[SoMisanthrope]

Has anyone watched the live entry of the US mirv's launched from one of our subs to the range of 4k miles? The warheads enter and hit the intended targets within 100m. US ICBMs eliminate guidance error using multiple methods, some of which require no outside signals. They are wicked accurate, without GPS or ground signals. I assume the Russians have the same. Ergo we are all fukered

[sandworm101]

In missle theory greater accuracy means having to fire fewer and smaller warheads to destroy a target. So greater accuracy probably means fewer civilians hit in a given exchange. But then MAD theory suggests such reductions could result in a greater willingness to start a war.

[pacala]

"Worker's housing" has been an explicit objective of strategic bombing campaigns since WWII. "Worker's housing" as in "obliterate the enemy's civilian population centers".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World...

[radicaldreamer]

One of the ways this works is that a lot of the guidance data is stored onboard and updated often (things like the density of earth under the missile's trajectory)

This 'software' upgradability is why the same old missile can get more and more accurate as better data is fed into the onboard guidance computer.

[justadeveloper2]

It bugs me that engineers spent countless hours perfecting these killing machines and yet we still don't have a cure for most forms of cancer. It's ludicrous.

[adrianN]

If you take the engineers building rockets and ask them to cure cancer instead we probably still wouldn't get a cure for cancer.

[DougWebb]

Curing cancer is not an engineering problem, and can't be done using engineering methods. Not the methods that are used to develop weapons, at least. Bio-engineering is a much, much younger discipline.