Word: minuteman
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...rate, a single 20-megaton bomb is enough to destroy any modern city. In its present H-bomb arsenal, the U.S. has reliable 2-megaton warheads for the Titan I missile, and 500-kiloton warheads for the Navy's Polaris and the Air Force's Minuteman. In an age of megaton H-bombs, mere kilotons sound strangely small, but the Minuteman warhead explodes with 20 times the force of the primitive, 20-kiloton A-bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945. killing 78,-ooo people. Ranging down in power, the U.S. has a large group of small tactical nuclear...
...efficiency of the Minuteman's warhead, for example, were to be doubled, the missile could be rigged to deliver a bigger bang; a decrease in weight of the current-strength warhead would allow an increase in the missile's range. The same effect would show up all along the line; a B-52 could carry twice as many improved 20-megaton bombs. The U.S. has many new weapons systems with nuclear warheads that have yet to be explosively tested. No ICBM, for instance, has carried a nuclear warhead out of the atmosphere and back again and demonstrated that...
...whole idea of joining a test-ban treaty. In all probability, Khrushchev has been under heavy pressure from his own generals who demand an armory of refined, small nuclear weapons to match the superior variety of tactical weapons already developed by the U.S. for such tactical missiles as Minuteman and Polaris...
...Minuteman. Or, U.S. scientists guessed, perhaps it was the "small" trigger device for the huge 100-megaton monster that Khrushchev boasted was being designed...
Construction at Complex 2-A is now completed, and its Titans are being readied. Around the U.S., as other work progresses, 50 other missiles will be in place by year's end. By 1963, several Minuteman silos will be completed daily; an impressive arsenal of about 200 missiles will be primed and ready. Safely underground and protected against counterfire, they will serve as a grim reminder that the U.S. is well able to strike back against aggression of whatever magnitude. In the long run, that ability may be the deterrent that will keep the silo doors closed...