History, Politics And Current Affairs

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 slant range to the area of interest will vary from 1550 to 1650 naut.mi. depending upon propagation mode...

Two guesses as to what they wanted to do...

This has a bunch of details on SPRINT which help fill in some of the performance envelope:

First Stage: 650-750 klbf motor burning for 1.8 to 2.0 seconds; providing up to 130G acceleration; burnout velocity 5,500 ft/sec (1.6764 km/sec).

Second Stage: 150 klbf motor burning for 2 seconds; providing up to 90G acceleration; burnout velocity between 9,500 to 10,200 ft/sec (2.895 to 3.108 km/sec).

The missile is ejected from it's launch cannister by a gas generator; rather than Stage 1 thrust; as shown by FLA-17 (Flight 17) of 26 FEB 1968 which failed due to no first stage ignition; the missile emerged from the silo, pitched forward 390 degrees and fell to the ground.

Missile control during first stage flight is through the injection of freon into the engine throat for TVC, with the second stage being controlled via the use of hydraulically driven aerodynamic vanes.

Staging takes approximately 0.2 seconds; per FLA-8 (Flight 9) (18 JUL 1967) which staged 2.4 seconds into flight, followed by Stage II Ignition at 2.6 seconds.

Flights at WSMR were terminated after a pre-set time, or when the second stage descended below 5000 ft altitude.

SPRINT is capable of doing repeated 30-50G lateral maneuvers and 30-60G vertical (pitch/dive) maneuvers, even after second stage burnout due to the aforementioned hydraulically driven vanes, as shown by FLA-13 on 11 DEC 1967 which sustained 5 maneuvers:

3.6 seconds - 50G Maneuver Begins
4.7 seconds - Second Stage Burnout
5.9 seconds - 50G Maneuver Ends
7.9 seconds - 50G Maneuver Begins
9.9 seconds - 50G Maneuver Ends
11.9 seconds - 50G Maneuver Begins
13.9 seconds - 50G Maneuver Ends
14.4 seconds - 32G Pullup Maneuver
14.9 seconds - 63G Dive Maneuver
16.5 seconds - 32G Dive Maneuver Ends
20~ seconds - Coast Period Begins
32.4 Seconds - Automatic Destruction

SPRINT missile structural limits are revealed through the following tidbits:

FLA-15 (Flight 14) (20 NOV 1967) - Destroyed 7 seconds into flight after being subjected to a severe 218G lateral maneuver.

FLA-16 (Flight 16) (5 FEB 1968) - Lost shortly after 2nd stage ignition due to an inadvertent 109G maneuver.

====================================================

From EM1 Chapter 16: Damage to Missiles (ADA955400)
[https://nige.files.wordpress.com/2009/1 ... 955400.pdf]

Pages 16-102 to 16-105 are a series of graphs labelled "RV Target A, Dynamic Pressure as a function of Time, 30 Deg Intercept" -- with the graphs themselves containing:

"30 K FT ALT
100 FT RANGE
30 deg INTERCEPT"

Followed by Page 16-110 having a deleted graph but the label still exists saying "Figure 16-67 [DELETED] SPRINT Blast Loads, RV Target A, 30 kilofeet Altitude, Aft Bay [DELETED]"

So we know what the design intercept distance for SPRINT is now [100 ft].

===============================

Attached are my attempts at reverse engineering the "sanitized" SPRINT Envelope from The Bell Labs ABM History. I figured out that every three ticks was 5 miles; and that both altitude and range were measured in miles.

This based off two throwaway lines that I noticed:

FRUS: "The Sprint was developed to carry a nuclear warhead with a yield of a few kilotons and to fly 50 miles at altitudes to 100,000 feet in about 50 seconds. "

Bell ABM History: "Second-stage ignition may be delayed either to extend [SPRINT] interceptor range or to assure a higher dynamic pressure and higher maneuverability for end-game guidance to intercept."

Plus simulations modeling with FLYOUT and another yet unnamed sim to get a general order of magnitude of SPRINT performance.

You may notice that the SPRINT envelope stops at 100Kft -- it's quite early, because according to my simulations if you fired it straight up, you could get to 400Kft easily.

