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Why the LGM-135A Midgetman Was America's Shortest-Lived Mobile Nuke

SvenSvensonov

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The plan was simple: mount a nuclear ICBM atop a truck, then spread a bunch of them (and hundreds of decoys) out along Nevada and Utah to create a fully-mobile counterpoint to any Soviet first strike. So why did America's Midgetman program never get off the ground?

All the nukes in America's arsenal wouldn't have done us a lick of good had the Soviets knocked them offline during a preemptive first strike. That's why the US government went to such great pains defending the weapons—typically storing them in armored subterranean silos. There were limitations to this plan, of course, as silos are only useful until they're spotted. Once the enemy knows a silo's location, it can easily be bombarded into oblivion. But should that silo be sitting on two axles, it can be moved from location to location as the situation dictates. So between 1986 and 1992, that's exactly what the US Air Force tried to do—with spectacularly unsuccessful results.

The effort was essentially a response to the development of the Soviet S-24 and S-25 mobile ICBM launchers—the former ran on railroads, the latter on paved roads—which could easily be repositioned out of harm's way in the event of attack. The US program originally aimed to make their stock of LGM-118 MX Peacekeeper and LGM-30 Minuteman ICBMs more mobile. However, the size of these weapons—each about 60 feet long, weighing 38,000 pounds, and containing up to 10 nuclear-tipped reentry vehicles—made transporting them across America's highways nearly impossible.

As such, the Air Force went about developing a smaller version: the 14-foot, 30,000-poundSmall Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (SICBM) or MGM-135A Midgetman. It was small enough to travel on unmodified civilian roadways yet still powerful enough to ruin Moscow's week from the other side of the Pacific. Each missile packed a 475 kt nuclear warhead and could travel up to 6,800 miles using internal GPS guidance.

The LGM-135As would be launched from the bed of a Hard Mobile Launcher (HML) vehicle. These trucks were "hardened" against a variety of attacks including nuclear, biological and chemical ones, and could be scrambled from any number of military bases spread through the American West at the first hint of an incoming Soviet threat. At one point the plan was to stick 200 of these things throughout Nevada and Utah, along with as many as 22 nearly-identical—but not nuclear—decoys constantly moving between as many as 4,600 bases so as to fool Soviet intelligence. President Carter signed off on the initial $95 billion (adjusted for inflation) plan in 1980, though earnest development didn't really start until the end of President Reagan's first term four years later.

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But even in an era where money was no object so long as it hurt the Russians—a time where space-based anti-ICBM laser platforms seemed a perfectly reasonable idea—the Midgetman project was deemed too expensive to work. The trucks alone, for example, would have cost American taxpayers about $50 billion in today's money. The missiles themselves would likely have been even more, should the program have ever gotten out of the prototype stages. Alas, it did not.

The Midgetman did make a single successful test flight in 1991, launching from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and intercepting a target out at the Marshall Islands. But the fall of the Soviet Union later that year effectively eliminated any need for these weapon systems and, along with many other nuclear programs of the time, the Midgetman program was cancelled in 1992.

However, there is renewed interest in mobile ICBMs. A 2011 study suggested that both China and Russia had begun redeveloping their previously-scrapped SICBM platforms. That said, a recent RAND study commissioned by the USAF itself found that the cost of developing new SICBM systems "will very likely cost almost two times—and perhaps even three times—more" that just using what we've already got—that's about $200 billion. And you thought the F-35 was a waste of money.

From Why the LGM-135A Midgetman Was America's Shortest-Lived Mobile Nuke

*My Comments

The LGM-135A isn't actually the US's shortest lived mobile nuclear weapon, that title belongs to the GAM-87 (AGM-48) Skybolt ALBM - which was successfully tested only once... ironically the test happened a day after JFK cancelled the project!

Also chances are high that the name "midgetman" wouldn't fly today, due to political correctness, but the troops will still call it by their favorite term of endearment, "The Dinklaged of Destruction."


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*additional comment

The US still uses the ALBM concept for anti-ballistic missile weapons testing. This is a pic of the eMRBM target being dropped from a C-17.

