LGM-35A Sentinel - Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) program

Why the fetish for giant boosters? Smaller means more efficient, more missiles, cheaper, more basing options, less chance to get canceled. Give me an ICBM that can fit in a standard 40' shipping container.
 
Why the fetish for giant boosters? Smaller means more efficient, more missiles, cheaper, more basing options, less chance to get canceled. Give me an ICBM that can fit in a standard 40' shipping container.
Like Sarmat and the DF-41 those tiny missiles
 
Yes Sarmat... the most vulnerable and destabilizing missile in the Russian arsenal. We should definitely copy that one. A handful of Tridents and poof a third of the Russian warheads are gone.
 
Yes Sarmat... the most vulnerable and destabilizing missile in the Russian arsenal. We should definitely copy that one. A handful of Tridents and poof a third of the Russian warheads are gone.
In a preemptive first strike? Interesting
 
Aerojet Rocketdyne gearing up for GBSD??


Can buildup to 39’ first stage & 100” diameter. Peacekeeper was 28’ & 92” respectively.

Not saying GBSD will be anywhere near this size but it’d be nice;)
 
Extending MMIII could save $17.6 billion out to 2046? This is laughable. In the next 26 years total federal spending could exceed $140 trillion!! So that’s 0.0126% are you kidding me?

If you made $140,000/annum and thought cutting $17.60/year from personal spending would save your finances

 
Yet another example of pennywise and pound foolish I fear.
 
Well, the main argument for land-based ICBM is that they are cheap. Much cheaper & faster to build than SLBM's. If you suddenly need to increase your nuclear arsenal, building new missile sub with 24 missiles would took at least five years; the same amount of land-based missiles could be deployed in less than a year and for a fraction of cost.

For example: in 1980s, "Ohio"-class missile sub cost roughly 2 billions of dollars, and counting 24 "Trident" missiles (roughly 30 millions each) - 2,72 billions.

For that money, 38 MX missiles (roughly 70 millions each) could be deployed.

P.S. But what is clearly NOT wise, is to concentrate on silo-based missiles instead of mobile launchers.
 
P.S. But what is clearly NOT wise, is to concentrate on silo-based missiles instead of mobile launchers.

Mobile launchers pretty much kill the cheap argument.

They can't be THAT expensive if every other country on the planet with ICBMs uses them. (Even lowly North Korea.)

They definitely don't have our manning costs.

If you are a new nuclear power, the cost of building silos (assuming you have the appropriate geology and expertise),
will be weighed against the cost of putting the missile on a TEL.
 
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P.S. But what is clearly NOT wise, is to concentrate on silo-based missiles instead of mobile launchers.

Mobile launchers pretty much kill the cheap argument.

They can't be THAT expensive if every other country on the planet with ICBMs uses them. (Even lowly North Korea.)

They definitely don't have our manning costs.

If you are a new nuclear power, the cost of building silos (assuming you have the appropriate geology and expertise),
will be weighed against the cost of putting the missile on a TEL.


Good point. In any case, the whole, "land based ICBMs are useless" is a red herring. Even in silos they're far more of a deterrent than bombers or SLBMs.
 
Even in silos they're far more of a deterrent than bombers or SLBMs.

Exactly how?

They require a nuclear attack to destroy.
On the homeland
This is the key that some just cant' wrap their head around. If Russia or China sank an Ohio (and it's 200+ warheads, or whatever they've been downloaded to) and then claimed, "whoops, accident", would we nuke them? Probably not. If they nuked the equivalent amount of warheads on ICBMs (couple hundred nukes going off on the homeland) then yeah, no way they're talking their way out of that. It raises the bar for a war starting. In other words it's a deterrent. The only thing keeping SSBNs "safe" is they're currently hard to detect. I wouldn't bank on it staying that way forever.
 
You can always sink one or two of their subs in retaliation, its not like they are hard to find. But thats beside the point. Yes single-warhead ICBMs in silos are stabilizing deterrents, MIRVed ICBMs in silos (like Sarmat or Peacekeeper) however are destabilizing.
 
You can always sink one or two of their subs in retaliation, its not like they are hard to find. But thats beside the point. Yes single-warhead ICBMs in silos are stabilizing deterrents, MIRVed ICBMs in silos (like Sarmat or Peacekeeper) however are destabilizing.

Except big missiles like MX are highly resistant to pindown effects; the declassified
1979 ICBM and Strategic Force Modernization Options study indicated that MX could not be pinned down by an SLBM attack.

So the typical threats to a LOW/LUA posture are eliminated.
 
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You can always sink one or two of their subs in retaliation, its not like they are hard to find. But thats beside the point. Yes single-warhead ICBMs in silos are stabilizing deterrents, MIRVed ICBMs in silos (like Sarmat or Peacekeeper) however are destabilizing.

Except big missiles like MX are highly resistant to pindown effects; the declassified
1979 ICBM and Strategic Force Modernization Options study indicated that MX could not be pinned down by an SLBM attack.

So the typical threats to a LOW/LUA posture are eliminated.

In theory? I'd suspect a slightly different outcome in reality since the MX as deployed as the "Peacekeeper" was based in repurposed Minuteman silo's and as such were likely MORE, not less vulnerable as compared to the various proposed MX basing systems which were supposed to be new designs with a high survive-ability.

Randy
 
You can always sink one or two of their subs in retaliation, its not like they are hard to find. But thats beside the point. Yes single-warhead ICBMs in silos are stabilizing deterrents, MIRVed ICBMs in silos (like Sarmat or Peacekeeper) however are destabilizing.

Except big missiles like MX are highly resistant to pindown effects; the declassified
1979 ICBM and Strategic Force Modernization Options study indicated that MX could not be pinned down by an SLBM attack.

So the typical threats to a LOW/LUA posture are eliminated.

In theory? I'd suspect a slightly different outcome in reality since the MX as deployed as the "Peacekeeper" was based in repurposed Minuteman silo's and as such were likely MORE, not less vulnerable as compared to the various proposed MX basing systems which were supposed to be new designs with a high survive-ability.

Randy

Given that pindown resistance is a property of the missile and not the silo your suspicions are baseless.
 
You can always sink one or two of their subs in retaliation, its not like they are hard to find. But thats beside the point. Yes single-warhead ICBMs in silos are stabilizing deterrents, MIRVed ICBMs in silos (like Sarmat or Peacekeeper) however are destabilizing.

Except big missiles like MX are highly resistant to pindown effects; the declassified
1979 ICBM and Strategic Force Modernization Options study indicated that MX could not be pinned down by an SLBM attack.

So the typical threats to a LOW/LUA posture are eliminated.

In theory? I'd suspect a slightly different outcome in reality since the MX as deployed as the "Peacekeeper" was based in repurposed Minuteman silo's and as such were likely MORE, not less vulnerable as compared to the various proposed MX basing systems which were supposed to be new designs with a high survive-ability.

Randy

Given that pindown resistance is a property of the missile and not the silo your suspicions are baseless.

Been quite awhile since I read such that used "pindown' to mean something other than "threaten to destroy or have the capability to destroy before use" which is not just the missile but its supporting and operational systems. :) MX, as a "missile" included both it's silo and basing in the analysis's I read as the missile itself is useless without those systems and they were highly positive with the assumption of proposed basing and operations. Not so much as they were actually deployed.

Randy
 
The TRIAD of ICBMs, Bombers and subs seems to cover most of the bases.
It ought to be possible after 50 years to come up with a smaller ICBM than Minuteman using more survivable dispersed silos.
 

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