I did some more simulations using the public dimensions of Stage II and some educated guesses for Stage II weight to figure out the maximum possible g maneuvers it could pull with the airvanes:

100G - 35,876 ft / 10,935 m
80G - 40,558 ft / 12,362 m
60G - 46,545 ft / 14,187 m
40G - 54,980 ft / 16,758 m
20G - 69,304 ft / 21,124 m
10G - 83,527 ft / 25,459 m
5G - 98,035 ft / 29,881 m
2G - 117,208 ft / 35,725 m
1G - 132,313 ft / 40,329 m

As you can see from this crude order of magnitude estimate:

1.) SPRINT is limited by it's lack of an exo-atmospheric maneuvering system.

2.) SPRINT has significant anti-MARV capability; given that Pershing II is capable of only 25G or so maneuvers, while some of the more exotic MARVs tested in the latter 1960s hit 80-100G. MARVs act more like stealth vs radars than a magic "hahhah, I penetrate your ABM shield" weapon.

3.) SPRINT's significantly longer range than commonly acknowledged is very significant, because in the 21 January 1964 study by McNamara's DDR&E gang (DAMAGE LIMITING: A RATIONALE FOR THE ALLOCATION OF RESOURCES BY THE US AND THE USSR) NIKE-X's High Acceleration Interceptor's range was described as:

"Each defense unit provides an "Effective Exclusion Radius" of 10 n.mi." [18.5 km]

If you look at the SPRINT envelope; 10 nautical miles (11~ miles) ground range is roughly around 43,000~ ft altitude, right around where SPRINT can manuver at 60~ G or so per my crude estimates.

I believe McNamara/DDR&E was using SPRINT capability against the hardest, worst possible threats:

A.) MARVs with 60G or more manuver capability.

B.) "Perfect" Decoys that can't be discriminated until 80,000 ft altitude (or less).

...to define the defended zone of the NIKE-X system for their analyses; counting on extreme classification to cover their tracks.

The reason this is important is because the core element of each NIKE-X site was the Multi-Function Array Radar [MAR] -- an Active Phased Array Radar (yes, it was an AESA) with 100 MW peak / 2-3 MW average power *per transmitter face* controlled by a 30~ MIPS computer (that was a LOT back then) would have cost $400M per installation; or about $4 Billion in today's money.

DDR&E also had costs for SPRINT being as about $1.25M per missile and estimated SSPK of SPRINT at 0.8.

This means that a 0.94 kill probability on a threat object would cost $2.5M/kill.

With those figures, the following two cases for defense of the National Capital Area result:

===================================
Case A (11 Mile DDR&E range)
===================================

NIKE-X at Bolling AFB. Capable of defending the entire District of Columbia, plus Arlington, the Pentagon, and (just barely) Andrews AFB.

NIKE-X in Baltimore; you can only cover about maybe 75% of the city.

Case A Cost: $800M For Radars + $250M for SPRINTs (at 100 ea/site).

This results in $1.05B total cost, back when that was REAL money. The cost is about $5.25M per interceptor emplaced and $10.5M per object destroyed.

Each NIKE-X site can only destroy 50 objects and they cannot mutually support each other. Additionally, most of the National Capital Region is undefended, opening us up to the "fallout dusting" tactic from enemy 5 MT surface bursts.

===================================
Case B (50 Mile Actual Range)
===================================

NIKE-X at Fort Meade, MD. Can Defend Annapolis (18 miles), all of Baltimore + Suburbs (25 miles), and all of Washington + Suburbs (30 miles), with limited coverage of Frederick, MD (42 miles).

Case B Cost: $400M for radar + $600M for 480 x SPRINTs, $1B total cost. The cost is about $2.08M per interceptor emplaced and $4.16M per object destroyed.

Interceptor exhaustion is no longer a feasible tactic; with 240 stowed kills at the singular site. Furthermore, significant coverage of the National Capital Region is obtained; reducing the effectiveness of "dusting".

===================================

The main issue was that the MAR was SO OUTRAGEOUSLY EXPENSIVE that it was a single point of failure in the system; kill the radar, and the NIKE-X system is crippled.

