What is a terminal velocity of an ICBM?

[Lostfleet]

What is the terminal velocity of re-entry vehicle ( warhead) of an ICBM after it enters atmosphere just prior arriving at the target ?

I guess I am a bad googler, either I find articles that mention how high is the terminal velocity, or some formulas how to calculate ( beyond my math) terminal velocity but not an actual value,

[kato]

This 1963 RAND study suggests typically between 7.5 and 9.5 km/s depending on atmospheric entry angle and certain individual boost phase parameters.

[Lostfleet]

Thank you for the article,

That is about 27.000 km/h to 34.200 km/h, incredible speed, thats about 10-15 seconds to hit the target after it enters atmosphere ( If they enter vertical to atmosphere, I will read the report to understand better) no wonder SDI and other strategic defences programs had hard time catching up,

[Tomte47]

I cant post links yet but if you search for
"Minuteman III Missile Launch - California to Kwajalein Atoll" on youtube
There is a short video from an ICBM test., you can see footage of the inbound projectiles from around 5:10, In the video they state the speed is "in excess of 16000 km/h".
I don't know how accurate that is but it certainly looks fast

[Lostfleet]

thank you for the link, a really nice video,

around 0:54, 5:20, 6:01 seconds, it shows re-entry vehicles prior to impact. In the event of a nuclear war, would we see a line or a point of light approaching the ground? or is just the test vehicles are visible?

Minuteman III Missile Launch - California to Kwajalein Atoll - YouTube

[PCShogun]

Originally Posted by Lostfleet

Thank you for the article,

That is about 27.000 km/h to 34.200 km/h, incredible speed, thats about 10-15 seconds to hit the target after it enters atmosphere ( If they enter vertical to atmosphere, I will read the report to understand better) no wonder SDI and other strategic defences programs had hard time catching up,

That's one of the main reasons why this new ABM system is in Europe, to try and catch the missile during the much slower boost phase and when the warheads have not separated from the launch vehicle.

[Pendekar]

That's why the idea is to destroy the missile during boost phase when it was still quite slow.

[My2Cents]

Originally Posted by PCShogun

That's one of the main reasons why this new ABM system is in Europe, to try and catch the missile during the much slower boost phase and when the warheads have not separated from the launch vehicle.

I don’t know why this dumb fable keeps coming up, the ABM system in Europe is NOT a boost phase interceptor. The only boost phase system to ever be tested was the YAL-1. The boost phase is just too short and will probably be entirely within Iranian airspace, which is too far for a missile to reach before it is over.

The ABM system proposed for Europe is a ‘mid-course’ system using the SM-3 exo-atmospheric interceptor.