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

Forest Green said:
That made it sound like they're connecting them to the internet??:(
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Over-the-air updates have been talked about for Aegis as the current process of updating Aegis takes about a business week or something.

The Air Force might actually be goofy enough to do it though.
 
Forest Green said:
That made it sound like they're connecting them to the internet??:(
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Combined response:
Josh_TN said:
Probably not the internet, but wireless connections, yes.
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Agreed on setting in some wireless connections and/or physical splice boxes for tests. Probably both, in all likelihood. But NOT, say again NOT CONNECTED to the internet.

So that instead of having to physically dig up the wires to isolate the missile to be tested, those splices are already laid in and the whole system has been tested with the splices already there. When it's test time, you go to the splice box, wherever it's supposed to be, and flip the switches or however they decide to set up the test cycle.

Wireless connections might be a backup system, or the wired side might be the backup. In either case the wireless access needs to be secured, and I'm not enough of an ITSEC type to even speculate as to how they might go about that.
 
The refurbishment of the command centers apparently retires 40% of them. Only three per squadron instead of five. I suspect this is considered fine for one of two reasons: the weapons are seen as launch on warning assets, or the command centers will be cross connected across wings and squadrons, or possibly not entirely necessary under some specific circumstances. Wireless connections would be absolutely required for option 2.
 
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Thinking about it more, I suspect the refurbishment to the existing silo system will allow a wireless remote launch from a command post *after* enablement from the local command centers after receiving a launch/enable order. Which would actually probably make the system more secure to first strike than current.

My understanding is currently five command centers control a wing of 50 missiles and that upon receiving a valid launch order, any two of them can initiate the launch. However, any *one* of them can initiate a 30 minute countdown to launch, which any one of the other four can invalidate, assuming they want to and are still alive. So one command center can deliver a delayed launch, two can do an immediate launch. All of them have the two man rule. I don't know what the Russians use for their ICBMs, but this is actually a pretty remarkably well thought out systems of redundancies for the MMIIIs.

I have read that each wing will downgrade from five command centers to three. But...my wild ass guess...the thirty minute launch option gets replaced with an "Enabled" wireless option. That is, instead of an immediate launch, the effected silos are given their PAL codes and their targets, and set to allow remote launch, from one command center (or alternatively there is a strictly "enable" code separate from an immediate launch code). At that point, off site communications can transmit the "go" command, but the missiles only can fly their previously authenticated missions and parameters. This would allow a middle ground between "launch on impact" and "launch on warning": enable on warning. Once the missile field is enabled, the only command it accepts is go fuck shit up, per previously human validated codes. The only hack possible is prematurely sending the missiles in the event the manned element already received authorization. At least, that is how I would set it up, and the reduction from five command centers to three makes me think something along these lines is being arranged as part of the upgrade.

Also if you think about it, every single SSBN was always given a remote launch command via radio for the better part of a century. So I don't think remote commands are a big deal. Everyone is acting like a launch code would be transmitted through a Linksys router that no one changed the default password on. I suspect the same communications methods reserved for SSBNs would be used on the new Sentinel infrastructure.
 
Kat Tsun said:
Over-the-air updates have been talked about for Aegis as the current process of updating Aegis takes about a business week or something.

The Air Force might actually be goofy enough to do it though.
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A business week that requires the ship be in port with contractor support!
 
Josh_TN said:
Also if you think about it, every single SSBN was always given a remote launch command via radio for the better part of a century. So I don't think remote commands are a big deal. Everyone is acting like a launch code would be transmitted through a Linksys router that no one changed the default password on. I suspect the same communications methods reserved for SSBNs would be used on the new Sentinel infrastructure.
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Probably not exactly the same, no reason for VLF or ELF radios with mile long antennas, which are basically only there to shove a radio signal through hundreds of feet of water depth.

But I'd expect similar protocols.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Probably not exactly the same, no reason for VLF or ELF radios with mile long antennas, which are basically only there to shove a radio signal through hundreds of feet of water depth.

But I'd expect similar protocols.
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My understanding was that ELF/VLF is/was only to call the boat to the surface to accept orders or to send some other similar simple instructions. I thought low bandwidth precluded any actual launch orders via that system.
 
