British rocketry

I have posted a new page on some British solid fuel rocket motors of
the 1950s/60s at http://www.spaceuk.org/solids/solids.htm

I'm also experimenting with a new front page:
http://www.spaceuk.org/index1.htm

Comments - complimentary or otherwise - welcomed!

Nicholas Hill

wrote:

I have posted a new page on some British solid fuel rocket motors of
the 1950s/60s at http://www.spaceuk.org/solids/solids.htm

I'm also experimenting with a new front page:
http://www.spaceuk.org/index1.htm

Comments - complimentary or otherwise - welcomed!


That is a neat website, and I've bookmarked it; you are talking to a
Blue Steel fan here, and the launch video was fun to watch.
I note on this page of your site: http://www.spaceuk.org/bk/bk_pics/10.htm
....you have a photo of a spherical warhead test vehicle for the Black
Knight- I think that this may be related to the British "Chevaline"
warhead system for the British SLBMs. from what I've read, the idea of
Chevaline was to make the warhead resemble a decoy on radar, rather than
trying to make a decoy that looked like a warhead on radar; since the
easiest way to make decoys was to use metal-plated balloons ejected at
the same time the warhead was released from its carrier missile stage, a
spherical reentry body would indeed look a spherical balloon until
atmospheric drag started affecting it's deceleration less than that of
the decoys.
This was all classified at the time, so it's surprising that a picture
of the spherical reentry body leaked out.
On the other hand, these pictures of a Chevaline warhead bus (and a
mighty complex piece of machinery it is):
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/uk/slbm/chevaline.html
http://www.skomer.u-net.com/projects/chevaline.htm
Allen Thomson's (haven't I heard of him somewhere?) comment from the
first website about a photo of a Chevaline with the warheads attached:

[Picture of bus looking from above and to the side. Shows two RVs,
one fully, one partially. The one that can be seen best appears to
have some sort of fabric wrapping, leaving only the hemispherical
nose cap uncovered.

....speaks of a fabric covering over the warhead's main body- could this be an inflatable covering
to make the warhead appear spherical on radar?

Pat

In article ,
Pat Flannery wrote:
On the other hand, these pictures of a Chevaline warhead bus...
"[Picture of bus looking from above and to the side. Shows two RVs,
one fully, one partially. The one that can be seen best appears to
have some sort of fabric wrapping, leaving only the hemispherical
nose cap uncovered."
...speaks of a fabric covering over the warhead's main body- could this
be an inflatable covering to make the warhead appear spherical on radar?

Quite conceivably. Note that the bus is clearly designed to fit between a
pair of roughly-conical RVs, and in fact there is a drawing in the first
web page which shows this -- the RV shape is generally conical except that
its nose is a cylinder-hemisphere shape rather than a sharp point. (Looks
rather like a refined version of the old hemisphere-cylinder-cone shapes,
e.g. the first Polaris RVs, with a longer but gentler conical section.)
Any spherical shape would have to be a balloon inflated around the RV...
and that would also imitate the surface properties of a decoy better.
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |

Henry Spencer wrote:

Quite conceivably. Note that the bus is clearly designed to fit between a
pair of roughly-conical RVs, and in fact there is a drawing in the first
web page which shows this -- the RV shape is generally conical except that
its nose is a cylinder-hemisphere shape rather than a sharp point. (Looks
rather like a refined version of the old hemisphere-cylinder-cone shapes,
e.g. the first Polaris RVs, with a longer but gentler conical section.)
Any spherical shape would have to be a balloon inflated around the RV...
and that would also imitate the surface properties of a decoy better.

If that is indeed the case, then all those decoy launching tubes on the
warhead bus must make for a _lot_ of decoys for a ABM system to
discriminate among. I assume some are chaff, some balloons.

Pat

The copper sphere only indirectly led to Chevaline. Like all these
stories, it's never quite as simple as it looks.

RAE had drawn out the low drag shape [i.e., pointed end first] as a
possible REB for Blue Streak. Blakc Knight was to validate this
design, which it did on the thrid launch [the first two were proving
rounds]. But some interesting data came out of further tests:
principally the large echoing radar area of the rocket launch plume
and the wake of ionised gas at re-entry, and also the visual effects
of re-entry.

The UK was interested both in ABM and decoys and decided to pursue
this further. Togehter with the US, it set up a series of experiemnts
known as Gaslight. From this came a further set, Dazzle. The range was
very heavily instrumented for this: the visible re-entry wake was
analysed spectroscopically, for example.

The RAE also wanted, as a control, to fly a clean, non ablating
sphere. One was to be copper, the other quartz. They had problems with
the quartz head, since it kept on cracking due to internal stresses!
The copper sphere made an almost invisible re-entry and didn't melt -
which was as per prediction. Decoys were not on the menu at this
stage. Dazzle finished in 1964.

A further set of launches was proposed with an improved Black Knight
(54" diameter), code named Crusade. The Treasury made the RAE chose
between Crusade and Black Arrow, and the RAE went for Black Arrow.

The US did a further series of re-entry tests at Woomera called Sparta
using old Redstones [and one launched WRESAT].

Polaris improvement programmes were being considered, but didn't
really get approval until 1970. Several launches on Skylark and other
vehicles were carried out [at a guess, chaff dispensers and so on]. A
larger vehicle was needed. Blacxk Arrow was proposed but rejected on
grounds of cost - which was a pity, because it could have kept the
programme going]. Instead a 36" solid booster [Stonechat] was used in
a vehicle called Falstaff.

The Chevaline/Falstaff programme also went under the code name KH 973.

Nicholas Hill

(Henry Spencer) wrote in message ...
Quite conceivably. Note that the bus is clearly designed to fit between a
pair of roughly-conical RVs, and in fact there is a drawing in the first
web page which shows this -- the RV shape is generally conical except that
its nose is a cylinder-hemisphere shape rather than a sharp point. (Looks
rather like a refined version of the old hemisphere-cylinder-cone shapes,
e.g. the first Polaris RVs, with a longer but gentler conical section.)
Any spherical shape would have to be a balloon inflated around the RV...
and that would also imitate the surface properties of a decoy better.

I'd never thought about it, but that makes a hell of a
lot of sense. What better way to make the decoys look
like the real thing than to also make the real thing
look like the decoys? Which makes me wonder. Most of
the currently in use MIRVed LRBMs have the option of
delivering either more warheads at shorter ranger or
fewer warheads at longer range. I wonder if many of
those busses configured with fewer warheads are
actually filled out with decoys. Especially since
it makes a lot of sense to deploy your decoy systems
before you know you need them, so you're not at a huge
disadvantage when you do discover you need them but
don't have them in the field (or theater) yet.

wrote:

The copper sphere only indirectly led to Chevaline. Like all these
stories, it's never quite as simple as it looks.

(Big snip)

Great info, thanks!

Pat

Christopher M. Jones wrote:

Which makes me wonder. Most of
the currently in use MIRVed LRBMs have the option of
delivering either more warheads at shorter ranger or
fewer warheads at longer range. I wonder if many of
those busses configured with fewer warheads are
actually filled out with decoys. Especially since
it makes a lot of sense to deploy your decoy systems
before you know you need them, so you're not at a huge
disadvantage when you do discover you need them but
don't have them in the field (or theater) yet.


That indeed would seem to be a logical move.

Pat

Isn't this subject about as useful as British dentistry?

Pat;

Visit alt.war.nuclear and sci.military.naval on Google Groups and
search on Chevaline, there was an extensive discussion of this and
related topics fairly recently.

D.
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