight at these high speeds but will certainly be able to manoeuvre in a non ballistic way!

Current missile technology uses advanced control systems at relatively high Mach numbers.

Some light bed time reading here Boac... (there will be questions afterwards)!

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j ... TF8zeYQcV8

Caco

[AtomKraft]

Boac.
Well, if you do a leetle googlin' about Pluto/ SLAM, you'll soon see that there were many concerns about controlling the engine.
So, they managed to come up with actuators that could operate despite being red hot both physically, and radioactively.
You might ask about the guidance? The 'Fingerprint' terrain elevation related system used for Pluto, survived. They sold it to the USAF who renamed it TERCOM. Still in use on the new cruise missiles. Stands for Terrain Contour mapping.
Aerodynamic controls, for steering and flight are conventional. The SLAM moved fast enough to do without such trivialities as wings. There is sufficient lift generated by the fuselage and only small surfaces are needed to point the thing.

The point is, even the US, at a grim period in the Cold War- don't forget this was around the Cuban Missile crisis time, came to realise that this missile was a bit OTT. Even though they had a working engine and had lined up LTV to do the airframe- in steel, it was just a bit too mental even for those crazy times.

But be in no doubt. This was doable in the sixties and it's doable today.

The missile from Hell, was another nickname.

The gentle comments on Putins' speech are only gentle because the commentators have no concept at all, of what the Russian leader is on about.

The folk who DO know, are the folk in the Pentagon- but as usual, saying nothing.....

They must realise though, that there is little you can do to defend against a SLAM type missile. Once it's over your territory, you've already lost. It's only a question of how much you've lost.