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 out of that context is meaningless.
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CC (Fri Aug 03, 2007 5:17 pm)
Illuminatus Primus wrote:MIRVs are not designed to defeat ABM. Moscow's ABM system is optimized to defeat marginal threats, like the Chinese, British, or French one. The U.S. strategic forces are more than capable of defeating it by saturation.
Not entirely true.
One of the major reasons for developing and deploying MIRVs was to increase penetrability.
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Stuart » Fri Aug 03, 2007 6:55 pm
That's not why MIRV was developed. MIRV comes from an entirely different background.
The ICBM itself is only a small part of the total system; in fact it represents about 10 percent of the total cost of the missile + silo + command control system + support system.
Worse, that cost is individual to each missile. If we double the number of missiles, we double the number of silos, of command control systems and of support systems.
Therefore if we want to deliver ten warheads using single-warhead missiles, its going to cost us ten times as much as delivering one warhead using the same missile.
If X is the cost of a missile and Y is the total system cost for ten missiles
Y = 10(X + 9X)
Y = 100X
Now, if we use MIRV and put all ten warheads onto one missile the silo , support, C4I cost are all for a single missile. So for MIRV missile (assumng it costs twice as much as a single warhead missile)
Y =1(2X+9X)
Y = 11X
In other words, the system is almost ten times less expensive. Now, if we take the money we've just saved and use it to double the hardness of the silo, ie the degree of overpressure needed to crush it we get an interesting effect. The destructive power of a warhead is proportional to teh cube root of its explosive power so, to double the overpressure at a given distance, we have to multiply the explosive power by eight. Or drop significantly more warheads around that silo.
So, not only does MIRV save a lot of money but it also complicates the task of a counterforce strike.
That was the reason why both the US and USSR developed MIRV. Of course, once the decision to develop MIRV was made, every imaginable reasonw hy it should be developed was attached to it
The document you link to is interesting, its a history of MIRV development but its written from a very odd viewpoint. Some of the comments on it are wildly wrong - for example MIRV warheads are less powerful and less accurate than those deployed from single missiles. Common sense should tell you why that is. Unfortunately as far as I can see, there's no way of tracing exactly what that document was written for, or for who it was intended. Its critical to put any document into context, without being able to do that, a document is jus a piece of dirty paper.
I have a hunch that this one was written as part of the campaign against ABM - its a nasty problem for the MIRVites that MIRV is very vulnerable in the face of a ballistic missile defense system. ABM had to be cancelled if MIRV was to be viable. It looks to me as if this document was part of that effort.
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CC » Sat Aug 04, 2007 3:17 am
That's not why MIRV was developed. MIRV comes from an entirely different background.
<snip>
Neither I nor the document ever said that it was the sole reason, simply that one of the major reasons was that it was to increase penetrability.
The document you link to is interesting, its a history of MIRV development but its written from a very odd viewpoint. Some of the comments on it are wildly wrong - for example MIRV warheads are less powerful and less accurate than those deployed from single missiles. Common sense shoul tell you why that is.
Can you show me where it said otherwise? It states several times that objection to MRV and MIRV came from some in the Air Force who preferred a larger yield warhead. Also, it seems to me that the greater accuracy remark is in comparison to normal MRVs, though it could be read as applying in general.
Unfortunately as far as I can see, there's no way of tracing exactly what that document was written for, or for who it was intended. Its critical to put any document into context, without being able to do that, a document is jus a piece of dirty paper.
I have a hunch that this one was written as part of the campaign against ABM - its a nasty problem for the MIRVites that MIRV is very vulnerable in the face of a ballistic missile defense system. ABM had to be cancelled if MIRV was to be viable. It looks to me as if this document was part of that effort.
The document appears to simply be a basic history of the Minutemann missile and multiple reentry vehicles, without a noticeable bias in the text. Until and unless a more authoritative source is found, your hunch seems to be an attempt to impugn the document without support.
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Stuart » Sat Aug 04, 2007 12:12 pm
CC wrote: Neither I nor the document ever said that it was the sole reason, simply that one of the major reasons was that it was to increase penetrability.
But it wasn't. That's the point. "Penetrating ABM defenses" was something that was tacked on long after the decision to adopt MIRVs was made.
In fact, the real decision train goes back to the days of the bomber-missile debate. Missiles were originally pitched as being better than manned bombers because they were cheaper and less vulnerable than bombers.
Then, it became apparent that a missile was only capable of delivering single warheads while bombers could carry multiple weapons. Because of the additional costs associated with missiles that are not duplicated with bombers (a bomber base costs essentially the same regardless of whether there are 25 or 75 aircraft based on it - a missile base with 75 missiles costs three times as much as a missile base with 25 missiles) the cost of a fleet of single-warhead missiles that could deliver the same number of warheads as a bomber fleet greatly exceeded the cost of that bomber fleet - destroying the "missiles are cheaper" argument.
Thus, piling more warheads onto missiles was essential if the missile community was to maintain its case.
That was the single most powerful driving force behind MIRV. Note also that ABM was rapidly developing, by 1959 intercepts were already being achieved (and presented no real difficulty even then) so the other leg of the missile vs bomber case was in threat also.
