Posted on 05/31/2017 5:49:05 AM PDT by C19fan
The sky over the turbulent Pacific was pitch-black earlier this month when a Minuteman III missile blasted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base on a column of fire that illuminated the California coastline for miles.
The unarmed missile thundered past the outer reaches of the atmosphere, tracing a fiery arc around the globe before plunging into a lagoon at Kwajalein Atoll in the South Pacific, 4,200 miles away.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Something to keep in mind... There are rumors from the Russians having some capability to use satellites in sub detection. Whether that uses radiation or heat signatures or wake detection or wildlife effects, I have no clue. The Russians brag a lot and hopefully that is an exaggeration. The point is there may be a breakthrough in sub detection some day.
One thing is for sure. If we dismantle our ICBMs the Russians will have close to 1000 newly free warheads to use for SSBN fishing... and once the first SLBM is fired from the sub that subs position is known (I assume the Russians have the same missile launch detection satellites we do)
Yeah I’ve heard that rumor before as well, I believe that satellites analyze water displacement. Don’t know how reliable or feasible it is, but I wouldn’t put all of our faith into a single point of deterrence. That is why the nuclear triad is important, it is deterrence in redundancy.
Tough to do when the attack sub isn't as quiet as ours are. While not impossible, I know of no instance when we were able to track our own boomers.
If we hadn’t backed down, there would be MX (Peacekeeper) missiles, with 10 warheads each, wandering undetected around the U.S. in rail cars, and buried at undisclosed locations.
The MX was called that (”Missle X”) because it was originally designed to be a moving target, or a hidden target that the enemy couldn’t hit because it couldn’t be found. Stored in rail cars, and buried lengthwise in shallow trenches, it was in a big tube which popped up on command, and spit the missile out with a steam charge before firing the first stage.
It was a beautiful system. The USSR was scared out of their minds, but we capitulated (Thanks Jimmy Carter...), limited it to 3 warheads and promised to put it in stationary silos. Had we moved with the original design, we wouldn’t even need the silos, and this discussion would never have been started.
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