History, Politics And Current Affairs

MIRV A Brief History (COVD-1571) Page 36 Most Soviet targets [in 1962] were assumed to be defended in the future by terminal ABMs such as upgraded SA-2 or SA-4 (See Note 11). Source is listed as "The Penetration and Target Damage Effectiveness of Single and Multiple Reentry Vehicle Systems Agai...

On SDN nearly 20 years ago back in August 2007, Stuart got into a conversation which I preserved, because buried in it; Stuart posted something very profound: That's why its critical to determine when a document was written, who write it, why it was written and who it was written for., A document ou...

North American Rockwell came up with an insane concept that was like BOMARC on cocaine: Mr. WRIGHT. The next chart shows an AERIE concept that I am going to be discussing, where it fits in with respect to intercept timeline. As you can see here, it is a relatively small interceptor. What you see on ...

Final VuGraph from the 1992 SDIO presentation

McDonnell Douglas proposed an expanded anti SLBM terminal defense using HEDI at several more sites along the coast; in addition to HEDI being deployed to Grand Forks.

Forgive me if this sounds like trivialising a superb technical post, but can we conclude from this that Stu was right all along in his contention that ABM was a problem mostly solved by the late 1960s? I've been reading a lot of sources but a lot depends on the definition of "is" is to qu...

From McNamara Memorandum "Recommended FY 1966-1970 Programs for Strategic Offensive Forces, Continental Air and Missile Defense Forces, and Civil Defense" to POTUS, dated 3 December 1964, showing us the Phase I Nike-X (Pre-SPARTAN) deployment concepts the Army had at the time. SPRINT-X.png...

NORTH AMERICAN AIR DEFENSE COMMAND and CONTINENTAL AIR DEFENSE COMMAND HISTORICAL SUMMARY JULY-DECEMBER 1962 In September [1962], NORAD learned that the Army had issued contract awards of $375,000 each to Douglas, Lockheed, Martin, and North American Aviation for a study to define a SPRINT AICBM mis...

Jack P. Ruina Oral History Interview – JFK#1, 11/08/1971 And it was at that time that I give myself credit for inventing the, what is the Nike-Zeus system now. Not that I handed it in from scratch because a lot of the technology which Nike-Zeus contained was already in the air. Answer had been worki...

I just realized I missed several important points in the above quasi essay: POINT 1: 1967 NIKE-X cost estimates given to the Senate in secret (declassified 2010) were: [https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CPRT-110SPRT31436/html/CPRT-110SPRT31436.htm] SPARTAN @ $1.41M/ea SPRINT @ $0.636M/ea This is j...

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD0395263.pdf DOD used SPRINT launches in 1967-68 for live tests to see whether OTH (Over the Horizon) Radar could be used to detect ABM operations. The ground range from the radar site to the Sprint launch site at WSMR is approximately 1500 naut. mi. The expected slan...

I remember him mentioning a few years before he passed away a bit about Soviet aircraft guns and how they weren't built to last because Soviet pilots weren't expected to live long enough for their guns to get worn out. The mentality was in the are instances where their life was up, they'd be straig...

As I mentioned before; the Anti ABM people collapse everything to the classic "single radar" problem.

Random things coughed out by the current (Nov 2025) free version of Grok: 2. Implications of the Fairbanks site (SR + ER co-location in Alaska) Fairbanks is the only continental site that can see ICBMs launched from Siberia or Kamchatka while they are still in powered flight or very early midcourse ...

NOTE: There is no thread II, III, IV, etc. We started at XLVI as sort of a nod as to how numerous this has been over the years. But if you're interested in other threads on this subject, try this on for size: LINK LINK 2 Try tossing these into your preferred online LLM (Grok, ChatGPT, etc) of choice...

Strategy Must Change by General Tomoyuki Yamashita As told to Captain Lowell M. Limpus (Inactive) [Infantry Journal, April 1946] THIS article was dictated in a prison cell in Manila by the most famous Japanese soldier produced by World War II. Shortly after he dictated it a U. S. Military Commission...

EDIT -- This appears to be substantially the same speech that was given to the representatives of all services at SAC Headquarters, Offutt Air Force Base, Omaha, on 15 March, 1954 by SAC's Deputy Director of Ops. Basically the "Smoking Radiating Ruin at the end of Two Hours" Speech. Compar...

It’s very much a golden age of not just knowledge creation but knowledge dissemination. I'm currently using the French Mistral AI -- right mix of pricing $14/month and free testing to see if my use case worked to transcribe stuff I've had for at least 10-12 years, but the quality was too poor to OC...

From a Soviet military journal circa July 1961 https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/1962-04-30.pdf During 1960, SAC conducted four large exarcises, Full Play - February 1960; Sky Shield - September 1960; Big Play - October 1960; Full Coordination - November 1960, with the actual participation of up ...

https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB130/SIOP-21.pdf

17 January 1961 guidance:

NSTAP prescribes 75% assurance of delivery at each bomb release line of the necessary weapons to achieve the specified levels of damage to targets on the NSTL.

This is the SIOP that went "hot" in August 1962 and was active during the Cuban Missile Crisis... https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb236/SIOP-63.pdf HISTORY OF THE JOINT STRATECIC TARGET PLANNING STAFF: PREPARATION OF SIOP-63 HISTORY & RESEARCH DIVISION HEADQUARTERS STRATEGIC AIR ...