Catch was, MIRV is only viable in the absence of ABM - otherwise the defense just shoots down the warhead bus - something that was also easily with reach of the technology then available.
There, in a nutshell, is the reason for the sudden growth of anti-ABM activity in the early 1960s.
MIRV isn't a means of penetrating an ABM screen
and never has been. Eliminating ABM is a vital step towards making MIRV a practical proposition.
It states several times that objection to MRV and MIRV came from some in the Air Force who preferred a larger yield warhead. Also, it seems to me that the greater accuracy remark is in comparison to normal MRVs, though it could be read as applying in general.
The comment about the faction who preferred larger warheads is almost certainly a reference to the bomber faction in the Air Force. Bombers can deliver bigger warheads than missiles and can deliver them with much greater accuracy.
That was a big problem for the missile community and one they had to work like crazy to overcome. That and the fact a bomber can carry a dozen or more devices and deliver them to widely-separated targets.
That's why its critical to determine when a document was written, who wrote it, why it was written and who it was written for. A document out of that context is meaningless.
As a matter of simple fact, the cumulative accuracy of a triple MRV is significantly greater than the single warhead of an MIRV. MIRVing a missile involved a significant loss of accuracy, MRVing that missile results in a cumulative gain in accuracy - although neither come close to a manned bomber. Again, simple logic should tell you why an MRV is effectively more accurate than a warhead from an MIRV.
The document appears to simply be a basic history of the Minutemann missile and multiple reentry vehicles, without a noticeable bias in the text.
Actually, there are massive biases written into the text. I read the whole thing (in fact, once I started to read it, I realized I had read this thing before - in fact the original unredacted version is somewhere in file). It's an air force missile community document pitching their case.
I'll say this again, no document is proof of anything unless we know its source, its date, when it was presented, who it was presented to and why it was prepared.
In short, we have to know the context of a document before we can attach any weight to it.
Just saying that "there is a document that states X doesn't prove anything - for example I can quote documents that state there are vast quantities of WMDs in Iraq - do you consider them absolute proof that there were?
Until and unless a more authoritative source is found, your hunch seems to be an attempt to impugn the document without support.
You're dead right I'm impugning this document - that should be your first reaction as well. It should always be the first step when dealing with a document that says something. Why does it give us this information? Why are the people who wrote it saying this?
Nobody - including me - ever gives you information without having an agenda.
Your first step should always be to find out what that agenda is and then analyse what you are being told in the light of that agenda.
Just because an argument is presented on a piece of paper does not make it intrinically more reliable than an argument presented by any other means.
Any document is suspect until placed into context.
I've spent 35 years working in the defense industry/strategic attack business and I've dealt with all these issues at first hand. When I tell you that ballistic missiles can be intercepted its because I've stood in a control room and watched it done, not because I read it in a book somewhere. When you want sources, I'm one of the people other people quote as a source - I can point you at "documents" that prove any case I chose to make absolutely and beyond refutation - because I wrote them. Just saying, 'oh there's a document that says X' is meaningless - a document out of context is just a piece of dirty paper.
An out of context document isn't a source or proof of anything.
Again, I'll refer you to the piles of documents (including those presented to the UN) that state categorically Saddam Hussein had a functioning WMD program and large stockpiles of such weapons.
Using your logic, that proves absolutely that this was the case and you've just justified the invasion of Iraq.
In The Business, there's a saying "The secreter the truer".
To the uninitiated, just stamping "secret " on a document makes everything in it much truer.
It isn't so of course, "secret documents" are just as likely to be utter nonsense as any newspaper article except they don't get the same level of critical scrutiny (which may be why they were stamped "secret" in the first place - its a well-known dodge - write out an extremely tendentious case and then stamp it secret so people who could wreck it don't get the chance.
The civilian equivalent is making a claim that is known to be flat wrong but doing so knowing that disproving the flat wrong statement would mean disclosing classified information. A guy called Postol is notorious for doing that).
Waving a piece of dirty paper around is great at high school level of debate.
Once somebody is out of high school, finding a document that says something is just the first step. The document must be placed in context, and its content analysed.
The argument otherwise is just "somebody else says so" and that means nothing. It's just an appeal to authority and unless we know the context of a document, that document isn't an authority on anything.
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Uraniun235 » Sat Aug 04, 2007 12:43 pm
Stuart wrote:The civilian equivalent is making a claim that is known to be flat wrong but doing so knowing that disproving the flat wrong statement would mean disclosing classified information. A guy called Postol is notorious for doing that.
If I remember right, Kennedy also used this to great advantage against Nixon.
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Stuart » Sat Aug 04, 2007 3:14 pm
Uraniun235 wrote:If I remember right, Kennedy also used this to great advantage against Nixon.
That's right; it came back to bite him in the ass over the Cuba affair. He'd made such a fuss over the "missile gap" that he couldn't turn around and tell the American people that he'd deliberately lied and that the U.S. was overwhelmingly superior to the USSR in the strategic weapons department.
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Zixinus » Sat Aug 04, 2007 3:24 pm
This may be a rumour alone, but wasn't that found at during the end of his term?