Josh_TN said:
My understanding was that ELF/VLF is/was only to call the boat to the surface to accept orders or to send some other similar simple instructions. I thought low bandwidth precluded any actual launch orders via that system.
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I wasn't a radioman, so I'm not entirely sure what comms channels carried what information. I know that VLF carried Emergency Action Messages.

The deal with VLF/ELF is the slow data rate. If you can send a fairly short set of code blocks that break to a longer action message (gotta love multiple layer encryption), you could send full launch orders to previously selected targets.
 
bobbymike said:
www.bloomberg.com

New US Ballistic Missile May Cost So Much That Project Risks Being Terminated

The US Air Force’s new intercontinental ballistic missile program is at risk of blowing past its initial $96 billion cost estimate by so much that the overruns may trigger a review on whether to terminate the project.
www.bloomberg.com www.bloomberg.com
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Which happens when a bunch of people have to relearn all the institutional knowledge...

Still think the USAF should just suck it up and buy a pile of D5LE missiles, stick them into silos.
 
NMaude said:
Despite cost increases the US will have to bite the bullet and introduce the LGM-35A as the MMIII is in desperate need of replacement.
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It's honestly so important that I would mandate the contracted company builds it a capped price if necessary. I know that's a bit authoritarian but in this case it's warranted.
 
Forest Green said:
It's honestly so important that I would mandate the contracted company builds it a capped price if necessary. I know that's a bit authoritarian but in this case it's warranted.
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Fixed Price contracts have not been successful, historically speaking.
 
Forest Green said:
The company won't go bankrupt, these companies are huge, this is 1 contract. It more than likely just means that there won't be as much profit as they'd like.
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If fulfilling a contract means that the company has to dump so much money into it that they cannot make payroll or other payments, that's the very definition of bankrupt.

See the A-12 Avenger II for example.
 
Scott Kenny said:
If fulfilling a contract means that the company has to dump so much money into it that they cannot make payroll or other payments, that's the very definition of bankrupt.

See the A-12 Avenger II for example.
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I bet China and Russia wouldn't have such problems. A freedom so free that it cannot even defend itself anymore. Tell me how it's so hard to build an ICBM when the US makes reusable launch vehicles and missile interceptors? ICBMs were around for decades before the latter. It's like making aeroplanes and not knowing how to produce a train. Failure on a level that isn't even comprehensible.
 
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Forest Green said:
I bet China and Russia wouldn't have such problems. A freedom so free that it cannot even defend itself anymore. Tell me how it's so hard to build an ICBM when the US makes reusable launch vehicles and missile interceptors? ICBMs were around for decades before the latter. It's like making aeroplanes and not knowing how to produce a train. Failure on a level that isn't even comprehensible.
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It's engineers that have never made the items before, so have to relearn everything.

Trapped in a contract that doesn't allow the budget to make any mistakes at all, times typical .gov stupidity changing specifications after a section has been designed, times nuclear weapons compartmentalization.

Each individual stage gets assigned to a different team, each only told that the weight their stage needed to lift was no more than X. Which lead to a missile that ends up a few feet longer than planned due to tolerance stacking.

Had the US built Midgetman or replaced Minuteman in the 1990s, we'd possibly still have the problems, as that was 30 years ago and the engineers that designed the Midgetman are at or beyond retirement, but at least we'd have people to call who know how this works.
 
Forest Green said:
I bet China and Russia wouldn't have such problems. A freedom so free that it cannot even defend itself anymore. Tell me how it's so hard to build an ICBM when the US makes reusable launch vehicles and missile interceptors? ICBMs were around for decades before the latter. It's like making aeroplanes and not knowing how to produce a train. Failure on a level that isn't even comprehensible.
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The issue isn't that the US can't make an ICBM; the issue is that like every major program, it will run over budget and behind schedule. I suspect a lot of the problems are not with the missile itself but the overhaul of the entire infrastructure and command and control system that supports it, something else that a huge Peacekeeper buy back in the 80s would not have addressed. I think the fear that the project will get cancelled is misplaced; the PRC has made it eminently clear it seeks nuclear parity and it is hard to picture a lack of bipartisan support for the program regardless of the cries of a minority of peaceniks.
 
