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by namibj 931 days ago
They are ((sub-)orbital) rockets, not atmospheric bullets.

I'm not surprised it was hard to compute to the accuracies desired.

1 comments

The B in ICBM stands for ballistic.

I'm not saying the computation isn't complicated, I'm marveling at the fact that my watch can run that computation in microseconds

You are right, it’s complicated. Ballistic doesn’t mean it is a parabolic trajectory. At this distance (I stands for Intercontinental) you need to account for the atmospheric drag, winds, differences in gravity etc. Besides that ICBMs of 1960-1970s were using inertial navigation and had maneuvering warheads (e.g. SS-10), which increased complexity of the calculations. You still can do it on your modern watch.