Word: minuteman
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...MINUTEMAN: Range 5,000 miles...
...years to come with its Apollo moonshot contract, and Lockheed is relatively well-backlogged with its contracts for the Polaris missile and the new Starlifter military transport. But the end is in sight for Boeing's big KC-135 flying-tanker contract, and its current orders for Minuteman missiles will run out in two or three years. Besides, it was the loser in the hot TFX competition, and thus stands next in line to get something from Washington...
...Minuteman silos, sunk 80 feet deep in the earth, are "hardened" by thick concrete walls. About 150 such silos, holding a Minuteman apiece, are dispersed over hundreds of miles of rugged western U.S. terrain. McNamara argued that no single Soviet missile-no matter how big-could be expected to knock out more than two silos at once. Less reassuring is the fact that the Minutemen's hardened sites have never been tested definitively by nuclear explosion effects, and McNamara admitted there are "uncertainties" in the design. But if the silos did survive the crushing pressures and ground fires...
...addition," said McNamara, "we have duplicative facilities which will in the future include the capability of launching each individual Minuteman by a signal from airborne control posts." The mobile control posts are KC-135 jet tankers of the Strategic Air Command which have been converted into communications centers under the control of an Air Force general officer. Such an officer could, from his airborne headquarters, launch the Minuteman flights...
Following the Minuteman and Polaris on the arsenal list is the Army's upcoming Pershing missile-a 400-mile supersonic "tactical" weapon that can be zipped around combat areas via truck, helicopter or airplane. It can be set up, aimed and fired from its portable launcher in less than an hour; it delivers a bang of up to one megaton -which makes it a threat to entire cities, if needed...