Josh_TN said:
Definitely a hyperbolic headline, but by the same token: the US doesn't use ICBMs as its major deterrent. I forget who coined the phrase, but someone called the modern US nuclear deterrent a "tricycle": a lot of silos with one warhead, a lot of bombers that would never leave the ground (only two bases store active nuclear weapons), and...all of the Tridents.
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Josh_TN said:
Its a fair point, and IMO any land based weapons are second tier compared to the SSBNs. That isn't to say they aren't necessary; that is just to say perhaps we don't need uber huge liquid fueled models or to be researching how to hide land based weapons when we've already cornered the market on the best concealed strategic weapons with the highest accuracy decades ago.
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You know, this has been France reasonning since 1997 and the end of every nuclear weaponry bar exactly two systems
- M51 SLBMs
- ASMP-A
Everything else - Hades & Pluton, AN-52s tac'nukes, plateau d'Albion IRBMs - is long gone. French land army lost all its nukes.
And ASMP air component only survives because of
- absolute flexibility
- low cost
- a human-pilot-in-the-loop
- high visibility deterrent (more than a sub)

The British only have SLBMs since 1998 and WE.177 retirement.

Sometimes I try to think about SLBM basics: as they stand since Polaris, 60 years ago. I mean: a volley of solid-fuel rockets buried inside (mobile) nuclear submarines hidding in the ocean depths.

Say what you want, but despite USAF 60 years of Minuteman and Peacekeeper basing studies (STRAT-X, WS-120A, Golden Arrow, and later the never-ending nail-bitting Peacekeeper basing debate, 1976-1991) fact is that Earth oceans are the ultimate shield and ultimate hidding place to hide nuclear weapons. Not even the Moon or Earth orbit can beat that. Or the polar caps (iceworm !) or granite mountains, or nuclear aircraft, continuous airborne...
 
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Josh_TN said:
The issue isn't that the US can't make an ICBM; the issue is that like every major program, it will run over budget and behind schedule. I suspect a lot of the problems are not with the missile itself but the overhaul of the entire infrastructure and command and control system that supports it, something else that a huge Peacekeeper buy back in the 80s would not have addressed. I think the fear that the project will get cancelled is misplaced; the PRC has made it eminently clear it seeks nuclear parity and it is hard to picture a lack of bipartisan support for the program regardless of the cries of a minority of peaceniks.
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Because instead of relatively short runs and then a somewhat-more-capable replacement in 15-20 years, the US designs a system every 40-50 years. All the people who designed that system are dead by the time the replacement is getting designed, ON BOTH SIDES (government and contractors).
 
Archibald said:
You know, this has been France reasonning since 1997 and the end of every nuclear weaponry bar exactly two systems
- M51 SLBMs
- ASMP-A
Everything else - Hades & Pluton, AN-52s tac'nukes, plateau d'Albion IRBMs - is long gone. French land army lost all its nukes.
And ASMP air component only survives because of
- absolute flexibility
- low cost
- a human-pilot-in-the-loop
- high visibility deterrent (more than a sub)

The British only have SLBMs since 1998 and WE.177 retirement.

Sometimes I try to think about SLBM basics: as they stand since Polaris, 60 years ago. I mean: a volley of solid-fuel rockets buried inside (mobile) nuclear submarines hidding in the ocean depths.

Say what you want, but despite USAF 60 years of Minuteman and Peacekeeper basing studies (STRAT-X, WS-120A, Golden Arrow, and later the never-ending nail-bitting Peacekeeper basing debate, 1976-1991) fact is that Earth oceans are the ultimate shield and ultimate hidding place to hide nuclear weapons. Not even the Moon or Earth orbit can beat that. Or the polar caps (iceworm !) or granite mountains, or nuclear aircraft, continuous airborne...
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Bombers and land-based missiles are the visible deterrent. You can see them, you can raise their alert levels to inform your enemies that you're not happy about whatever it is that they're doing, you can lower their alert levels once whatever it was has stopped. All very public.