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Stuart » Sat Aug 04, 2007 7:34 pm
I'm not quite sure what you mean, the fact Kennedy was lying through his teeth was known throughout the 1960 election campaign by everybody from the lowliest Air Force Lieutenant upwards. They couldn't say anything because contradicting Kennedy would have meant disclosing that we knew how many ICBMs the Soviets had operational (six), where they were, what their alert time was and how much notice we would have of the launch (enough for a WW1 veteran flying a Sopwith Camel to get there and shoot them up on the ground - hyperbole but not much).
The "missile gap" case pretty much collapsed during the 1963 -64 era, mostly as a result of the Cuban Confrontation but, as far as I know, the fact that Kennedy knew it was fake and went ahead with it anyway wasn't really proven until the 1980s. I may be wrong on that though.
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Ma Deuce » Sun Aug 05, 2007 9:15 am
Furthermore, didn't Kennedy's "Missile Gap" rhetoric make the Soviets view him as a dangerous fanatic who was perpetuating the idea of Soviet strategic superiority as an excuse for an American first strike? (a view that Bay of Pigs probably confirmed in their minds). Ironic then, that history gives Kennedy so much credit for diffusing the "Cuban Missile Crisis", when he was (at least partly) responsible for causing it in the first place.
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Stuart » Sun Aug 05, 2007 11:49 am
Very much so. The Soviets knew what their missile and bomber force was like and they knew we knew (The U-2 was still driving them mad). It was inconceivable to them that a Presidential candidate should not know the truth about the strategic balance (and they were right in making that assumption). Therefore, they made the assumption that Kennedy was racking up anti-Soviet hysteria in order to justify a first strike.
It got worse at the first meeting between Khruschev and Kennedy. To Soviet disbelief, Kennedy essentially folded. That cast him as a bully, one who blustered and postured but, when faced with a resolute opposition, folded up and went away. Together with the missile gap inanity, that told the Soviets they had to stage a forceful confrontation in order to make Kennedy climb down on his presumed first strike plan. That was a powerful driver (not the only one - Soviet internal politics were also critical) towards Cuba.
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With that posted (for eventual movement to the Essays section), let's talk a bit more about this specific tactic that Stuart outlined.
In 1970 in Senate Hearings on "ABM, MIRV, SALT and the Nuclear Arms Race", the common refrain was that the MSR was "too big" and "wrong for the job."
"It was widely and correctly argued last year that the Safeguard hard point defense composed as it was of the old Sentinel area defense components was unlikely to be very effective against a Soviet attack.
The fundamental weakness of the system was the extreme vulnerability of the missile site radar, only one of which is at each defended Minuteman complex and the fact that there were only a very small, still classified, number of defensive missiles to protect both radar and Minuteman."
To understand this mess; we have to go back to the 1940s and the JB-2 Buzz Bomb.
There was a huge food fight between Army Ground Forces (AGF) and the Army Air Forces (AAF) over what to do with the tens of thousands of JB-2s that were going to be produced by Ford and other contractors; which led to the McNarney Directive of 2 October 1944, which assigned responsibilities as follows:
AAF: They would control surface launched missiles that flew with aerodynamic lift, and those launched from aircraft.
ASF (Ordnance): They would develop surface launched missiles that depended on momentum for flight (aka ballistic missiles) and then hand them over to the AGF.
Despite this, both the AGF and AAF were drawing up plans for operational use of the JB-2 by their own units; forcing General Marshall to make a verbal ruling (the AAF won).
This led to the immediate post-war "consensus" which was contained in the "Separation of the Air Force from the U.S. Army" memorandum for SecDef on 15 September 1947 which stated:
3. Command and Operational Employment of Ground-launched Guided Missiles and Units; No Change in Present Agreements Which Are:
a. Surface-to-surface Missiles (exclusive of pilotless aircraft).
(1) Tactical Missiles will be assigned to the United States Army. Missiles within this category are those capable of employment in support of land operation and capable of employment against targets, the destruction or neutralization of which will have a direct effect on current Army tactical operations. Such missiles include those which supplement the fires of and require coordination with artillery and/or tactical aircraft operating on close support missions incident to Army tactical operations.
(2) Strategic missiles will be assigned to the U. S. Air Force. Missiles within this category are those designed for employment against targets, the destruction or neutralization of which does not have a direct effect on current Army tactical operations and which are normally the targets of bombers, other than those operating on close-support missions incident to Army tactical operations and which require coordination with the operations of such bombers.
b. Surface-to-air Missiles.
(1) Security-missiles designed for employment in support of Army tactical operations will be assigned to the U. S. Army.
(2) Missiles designed for employment in area air defense will be assigned to the U. S. Air Force.
By 1949 the JCS had come up with this division:
3. Development of guided missiles of certain categories has progressed to a point where the fields of their normal employment may be recognized. Subject to a periodic review, responsibilities are assigned as follows:
a. Surface-to-air.
(1) Guided missiles which supplement, extend the capabilities of, or replace antiaircraft artillery will be a responsibility of the U.S. Army and the U.S. Navy as required by their assigned functions.
(2) Guided missiles which supplement or replace fighter interceptors will be a responsibility of the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy as required by their assigned functions.
b. Surface-to-Surface.
(1) Surface launched guided missiles which supplement or extend the capabilities of, or replace the fire of artillery or naval guns will be the responsibility of the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy as required by their functions.
