Word: warhead
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...would lessen the risk of a dreaded phenomenon known as breakout, the capacity of one side suddenly to increase its offensive force and intimidate the enemy. The issue will become an important factor as the U.S. gradually moves away from a land-based ICBM force made up of multiple-warhead missiles in underground fixed silos (like the Minuteman) and relies more on mobile single-warhead missiles (the proposed Midgetman). Such weapons would be vulnerable to a barrage of enemy warheads, and very high levels of throw weight translate into an increased ability to conduct barrage attacks...
...ground-launched cruise missiles in Western Europe, plus many carrier-based and land-based tactical aircraft in Europe and Asia, would be counted as strategic. Soviet medium-range bombers, on the other hand, would not be counted, nor would the Kremlin's intermediate-range missiles, most notably the triple-warhead SS-20, even though they could wipe out Western Europe. By adding up virtually all "forward-based" U.S. nuclear weapons while at the same time refusing to count Soviet weapons capable of hitting Europe or Asia, the Soviets would be stacking the deck against the U.S. before cutting...
Concerning the technologies specifically involved in Star Wars, the booklet concludes that the Soviet effort "represents a far greater investment of plant space, capital and manpower" than the American SDI. It provides only one partial budgetary comparison: Soviet efforts to develop laser beams as warhead-killing weapons "would cost roughly $1 billion per year (to duplicate) in the U.S." That would be about triple the $340 million the U.S. spent on SDI laser development in fiscal 1985. The booklet does present some tantalizing, and disturbing, tidbits of more specific information. Samples...
...teases the Reagan Administration about how it should "deal us yet another propaganda blow, say, by suspending the development of one of your new strategic missiles. And we would respond with the same kind of 'propaganda.' " Is that a veiled offer to scrap the U.S.S.R.'s threatening new multiple-warhead ICBM, the SS-24, in exchange for cancellation of the American...
Termed a miniature homing vehicle, or MHV, the warhead rests on the tip of an 18-ft. missile slung from the belly of a high-flying, specially equipped F-15 fighter. Guided by ground stations tracking enemy satellites, the F-15 climbs several miles into the sky and fires the missile. The two-stage rocket then boosts the warhead out of the atmosphere and into space. The telescopes in the nose of the MHV pick up infrared radiation emanating from the enemy satellite and focus it on a heat-sensitive targeting device. The device is housed in a small refrigerator...