EGR219. Introduction to Weapons Systems
Credits: 3
Introduction to military weapons and warfare, with a focus on how the modern period has resulted in greater complexity and the development of weapons systems. Basic principles of explosives, internal and exterior ballistics, calculation of probabilities of hit given randomness, fire control, guidance algorithms, radar and other sensors, detection and tracking, nuclear weapons and their effects.
Co-Requisite: PHY-202
References:
Effects of Nuclear Weapons 1977 3ed.
Collier's Weekly: Preview of The War We Do Not Want
(download of full issue )
This course starts with explosives and kinetic effects and then develops other aspects of weapons as a system, more or less following a historical sequence starting with gunpowder era weapons progressing to indirect fire and the need for fire control, to missiles, and to nuclear weapons. We then spend some time on control systems and sensors. It is assumed that engineering students taking this course will ultimately have a controls course of some sort,so we don't go into as much detail there as the book supports. This is intended to be an introductory course to the topic, and hence it has considerable breadth but not much depth in many particulars, which could easily require more thana few courses to master. Essentially, much of this is just applied physics, so the student taking the course needs to already have a Physics course that covers basic mechanical physics, and should at least be in a course that covers basic electrical physics.