Few Ballistic Missile Analysis w/ Aerospace-SIM - Part. 2 - ATACMS

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Aerodynamics Series

 

 As a continued series of missile analysis, 2nd topic is ATACMS, one of favorite and well known tactical missile. Due to its light weight and compactness, variants are well proposed like attachment of booster or air-launched one. 

 However, we could only see block I and IV while Iskander series has more interesting variants. This page shows estimated trajectory of ATACMS block I, IV and their potential variants for fun purpose. 

--- SRBM

2. ATACMS (Revised)

 There is a previous result for ATACMS in my blog (https://jaesan-aero.blogspot.com/2019/11/missile-sim-performance-evaluation-for.html), however, it did not fully consier free-fall ballistic trajectory. So, it has some distance from real-world trajectory. This revision provides far-better trajectory than the previous one w/ improved estimation. 

Summary

- ATACMS block I range can be extended to that of block IV as change of warhead size, but its full potential is not used due to MTCR (<300km)

- Similar to Iskander, Air-launch could extend it range for two times and about 1t booster can make similar impact on the range. 

- Due to its compactness, Air-launch + Booster option is viable for large tactical aircraft; this option can deliver 560kg warhead for 880km while 230kg warhead for 1470km. But stiffning of existing ATACMS structure for high speed is another matter for these kinds of variants.