Larry J said:

>The goal of the Pershing II was increased accuracy rather than >avoiding ABMs.
>
>As for avoiding the ABMs currently in development, I don't see
>how the technology used on the Pershing II would help avoid >interception. The mid course interceptor goes in for the kill while
>the missile is well above the atmosphere. If the missile carried
>an oversized PBV with a lot of propellant, you could possibly >outmaneuver the interceptor by appearing to aim for one target,
>then changing course significantly after the interceptor is on its
>way. The interceptor can only change course by a given amount,
>so if you have enough propellant, you might be able to make it
>miss.

You're right about Pershing-II. As you know, Pershing-II was
deployed in Europe and was intended as a tactical response
against a Soviet invasion (nuclear decapitation of their Command,
Control and Communications infrastructure). AMaRV was a
totally different beast. It was intended as a strategic weapon for use with ICBMs.

To learn more about AMaRV read the following:

"Dynamics of Atmospheric Re-Entry" by Frank J. Regan and
Satya M. Anandakrishnan, AIAA Education Series, ISBN: 1563470489.

The AIAA wants $105.95 / copy which is obscenely expensive (with 604 pages, it's cheaper to have it photocopied and hard bound). Your company library probably has a copy. This is a very good book (I used a fair amount of theory from that book for my own code development). AMaRV was the ACME of reentry vehicle design. Regan and Anandakrishnan clearly understood this. AMaRV had already been cancelled when they wrote their book. The technology was still sensitive and a fair amount of it remained classified. In their book they have a fictitious vehicle that they use in different examples that is obviously AMaRV. There's a chapter on evasive trajectories where they show an AMaRV type vehicle taking out a silo or command bunker while getting past an ABM. This is not explicitly stated in the book but is obvious to any engineer who reads it.

AMaRV was almost reincarnated as DC-X and again as an X-33 candidate design. With all this fumbling around concerning post-Shuttle designs, it's possible(?) that DC-X will get reincarnated.

Gary