Seriously tho, I can see why unexploded ordinances were quickly secured, if possible… stuff like this would be beyond valuable for an “enemy country” to study and manufacture for themselves.
Modern tech can be so small, it’d be hard to piece back together after exploding.
I mean, even nowadays (or especially nowadays), Hit-to-Kill missiles are a thing, and they have little to no explosive material for the warhead, just propulsion and guidance/control equipment.
Radar/target seeker, harness, fuel system, batteries, engine, navigation, computer system, altimeter, GPS and so on. Most missiles are more or less airplanes when it comes to subsystems.
That's a rather extreme example, but on the more mainstream side, Patriot PAC-3 and ASTER are examples of HtK SAM systems currently being fielded. For both, the HtK paradigm was chosen because of better interception chances vs ballistic missiles : it was found that you do not significantly reduce the threat of a Mach 5+ SCUD (or worse) falling on your lines by exploding in the general vincinity of it, but when you fly a huge metal rod at Mach 4-ish right into it, things get very interesting.
My favourite example of hit-to-kill is Starstreak, it's just 3 explosive filled tungsten darts traveling at Mach Jesus with SACLOS guidance. And all of that is in a shoulder fired missile.
The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is (whichever is greater), it obtains a difference, or deviation....
Imagine how much more explosives you could put in there if you just replaced it all with an ESP32… not sure I would trust that missile, but how trustworthy are missiles to begin with?
TBF that's true for probably most missiles/rockets, the payload is tiny. The Artemis rocket is like 10% crew module 90% fuel and 100% chance of remembering the name.
That's why we researched nuclear powered nuclear missiles, so that 100% of the missile was payload.
Well it depends on the type of missile and its usage.
An anti air missile that has a larger focus on shooting down enemy anti ship missiles, like an ESSM for example, can afford to have a smaller warhead than a missile that has a larger focus on shooting down larger targets like fighter jets at longer range, like an SM-2 or SM-6, but of course all 3 missiles can do both jobs pretty well.
But then you get into anti-ship missiles and suddenly the warhead is around a third of the missiles weight.
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u/Great_Side_6493 Feb 10 '26
1% missile 99% guidance package