Missile guidance for dummies

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>>33650115
>t. isus

>>33650151
Pffft naah
t. Not ISIS

>>33650151
lets make a fake guidance system that makes rockets loop back to shooter and make isis get PRANKD

It's not as hard as you think.

First, building the missile part: you'll need a chemist to make the fuel, a plumber for the fuel system and a welder for final assembly. This itself isn't difficult, amateur hobby rocket groups do it all the time. Second, the chemist can build the warhead (which itself could probably get away with using rifle primers, depending on the type of explosive used).

Now, we get into the hard stuff: the real time guidance system. This itself requires very precise senors, most of which will likely have to be hand built (along with the batteries/fuelcells they will operate from) by an electrical engineer. But, it's also not impossible. Also you're going to have to find a strong yet light enough control wire, this is likely to be very expensive.

Here's the hard part: control. Making a missile is easy, tracking a missile in real time is difficult and controlling a tracked missile in real time is exceptionally hard. The engineer listed above will have to figure out how to incorporate RELIABLE control surfaces into the vehicle then get a computer to modify them in such a way that doesn't prematurely end the flight. This is hard when you're trying to fly this thing at mach 2 and a computer has to calculate and adjust the vehicle's path before it misses the target.

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>>33650276

Here's the most "basic" missile design one could find, the Russian RPG-7. If someone were to try and make their own antitank missile, this is the best starting point because this is a proven design that is known to work.

Now, it's just a matter of:

- attaching a tracking system
- attaching control surfaces
- attaching a way for a computer to communicate with both the tracking system (input) and control surfaces (output)

It's a bit small, but for a pure proof-of-concept I reckon it would be sufficient.

>>33650276
The way i've thought of it is the following:
The back of the missile should have a bright light that is picked up by the launcher/guidance system
The operator has an optic and aligns the crosshairs on the target
The guidance system sees how far the light (coming from the missile) is from the center of the optic and tells the missile to move so it lines up with the crosshairs

How hard would this be to compute and how much computer hardware is necessary for this?

>>33650300
How does the cost-effectiveness ratio compare between wire guided missiles and radio/radar guided missiles?

>>33650115
>make it cost less than $50,000
Just the missile or everything? Thermals are hella expensive.

>>33650365
>Muh cost
Oh you care NOW, now that sugar-daddy Saudi Arabia isn't paying the bills anymore...

>>33650337

Bad idea because bright lights are affected by weather and ambient lighting. Radio waves are the standard here for a reason, and a tracking setup can be made with off the shelf electronic parts. It's accuracy is another question though, and this is where the money sink begins because faster radios mean more expensive antennas and other components.

Again, the "tracking" part is easy. It's the guidance/controlling part that is exceptionally hard. You're effectively building an autopilot system here, except one that (once deployed) has an operational lifespan of MAYBE 60 seconds.

>>33650365

Depends if you can use copper wire or not, and where the rocket exhaust goes. Copper melts at about 2,000 degrees, rocket engines (ie, controlled explosions) get can easily get above 5,000 degrees. To that end, again there's a reason why radio is almost always the default choice for missile tracking.

>>33650115
>ITT: /k/ invents its own ATGM
1. Call hobbyking.
2. ...?
3. Profit!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVrn7cHsPew

>>33650365
Radar is expensive as fuck. A wireless radio control link, on the other hand, can be fairly cheap (almost as cheap as the wire itself).
>>33650337
>The back of the missile should have a bright light that is picked up by the launcher/guidance system
So basically as close to an actual TOW as possible, then.
>>33650578
>Bad idea because bright lights are affected by weather and ambient lighting. Radio waves are the standard here for a reason
TOW uses thermals my dude

>>33650578
Wait, which ATGM use radio guidance? Radio frequencies can easily be jammed or flooded to be inoperable, as well as give a lot of telltale signs when an enemy is under attack. Most that I know are direct command wire or infrared that store a picture of the target in the projectiles memory and then the projectiles can calculate what it looks like from another angle (such as in the FGM-148.) Some AShM have this ability as well. None are radio-command.