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HUNTSVILLE, Ala., May 13, 2013 – Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) have successfully tested a prototype air-launched Extended Medium-range Ballistic Missile (eMRBM) target at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona.

In the test, a full-scale prototype of the eMRBM target was released from the cargo bay of a U.S. Air Force C-17 aircraft at 25,000 feet. The system’s parachutes deployed, and the prototype successfully separated from the carriage extraction system. The prototype is a replica of the missile target, without propulsion, that is being used to test and validate the air-launch equipment and carriage extraction system in preparation for the maiden flight of the eMRBM missile target planned for later this year. Supporting Lockheed Martin and the MDA in the test were the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Army and subcontractors Orbital Sciences Corp. and Dynetics.

Lockheed Martin is developing the air-launched eMRBM target for the MDA for testing of the Ballistic Missile Defense System to enable warfighters to gain experience with system performance in realistic scenarios.

“This new target is designed to provide the threat realism that is essential to ensuring that missile defense systems are developed against accurate representations of the systems they would likely encounter in an operational environment,” said John Holly, vice president of Missile Defense Systems and deputy for Strategic and Missile Defense Systems, Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company.

Added Dr. Patricia Dare, Lockheed Martin’s Targets and Countermeasures Program director, “The eMRBM air-launch equipment and carriage extraction system performed nominally in this test, verifying system performance and preparing the launch team for future mission operations.”

Under the Targets and Countermeasures Prime Contract, Lockheed Martin is developing and producing a total of 17 missile targets of various types and ranges, including five eMRBM targets. Since the prime contract was awarded in 2003, the company has delivered and launched 27 missile targets in tests of the Ballistic Missile Defense System. Prior to that the company produced and launched 17 missile targets under other contracts. The company has achieved an unmatched 98-percent mission success rate in providing ground-, air- and sea-launched, short-, medium- and intermediate-range missile targets since 1996.

Lockheed Martin performs Targets and Countermeasures program management and engineering in Huntsville, Ala., production and integration in Courtland, Ala., and payload design in Ampthill, England.

Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company that employs about 118,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. The corporation’s net sales for 2012 were $47.2 billion.

From Lockheed Martin And The MDA Conduct Successful Test Of New Air-Launched Missile Target Prototype · Lockheed Martin

@AMDR @C130 @Nihonjin1051
 
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That said, a recent RAND study commissioned by the USAF itself found that the cost of developing new SICBM systems "will very likely cost almost two times—and perhaps even three times—more" that just using what we've already got—that's about $200 billion.

While road-mobile SICBMs would be a nice thing to have and hard for an adversary to counter, it looks like the cost (above) would be absolutely ridiculous. If we want to beef up our nuclear deterrent might as well build more SSBNs in my opinion.
 
While road-mobile SICBMs would be a nice thing to have and hard for an adversary to counter, it looks like the cost (above) would be absolutely ridiculous. If we want to beef up our nuclear deterrent might as well build more SSBNs in my opinion.

SSBNs are expensive too though. The cost of each sub is over 1 billion USD for boomers, then take into acount their maintenance, training and service costs, plus those of the nuclear missiles, and the cost is still too high. But I agree that sea-borne and not road mobile missiles are still the way forwards. Perhaps a return to the ALBM could suffice as well. The Minuteman was at one point an ALBM.

 
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“This new target is designed to provide the threat realism that is essential to ensuring that missile defense systems are developed against accurate representations of the systems they would likely encounter in an operational environment,” said John Holly, vice president of Missile Defense Systems and deputy for Strategic and Missile Defense Systems, Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company.

Impressive !!!
 
Impressive !!!

Yep, and more proof that the US is developing counters to the MRBM system known as the DF-21D! Oh well, people can always claim they have an edge, and being prideful is never wrong (unless it turns into nationalism), but we Americans always have a counter of our own.
 
While road-mobile SICBMs would be a nice thing to have and hard for an adversary to counter, it looks like the cost (above) would be absolutely ridiculous. If we want to beef up our nuclear deterrent might as well build more SSBNs in my opinion.
The mobile scuds used by Iraq during the first Gulf War were very difficult to counter. Even with 1000+ sorties to hunt the Scuds was not successful. So to the point mobile missiles are very cost effective and hard to destroy.
 
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