(2) Surface-launched guided missiles which supplement or extend the capabilities of, or replace, support aircraft will be the responsibility of the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army, as required by their functions.
(3) Ship-launched guided missiles which supplement, extend the capabilities of, or replace naval aircraft will be a responsibility of the U.S. Navy, as required by its functions.
(4) Surface-launched guided missiles which supplement, extend the capabilities of, or replace Air Force aircraft (other than support aircraft) will be a responsibility of the U.S. Air Force, as required by its functions.
(5) Unnecessary duplication will be avoided by the periodic review to be accomplished by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
c. Air-to-Air.
Guided missiles which are used for air-to-air combat will be a responsibility of the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy as required by their functions.
d. Air-to-surface.
Guided missiles which are used by aircraft against surface objectives will be a responsibility of the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy as required by their functions.
The policy was slightly revised in 1950 when it was formally approved by SecDef:
4. With reference to the Joint Chiefs of Staff memorandum of 17 November 1949 on the subject of assignment of responsibility for guided missiles, the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommend that paragraph 3b of that memorandum be deleted and that the following be substituted therefor:
"b. Surface-to-Surface
(1) Surface-launched guided missiles which supplement or extend the capabilities of, or replace the fire of artillery or naval guns will be the responsibility of the U. S. Army and U. S. Navy as required by their functions.
(2) Surface-launched guided missiles which supplement or extend the capabilities of, or replace, support aircraft will be the responsibility of the U. S. Air Force and U.S. Army, as required by their functions.
(3) Ship-launched guided missiles which supplement, extend the capabilities of, or replace naval aircraft will be a responsibility of the U. S. Navy, as required by its functions.
(4) Surface-launched guided missiles which supplement, extend the capabilities of, or replace Air Force aircraft (other than support aircraft) will be a responsibility of the U. S. Air Force, as required by its functions.
(5) Unnecessary duplication will be avoided by the periodic review to be accomplished by the Joint Chiefs of Staff."
This was later restated in 1956 by SecDef Wilson as:
a. The Army is assigned responsibility for the development, procurement and manning of land-based surface-to-air missile systems for point defense.
Currently, missile systems in the point defense category are the NIKE I, NIKE B, and land-based TALOS.
b. The Air Force is assigned responsibility for the development, procurement and manning of land-based surface-to-air missile systems for area defense.
Currently, the missile system in the area defense category is the BOMARC.
c. The Navy, in close coordination with the Army and Air Force, is assigned responsibility for the development, procurement and employment of ship-based air defense weapon systems for the accomplishment of its assigned functions.
d. The Marine Corps is authorized to adapt to its organic use, such surface-to-air weapons systems developed by the other Services as may be required for the accomplishment of its assigned functions.
If you ever wondered why Zeus A (DM-15A) looks so much different from Zeus B (DM-15B); it's because it was designed under the "point defense" restriction limiting its range since it was an Army missile.
When NIKE-ZEUS started picking up steam in the mid 1950s, the USAF started a BMD program; calling it WIZARD II (to distinguish it from the earlier MX-794 WIZARD of the late 1940s).
By 1957; there was a massive deathmatch going on between the USAF and Army over multiple systems:
IRBM (Thor vs Jupiter)
Air Defense (NIKE vs BOMARC)
ABM (ZEUS vs Wizard)
This wasn't helped by the launch of SPUTNIK causing SecDef to rescind the previous range restrictions on ZEUS, which enabled the development of ZEUS B (DM-15B).
Both sides were using their own preferred journalists for leaks to tear down the others' systems -- the USAF in particular was behind a 30 NOV 1957 Baltimore Sun Article titled: "Production of Wizard Is Reportedly Urged of Government by '61".
Lack of Interest Stalls Missile Defense Programs
AVIATION WEEK, October 7, 1957
• Wizard. Air Force Wizard system exists only on paper, no significant hardware has been produced. Contractors are Convair for the airframe and RCA for acquisition, guidance and computer. Proposed missile has planned range of about 1,000 mi., is solid fuel, and is not an adaptation of any existing missile. Basic difference from Nike-Zeus is in the different type of radar guidance provided for the missile. Although Air Force considers its system far more sophisticated than the Army’s, program is far behind Nike-Zeus and far from completion of even the paper planning.
• Plato. Scheduled to be canceled as unpromising, Plato was initially studied competitively by Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory, and Sylvania, was given to Sylvania as prime contractor. Small amount of hardware has been produced. Plato has been supported by both Army and Air Force funds.
BTW, PLATO was originally a custom designed missile; but by the end of PLATO, serious thought was given to simply putting ZEUS onto a mobile/semi-mobile platform.
Convair Wizard Wins
Aviation Weekly, 21 Oct 1957
Washington -- Convair Wizard air defense system has been endorsed by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff for development by the Air Force as the prime future defense against all types of aerial vehicles, including intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Convair’s Wizard system was in competition with the Army’s Nike-Zeus system developed by Bell Laboratories and Douglas Aircraft Co. and another USAF sponsored system involving Boeing Airplane Co., General Electric, and Ramo-Wooldridge Inc. (AW Oct. 7, p. 29; Oct. 14, p. 37).