===================================

The NIKE-X Program Office suggested the following solutions:

TACMAR (Tactical MAR) -- it would use the same building design as the MAR, but with half the installed radar T/R elements + computers. Cost would have been about $300M; or 75% of the cost for 50% of the performance of the MAR. It's "bonus" advantage was that it could be upgraded to full MAR performance later on.

MSR (Missile Site Radar) -- This was to be a very low cost, cheap radar with one face ($40M) or two faces. (I don't have costs for double faced MSRs, but I'm going with $70M -- 1.75x that of single faced MSRs). The MSRs would assist the MAR/TACMAR by being located far enough away to "peek" around nuclear blackout effects, as well as perform triangulation on incoming targets/jammers.

LDC (Local Data Center) -- At this point, computers were so big/expensive that if you went with cheap MSRs, you had to build these to help them with data processing.

Suggested Deployment configurations were:

HI-MAR - Every City gets 1 x MAR and 2 or 3 Single-Face MSRs.

LO-MAR - Every City gets 2 x Single Face MSRs and 1 x Double Face MSR. Every third city would get a MAR.

NO-MAR -- Every City gets 2 x Single Face MSRs and 1 x Double Face MSR.

The idea was that all of the radars (MAR, TACMAR, MSR-2 and MSR-1) would be mix and matched as necessary for that region's perceived enemy threat level; to optimize for cost.

For example, Cincinnati's total cost if it got a NO-MAR system and 100 SPRINTs would be about $275M; or $2.75M per interceptor and $5.5M per object shot down.

From 1965 onwards the MSR simply grew to absorb everything else in the system as it gained more capabilities; the Improved MSR (IMSR) design in 1968 had a much larger antenna to support the forthcoming IMPROVED SPARTAN design which would have a 780 x 1400 mile protected zone, versus BASIC SPARTAN's 680 x 930 mile protected zone.

This increase in performance would allow a reduction from 12 sites to about 6 or 7 sites and keep the same level of coverage.

In 1970, it was simply decided to merge the MSR and IMSR into one design, with the only differences being whether the MSR was fitted with the big or small antennas or had more than 10 Processor Units on-site.

By this time, the MSR cost about $200M; largely due to now having four faces, enabling 360-degree coverage.

The initial 1971 proposal for Phase I SAFEGUARD deployment was for *two* MSRs at each MINUTEMAN defense site -- Malmstrom and Grand Forks, for a total of four MSRs and two PARs.

Somewhere along the way, the Remote Sprint Launcher (RSL) was introduced; these unmanned missile farms containing 12, 14 or 16 launch cells could be located as far as 25 miles from the MSR -- the SPRINT missile would be launched remotely and then "captured" by the MSR in "toss and catch" launches.

These changes "hardened and dispersed" every element of the system -- instead of one easily attackable centralized NIKE-X site; destroying one sub-element meant you only knocked out a portion; as the system would reroute around damage.

Malmstrom PAR blacked out by NUDETs or destroyed?

No problem, the Grand Forks PAR, some 700 miles away, is geometrically positioned to see around NUDET shadows and provide traffic data to the Malmstrom MSR to compensate for the loss of it's assigned PAR.

Additionally, because of the wide separation between the two sites; their PARs and MSRs can provide mutual discrimination assistance to each other.

The Grand Forks PAR can see the broadside aspect of enemy target complexes headed towards the Malmstrom PAR; and vice versa.

This is highly useful in discriminating chaff and decoys from real warheads -- if all you can see is a head on (0 deg) aspect; your job is going to be very hard.

But if you've got a sister site that can get a side view of the target complex and see the chaff/decoys slowly moving backwards relative to the heavy RVs, your job becomes significantly easier as your sister site can say "hey, I think that target 15 is a decoy."

To give a specific example [*]; the Mk-12 Mod 3 RV used on early Minuteman IIIs has a RCS of ≈ 0.0015m2 to 0.06 m2 at 4300 to 153 MHz and 0-40° aspect.

[* - RAND Report R-1754-PR - The U.S. ICBM Force: Current Issues and Future Options - October 1975]

There's a reason the ABM treaty (as amended) banned multiple sites, remote datalinks and demanded everything be within 150 km of a central point.

