5 ms·

Missilemap

190 points by Fej 9y ago

BenjiWiebe 9y ago
Interesting. What I really admire is the work that went into it, like documenting how to construct a permalink, and hide various elements. Or use the JS console to disable the dynamic Monte Carlo length.
- rootw0rm 9y ago
  lol
SoMisanthrope 9y ago
Has anyone watched the live entry of the US mirv's launched from one of our subs to the range of 4k miles? The warheads enter and hit the intended targets within 100m. US ICBMs eliminate guidance error using multiple methods, some of which require no outside signals. They are wicked accurate, without GPS or ground signals. I assume the Russians have the same. Ergo we are all fukered
- sandworm101 9y ago
  In missle theory greater accuracy means having to fire fewer and smaller warheads to destroy a target. So greater accuracy probably means fewer civilians hit in a given exchange. But then MAD theory suggests such reductions could result in a greater willingness to start a war.
  - pacala 9y ago
    "Worker's housing" has been an explicit objective of strategic bombing campaigns since WWII. "Worker's housing" as in "obliterate the enemy's civilian population centers". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World...
- radicaldreamer 9y ago
  One of the ways this works is that a lot of the guidance data is stored onboard and updated often (things like the density of earth under the missile's trajectory) This 'software' upgradability is why the same old missile can get more and more accurate as better data is fed into the onboard guidance computer.
- justadeveloper2 9y ago
  It bugs me that engineers spent countless hours perfecting these killing machines and yet we still don't have a cure for most forms of cancer. It's ludicrous.
  - DougWebb 9y ago
    Curing cancer is not an engineering problem, and can't be done using engineering methods. Not the methods that are used to develop weapons, at least. Bio-engineering is a much, much younger discipline.
  - adrianN 9y ago
    If you take the engineers building rockets and ask them to cure cancer instead we probably still wouldn't get a cure for cancer.
sounds 9y ago
"It was made to aid in discussions about missile development, since the technical nature of honest-to-god 'rocket science' can make it rather impenetrable from the perspective of laymen, yet many of the fundamental questions are key to local understanding of geopolitical questions (e.g., 'could North Korea hit my city with their latest missile?')." And in case you're curious, here are the latest figures I could dig up on N. Korea's launch capabilities. Caveat emptor! Range: 10,000 km (Hwasong-14 aka KN-20 test successes indicate >6690km range, though the missile appears to break up on reentry) Circular Error Probable: ? Poor. Could not hit a city, especially since it breaks up before hitting the target. The fine article says 2 km is what early Chinese ICBMs could achieve, so it makes sense as a starting point. Yield: 7-8 kilotons according to seismic estimates.
- forapurpose 9y ago
  > Circular Error Probable: ? Poor. In a paper from a defense think tank, I read that when nuclear weapons were developed, at least one major tactical reason was that the accuracy of all munitions at the time was similarly poor (long before modern precision weapons); remember it could take waves of bombers and hundreds of bombs to destroy one building in WWII. The blast radius of nuclear weapons was a solution to that problem. They also said that precision weapons could, in that way, replace nuclear weapons. If your weapon is accurate enough to hit a building reliably, you need a much smaller blast radius, and destroying the entire city doesn't have a military benefit. For awhile, and maybe still, the U.S. was considering a system called Prompt Global Strike with that application in mind.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    I don't think precision weapons could entirely replace nuclear weapons. They could to a degree, but if you want to destroy, say, every enemy military base simultaneously, the number of conventional precision weapons needed for that would be cost prohibitive. Accuracy is also a reason why nuclear weapons got bigger and bigger up to the 1960s or so, then began to shrink. It's also why the Soviets tended to have larger ones than the Americans. If your bombers or ICBMs are only accurate to within a couple of miles, then you need a big bomb to reliably destroy your target. If they're accurate to within a couple hundred feet, you can use a much smaller bomb. Prompt global strike is still being worked on, but I don't think they have it figured out yet. It would be relatively easy to stick a conventional bomb on an ICBM and do it that way, but the enemy couldn't distinguish that from a nuclear launch, so there are fears of false alarms.
danso 9y ago
Related: the author recently wrote this 5-year retrospective about NUKEMAP, which is MISSILEMAP's precursor http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2017/02/03/nukemap-5-years/ http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2017/02/03/nukemap-5-years/
sillysaurus3 9y ago
If anyone is interested in a real-life simulation of a nuclear missile crisis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VZ3LGfSMhA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VZ3LGfSMhA I try to plug it whenever I can. It's an amazing piece of art, and it's one of the best ghost stories ever told. Wow. It's gone. And I didn't wget the video when I had the chance. I can't believe it's gone. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14508078 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14508078 All of them. There were like nine versions of the video, published by an anonymous author over the course of a year and a half. People were suspecting it was more than just a talented amateur. We'll never know. That's so strange! Ben Marking, who are you? EDIT: It's up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D3vCiYbXFE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D3vCiYbXFE Thanks to dcgoss and junkculture for looking. Apparently they removed all the old revisions, so we're left with this one.
- slimsag 9y ago
  Now that it's gone I _really_ want to see it. I mean, I was interested in it before... but why is it gone? Any idea what the title was, or description?
  - dessant 9y ago
    Luckily the text was archived. https://wayback.archive.org/web/20170608025320/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VZ3LGfSMhA https://wayback.archive.org/web/20170608025320/https://www.y...
- dcgoss 9y ago
  It was an incredible video! I can't believe it's gone either. The mystique behind "Ben Marking" as discussed in that thread is only enhanced by this disappearance. Edit: It's back? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbB0srzLuuo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbB0srzLuuo
  - sillysaurus3 9y ago
    Aha. This appears to be the latest version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D3vCiYbXFE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D3vCiYbXFE Thank you. I think what happened is that the author removed the nine revisions and uploaded this latest one on the 17th. It was interesting to see their progression though. Going to youtube-dl it just in case.
rootw0rm 9y ago
Shall we play a game?
- wiz21c 9y ago
  Tic Tac Toe ? :-)
- aidenn0 9y ago
  How about a nice game of chess?
r3bl 9y ago
Any idea what's that thing in North-West Algeria that's on the map by default? Seems like the only launch site that you can see on the map by default, which doesn't make a lot of sense since Algeria is a non-nuclear weapon state. Quick searching around tells me no other country stores nukes there neither.
- LeifCarrotson 9y ago
  It's precisely 35 degrees North latitude and 0 degrees longitude. There's nothing actually there.

