LGM-118 Peacekeeper is no more

Of course you would…………………..it’s not Russian…..and even worse……..it’s American!

Yeah, I’m the one rating equipment based on who makes it… I spend most of my time here correcting people from doing that… largely due to a general ignorance over what the Russians can or can’t do.

Ie the Russians are a couple of decades behind the west in almost every area… so how come the Russians have deployed cold launched ICBMs from the back of trucks for 15 years… Why does Patriot still need to be pointed in the expected direction of an air attack when the Soviet equivelent has been vertical launch for more than 15 years? Etc etc.

What? The program to develop a mobile ICBM out of Peacekeeper was a failure. They almost cancelled the whole thing in the mid-80s, but decided to throw the Peacekeepers into old Minuteman silos instead and defer developing a mobile ICBM. That ended up being Midgetman, which wasn’t a failure per se, as it was fully developed, but it came too late and was axed as part of the “the Cold War is over now” defense cuts in the early ’90s. The same fate befell the rail-based Peacekeepers, the mobile system that was initially cancelled was vehicle-based. So in that sense calling the rail-based system a failure is an error, but the whole mobile Peacekeeper concept was initially a failure as nobody could get the mobile shelters done within the projected budget for the program.

I’d call that a failure.

Of course you would…………………..it’s not Russian…..and even worse……..it’s American!

And every time you want to use them,you must call the Russian:”No,no…this is not nuke attack at you……”And you think they will believe?

The range of these missiles and the locations of the likely targets would mean that a Minuteman III fired at… say… a North Korean bunker would not follow any ballistic path that would be likely to be used against the Russians. I doubt they’d even notice it except for detecting the launch via IR satellites. The path it takes will make it quite clear that it is not heading for the Russians. The only ones likely to mistake such a launch for a threat would be the Chinese. Against Iran the trajectory could go over the south pole and not fly over any Russian territory at all… that is the wonderful thing about ballistic trajectories… except for the bit at the end they are quite easily trackable and predictible.

The real problem is proving to the Russians and Chinese and everyone else that all those extra Minutemen III rockets are not fitted with nukes, but conventional warheads.

The other problem is of course getting them to actually work. The tests with nuclear bunker busters seems to be rather a failure as they have not performed as they had hoped. Lets see if conventional penetrators can actually do better from ICBMs.

I would think given the nature of the target (ie deeply buried in granit or some hard rock underground facilities) that all ten “warheads” would be used for the same target.
An underground facility might be obvious just based on the traffic, but the actual location of the underground rooms would not be obvious as it is incredibly unlikely that the tunnels leading to the rooms will be straight and of a known length. In fact to prevent bombs entering via the entry tunnels I would guarantee the tunnels wouldn’t be straight so the location of the rooms would be guess work. 10 penetrators per target would be more likely to get lucky than one or two heavier ones, though they might use a mix depending upon the target.

And every time you want to use them,you must call the Russian:”No,no…this is not nuke attack at you……”And you think they will believe?

Hahahahaha… what a joke. It was supposed to be a great missile because it was supposed to be mobile and therefore safe from attack. In the end they couldn’t decide on how to make it mobile… no body wanted an ICBM racetrack in their neighbourhood… and they ended up fitting it to the vulnerable expensive silos the missile was supposed to break the US free of.
I’d call that a failure.

I can agree with that in the context you gave. Still wouldn’t want one coming after me, though.

Anyway, retiring these is a waste I think. With a 10-warhead capability, they could have been converted to quick-strike conventional missiles able to target anything in the world within 30 mintues.

Pretty much ALL MMIIIs carry three warheads, either W62s or W78s. Those are being offloaded and replaced with ONE W87.

Guess we won’t find any hard data on that. From what I’ve read about one third of the Minutemen carry tree warheads.

Also a number of LGM-30G Minuteman III do already carry three W62 warheads now, and more will do so, as the Peacekeeper’s W87 warheads come available.

Pretty much ALL MMIIIs carry three warheads, either W62s or W78s. Those are being offloaded and replaced with ONE W87.