Joint Chiefs in making the Wizard decision also reaffirmed USAF’s responsibility for area air defense in contrast to the Army’s role of point defense.
Wizard proposal was developed by Convair in cooperation with Radio Corp. of America and other specialist firms as an overall long-range air defense system that would be effective against all types of aerial vehicles, including Mach 2 bombers, air-to-ground missiles, and long-range ballistic missiles. It is based on both long-range detection devices and long-range defensive missiles using solid propellants and involves considerable advanced component development work on special antennas, electronic antenna steering devices, and high power sources.
Among the component developers associated with the Wizard program are:
General Electric on missile warheads.
Sanders Associates whose PANAR multi-element, multi-lobe antenna system is being adapted for Wizard due to its relative invulnerability to point-source jamming.
D. S. Kennedy Inc., working on problems of big parabolas.
Avco Inc., electronic antenna steering devices.
Special high power sources are being developed by Rome Air Development Center, Radio Corp. of America, and EIMAC. Wizard is still primarily in the design proposal stage and would require at least five years to provide early stage hardware capable of systems operation.
Part of a larger article "USAF, Army Wage battle for control of Missile Defense Systems", 24 FEB 1958
[...]
USAF’s Wizard
Air Force has not surrendered hopes of developing its Wizard system, at least in competition with Nike-Zeus if not in place of it. Defense Secretary McElroy’s memorandum to USAF last month, however, said USAF was to discontinue research and development on the missile entirely—although leeway was left for further radar development.
USAF officials say that the proposed Wizard system is highly sophisticated with a long range, solid fuel missile and an effective multi-purpose radar with a very high degree of discrimination between warheads and decoys. They say the system has never gone beyond the planning stage simply for lack of money.
Features of the Wizard system are:
Phase I program is for the development of a single stage missile with a range of 1,000 mi., and the capability of intercepting all airborne vehicles.
Phase II program contemplates addition of a second stage to the missile to provide interception capabilities at altitudes of 300 to 500 mi.
USAF’s prime contractors on the Wizard project have been Radio Corp. of America and Convair Division of General Dynamics Corp. Subcontractors have included: General Electric on missile warheads, Sanders Associates for multi-element, multi-lobe PANAR antenna system, D. S. Kennedy Inc. on large parabolas and Avco on electronic steering devices.
[...]
Plato System
Designed to protect field armies and critical installations overseas, the Army’s Plato anti-missile missile system is into the hardware stage where prototype parts have undergone test.
A possible future application of Plato that is arousing much interest is the prospect of presenting the system to NATO allies as part of the inducement to accept IRBMs from the United States. One of the Soviets’ strongest threats in Europe is the nuclear-tipped IRBM.
System is presently being considered for protection of U.S. cities from submarine-launched IRBMs.
Plato is a relatively mobile system consisting of vans for the electronic equipment, erective antennas and specially designed mobile launchers for the Nike-Zeus missile. Plato is a command guidance system whereby a computer is fed continuous position data on both the incoming target and the Nike-Zeus missile. Computer then guides the missile to the intercept point and detonates its warhead by radio signal.
Prime contractor for Plato is Sylvia Electric Products. Subcontractors are Sanders Associates, General Electric and American Machine and Foundry.
In the end, in early 1958 the Army "won" with NIKE ZEUS:
Gen. Putt Criticizes Anti-Missile Decision
Aviation Week, 3 March 1958
Washington -- Decision to develop Army’s Nike-Zeus anti-missile missile system rather than Air Force’s competing Wizard system was termed “premature” last week in testimony released by the House Armed Services committee.
Lt. Gen. D. L. Putt, USAF deputy chief of staff for research and development, told the committee that the Wizard program would have had greater flexibility and more capabilities.
Gen. Putt indicated that Nike-Zeus will not have the flexibility to cope with possible countermeasures, while the Wizard could be developed to meet the situation.
He said Air Force had carried out studies and component developments with three different contractor teams and was close to a design decision when Defense Department ordered Nike-Zeus into development.
In a directive issued in January, Defense Secretary Neil H. McElroy ordered the Army to continue development of the Nike-Zeus and USAF to discontinue research and development of the Wizard missile (AW Jan. 27, p. 26). At the same time, Air Force was directed to continue development of the ballistic missile early warning system.
The USAF was annoyed enough to post a full article in AIR FORCE Magazine about Wizard:
AIR FORCE Magazine – May 1958
Is the Public Being Oversold?
By Claude Witze
SENIOR EDITOR
THE American people and Congress are being oversold on the potentialities of the antimissile missile. This overselling is being conducted in an atmosphere of complete confusion, where it is not clear who is in charge of the mission, who is coordinating the development effort, and who has the responsibility for the results.
As a result, there is a grave threat that this country will launch a multi-billion dollar program in an area filled with both technological and administrative unknowns. If it does, it will waste immense quantities of public money, jeopardize our safety, and seriously imperil both civil and military morale.
A wave of cocky talk, sanctioned and encouraged by segments of both the military and political administrations, is misrepresenting the truth. It is raising false hopes that the Russian ICBM threat can and will be met by electronic, push-button defensive measures. There is nothing in the record of today's state of the art to justify such hopes.
