Newsgroups: sci.military.moderated
From: higgins@mecheng.mcgill.ca (Andrew Higgins)
Subject: Re: Impact Velocity of Ballistic Missile
Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 16:33:16 GMT

In article <Et7qrz.I8A@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>, "Tom Griest"
<griest-tom@cs.yale.edu> wrote:

> I got into a discussion with someone who said that
> the 1000 pound HE warhead on the V2 rocket didn't do as
> much damage as the kinetic energy released at impact.
> This seems incorrect to me, even though I recall concerns
> during the Gulf War about disabled SCUDs falling to earth
> and doing some damage.
>
> Anyhow, I looked up some info on the V2 and one account
> indicated that they reached an apogee of around 55 miles.
> However I have no info on their aerodynamics and terminal
> weight.  Does anyone know what their impact velocity was
> and how much the rocket weighed empty?

A good rule of thumb to remember is that a projectile traveling at 3 km/s
has a kinetic energy about equal to its weight in high explosives.

Since the terminal velocity of the V-2 was no where near 3 km/s, the
kinetic energy of its impact would not be nearly as great as the yield of
its HE warhead.
--
     Andrew J. Higgins            Department of Mechanical Eng.
     Shock Wave Physics Group     McGill University
     higgins@mecheng.mcgill.ca    Montreal, Quebec