190 points by Fej 9y ago

Interesting. What I really admire is the work that went into it, like documenting how to construct a permalink, and hide various elements. Or use the JS console to disable the dynamic Monte Carlo length.

rootw0rm 9y ago
lol

SoMisanthrope 9y ago

Has anyone watched the live entry of the US mirv's launched from one of our subs to the range of 4k miles? The warheads enter and hit the intended targets within 100m. US ICBMs eliminate guidance error using multiple methods, some of which require no outside signals. They are wicked accurate, without GPS or ground signals. I assume the Russians have the same. Ergo we are all fukered

sandworm101 9y ago
In missle theory greater accuracy means having to fire fewer and smaller warheads to destroy a target. So greater accuracy probably means fewer civilians hit in a given exchange. But then MAD theory suggests such reductions could result in a greater willingness to start a war.
- pacala 9y ago
  "Worker's housing" has been an explicit objective of strategic bombing campaigns since WWII. "Worker's housing" as in "obliterate the enemy's civilian population centers". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World...
radicaldreamer 9y ago
One of the ways this works is that a lot of the guidance data is stored onboard and updated often (things like the density of earth under the missile's trajectory) This 'software' upgradability is why the same old missile can get more and more accurate as better data is fed into the onboard guidance computer.
justadeveloper2 9y ago
It bugs me that engineers spent countless hours perfecting these killing machines and yet we still don't have a cure for most forms of cancer. It's ludicrous.
- DougWebb 9y ago
  Curing cancer is not an engineering problem, and can't be done using engineering methods. Not the methods that are used to develop weapons, at least. Bio-engineering is a much, much younger discipline.
- adrianN 9y ago
  If you take the engineers building rockets and ask them to cure cancer instead we probably still wouldn't get a cure for cancer.