Basic to the whole situation is the fact that mission lines have been blurred until it is not clear whether the Army or the Air Force is in charge of defending the continental United States against the ICBM. In fact, on the basis of the last orders they were given they have been working to develop opposing concepts while supposedly working together in a joint effort.
The blunt truth is that, pending technological breakthroughs, all antimissile missile programs should stay on paper. The Air Force has told Congress the job "is the most difficult this country has ever encountered." USAF studies are where they belong -- on paper -- and "no one can determine from a paper study how effective we shall be or if we shall be effective at all." The Air Force spokesman was talking, of course, about a ballistic missile defense system that will protect America, not just the points where a missile-age ack-ack is in operation.
In contrast, the Army is carrying out a consistent and strenuous campaign to convince America a "perfect defense" can be provided, at least for limited areas, if we are willing to make the effort. High-ranking Army officers, backed by their service secretary, are fighting hard to convince Congress it is possible to develop an effective antimissile missile within the parameters of reasonable time and cost.
The system Army is trying to sell is the Nike-Zeus, described in its press releases as a logical step in development of what the service calls the "Nike family" of point defense weapons. It is true that Army first developed the shorter range Nike-Ajax and Nike-Hercules, but neither of them has any real technological relation to Zeus.
Zeus is a short-range, point defense missile system. If it works, it will intercept an incoming missile something less than 100 miles from the target. The system needs four types of radar, one of which presumably would be the Air Force's 3,000-mile surveillance set based at some distant point such as Thule or Turkey. Once an alarm is received, a second radar with a range of about 1,000 miles would have the task of detecting the target and assigning it to the acquisition radar of some 600-mile range, which must distinguish the ICBM from decoys and friendly aircraft, and provide accurate trajectory data. A fourth short-range (about 200-mile range) radar would track the enemy warhead after it gets in range. A similar beam is necessary to guide the Zeus for the intercept.
It is highly doubtful that any system could stop an ICBM warhead in the range contemplated for Zeus and at the speed with which it would be approaching. More important is the fact that the Zeus specifications give the potential enemy no credit for ability to improve his ICBM after the first generation.
Knowledgeable technicians feel confident more sophisticated ballistic missiles will spoof both tracking and guidance segments of defense systems, that they will find a way to divert from the ballistic trajectory, and that they will be improved in speed and range. When these improvements come, the point defense concept will be completely frustrated by the unforeseen intelligence of the incoming warhead.
The Air Force holds that it is too late to talk about how we are going to stop the first generation of ICBMs. It is not in favor of investing valuable time, considerable money, and precious brain power to build a system that will be antiquated before we can start to pour concrete and make black boxes.
This approach is fundamental to USAF's missile defense studies called Wizard. They are studies and nothing more, recognizing both the gaps in our knowledge and the advances soon to be made by our own technicians and those who design ICBMs for the potential enemy. Wizard is a broad program, searching for a vastly more complicated and sophisticated system than Zeus. Specifications call for the weapon to have a range of at least 1,000 miles, capable of intercepting a warhead somewhere between 300 and 500 miles from the intended target.
Wizard seeks emphasis on distant interception, accurate discrimination, and an improved ground environment system. The latter must be a super-SAGE to provide instant electronic communication and calculation, universal in its application to any kind of threat through the air. If the job can be done, it may eat up a major part of the development effort.
Once perfected, Wizard promises real economy. The goal is to protect the nation, and it should be able to do this for a smaller outlay in cash and effort than required for a point defense system (of which Zeus is the prototype) to protect the country's industrial and military heartland. Wizard proponents, however, do not favor spending any money on hardware until they know where and how to spend it.
At the outset, the battle between Army and Air Force concepts appears to be one for funds and funds alone, with the winner more or less assured of a permanent spot as defender of the republic. But it is more than that. It is a battle for the safety of our cities. Under Army's point defense concept, who is to say we will defend Washington and let San Francisco be blown to smithereens? Or that we will let all the cities go for the present and defend the SAC bases?
The Army today is trying hard to parlay some obtainable hardware, useless for the long-run mission, into justification for a role the Army has not been given by Congress or administrative edict.
Major part of the Army's argument is a voluminous report, put on stage as a scientific evaluation but more realistically described by those who have seen it as an Army-financed rationalization to promote the Nike-Zeus and the point defense concept. The document has been the basis for presentations on Capitol Hill, in the Defense Department, and at the White House. It also was the source of a press report last November that the Army seeks between $6 billion and $7 billion to finance its effort to produce an antimissile missile by 1961.
The arithmetic made public at that time and since has been too modest. It has been estimated that pursuit of the Army's program, if the study included answers to a myriad of unsolved technical problems, would need an outlay of $120 billion in the next eight years.
Details of the Army's documentation are classified, and there are no publishable official evaluations of what it says. Its most severe critics say it is a witch doctor's justification for giving the entire air defense mission to the Army. Offered as the last definitive word on the subject and the best technical estimate ever made, it is reported by competent observers to be wrong in its premises, its procedure of calculation, its results, and its conclusions.
Among other things, the report is said to assume capabilities and reliability for electronic systems that are purely fantastic considering the present state of the art. It has ignored electronic countermeasures (ECM) or assumed that the Nike-Zeus system can overcome them with little or no trouble. The possibility of low-level attack was not considered, and there is no evaluation of the state of the art for manned interceptor defense systems.