======================

BONUS, I figured out the Bell Labs SPARTAN Envelope (I think) thanks to this line from:

Draft Memorandum From Secretary of Defense McNamara to President Johnson
Washington, December 22, 1966.
SUBJECT: Production and Deployment of the Nike-X

"The extended-range Spartan—a three stage missile with a hot X-ray, [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] capable of intercepting incoming objects at a range of over 400 nautical miles and at altitudes of up to 280 nautical miles. This missile makes use of some of the components of the old Nike-Zeus."

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/CPR ... T31436.htm]

SPARTAN @ $1.41M/ea
SPRINT @ $0.636M/ea

This is just for the airframes. The Nuke cost can be deduced, as the table has a line stating "total AEC Investment cost" which is:

$1B for 1200 SPARTAN + 1100 SPRINT
$2B for 1200 SPARTAN + 7300 SPRINT.

This according to Grok, gives us a rough cost of

$685,000~ for 5 MT
$161,000~ for 2 KT

(figures rounded off to nearest thousand)

So SPRINT costs are actually about $800K instead of $1.25M/missile.

EDIT: McNamara's DDR&E may have been including facility costs in SPRINT estimates; so....eh, it all comes out in the wash.

POINT 2:
The Army pushed for two MSRs per SAFEGUARD site; but was told no; there's going to be just one MSR.

Why?

At the time (1969-1970) SAFEGUARD was being appropriated, the average cost of a MSR was $175M.

Cutting each Phase I site from 2 MSRs to 1 MSR each saves a cool $350M in 1970 dollars....or $2.8B~ in 2025 dollars.

This also helps explain why Bell was increasingly wanting to get out of SAFEGUARD -- because the system kept getting cut down and castrated to save money / traded off for arms control concessions (elimination of the Montana SAFEGUARD site) wherever possible.

MINOR TRIVIA:
If you ever want to run your own MSR...during attack conditions, the MSR would consume about 900+ gallons of diesel fuel an *hour*; while in "surveillance" mode, the entire complex would consume about 1000 gallons/day.

Keeping ABM sites running during nuclear attack got serious discussion pointed towards hardened nuclear plants:

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/AD0406321.pdf

UTILIZATION OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS IN UNDERGROUND INSTALLATIONS

b. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Zeus Multi-Function Array Radar (ZMAR) Study (reference 15). When this study was published there were two ZMAR utilization concepts, Urban and Hardsite Defense Systems. Both of these systems required hardened power plants; the Urban Defense system requiring a larger plant than the Hardsite Defense System.

The NAS conclusion as to the power source set forth in reference 15 are as follows:

(1) For Urban and Hardsite installations, where adequate water is available for normal heat-rejection system, the nuclear-steam plant is preferred because it has no requirement for combustion air or exhaust.

(2) For Urban installations, where water supplies are so limited that evaporative cooling is necessary for heat rejection, the conventional-steam plant is preferred if underground cooling towers are used. The nuclear-steam plant becomes second choice because it requires about one-fifth of the energy for blowing air through the underground cooling tower, twice as much as is required for the conventional plant. If hardened spray ponds are feasible at these sites, the nuclear plant would be preferred because it has no requirement for combustion air.

(3) For Hardsite installations, where water supplies are so limited that evaporative cooling is necessary for heat rejection, the diesel engine is preferred. However, if hardened spray ponds are feasible, the nuclear steam plant may be a better solution.

(4) For Hardsite installations, where air cooling is required, the diesel engine plant is preferred.

(5) There does not appear to be any Urban installation where air cooling will be required.

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 working on phased array radars and better interceptors, and so on. And I made up again -- I had a little talking paper like this for Harold Brown’s staff meeting -- where I presented the alternatives that we had. And I gave it to both Harold and later to the President’s Science Advisory Committee. And I listed -- I think I can find it on paper too -- the alternatives we had.

And one was to continue with Nike-Zeus as is. And nobody found that satisfactory.

The other is to continue with Nike-Zeus but to modify it so that we had bad phased array radars instead of the, instead of the old radars that they had.

The second option was to have phased array radars and also work on a new interceptor which would be short ranged and snappier and faster and they’d all phase in.

And the third option, which I called Nike-X -- just because, you know, I didn’t know what to call it; and that’s how the name originated -- it started on that piece of paper, Nike-X, I call it N-X, was to say what if we started from scratch?

