Ballistics & Fire Control
Name two environmental effects that can alter a projectile’s path after it leaves the barrel.
What are wind and gravity?
This force propels a reaction-launched missile.
What is thrust?
These are the three main phases of missile flight.
What are boost, midcourse, and terminal?
This is the primary safety function of a fuze.
What is to prevent unintentional detonation?
This warhead relies on high-speed metal pieces to cause damage.
What is a fragmentation warhead?
This type of ballistics describes what happens to a projectile inside the barrel before it's fired.
What is interior ballistics?
Which type of launcher uses pressurized gas to eject torpedoes or bombs?
What is an impulse launcher?
What type of guidance does the TOW missile use?
What is wire-guided?
Name two conditions that might cause a safing and arming device to activate.
What are distance traveled, acceleration, time delay, or ambient pressure?
Which type of loading crushes a target due to pressure shock from a blast wave?
What is diffraction loading (overpressure)?
This effect due to Earth’s rotation influences long-range trajectories.
What is the Coriolis effect?
Name the two types of air-breathing combustion propulsion.
What are turbojet and ramjet propulsion systems?
[DAILY DOUBLE]
In this guidance category, the weapon uses external input to stay on course.
What is command guidance?
This term describes the statistical chance a fuze works as intended.
What is functional reliability?
A thermobaric warhead is especially deadly in this kind of environment.
What is an enclosed space like a tunnel or bunker?
You need to hit a moving ship. What two motion-related variables must your fire control system account for?
What are target speed and target course (relative motion)?
Recoilless systems eject gas to the rear. What is the trade-off of this design?
What is large backblast, which can be dangerous to operators?
What type of guidance was used by the AIM-7 Sparrow?
What is Semi-Active Homing?
Why are detonation components arranged in parallel while safety components are in series?
What is to improve reliability of function (parallel) and safety (series)?
Which metric helps you estimate how effective a blast weapon will be based on its explosive strength?
What is equivalent TNT weight or Power Index?
What kind of propellant has it's burning surface area decrease with time?
What is degressive propellant?
What are the three types of missile control surface configurations?
What are canard, wing, and tail configurations?
Constant bearing homing systems are effective against fast-moving targets and require less maneuvering during terminal guidance. What are the two primary limitations?
What is their high demand for sensor accuracy and onboard processing power?
A system has two sensors, each with 50% reliability, and a booster chain with 80%. Calculate overall reliability.
What is Ps = [1 - (1-.50)²] * 0.80 = 0.75 * 0.80 = 0.60 or 60%?
U.S. ships have been damaged or sunk this many times more by mines than by all other attack types since WWII.
What is four times as many?