Word: silo
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...have. With a range of almost 2000 miles, it may be launched from airplanes, trucks, ships and subs. Easily conceded and mobile, the cruise would be almost invulnerable to Soviet attack, thus maintaining deference no matter what the scenario. A flexible weapon, it is equally effective on hard (silo) or soft (city) targets and useful in either strategic or tactical war. Accurate up to a few feet, the cruise zig zags to avoid defenses and subsequently can penetrate USSR airspace as successfully as ICBM...
...Forces brought forth its 26-page final report last week. There were few surprises. The blue-ribbon panel, appointed last January by President Reagan as a last-ditch attempt to find a home for the orphan MX missile, recommended the prompt deployment of 100 MX missiles in existing Minuteman silos and research on silo "hardening." For the long term, the panel proposed the development of an unspecified number of smaller (15-ton) single-warhead missiles with a range, like the MX's, of 8,000 miles...
Imagine a nuclear-tipped missile rising from a silo deep inside the Soviet Union, fixed on a target in the U.S. Almost immediately its fiery exhaust plumes trip warning sensors in satellites orbiting overhead. One of those satellites sends a powerful beam of light, or perhaps even a cascade of subatomic particles, bursting down from the heavens like a Jovian lightning bolt. The beam homes in on the ascending missile and fastens onto its nose cone. Burning through, the beam turns the electronic guidance system into silicon mush, sending the missile wobbling off course and totally immobilizing its nuclear warhead...
During the debate, anti-Dense Pack Congressmen had a field day ridiculing the unproven "fratricide" and silo-hardening theories. "Pearl Harbor was the original Dense Pack," said California Democrat John Burton, reversing Reagan's argument. Iowa Republican James Leach called the attempts to harden silos beyond anything ever achieved "a public works project for the cement industry...
Missiles might not destroy a silo even if they hit it dead-on. Destroying the silo requires the combined explosive force of all of the missiles. But if one of them explodes first, the resulting blast will destroy or at least deflect all the others. This "fratricide" theory remains unproven, but it forms the core of the justification for the "dense pack" basing mode proposed for the MX. If it will work for the MX, as the Administration claims, then it should work for the existing Minuteman silos, which can be hardened relatively cheaply...