You know, if we started from scratch, how would it differ from the other, from the things that we were talking about.

On my outline, I had a little table outlining each of these things. And then the program was sort of pushed up to the higher authorities and it stayed Nike-X and then the… When it was approved it was called… It stayed Nike-X in all the internal papers and then when it was approved the Army and Bell Labs changed its name to Nike-Phoenix.

And they found within a few weeks that they couldn’t use the word “phoenix” because another program had the name “phoenix” somewheres and it would be confusion.

So they said, “Well, let’s go back to Nike-X until we find a better name.”

And then they just never found a better name. And so, the one mark that I made in history that I can point to is I’ve named Nike-X, Nike-X.

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 missile development program.

The study was to be completed in 120 days.

The requirements were for ICBM destruction up to 108,000 feet, with engagement time of 10.5 seconds, to include system reaction time after a decision was generated, and 4.5 seconds to 20,000 feet. A 48-missile complex was to be considered with a capability of launching 12 missiles simultaneously every ten seconds. If possible, the missile was not to exceed 150 G axial acceleration.

SPRINT was to protect sites hardened to 100 psi. For urban application, 15 psi at ground zero was the maximum acceptable level.

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.
I want 20,000 SPRINTs

=====================

From Congressional Testimony c.1969 -- General STARBIRD shoots down the fallacy of "super cheap radars" for Minuteman Defense.

Mr. Long. If the missile site radar is the heart and eyes of the system and is so vulnerable to attack, why is there only one missile site radar per site ?

General Starbird. It was planned as one per site, sir, because that was the number that it was felt were necessary to insure the survival of the number of our own missiles that we were told to try to cover.

Specifically, as I think you may remember, we were told to insure the survival of [DELETED] against a specific attack. One could put in more radar, but the radar is the expensive part of the system. One was believed adequate for the purpose, according to our calculations.

COST OF MISSILE SITE RADARS

Mr. Long. The missile site radars cost approximately $140 million each. Is that an accurate figure ?

General Starbird. I would like to correct that, but it is in that neighborhood. It is higher than that.

(The information follows:)

Estimates of average MSR on-site investment costs associated with the full Phase 2 deployment are $170 million. These radar costs include the hardware costs of the radar, its data processor and associated equipment, installation costs and the construction of the radar building and support facilities. The unit costs do not include a pro-ration of overhead costs such as management and the cost of production facilities. Neither do they include costs related to the deployment such as training, and the costs for software development.

Mr. Long. It is designed to protect cities, as I understand. To protect Minuteman, would it not be better to design a cheaper, less sophisticated radar, and to deploy more of them ?

General Starbird. Of course, we have always had as a part of our mission since the decision was made to deploy, the protection of Minuteman as an option, and the radar was designed with that in mind, as well as protecting cities and protecting areas.

Mr. Long. Right, but since you had a dual purpose, and that dual purpose presumably no longer is there, why not then design something for the single purpose of protecting the Minuteman.

General Starbird. We have examined over the years—not me, but those who went before me, and I since I have been there—various suggestions that have been made. The suggestions generally come down to why don’t you design a radar so you can have one per silo or one or two per silo, and you have a few missiles for each silo, and that protects that silo or one or two silos.

Invariably, when we have looked at this, the costs have been significantly higher. The problems of control and accuracy, considering the short time scale you get into if you use very short-range and cheap missiles and cheap radar, are such that they look almost impossible to handle.

Basically, to give you the answer, this appears to be the cheapest way of doing the mission, as well as the effective way.

Mark, this is absolutely fascinating. The 100’ kill radius even more so.

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?

My father worked for Bell Labs from 1958 until he retired in 1999. One of the projects he worked on was Nike-Zeus. He would never talk about his work on secret stuff, because he knew how to keep his mouth shut. Its nice to see stuff that he worked on in the public eye now.

Belushi TD

Craiglxviii wrote: ↑Wed Feb 11, 2026 8:24 am Mark, this is absolutely fascinating. The 100’ kill radius even more so.

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?

For a limited number of inbounds perhaps.

Although the number of nuclear “initiations” (to borrow from a discussion with Stu (all rise) at the time) would have probably irradiated a year’s agricultural production across most of northern US and southern Canada.

