Word: icbms
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...near-flawless display of precision rocketry, the U.S. last week added two formidable new weapons systems to its nuclear arsenal. The Navy's fleet ballistic missile Poseidon and the Air Force's powerful Minuteman III ICBM, both on their maiden tests, winged like homing pigeons to their targets from two launching areas at Cape Kennedy. Their dual success was remarkable, but what distinguished the solid-fuel missiles even more was their potential. Each is designed to carry Multiple Individually-Targetable Re-entry Vehicles (MIRV), comprising as many as ten separate nuclear warheads ticketed for preselected targets...
Gorshkov's own status reflects the navy's elevation to a place of importance. His fleet ranks in the top troika of Russian weaponry, alongside the ICBM command, a separate service in the Soviet setup, and the air force strategic bombers. In the chain of command, Gorshkov reports directly to the Defense Ministry. He was elected to the Central Committee in 1961, became a Hero of the Soviet Union in 1965 and was promoted last year to the exalted five-star rank of Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union, only the third to get that honor...
Calling the ABM move a political decision made to "deprive the Republicans of a defense issue," Lapp suggested that the U.S. should instead use its long-established deterrent policy to protect itself against possible ICBM attack by China in the 1970s. His proposal: a China Polaris patrol armed with high-yield nuclear weapons programmed to hit specific Chinese targets...
...Sprint caused an incoming ICBM to explode at an altitude of 50 miles or less, the results would be more devastating. Quoting from an AEC publication, Lapp reported that in a test of a megaton-range weapon exploded 50 miles over the Pacific in 1958, exposed rabbits had suffered retinal burns at slant distances up to 345 miles from the blast. Furthermore, the AEC document read, "it is felt that there would be some danger to human beings at distances greater than 200 miles under similar circumstances...
Lower-altitude explosions in the atmosphere would be even more disastrous, Lapp calculates. The detonation of a ten-megaton ICBM by an intercepting Sprint at an altitude of 50,000 feet would produce second-degree skin burns in people over an area as large as 2,000 sq. mi. and cause dry paper to ignite over an area...