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So the short story is that the missiles were essentially radio controlled drones, radar measured the location of the target and the missile and from the ground
by Taniwha 3y ago
So the short story is that the missiles were essentially radio controlled drones, radar measured the location of the target and the missile and from the ground the analog computer flies them together (or close enough that the bang will bring it down)
- hermitcrab 3y agoAnd the bang could be nuclear[1], so it didn't have to get that close. [1] What could possibly go wrong?
- greesil 3y agoFallout. But you know, war never changes.
- HPsquared 3y agoThat's the only way they could possibly work: impossible to see through all that burning air at the front.
- pfdietz 3y agoEach Sprint missile had an S-band transceiver and actively emitted signals that the ground systems could detect. They weren't just bouncing signals off the missile passively.
- greesil 3y agoAccording to the radar operator I talked to, the coordinates from the search radar were transferred by hand to the guidance computer. And by transferred, they twiddled some knobs so the voltage sort of corresponded to the right values. Not even punch cards here. My millennial mind is blown.