It was an awesome system.

I second the motion for 20,000 Sprints!

Craiglxviii wrote: ↑Wed Feb 11, 2026 8:24 amForgive 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 quote Slick Willie.

ABM is a constantly moving "target" that's got a lot of ugly political realities affecting it:

1.) The Democrat Party, plus State Department are categorically opposed to any kind of ABM. Kissinger in one of his memoirs wrote that DOD was desperate for NCA (Washington DC ABM) to salvage something from the billions spent on ABM by the 1970s; while State and the Arms Control Disarmament Agency (ACDA) -- now part of State -- strongly disagreed with ABM but were willing to acquiesce with NCA ABM; as it was a "mirroring" of the Moscow ABM which would be useful in negotiations.

2.) People don't like evil "nukes" in their backyard, viewing them as "megaton magnets". Consider the average person's IQ. Never mind that if you're fighting unrestricted nuclear war, large urban areas are getting megatons dumped onto them. This local resistance pretty much derailed the earlier SENTINEL approach, especially in Boston; where the Sharpner's Pond PAR site had construction halted.

#2 forced the move of SAFEGUARD components away from the cities.

Back in 1992, Lockheed put forth these charts for their ERIS HTK Mid-Course system; which used a 250 lb (113.4 kg) kill vehicle. The GBI EKV is about 64 kg, by comparison.

Some estimates put the existing GBI burnout velocity as somewhere around 27,800+ ft/sec or higher; to put in context the 16 vs 25 kfps vugraphs attached to this post.

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.

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 top is called a positioner stage. It is a rocket-powered atmospheric-controlled cruise vehicle, like a remote piloted vehicle (RPV) but rocket powered. Inside the positioner stage are small hit-to-kill weapons.

[...]

Mr. WRIGHT. The idea or the operational concept here is that we would commit this positioner stage on exoatmospheric information.

That is to say, when we had a rough idea of where the cluster of objects-not just an RV or a decoy -- but a cluster of objects, (what we call a threat tube) is going. That is pictured in the upper right here. We can vector this positioner stage to approximately the large area of interest-that which we call the intercept zone or the battle zone-and then on board the positioner stage we have at the front end an infrared detector and a laser radar. These operate after the system is on station is now very close to the threat where it can see it at close range. They examine the threat as it enters the upper atmosphere. They can look at objects as they heat up, as they burn up in the atmosphere, as they slow down in the atmos- phere, et cetera. Based on this information now, which includes both metric, velocity, and radiometric data, such as temperature and the like, we have an excellent idea now of what are the decoys and what are the RVs and heavy objects.

To do perfect discrimination against a heavy decoy is difficult. To solve that problem, we carry on the positioner six of those small interceptor kill vehicles that you saw. The six interceptors give us the flexibility to commit against an RV and any other objects that we cannot discriminate. However, because we are using atmospher- ic discrimination, these would have to be fairly credible heavy decoys of which an ICBM booster could only have a few per RV, as opposed to light decoys exoatmospherically where it is possible to have hundreds per RV.

The key then is the early commit and at the same time the late commit of the interceptor itself which allows us to do an effective job. Essentially, now we have a battle platform in the sky.

Mr. WRIGHT. By putting the positioner on station up high in the atmosphere, about 100,000 feet up, and near where the RVs will be coming in, we have gotten through the heavy atmosphere and all the problems of high acceleration. We have a system which has very simple battle management. It is a fire-and-forget system. It has an autonomous end game. It requires no external communica- tions after it has been launched. It can be vectored to the site, open its sensors, look at the threat, and commit its interceptors.

Furthermore, it is an above-the-weather sensor, and by using its sensors to look at the threat it can commit and lock its interceptors onto the threat before releasing them, so we have an assured com- mitment. Once we have chosen a target using this system which locked on an interceptor, it can be released and fired and then engage the target. We have enough of these interceptors on board to provide us a very high assurance of getting one or more interceptors at the RV or each heavy object, which gives us a high probability of kill.

Because we are up in the atmosphere, the interceptors can be small and inexpensive. They are closer. They don't have to go as fast. They don't have to face problems of burning through the atmosphere at high speeds trying to look through an infrared window, et cetera. So the technology now becomes simpler as does the battle management.

