[Poohbah]

As an aside, I wonder how many of the missiles would actually work.

We conduct occasional "test launches" at Vandenberg.

Prior to launch, the missile undergoes a much more thorough checkout, with a great deal of repair work, than it would get before a combat launch.

Our failure rate for these launches is about 1 in 5.

[jerseygirl]

Thank you. One in five isn't too bad. (I'm assuming the ones that fail wouldn't explode in the silo or whatever)

[brooklin]

The missiles work, but there was actually a problem with the warheads on the old posieden missles. We could have only punched a hole in the ground somewhere since testing showed that the warhead tended to not go off.