Everything about Multiple Independently Targeted Reentry Vehicles totally explained
A
multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (
MIRV) is a collection of
nuclear weapons carried on a single
intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) or a
submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM). Using a MIRV warhead, a single launched missile can strike several targets, or fewer targets redundantly. By contrast a unitary warhead is a single warhead on a single missile.
The military purpose of a MIRV is fourfold:
- Provides greater target damage for a given missile payload. Radiation (including radiated heat) from a nuclear warhead diminishes as the square of the distance (called the inverse-square law), and blast pressure diminishes as the cube of the distance. For example at a distance of 4 km from ground zero, the blast pressure is only 1/16th that of 1 km. Due to these effects several small warheads cause much more target damage area than a single large one. This in turn reduces the number of missiles and launch facilities required for a given destruction level.
- With single warhead missiles, one missile must be launched for each target. By contrast with a MIRV warhead, the post-boost (or bus) stage can dispense the warheads against multiple targets across a broad area.
- Reduces the impact of SALT treaty limitations. The treaty initially limited number of missiles, not number of warheads. Adding multiple warheads per missile provided more target destruction for a given number of missiles.
- Reduces the effectiveness of an anti-ballistic missile system that relies on intercepting individual warheads. While a MIRVed attacking missile can have multiple (3–12 on various United States missiles) warheads, interceptors can only have one warhead per missile. Thus, in both a military and economic sense, MIRVs render ABM systems less effective, as the costs of maintaining a workable defense against MIRVs would greatly increase, requiring multiple defensive missiles for each offensive one.
MIRVed land-based ICBMs were considered destabilizing because they tended to put a premium on
striking first. MIRVs threatened to rapidly increase the US's deployable nuclear arsenal and thus the possibility that it would have enough bombs to destroy virtually all of the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons and negate any significant retaliation. Later on the US feared the Soviet's MIRVs because Soviet missiles had a greater
throw-weight and could thus put more warheads on each missile than the US could. For example the US MIRVs might have increased their warhead per missile count by a factor of 6 while the Soviets increased theirs by a factor of 10. Furthermore, the US had a much smaller proportion of its nuclear arsenal in ICBMs than the Soviets. Bombers couldn't be outfitted with MIRVs so their capacity wouldn't be multiplied. Thus the US didn't seem to have as much potential for MIRV usage as the Soviets. However, the US had a larger number of
SLBMs, which could be outfitted with MIRVs, and helped offset the ICBM disadvantage. It is because of this that this type of weapon was banned under the
START II agreement. However, START II was never ratified by the Russian Duma due to disagreements about the
ABM Treaty.
The Russian government claimed to have developed the most advanced MIRV system as of 2006 for use in the
Bulava missile.
Mode of operation
In a MIRV, the main rocket motor (or
booster) pushes a "bus" (see illustration) into a freely-falling
suborbital ballistic flight path. After the boost phase the bus maneuvers using on-board small rocket motors and a computerised
inertial guidance system. It takes up a ballistic trajectory that will deliver a
reentry vehicle containing a
warhead to a target, and then releases a warhead on that trajectory. It then maneuvers to a different trajectory, releasing another warhead, and repeats the process for all warheads.
Details are closely-held
military secrets. The bus's on-board
propellant limits the distances between targets of individual warheads to perhaps a few hundred km
. Some warheads may use small
hypersonic airfoils during the descent to gain additional cross-range distance. It is possible the buses can release
decoys to confuse interception devices and
radars, such as aluminized balloons or electronic noisemakers.
Accuracy is crucial, because doubling the accuracy decreases the needed warhead energy by a factor of four for radiation damage and by a factor of eight for blast damage. Navigation system accuracy and the available geophysical information limits the warhead target accuracy. Some writers believe that government-supported geophysical mapping initiatives and ocean satellite altitude systems such as
Seasat may have a covert purpose to map mass concentrations and determine local
gravity anomalies, in order to improve accuracies of ballistic missiles. Accuracy is expressed as
circular error probable (CEP). This is simply the radius of the circle that the warhead has a 50 percent chance of falling into when aimed at the center. CEP is about 90–100 m for the
Trident II and
Peacekeeper missiles.
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