[...]

Mr. WARD. Let me go back to the point about the technology that is involved. We really don't see any long poles in the tent. Let me begin. The positioner itself flies at about the same speed as the Concorde. It uses the same kind of structure that goes into things we have been building for 30 years in aircraft. The only two things in the system that are really departures are not departures in technology, they are departures in the way the system is mechanized.

The first one is the interceptors themselves. These are very slow.

These are about 5,000 feet per second Delta V, three times slower than the ones that we typically compare them to. They don't involve any components that are new and different from those that are built today to go in tactical missiles and things of similar nature.

The other item, which is a new one in a sense -- it is new in its application here is the laser radar that is carried in the nose of the positioner. We have a breadboard of that operating now at our Autonetics Facility. It is a CO2 laser that operates at two frequencies, and we have got it operating at almost the power levels that you would put in this. So we really don't see any big technical things. Therefore, the rapidity with which one could bring it on stream is a function really of what is the funding level and how fast the decision is made to bring it on. I think we are talking about something that could be done, if one pushed it, in the early 1990s, without any question about it.

Mr. SPRATT. Well, are you saying, then, that the carrier vehicle is a straight take-off or a derivative of the Tomahawk?

Mr. WARD. No, it is not a derivative. It is about the same size and it represents the same class of technology. It is shaped differently because it flies supersonically. It flies at Concorde speeds. But it is a simple, straightforward airframe.

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.
Air Force approach to missile defense, here greatly oversimplified, envisions 1,000-mile range, ability to intercept enemy ICBM 300-500 miles from target.
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:
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.

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 Against an Active Terminal Defense" (Aug. 1962)

MIRV A Brief History (COVD-1571) Page 39

The ABM system assumed to be a threat to MINUTEMAN
three to four years hence, i.e., for the time period 1965-1968 was still the SA-4. Because of the SA-4 relatively low altitude capability it was expected that [SEVERAL LINES DELETED]

MIRV A Brief History (COVD-1571) Page 46

Throughout the development of penetration aids for the MK-11 and MK-12 reentry systems, the Air Force showed great interest in the use of low altitude decoys in order to overload terminal defense systems. The efforts proved fruitless, in the end, for decoys could never be designed to the specifications desired. None have yet become operational. One of the most severe constraints was the small weight allocation. Studies had already shown in 1963 that unless the terminal ABM is capable of intercepting a very large number of objects, multiple warheads are of greater benefit to the offense than decoys, even if they are. [LINE DELETED] (For an example, see Note 19.) (S)

MIRV A Brief History (COVD-1571) Page 55

In 1964 an intensive seven months study, the PEN-X Study, was conducted for the office of the Director Defense Research and Engineering to review the technological base for planning payloads for U.S. strategic missiles during the next ten years. Consideration was to be given to the possible Russian BMD systems. The products of the review were the PEN-X Papers, a series of more than 80 reports representing specialized, ad hoc studies performed and written by the members of the PEN-X staff which was composed of IDA staff members, IDA consultants, defense contractors under contract with ARPA, BSD (AF), Special Projects Office (USN) and the AEC.

Known Pen-X Papers are:

Hochstim, A.R.: "ECM Antenna Breakdown During Reentry (U)," Pen-X Paper 32, IDA/HQ66-4458, January 1966.

A.L. Seward, Stage Disposal Capability of Strategic Missile Systems, PEN-X Paper 39, Institute for Defense Analyses, (1965) (Title U, Report SRD)

Hallowell, F., Spampinato, J., and Camerson, J., "Maneuvering Ballistic Reentry Vehicle Technology," (U) LMSC-8160, Pen-X Paper 46, March 1965 (SRD).

G. Gordon, Ballistic Missile Weapon Delivery Accuracy:
Present and Future, PEN-X -Paper 49, Institute for Defense Analyses, (1965) (Title U, Report S)

W. Emrick and M. Watter, USAF Advanced ICBM Concepts, PEN-X Paper 58, Institute for Defense Analyses, (1965) (Title U, Report SRD)

Berger, H.M. (1965). "Penetration of Terminal Defenses by Interceptor Exhaustion and Leakage" (U). Pen-X Paper 68,
Institute for Defense Analyses. CONFIDENTIAL.