>>33650578
Hmm
If you were to talk to the missile via radio it would be susceptible to jammers though.
What wires are used in the TOW and the Konkurs and such?

Also
What is the most bare bones you could go with the controls system?
How cheap can we go?

The real question, should we use Arduino or Raspberry Pi?

>>33650639
Thermals are fucking expensive
What is a good replacement?
How prohibitive would it be to just say fuck it and use literal visible light?
Mybe even the light from the exhaust, if it burned bright enough

>>33650115
I'd say strapping a warhead on a model plane would be the the easiest and cheapest option

>>33650672
underrated

>>33650642
>Wait, which ATGM use radio guidance?
AT-6 , AT-8, AT-9, AT-15, AGM-114L, TOW-2B Aero RF, Brimstone , Spike-ER, Spike NLOS.

>>33650681
Possible to have proportional homing on a specific bandwidth of light (such as a laser) and basically tune the control surfaces to not spazz out if someone bumps the laser projector for a nanosecond. Smoke would be the main defence from this method of guidance, as well as it is very visible if the enemy has infrared or even night vision. Can be easily detected. Still, it would be cheap and simple. LIDAR is probably going to be used on self-driving cars, so will have a multitude of uses in the near future.

>>33650692
Fucking genius
How big can we go?

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>>33650749
big

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>>33650749
or very big

>>33650765
>>33650774
Fuck, i'm popping a chub right now
What's the price tag on one of those puppies and how much can it carry?

We could strap a dounward facing shaped charge on to the underbelly of one and pop the lid off of any tank.

>>33650639
>>33650642
>>33650663

Sorry, I'm looking at this as less of an ATGM project and more of a proof of concept. I suppose radio because, for a proof of concept (and not an expendable device going into mass production), it is probably sufficient.

>>33650681
>What is a good replacement?
Considering cost? Probably NIR with an LED or laser beacon on the tail of the missile in place of the flare. Think of it as a long-range TrackIR.

Of course, reliability would probably suffer, since NIR presents a lot more clutter/glare and a lot less contrast than thermal (ever tried using an IR remote in broad daylight?). Optical filters can help to an extent, and if you have an electronic beacon on the missile instead of just a flare, you could flash the beacon to help the tracking software distinguish the missile itself from clutter. Even still, software and hardware demands will be higher for the guidance computer. I suppose you could avoid that issue altogether by reverting to MCLOS; today's soldiers raised on video games would probably be a lot better at it than the ATGM crews of the 1960s too.

>How prohibitive would it be to just say fuck it and use literal visible light?
Visible light is comparable to NIR in terms of cost and challenges. Maybe a little worse. Or if it's MCLOS, perhaps better if the missile leaves a smoke trail.

MWIR might be worth a look too, as something of a compromise between ordinary thermal and NIR in terms of cost and performance.

UV-C is really appealing from a guidance computing standpoint since ambient UV-C is very low (thanks, ozone layer!), but it's probably as cost-prohibitive as thermal.

One option for making thermal tracking more affordable might be to forget about the imaging aspect altogether and just use a simple scanning array using just a handful of discrete photoresistors. Something like the original Sidewinder missile seeker.

>>33650692
>>33650749
>>33650765
>MCLOS with style points

>>33650749
>>33650765
>>33650774
Bigger: https://youtu.be/XioTfK6rkkk?t=1m9s

>>33650827
about 6k and up to a few kg, especially when you don't carry much fuel on the short distances

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>>33650827
They make them in awesome as well.

Fuck radar, fuck guidance.

TV guided wire operated missile.

>>33651038
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxvgkHeUvPM

>>33650765
>>33650774
>>33651073
>Using $3k turbines
>Not using $99 hobbyking pulsejets

>>33650765
Is that a real fucking jet engine?

>>33650115
Wow, home-made anti-tank missiles made by hajis. I'm sure they are 100% accurate and effective, and manned by well-trained guerillas who will fire them from proper concealed positions.