SALT, START, ABM, etc were political instruments of the cold war, not primarily military agreements. And START 1 is expiring in 2009 anyway. From then on MIRVs are again permissible.

Also a number of LGM-30G Minuteman III do already carry three W62 warheads now, and more will do so, as the Peacekeeper’s W87 warheads come available.

The Peacekeeper’s retirement remains a strange decision (in line with other *strange* decisions of the U.S. Government during the last ten or so years).

And one last comment – the propability of war against Russia is almost zero already. The West and the Russians have enough common interests and potential future common enemies it makes no sense anymore to compare the U.S. and the Russian nuclear arsenals.

The Peacekeeper was, by FAR, the most accurate ICBM ever deployed.

High precision is only necessary for a first strike. Against a missile silo that will withstand anything except a direct hit, then you do need a direct hit.
To level a city one large warhead or two relatively small warheads would do the trick. The only thing requiring real accuracy are missile silos and command bunkers… and a ground burst with a really powerful warhead would probably get you the same results as long as it was reasonably accurate.

i think they would have preferred to retire the Minuteman IIIs too but one of the SALT II provisions IIRC was to forbid MIRVs.

Actually SALT II also banned heavyweight ICBMs too… the SS-18s were to be withdrawn under it because even when fitted with one warhead it was classed as a heavy ICBM due to its massive throwweight.

Right, but apparently Russia isn’t following the treaty. They’ve still got SS-18s, -24s, 25s, and 27s, all with MIRVs.

They are not bound by the START II treaty until Congress ratifies it and they haven’t. And the dissolution of the ABM treaty means that even if it was ratified now it is no longer legal. When you base a legal document upon another legal document and that legal document goes tts up then anything based on that document is no longer valid.

They also have SS-19s and it seems likely they will retain the SS-19s for a we while, though the SS-18s are going. SS-25 and SS-27 are both the same thing… TOPOL and TOPOL-M.

Right, but apparently Russia isn’t following the treaty. They’ve still got SS-18s, -24s, 25s, and 27s, all with MIRVs.

i think they would have preferred to retire the Minuteman IIIs too but one of the SALT II provisions IIRC was to forbid MIRVs. Peacekeeper was a pure MIRV system – 10(!) warheads in fact so it had to go. Minuteman IIIs now are being retrofitted with single Mk.21 RVs from the Peacekeepers. such a big missile with that tiny warhead, hmm…

With multiple nuclear warheads accuracy isnt all that critical :p

Hahahahaha… what a joke. It was supposed to be a great missile because it was supposed to be mobile and therefore safe from attack. In the end they couldn’t decide on how to make it mobile… no body wanted an ICBM racetrack in their neighbourhood… and they ended up fitting it to the vulnerable expensive silos the missile was supposed to break the US free of.
I’d call that a failure.

Which has absolutely zero to do with the missile itself. The Peacekeeper was, by FAR, the most accurate ICBM ever deployed.

Dr. Sega said. “Even though the Soviets had their own missiles, they weren’t as good as Peacekeeper.”

Hahahahaha… what a joke. It was supposed to be a great missile because it was supposed to be mobile and therefore safe from attack. In the end they couldn’t decide on how to make it mobile… no body wanted an ICBM racetrack in their neighbourhood… and they ended up fitting it to the vulnerable expensive silos the missile was supposed to break the US free of.
I’d call that a failure.

http://www.afa.org/magazine/Oct2005/1005ICBM.asp

” … action was driven by the strictures of Soviet-American strategic arms control agreements—not military requirements.”

Makes it even more insane.

Pretty bizarre, I agree. The MX is (was) a fine missile!

Not only that they retire the best missiles. I could see yanking some Minuteman IIIs out but not the Peacekeepers.

Madness ctd.

http://aimpoints.hq.af.mil/display.cfm?id=6710

Desire to fade away… Mohenjo Daro, the Romans.
What’s left – Echnaton. Not to be remembered.
Why does I have to live in a time of decline and decay?