Even sources outside the Air Force say the Army-sponsored study fails to give sufficient weight to the decoy problem and would provide no proper discrimination between friend and foe in the air. It is said to underestimate Russian offensive capabilities and assume that early-warning techniques are more advanced than is justified.
Basic fallacy of the entire approach is that it does not recognize, as USAF does, that the ballistic missile defense problem today is a research problem. It has been pointed out by reliable experts that this is no time to take an extreme step because it will take six to ten years to install a ballistic missile defense system of any kind, and we are on the verge of vast new discoveries that will have to be ground into the program. A second major point has to do with complexity. The ballistic missile defense system, when it is possible, will have to be a combination of a number of weapon systems. Not all of the threat will be from launching pads on the other side of the North Pole, coming at us from a relatively narrow segment of the compass. Like us, the enemy will have a variety of high-speed nuclear warheads, launched from distant hard sites, submarines, surface ships, airplanes, or manned spacecraft.
In the face of these facts the Defense Department at this writing still has no over-all system engineering supervision in action on the antimissile project. It has set up no procedures to ensure that the numerous and highly complex components of the weapon system will be compatible and properly phased into the development and production program, when one is possible.
For a sound evaluation of the antimissile defense picture, it is essential that we turn a deaf ear to all the arguments over the relative merits of any particular weapon -- or service -- for this purpose. Discussion of Nike-Zeus vs. Wizard is about as sensible as an argument over which of two unborn baby boys will be the better tennis player. Only the concept is worthy of words at this point.
If there is anything worse than dependence on a pure point defense system in the coming era of highly efficient ballistic missiles, it is split mission responsibility. And, so far as the development stages are concerned, a split mission is exactly what we have got.
On January 18 Defense Secretary Neil H. McElroy, in a decision that can be pardoned only as an excuse to avoid a decision, gave part of the immediate job to USAF and part to the Army. With the two services working on opposing concepts, the development was divided: USAF will continue work only on the radar and data-handling aspects of Wizard while the Army concentrates on the Nike-Zeus missile system, although permission since has been granted to continue the entire Wizard program until the end of this fiscal year, next June 30.
Immediately, the shotgun wedding of Wizard and Zeus has left us with no clear delineation of responsibility for the necessary compatibility of the radar and data-handling with the weapon itself. In USAF parlance, there is no Weapon System Project Office to make sure there will be a weapon system.
The struggle, of course, will be for funds, and it will be umpired by Roy W. Johnson, Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency. Before him and Congress, Army will fight all efforts to put aside their program -- and their aspirations in the air defense mission -- until the state of the art justifies action.
Aghast at the staggering cost estimates of any missile defense system and timid about a firm decision to keep the Army out of the picture, the Defense Department appears to have created a muddle that can wind up only with some resolution as weak as the union of the Thor and Jupiter intermediate-range ballistic missiles. In that case, the Air Force got one weapon it didn't want and is paying an extravagant price to have it in inventory. In the area of defense against ballistic missiles it is being forced to accept part of the cure offered by a witch doctor, while standing convinced that magic is not the answer to our security problem.
And in a time when defense reorganization is being debated vociferously, the air defense muddle points up the fact that unification per se does not provide all the answers. In fact, the air defense dilemma has actually been exacerbated by a "unified" decision at the top. So centralization of authority must be accompanied by competence in decision-making or we still wind up confused -- even though unified. -- END
Two pictures were in that 1958 article which clarify a lot of it.
Public_Oversold_1958_Wizard.png
Air Force approach to missile defense, here greatly oversimplified, envisions 1,000-mile range, ability to intercept enemy ICBM 300-500 miles from target.
Public_Oversold_1958_Zeus.png
Army's antimissile proposal for point defense involves complex radar system, three types at launch site, to intercept incoming ICBMs at point-blank range.
What happened was that even though WIZARD was cancelled, development on the radar component was allowed to continue -- it eventually became the SENTINEL/SAFEGUARD Perimeter Acquistion Radar (PAR).
To add insult to injury, Douglas was allowed to develop Extended Range Zeus (ZEUS EX) (DM-15C), which eventually became SPARTAN (everyone at Douglas still called it the "C" missile); to fill the role that the notational 1000 mile WIZARD II missile would have.
Fast Forward to 1959.
The USAF funds studies on hardened site equipment and vulnerability as an outgrowth of USAF Study Requirement 79813, presumably to protect USAF ICBM sites.
Several studies were conducted for USAF's Rome Air Development Center by a number of aerospace companies including Martin Marietta, United Aircraft, Hughes, Raytheon, General Dynamics and Republic Aviation.
Collectively, these efforts were known as HARK (Hardened Re-Entry Kill) and completed in 1961.
Shortly after HARK was completed, it was taken away from the USAF on the grounds that terminal BMD was an Army responsibility.
Next year, in 1962 the following study contracts were issued:
Army Ordnance Missile Command (Hardsite) -- Douglas, Martin, North American Aviation
Advanced Research Projects Agency (Hardpoint) -- Douglas, Hughes, Boeing
A year later in 1963, Martin got the SPRINT contract and Boeing the HIBEX contract.
