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NoOneFamous |
ICBMS |
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Posts: 1199 ( 8-May-2008 22:47:15) |
Currently the USAF controls all remaining Minuteman III ICBMs. Is there a replacement missile being considered?
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taschoene |
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Posts: 4223 (10-May-2008 05:10:36) |
I understand that the current plan is to continue incremental upgrades to Minuteman III and keep it in service through 2040.
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A G Williams |
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Posts: 1689 (10-May-2008 09:56:44) |
As a matter of curiousity, why have the old Minutemen been kept in operation while the newer Peacekeepers were disposed of?
Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk and discussion forum: http://forums.delphiforums.com/autogun/messages/ |
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taschoene |
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Posts: 4224 (10-May-2008 14:14:10) |
Initially, Peacekeeper was to be withdrawn under START II, in exchange for the USSR withdrawing its heavy-throw-weight SS-18s. While START II never
technically went into force, the US had a policy of acting as though the treaty was in force.
Now that START II has been superseded by the Moscow Treaty, which only limits warhead numbers, economics plays a major role. It costs less to maintain a single missile type, so it makes sense to get rid of either Minuteman or Peacekeeper. And maintaining only 50 Peacekeepers would certainly be cheaper than 500 Minutemans. Those 50 Peacekeepers could carry about as many warhead as the 500 single-warhead Minutemans, but the resulting force would be awfully fragile. Peacekeeper is deployed in a single site with all 50 missiles together while Minuteman has 500 missiles in multiple locations. A single site with 50 silos would potentially be vulnerable to a preemptive counterforce attack. Also, a MIRVed missile can only deliver its warheads within a fairly limited footprint, limiting Peacekeeper to 50 sets of fairly closely spaced targets. Retaining Minuteman gives a larger force with more survivability and flexibility. |
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A G Williams |
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Posts: 1691 (10-May-2008 16:21:08) |
OK, thanks.
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pukalshik |
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Registered Member
Posts: 22 (10-May-2008 19:03:53) |
I think that was not about SS-18s that are the silo rockets with well-known position. That was about another rocket (do not know the name) that used standard
railroad vagon as starting position, so it was impossible to detect where it was in the country until it was prepared to start.
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taschoene |
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Posts: 4225 (11-May-2008 07:23:04) |
pukalshik wrote: The anxiety about SS-18 was that its 10 MIRVed warheads theoretically allowed the Soviet Union to kill all of the US ICBM force (a counterforce attack) with
only a fraction if its own ICBMs, leaving the rest for other (countervalue) targets. The same logic applied in reverse to the planned force of 300 MX
launchers.
START II specifically eliminated "Heavy ICBMs," which were defined to be Peacekeeper and SS-18. It eliminated all MIRVed land-based missiles, while allowing non-heavy ICBMs to be downloaded to single-warhead configurations. It also restricted the deployment areas of road and rail-mobile missiles, and required them to use standard (hence identifiable) configurations, but didn't actually eliminate them. There's a useful article by article analysis of the treaty here:http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/start2/text/start2a_a.htm |
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Michael Hoddy |
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Posts: 186 (11-May-2008 08:20:42) |
After the US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, the Russians stopped dismantling SS-18's, so there are still a number of SS-18 with MIRVs still deployed,
mostly or completely the later R36M2 version. However, these (along with the SS-19's if I'm not mistaken) will expire over the next 10-12 years or so,
leaving the Strategic Rocket Forces almost entirely made up of road-mobile and silo-based SS-25/SS-27 variants, right now single warhead, but possibly with a
MIRV version in the offing.
I think that was not about SS-18s that are the silo rockets with well-known position. That was about another rocket (do not know the name) that used standard railroad vagon as starting position, so it was impossible to detect where it was in the country until it was prepared to start. This was the SS-24, which also had a silo-based version. These are almost entirely out of service now, there might be a few left, but I don't think they're standing alert.
Last Edited By: Michael Hoddy
11-May-2008 08:25:36.
Edited 1 times.
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