ABM documentation
 

Gang,

I am starting to gather data to convert a Launch Pad AGM Standard to a satellite-killing SM3. I have found a number of pictures on the web but nothing even approaching a dimensioned drawing. Best I could do was some kind of drawing file for fancy presentations that was $50, which was a little rich for my blood.

Anybody have an SM3 drawing?

How about a GMD (the "new" ABM stationed in Alaska)?

Don't know if the SM-3 has the same dimentions as the AGM-78 but these may give you a place to start. I think physically they are the same, the difference is in the software and of course the markings.

Thanks Troy,

The dimensions are a little different - there is a noticebly larger gap between the aft fins and the long fins on an SM3. Also, the conduits extend forward to the third stage (the exo-atmospheric kill portion).

But you are correct, the basic layout is the same and your drawings will at least get me started. In the spirit of Semroc, I may go Deci-scale and build this on a BT-55 rather than modify my BT-80 Launch Pad kit. But we shall see . . . .

Thanks again.

GMD interceptor missiles
 

From the photographs I have seen of GMD interceptor missiles being lowered into their silos at Fort Greeley, Alaska, they look just like the XMGM-134A Midgetman ICBM (even down to its tri-conical nose fairing), which was tested in 1989 - 1991 but cancelled. Here are three links to material on the XMGM-134:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM-134_Midgetman

www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/icbm/sicbm.htm

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source...e8429a41b1d6a18

I'm a bit confused , I always thought the sm-3(aegis) was a sea launched missile interceptor.
I am not aware of a satellite killer or silo based version...are we talking the same missile?

http://www.mda.mil/news/gallery_aegis.html

I have a number of photos but very little scale data on the sm-3

here's a pretty good photo

http://www.mda.mil/global/images/sy...egis/jctv_2.jpg

Scalenut,

SM3 and GMD are unrelated

SM3 (or Standard Missile 3) is the Navy's Aegis anti-missile system and last heir of the Tartar/Terrier system that dates back to the 1950's, but it was also used last year to shoot down a wayward US spy satellite as a response to the Chinese shooting down one of their own. The anti-sat version replaces the warhead of a standard SM3 with a "4th stage" exo-atmospheric hit-to-kill vehicle that looks sorta like an Apollo SM thruster with a seeker head on top. You don't need a warhead if you smack something at several thousand miles an hour.

An SM3 replaces the Terrier booster of the SM2 with a finless 21" solid booster. SM3 is slated to be replaced by an SM4 with a new 21" second and third stage which will eliminate any visual vestige of the old system.

The GMD is a land-based anti-missile system that is designed to hit-to-kill an ICBM or IRBM (like the one, oh, say, the North Koreans have) during the boost phase there by eliminating the need to differentiate between the warheads, decoys and anything else coming off during the reentry phase. This is what was supposed to be stationed in Poland and other Eastern European countries that really angered the Russians. All the overseas deployments been cancelled but there are operational installations in Alaska, at Vandenburg in California and probably on Kwajalein. There are a number of pictures on the web but I believe most of them show the target drone developed by Orbital Systems which looks like the second and third stages of a Minuteman with fins, used to test the system rather than the actual intercepter missile itself. The intercepter may look like Midgetman. Perhaps the development of Midgetman as an ICBM was cancelled in 1991 but the program proceeded as black program ABM. When it looked successful, the US withdrew from the ABM treaty in 2001.

Did I over-share?

Mark, I should have saved the edition of the "Fairbanks Daily News-Miner" newspaper that had the most recent photograph of the GMD (from last year) that I've seen. I'll see if I can get it and any other pictures of the GMD from the paper, which is just down the street from me. The GMD missile in the photo was white, with a "star-and-bar" USAF insignia and "USAF" lettering on it.

On the apparent connection between the Midgetman ICBM and the GMD, there are many other examples of hardware from one program being adopted for another (the use of surplus Minuteman stages for the target vehicles that you mentioned is an excellent example). Also, the Malemute rocket motor, which was used as the second stage of the Nike-Malemute and Terrier-Malemute sounding rockets, was an early version of the motor that was used in the SAM-D, the initial version of the Patriot anti-aircraft missile (which also has a limited anti-missile capability).

GMD photographs!
 

Hello Mark,

I just found several photographs of the GMD anti-ballistic missiles here: http://www.boeing.com/defense-space...lery/index.html . When "clicked upon," each photograph opens up a gallery of photographs on each subject (launches, booster, kill vehicle, launch site, tracking radar, etc.).

I hope these will be helpful.

Awesome Blackshire,

Thanks, there's one picture of the interceptor under boost that I can sport-scale for sure.

Thanks!

You're most welcome, Mark. Judging from the pictures that include technicians near the GMD missiles, it looks like it is indeed the Midgetman, which was 3' 10" in diameter and approximately 46' long. If you'd like, I could still contact the newspaper to see what GMD photos they have (I'd tell them you're a past NAR President and would give them credit for using their photographs in anything that gets published about your model).