sounds 9y ago

"It was made to aid in discussions about missile development, since the technical nature of honest-to-god 'rocket science' can make it rather impenetrable from the perspective of laymen, yet many of the fundamental questions are key to local understanding of geopolitical questions (e.g., 'could North Korea hit my city with their latest missile?')." And in case you're curious, here are the latest figures I could dig up on N. Korea's launch capabilities. Caveat emptor! Range: 10,000 km (Hwasong-14 aka KN-20 test successes indicate >6690km range, though the missile appears to break up on reentry) Circular Error Probable: ? Poor. Could not hit a city, especially since it breaks up before hitting the target. The fine article says 2 km is what early Chinese ICBMs could achieve, so it makes sense as a starting point. Yield: 7-8 kilotons according to seismic estimates.

forapurpose 9y ago
> Circular Error Probable: ? Poor. In a paper from a defense think tank, I read that when nuclear weapons were developed, at least one major tactical reason was that the accuracy of all munitions at the time was similarly poor (long before modern precision weapons); remember it could take waves of bombers and hundreds of bombs to destroy one building in WWII. The blast radius of nuclear weapons was a solution to that problem. They also said that precision weapons could, in that way, replace nuclear weapons. If your weapon is accurate enough to hit a building reliably, you need a much smaller blast radius, and destroying the entire city doesn't have a military benefit. For awhile, and maybe still, the U.S. was considering a system called Prompt Global Strike with that application in mind.
- mikeash 9y ago
  I don't think precision weapons could entirely replace nuclear weapons. They could to a degree, but if you want to destroy, say, every enemy military base simultaneously, the number of conventional precision weapons needed for that would be cost prohibitive. Accuracy is also a reason why nuclear weapons got bigger and bigger up to the 1960s or so, then began to shrink. It's also why the Soviets tended to have larger ones than the Americans. If your bombers or ICBMs are only accurate to within a couple of miles, then you need a big bomb to reliably destroy your target. If they're accurate to within a couple hundred feet, you can use a much smaller bomb. Prompt global strike is still being worked on, but I don't think they have it figured out yet. It would be relatively easy to stick a conventional bomb on an ICBM and do it that way, but the enemy couldn't distinguish that from a nuclear launch, so there are fears of false alarms.

danso 9y ago

Related: the author recently wrote this 5-year retrospective about NUKEMAP, which is MISSILEMAP's precursor http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2017/02/03/nukemap-5-years/ http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2017/02/03/nukemap-5-years/

sillysaurus3 9y ago

If anyone is interested in a real-life simulation of a nuclear missile crisis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VZ3LGfSMhA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VZ3LGfSMhA I try to plug it whenever I can. It's an amazing piece of art, and it's one of the best ghost stories ever told. Wow. It's gone. And I didn't wget the video when I had the chance. I can't believe it's gone. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14508078 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14508078 All of them. There were like nine versions of the video, published by an anonymous author over the course of a year and a half. People were suspecting it was more than just a talented amateur. We'll never know. That's so strange! Ben Marking, who are you? EDIT: It's up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D3vCiYbXFE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D3vCiYbXFE Thanks to dcgoss and junkculture for looking. Apparently they removed all the old revisions, so we're left with this one.

slimsag 9y ago
Now that it's gone I _really_ want to see it. I mean, I was interested in it before... but why is it gone? Any idea what the title was, or description?
- dessant 9y ago
  Luckily the text was archived. https://wayback.archive.org/web/20170608025320/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VZ3LGfSMhA https://wayback.archive.org/web/20170608025320/https://www.y...
dcgoss 9y ago
It was an incredible video! I can't believe it's gone either. The mystique behind "Ben Marking" as discussed in that thread is only enhanced by this disappearance. Edit: It's back? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbB0srzLuuo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbB0srzLuuo
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  Aha. This appears to be the latest version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D3vCiYbXFE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D3vCiYbXFE Thank you. I think what happened is that the author removed the nine revisions and uploaded this latest one on the 17th. It was interesting to see their progression though. Going to youtube-dl it just in case.

rootw0rm 9y ago

Shall we play a game?

wiz21c 9y ago
Tic Tac Toe ? :-)
aidenn0 9y ago
How about a nice game of chess?

r3bl 9y ago

Any idea what's that thing in North-West Algeria that's on the map by default? Seems like the only launch site that you can see on the map by default, which doesn't make a lot of sense since Algeria is a non-nuclear weapon state. Quick searching around tells me no other country stores nukes there neither.

LeifCarrotson 9y ago
It's precisely 35 degrees North latitude and 0 degrees longitude. There's nothing actually there.