Username: Tony Evans
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 3516
Date: 8/23/06 4:28
Atlas : The Ultimate Weapon
Just finished reading Atlas : The Ultimate Weapon (Walker) a book about the Atlas missile system, from inception through continued use as a space launch vehicle. It contains a lot of good oral history and technical detail. Perhaps the most surprising thing, however, was that the flight hardware was almost a marginal cost. An Atlas D sans payload cost approximately $2 million. An Atlas launch site, fully outfitted with all of the necessary ground support equipment, cost between $12 and $15 million. On top of that you had missile maintenance facilities for each squadron, guidance ground stations (for the D models), and a training establishment at Vandenberg.
A girl never knows when she might need a bullet.
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Username: p620346
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 281
Date: 8/23/06 20:34
Re: Atlas : The Ultimate Weapon
I would say that the ULTIMATE WEAPON, at least for interstellar warfare, would be the NOVA BOMB, believed to have been conceived by Robert Heinlein. :evil
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Username: sunkrepeatedly
Nickname: Regular
Posts: 44
Date: 8/24/06 0:26
Re: Atlas : The Ultimate Weapon
Pour a couple of margaritas in the mother-in-law and HALO her into Afghanistan.
Oh, the humanity!
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Username: Seer Stuart
Nickname: The Prince of Darkness
Posts: 5118
Date: 8/24/06 2:21
Re: Atlas : The Ultimate Weapon
An Atlas D sans payload cost approximately $2 million. An Atlas launch site, fully outfitted with all of the necessary ground support equipment, cost between $12 and $15 million. On top of that you had missile maintenance facilities for each squadron, guidance ground stations (for the D models), and a training establishment at Vandenberg.
All the ICBMs are like that; the missile itself costs about 10 percent (if that) of the cost of complete missile system (including silo etc). That's why MIRVs were developed; its enormously cheaper to put ten warheads on one missile than one warhead on each of ten missiles. In fact, even this greatly understates the cost problem because it doesn't include the elaborate command and control facilities that have to be provided - all because once a missile has been fired, it can't be turned back or aborted. In the inal analysis, the cost of the missiles is probably a single-digit percentage of the cost of the strategic missile deterrent as a whole.
ICBMs are NOT a cheap way to run a deterrent system
Nations do not survive by setting examples for others.
Nations survive by making examples of others
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Username: edgeplay cgo
Nickname: Fix bayonets
Posts: 6147
Date: 8/24/06 2:48
Re: Atlas : The Ultimate Weapon
the missile itself costs about 10 percent (if that) of the cost of complete missile system (including silo etc). ... In the inal analysis, the cost of the missiles is probably a single-digit percentage of the cost of the strategic missile deterrent as a whole.
ICBMs are NOT a cheap way to run a deterrent system
That doesn't sound all that unreasonable, actually. The actual line item always seems to be a trivial part of the system that bears its name.
It's the same thing with our other toys. Look at the contents of your camera bag. That Nikon is lost in the jillion dollars worth of lenses, filters, and geegaws. The same with your computer or stereo. (The less said about the gun cabinet in this context the better. :rolleyes
Dennis
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Username: p620346
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 283
Date: 8/24/06 16:53
Re: Atlas : The Ultimate Weapon
QUOTE " The less said about the gun cabinet in this context the better"
So true, a really good telescopic sight can easily cost much more than the rifle that it is attatched to. :evil
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Username: M21A1 Sniper
Nickname: Unus offa unus iuguolo
Posts: 5255
Date: 8/24/06 17:47
Re: Atlas : The Ultimate Weapon
That depends on the rifle.
"You can pay your bills now, or pay our bills later."
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Username: Larry
Nickname: Official USAF Sycophant
Posts: 1650
Date: 8/27/06 6:02
Re: Atlas : The Ultimate Weapon
In the final analysis, the cost of the missiles is probably a single-digit percentage of the cost of the strategic missile deterrent as a whole.
C'mon, Stuart.....who are you to doubt the wisdom of one Robert Strange McNamara?!!!?! I mean, those Edsel's fetch many tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, on E-bay nowadays! Let alone Barrett's! That must mean he was right!
Larry lays head aside and vomits violently.
I wish I had a gun just like the A-10, I'd be happy as a baby in a playpen I'd mow 'em down like a weedeater, with that thirty millimeter! I wish I had a gun just like the A-10.
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Username: Tony Evans
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 3540
Date: 8/27/06 17:48
Re: Atlas : The Ultimate Weapon
It was long before McNamara. The book never goes into the logic of ballistic missiles vs. bombers directly, but it does comment on how the whole idea was sold to a few champions within the Air Force and then Congress on the theory that the Soviets would soon have such a capability, and that that capability had to be directly countered. This all happened in 1953-54. The book also portrays SAC, particularly LeMay, as being resistant to ICBMs. Of course, the author of the book, who was a test manager on Atlas, portrays this resistance as reactionary mossbackism. In fact, he pretty much crows about ICBMs being forced down the throat of SAC by Congress and a minority of sympathetic non-SAC generals.
A girl never knows when she might need a bullet.