I only read about ICBMs being armed with nuclear warheads. I have never read about them being armed with conventional weapons. So that must mean that the nations that have ICBMs only use them as part of their nuclear armed forces.
Why is this? Why not use ICBMs for conventional reasons?
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Correct … the USAF had a workgroup on it I want to believe between 2008 and 2020 as a way to project precision strike capability globally within 4 hours and they considered using SLBM’s. The one very big hangup they had with any missile on a ballistic flight path wether IRBM SLBM or ICBM was the ballistic flight path and that typically being used for nuclear armed missiles. With ballistic missiles as well as cruise missiles the flight paths and characteristics on radar to the nation being targeted are exactly the same for conventional and nuclear warheads. So there is no way to tell literally up to the point of warhead detonation if you are going to get just a regular boom … or the nuclear boom, And any country that is targeted and has allies or is capable of response in kind will launch before detonation.
At the end of the study they deemed any plans to do so would be foolish considering we already have that capability with sea launched tomahawk and air launched cruise missile … without the added danger of triggering a nuclear exchange
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