Submarines are the Mutually Assured Destruction deterrent. You cannot find them all, and only one of them holds about 3x the total firepower used in WW2 (in the case of Tridents). They will wreck your country to the point that you cannot win in any conceivable way, and there's nothing you can do to stop them except not launch nukes in the first place.
 
Josh_TN said:
The issue isn't that the US can't make an ICBM; the issue is that like every major program, it will run over budget and behind schedule. I suspect a lot of the problems are not with the missile itself but the overhaul of the entire infrastructure and command and control system that supports it, something else that a huge Peacekeeper buy back in the 80s would not have addressed. I think the fear that the project will get cancelled is misplaced; the PRC has made it eminently clear it seeks nuclear parity and it is hard to picture a lack of bipartisan support for the program regardless of the cries of a minority of peaceniks.
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Shit if it's what you say then they seriously need to look into TELs. They will be far more cheaper. They can reuse the new tank engines that Cummins is designing. Also the silos are way too old.
 
bobbymike said:
Or if they stick to silo basing take a tour of the new Chinese silos.
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TEL are very easy to make. They already have the engines and vehicle ready. Only have to design the launcher. It is a cheap and stopgap option but for stupid institutional reasons they won't use TELs. Inertia is the deadliest disease for an organisation.
 
indicisivedivide said:
TEL are very easy to make. They already have the engines and vehicle ready. Only have to design the launcher. It is a cheap and stopgap option but for stupid institutional reasons they won't use TELs. Inertia is the deadliest disease for an organisation.
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TELs without overhead cover are a dead end in a world with persistent and prolific UAV and satellite surveillance.
 
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Josh_TN said:
TELs are a dead end in a world with persistent and prolific satellite surveillance.
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No they are still a viable system. A CRI where half the missiles go into TEL and other half in silos is very useful. Secondly they can be camouflaged to hide form satellite and can be coated with cheap RAM to hide from SAR satellite. Hybrid electric engines such as the new Cummins engine will lend a very low IR signature. Technology exists to keep them relevant.
 
Archibald said:
They could take a licence from North Korea... wait, forget that. :rolleyes:
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North Korean TELs are Chinese-built trucks that were sold to them for "logging" (although I'm pretty sure the North Koreans reversed engineered them and started building their own, given there are now more TELs than the original 5 that were sold to them).
 
indicisivedivide said:
No they are still a viable system. A CRI where half the missiles go into TEL and other half in silos is very useful. Secondly they can be camouflaged to hide form satellite and can be coated with cheap RAM to hide from SAR satellite. Hybrid electric engines such as the new Cummins engine will lend a very low IR signature. Technology exists to keep them relevant.
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Maybe camouflage can keep up with the ISR threat, maybe it cannot. Not knowing for sure however is an unacceptable situation for a strategic deterrent.

The only way I’d accept a TEL based deterrent is if it has a network of hardened shelters to move through. And at that point you have to wonder if it isn’t cheaper and easier to just build silos instead of shelters and move the missiles around those. And at that point…why not just have hundreds of missiles in hundreds of silos? That is direction the PRC seems to be moving in, away from TELs. The U.S. is already in that position be default. If anything, I’d just build additional silos.
 
Josh_TN said:
Maybe camouflage can keep up with the ISR threat, maybe it cannot. Not knowing for sure however is an unacceptable situation for a strategic deterrent.

The only way I’d accept a TEL based deterrent is if it has a network of hardened shelters to move through. And at that point you have to wonder if it isn’t cheaper and easier to just build silos instead of shelters and move the missiles around those. And at that point…why not just have hundreds of missiles in hundreds of silos? That is direction the PRC seems to be moving in, away from TELs. The U.S. is already in that position be default. If anything, I’d just build additional silos.
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I am talking about a stopgap measure. Should be something around a hundred to two hundred warhead on TEL. Missile warning is very advanced and a launcher will of course be prepared to launch quickly.
 
indicisivedivide said:
I am talking about a stopgap measure. Should be something around a hundred to two hundred warhead on TEL. Missile warning is very advanced and a launcher will of course be prepared to launch quickly.
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If there’s no money for the silo based program there certainly is no money for a TEL side project. The stopgap is maintaining MM3 for as long as necessary.
 

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