Apologies for the rather lengthy digression there -- but almost every element of SAFEGUARD (Long Range SPARTANS, Short Range SPRINT, the Perimeter Acquistion Radar) was stolen outright from USAF concept programs by the Army.
The obsession with hard site defense by the USAF can be best explained by one simple objective -- institutional control and capture. If dozens to hundreds of small radars and missiles are deployed across the country at ICBM fields, on USAF property, who's going to control them?
Certainly not the Army.
APPENDICES
COMMISSION ON THE ORGANIZATION OF THE GOVERNMENT FOR THE CONDUCT OF FOREIGN POLICY
June, 1975
(IN SEVEN VOLUMES)
VOLUME 4
APPENDIX K: Adequacy of Current Organization: Defense and Arms Control
If Kissinger and Nixon had genuinely settled on a dedicated hard-site defense of MINUTEMAN, three possibilities in fact existed. But making any of them a reality would have required an enormous commitment, preferably before Nixon had even been elected President.
The first, a true hard-site option, had withered on the vine. In 1967, ARPA Director Charles Herzfeld submitted a final report on HIBEX. Boeing, he testified, had done a “first-rate,” “magnificent” job, successfully building an interceptor “somewhat smaller than SPRINT, and very much higher in performance.” That program, however, produced not a complete weapon system, but as Herzfeld put it, “only a piece of technology.”
In 1969 it remained but a piece of technology.
The second possibility, advanced by PSAC member Richard Garwin, consisted of adapting the Army antiaircraft missile HAWK to the hard-site role. The HAWK option would include batteries of the modified SAM's, which manned shifts could ready at unpredictable MINUTEMAN sites with a twenty minute warning time. Combined with HAWK radars (readily hardenable), the system could force the Soviets to expend two warheads on one MINUTEMAN silo.
Yet a third option, outlined in a 1969 Garwin letter to Congressmen, envisaged a top of the silo defense. With a two minute intercept, decoys would pose no problem. And contractors were ready to build such a system. None of the three, however, prompted the requisite response to make them live options in March, 1969.
HIBEX was a single stage missile - with considerably less range than the larger, two stage SPRINT -- the dimensions of HIBEX were:
HiBEX Dimensions.png
HiBEX Dimensions2.png
189.455" Length
39.88" Base Diameter
300 lb payload mass
490,000 lbf for 1 second on 1687 lb of propellant
2577 lb launch weight
B/O Velocity: 8,450 ft/sec
During flight tests, HIBEX reached 362G axial acceleration and 60G lateral acceleration.
HIBEX's intercept zone was about 20,000 feet.
Using Weapons Effects by Horizons Tech for the Defense Nuclear Agency
1 MT @ 20,000 ft @ 100 ft ground range (HIBEX)
4.98 PSI airblast, 63 cal/cm2 thermal fluence.
1 MT @ 60,000 ft @ 100 ft ground range (SPRINT)
1.082 PSI airblast, 0~ cal/cm2 thermal fluence.
Using FLYOUT SIM the following variables shake out for HIBEX:
Launched to 85 deg angle: 1.3~ miles @ 71,916~ ft @ 50 seconds.
Launched to 45 deg angle: 8.32 miles @ 32,000~ ft @ 50 seconds.
You can see WHY a lot of people like Garwin (et al) went for Hard Site / Hard Point / whatever you want to call it -- and claimed that only Hardpoint would work for ICBM silo protection -- because the concept is utterly worthless for anything else but defending ICBM silos.
Hardpoint systems inherently can't be used for population defense; because the city will suffer significant damage and large portions of it will be on fire.
Also, because it's so short ranged (because it's so fast burning) -- it can't defend large areas; by the time it hits 20,000 feet @ 45 deg launch angle some 5 seconds after launch, it's only 3.2 miles from the launch site.
This means if we went crazy and put a HIBEX site in the Pentagon Ground Zero Courtyard, it would be capable of defending the Pentagon and the White House, but barely, as the White House would be 2.12 miles away; that's not a lot of defended zone for a high yield warhead.
Additionally, HIBEX really isn't anything "special" -- its lateral maneuverability is only about as good as SPRINT; and SPRINT can reach out much further. The only reason people remember HIBEX is for the later UPSTAGE second-stage which had lateral maneuverability measured in 200-300G (or more).
Because HIBEX was about the size of SPRINT Stage II, it's within the realm of possibility that UPSTAGE could have been incorporated into ADVANCED SPRINT if high end MARVs became a real threat.
PS: There's an AICBM Panel Memorandum dated April 1962 for Jerome B Wiesner with this segment that helps explain SO MUCH:
DDR&E is considering a reoriented NIKE ZEUS system which would intercept incoming ICBM's at much lower altitude and would thus permit atmospheric decoy discrimination. In order to do this, they propose to raise substantially the standards for acceptable damage to a city. Overpressure of as much as 15 psi and thermal flux as high as 100 calories per square centimeter is suggested as possible "last-ditch" damage criteria. This approach would appear to only make sense in combination with a city blast shelter program. In this respect, these studies try to identify the hard point defense and the city defense problem by re-defining cities as a hard target.
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