My best ATGM would be a bunch of drones fitted with plastic bottles full of gasoline. The gasoline very quickly degrades the plastic bottle, so just fly the drones straight into the tank and cover it in gasoline, then set it aflame with a remote detonator attached to the drone/flaming arrow/whatever the hell you want.

The drones are cheap (less than $500 USD per unit) the gasoline is cheap, you're using 1 liter plastic bottles.

The whole point of a anti-tank system in this setting is to cripple the mobility of the tank. Set it afire, I can guarantee something important is going to get fucked, like the intake/exhaust, tracks, reactive armor, personal kit hanging off of turret/etc.

>>33650300
This

And honestly, unless you have a functioning state production process, it's better just to make simple RPGs.

Suicide drones?

Probably more effective to use the drone minibombers ISIS perfected

>>33651161
of course

>>33650337

>The missiles knows where it is, because it knows where it isn't

>>33651314

>....


Er anon...

>>33651348
This.

These days, a drone would be the best "MCLOS" ATGM available. Strap a downwards-facing RPG warhead to a $99 UAV and you can do some serious damage to tanks at minimal cost and with minimal engineering. It's expandable, too - bigger drones = bigger payload, and you can even get cam drones for extended range.

>>33653193

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>>33653193
>>33653245

>>33653260
Genius.

>>33651116
Bummer

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>>33650300
Already done. The PIRA did not like the RPG 7 as it was hard to fire without blast clearance

So

To the rear of the launcher was placed the ‘counter-shot’, incorporated to utilize the recoilless principle (Reduced to as little as a .22lr rifle’s, according to some!). This consisted of two packets of digestive tea biscuits, wrapped in j-cloth…. an interesting forensic aftermath of course ensues!

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2014/10/13/iras-recoilless-improvised-grenade-launcher/

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>>33653345
The warhead itself consists of a standard food tin filled with 600g of Semtex, complete with an internal frontal metal cone creating an armor piercing shaped charge. This round was designed to explode on impact, being an adaption of an earlier used improvised stick-grenade known as a ‘drogue bomb’ which ejected tail streamers made from a trash bag to act as a guide parachute.

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A further simplified version trialled in the book ‘Improvised Home-built Recoilless Launchers’:

the IRA made somthing a little like that in the troubles. called it the barrack buster

>>33653392
was ment for >>33653358

>>33653392
No the barrack busters were a series of heavy mortars. The PRIG was a separate line of improvised anti armour launchers designed to target Saracen armour, armoured landrovers and barracks. It was an effective weapon and barracks had to be built using steel framing to defeat it. Referred to by troops as sangers in places like Armagh (sangers is a generic british military term for a fortified infantry position) these heavily fortified barracks functioned like land locked submarines made of concrete. Early versions for example had no mechanism to retain the round in the tube so if the operator leant forward it would fall out and detonate, in one case removing the legs of the firer. Both the prig and barrack buster mortars were constantly revised going though many versions one of the last ones being the Mark-15 ‘Barrack Buster’ which lifted 100KG (200lb) of explosives.

>>33653526
my bad. thanks for the info

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>>33653260
>Go Jammar! Go! Throw it!
>Elevator is stuck
>Throws it in a loop
>RPG explodes
>OC gif related

>>33654373
There is something about model airplanes crashing that makes me feel sad.

>>33655061
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuWYvfaYmpI

>>33655255
;_;

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>>33651073

>>33655600
ffs /k/

>>33653163
What's up.

>>33650337
Literally 1970s tech, it's what all SACLOS guidance does.
Start off with MCLOS.

It's really best to simply use MCFPV control if we're making our own ATGM. Tracking literally any kind of thing is a shitshow. Laser guidance is the second easiest method but the biggest shitshow possible when it comes to being fucked with. Not only do you set off every fucking warning system in the vehicle, Shtora is now going off, the tank knows right the fuck where you are, the gun automatically traverses to your bearing, smoke pops killing your target lock and then they fucking shoot you.

So yeah just steer it with a camera and a stick. You've all played enough battlefield to use it.