Word: silos
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...latest leading contender among basing schemes is "Dense Pack." The idea is to build, say, 200 underground silos on several 20-sq.-mi. parcels of military land. Since only 20 missiles would be allotted to each 200-silo cluster, scores of empty silos would harmlessly draw Soviet warheads. One of Dense Pack's entirely theoretical virtues is "fratricide": since Soviet bombs would arrive in exceptionally tight formation, the first to explode might destroy its "brother" warheads...
...Khan, 52, Bangladesh-born structural engineer whose ingenious "bundled tube" design was applied to the construction of Chicago's 1,804-ft., 110-story Sears Tower, the world's tallest building; of a heart attack; in Saudi Arabia. Khan's innovative approach brought together narrow, silo-like structures to form a thicker tower, thus doing away with the conventional skeleton frame...
Fourth, the program modernizes the land-based missile force by developing the MX missile, which can carry ten warheads, and by initially deploying at least 100 of these missiles in Titan and Minuteman silos "that will be reconstructed for much greater hardness to nuclear effects." Research and development will be pursued on three "promising, long-term, basing options for MX" with a selection of "one or more" by 1984: continuous Air-borne Patrol Aircraft; Ballistic Missile Defense of silos; Deep Underground Basing. In my opinion, none of these is satisfactory: the aircraft, because it patrols over the ocean would...
Missing from Reagan's recommendations on improving land-based forces is an effective low-cost ballistic missile defense of the 1000 Miniteman silos, a much easier job than defending 100 high-value MX silos. This defense against Soviet warheads can be achieved by the use of buried nuclear explosives to throw up debris that destroys incoming warheads, by the "SWARMJET" system of launching a shotgun blast of 10,000 small unguided raockets at each warhead as it approaches the target silo. Perhaps now that the deceptive basing scheme is out of the way, real effort can be applied to analyze...
...deterent, i.e., a breakthrough in anti-submarine warfare or a breakthrough that would imperil the survival of our strategic aircraft. His proposal to develop both the MX and the Trident-II missile calls for further analysis, however, since the Trident-II could just as well be deployed in Minuteman silos, or in any of the other MX basing modes thus far considered. Furthermore, the President's proposal to harden existing silos fails to address the problem of land-based IBCM vulnerability because it is impossible where they are threatened by a modest improvement in Soviet accuracy. A 30 per cent...