Ballistic Burst Missile

The ballistic burst missile, or simply the burst missile is an AcDragonian designed superweapon that originated from the Dragonian HIVE class scatter missile. It is a scaled down version in terms of mass, propellant and warhead capacity, trading the sheer volume of scatter warheads for far fewer but exponentially more powerful ones. The largest models of burst missiles have 40 warheads. Technically by design the burst missile acts more like a localized MIRV but differs in that it doesn't independently select targets upon reentry. The missile achieves orbital trajectory and re-enters the planet at an almost 90 degree perpendicular angle to the ground where it will then, based on pre-launch calculations, burst above the ground at a variable height and throw the warheads out and away from where the original missile detonated. This allows the warheads to cover a rather large area. While it can be varied, the typical diameter of the burst missile is about 10km from point of detonation. It is feasible to have the warheads spread out over a wider area but since all of the warheads are unguided, doing so risks reducing their effectiveness as while individually the warheads have extraordinarily high explosive power due to the Ultra-High Explosive inside of them, they are designed to basically explode in such a way that it links the blast radii of the warheads together, making a crushing explosive front that will more or less piledrive ground targets into the ground, liquify any soft targets and shred any aircraft in the localized area.
The most infamous characteristic of the burst missile is the detonation process. As it re-enters it looks like a white streak dropping from the heavens and when it reaches it's pre-determined height it detonates in a bright white flash. If one has a keen eye, they can see the warheads separate from the missile at that time. About 5 seconds after the initial detonation the warheads begin to pop off as they finally explode into a spectacular flash of silvery-white balls of fire. A second or two after that an ear-bursting boom follows. As the explosions die out, the air tends to be left with a silvery-red haze until it settles back to normal.
The Ballistic Burst Missiles comes in two distinct classes:
The SGM-series Burst Missile and the LGM-series Burst Missile.