AHC: Widespread Use of Non-Nuclear ICBMs

Basically, with a POD after 1940, how likely is it that we see conventional/non-nuclear ICBMs as a significant part of a country's military arsenal?

Bonus points if they're actually fired in anger.
 
If nukes don't get miniaturized to the point they fit on ICBMs, states that have them could use them without fear of provoking a nuclear response.

Alternatively, you could have non-nuclear states eschewing nuclear capability and just investing in missiles.

I'm wondering if in TTL, Saddam uses the resources spent OTL on the Osirak reactor to build better missiles and starts firing them at American bases in Europe during the Gulf War.
 
Maybe have the Prompt Global Strike system not decide that the hassles of ICBMs outweighed the benefits? Although I doubt that would really constitute a "significant part" of the US arsenal.

The problem with conventionally armed ICBMs is that, before the 80s, they're too inaccurate to be tipped with anything but a WMD, and they're not that great in the 80s, either. The Atlas had a CEP of 1.4 km, meaning half your warheads will land more than 1.4 kilometers from the aim point. The Minuteman III's CEP is something on the order of 150 meters. Smart bombs they ain't.
 
Or perhaps they're delivering biologicals or chemical weapons. NBC is a trio after all. I could also see a very low rate nuclear power bluffing with ICBMs (they have nukes, but not adequately refined to put on ICBMs yet) by building a bunch of ICBMs and not saying what they actually carry.
 
Initially, the Russians did had dirty-bomb missiles, before their fission bombs were small enough to fit on a rocket.
 
Or perhaps they're delivering biologicals or chemical weapons. NBC is a trio after all.

Chemical and biological agents aren't well-suited to delivery by ICBM. Both need to be spread out a lot to be most effective, and ICBMs don't do that very well. They tend to plunge downwards very fast, meaning they're not in the atmosphere for long and their in-atmosphere trajectory doesn't cover a lot of ground. Getting adequate dispersal in this short time is a non-trivial exercise. In terms of bioweapons, there are also issues connected with ensuring the payload survives atmospheric heating upon re-entry.

Calbear's Anglo-American/Nazi War timeline contains a discussion of this topic at one point. Granted it's a pretty hefty 200+ pages to go through, but maybe the search function can help with that.
 
Assume the technical difficulties can be overcome, I still don't think it's a very plausible weapons system.

The problem is that for most states the armed forces are for fighting your own populace, or perhaps your next door neighbour. There's simply no interest in fighting a country on the other side of the world. And that means you don't need ICBMs.

Those few states that do have global interests can generally afford bases, long range bombers, or aircraft carriers, to protect them.

The PGS system is really a special case. It's of marginal military utility (of course potentially great political importance if they get Bin Laden with it). It's arisen from a bizarre set of political circumstances (it would be cheaper to have aircraft on station 24x7 over Afghanistan). And it surely has a large element of pork barrel.
 
What if we somehow delay nuclear weapons by a couple of decades? (No idea how that could be done, but bear with me). WW2 still goes mostly as scheduled, and the Cold War starts on time. Russia wants something to hit the CONUS with in the event of war, and, just like OTL, their bombers aren't that great and they decide it's a mug's game to try to compete with the US in long-range air power. But, they still want to be able to put the CONUS at risk for political reasons. So instead, they build a thousand or so ICBMs tipped with incendiaries to use as a one-shot "Dresden fire raid" on New York City.

It's not very plausible, I grant you, but it's a start.
 
No nukes.... you only need to compare V2s versus the allied bombing of Germany, to know V2s are batshit insane as a means of long range bombardment. This would be even more true for long-range missiles which have a worse payload ratio than V2s. I can't see anybody other than a Hitler-led Nazi Germany being that irrational.
 
I could see a country building shedloads of cheap SRBMs with thermobaric warheads in the 40s to some extent, but ICBMs no way.
 
What if we somehow delay nuclear weapons by a couple of decades? (No idea how that could be done, but bear with me). WW2 still goes mostly as scheduled, and the Cold War starts on time. Russia wants something to hit the CONUS with in the event of war, and, just like OTL, their bombers aren't that great and they decide it's a mug's game to try to compete with the US in long-range air power. But, they still want to be able to put the CONUS at risk for political reasons. So instead, they build a thousand or so ICBMs tipped with incendiaries to use as a one-shot "Dresden fire raid" on New York City.

It's not very plausible, I grant you, but it's a start.

Aren't they more likely to use cruise missiles, either air or sub launched? Much cheaper, probably no less accurate, and the launch platforms have other uses anyway.
 
Basically, with a POD after 1940, how likely is it that we see conventional/non-nuclear ICBMs as a significant part of a country's military arsenal?

Bonus points if they're actually fired in anger.

You'd probably need a POD no earlier than 1980, I'm afraid. The rise of the atom bomb in 1945 would've made their widespread use on rockets inevitable at some point{a good chance that it could be quite a bit earlier, especially on the Russian side of things, than in OTL, as far as I'm concerned.}.
 
If I'm at war with a nation that I know for a fact is nuclear capable, and I see ICBM's heading at me en masse, we're talking MAD right away, if possible. And if they are capable of chemical or biological warfare, possibly the same response.

On another note; I remember reading somewhere that the V-2 was more efficient than the Luftwaffe's bombers. Why? They cost a few percent more per ton of explosives put on London, but they couldn't be intercepted, and they lost no pilots. I can't find the source right now, so I could be wrong. But if so, it would only take a few extra years of rocket development, and a slight retardation of nuclear development, to see a Second World War style conflict typified by thousands of rockets landing on enemy cities, rather than the bombers we saw OTL.
 
Aren't they more likely to use cruise missiles, either air or sub launched? Much cheaper, probably no less accurate, and the launch platforms have other uses anyway.

Yeah, probably. :eek: But it's all I could think of for answering the OP's challenge. That or PGS.
 
On another note; I remember reading somewhere that the V-2 was more efficient than the Luftwaffe's bombers. Why? They cost a few percent more per ton of explosives put on London, but they couldn't be intercepted, and they lost no pilots. I can't find the source right now, so I could be wrong. But if so, it would only take a few extra years of rocket development, and a slight retardation of nuclear development, to see a Second World War style conflict typified by thousands of rockets landing on enemy cities, rather than the bombers we saw OTL.

You can probably find statistics to support any position, although I'll note in Speer's book he says the V-2 was a waste of time.

But there are simple reasons why V2s don't add up:-

1. Warhead amount:

A V2 delivers a 1 ton warhead.

A Lancaster, B-17, B-24, B-29 etc. delivers between 2 tons (long range mission on a B-17) to 6 tons (Lancaster) to 9 tons (B-29), or more

So to match a single 1000 bomber raid, you'd need say 6000 V2s (more than the total amount Germany was able to produce, let alone launch, during the entire war).

Now to match a month of 1,000 bomber raids, you'd need inconceivable numbers of V2s

2. Warhead delivery:

V2s explode on impact leaving a crater, and are only suitable for carrying certain types of warhead. Maybe this type of problem may be solved with another V2-like delivery system, dunno, but it's an issue.

3. Warhead accuracy:

Accuracy of V2s compared to bomber averages is terrible. Remember V2 accuracy is uniform, but bomber averages vary by weather, so even a poor average can include some relatively pinpoint bombing.

Also improving accuracy of rockets is pretty much certain to be harder than improving accuracy of bombers.

4. Range

V2 is limited to 200 miles.



Now moving on to other types of conventional ICBMs.... payload ratio and accuracy is going to get worse as you increase range and add more stages so points 1 & 3 become even more significant against rockets.
 
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