Berger, H.M. (1965). "Effect of Preferential Defense of
an Urban/Industrial Target on Penetration by Exhaustion
and Leakage" (U). Pen-X Paper 72, Institute for Defense
Analyses. SECRET.

B. Alexander, The PEN-X Report, Report 112, Institute for
Defense Analyses, (1965) (Title U, Report SRD). [Summarized conclusions]

MIRV A Brief History (COVD-1571) Page 58

The general conclusions of the PEN-X Study were
presented in Report 112. They are reproduced in Note 26.

MIRV A Brief History (COVD-1571) Page 64

Decoys capable of simulating reentry vehicles down to very low altitudes have been a part of most of the Air Force penetration packages since they were suggested in the late 1950's. The questionable value of allocating weight to decoys instead of additional RV's, even against high capability ABMs, had been demonstrated in the mid 60's through numerous studies.

In spite of these conclusions the development of decoys was pursued throughout the MK-12 program. Great technical difficulties were encountered during the development of the decoys for the MINUTEMAN III in order to achieve a near perfect match to RV characteristics. This goal was never satisfactorily accomplished and decoys are not included in the MK-12 P/A package. The list of constraints which must be fulfilled in order to obtain an object which will fool the defense's discriminating techniques is impressive. The requirements placed on the Mk-12 decoys are shown in Note 31.

MIRV A Brief History (COVD-1571) Page 86

NOTE 12: Excerpt from AVCO reports "Preliminary Design Study for Manuvering Re-Entry Vehicles" and "Penetration Capability of a Maneuvering Re-Entry Vehicle"

The particular group of maneuvers considered are low-altitude maneuvers against a hard-point target. If it is assumed that the re-entry vehicle will have decoy coverage upon re-entry, any maneuver by the re-entry vehicle would immediately reveal its identity relative to the nonmaneuvering decoys. It is thus desirable from an offensive point of view to delay the commencement of a maneuver until the re-entry vehicle is below the survival altitude of the decoys. Further, when considering hard-point targets, the decoys must survive to fairly low altitudes to be effective, since commitment of the interceptor can be delayed until the re-entry vehicle reaches as low as 50,000 feet (15.24 km). Consequently, the maneuvers considered in this investigation began at 50,000 feet (15.24 km) or below.

The terminal maneuvers start when the re-entry vehicle reaches a descent altitude of 50,000 feet (15.24 km) along a nominal ballistic trajectory. The particular ballistic trajectory selected for the study follows a minimum energy path for a range of 6200 nautical miles (11 470 km). However, the terminal maneuver capability is not a strong function of the ballistic range so the results are generally applicable. Figure 2* shows some of the variations in maneuvers attainable. The extended range or lob maneuver was designed to yield a steep impact angle with a range extension of roughly 100 nautical miles (185 km).

It is possible to get a much larger range extension, if desired, by simply delaying the start of the 60 g pulldown. The range decrease or tuck maneuver yields the greatest range shortening and is probably the most difficult to intercept since the time from the 50,000-foot (15.24 km) altitude to impact is the smallest.

Initially, the study is based on consideration only of variations of the tuck maneuver.

These can be seen in figure 3 which shows 60 g pulldown
maneuvers from various altitudes along the ballistic trajectory below an altitude of 50,000 feet (15.24 km). Lateral maneuvers are not considered in this portion of the study.

BTW, this all but confirms that McNamara used MARV defeat capability to define the defended range of NIKE-X in DDR&E studies.

MIRV A Brief History (COVD-1571) Pages 99-100

Excerpt from "MINUTEMAN Payloads Against Defended Urban Targets" (U) (Aug. 1963) (Ref. 17)

SUMMARY

Over the past few years the concept of ICBM penetration aids in the form of passive and reentering decoys has become generally accepted as a pertinent and valuable adjunct to ICBM payloads in the event of a penetration problem against a terminal AICBM defense. In this view, a great deal of emphasis is placed on the lightest possible weight for useful decoys. (S)

The analysis in this study addresses itself to the question: How important is decoy weight with respect to overall ICBM system costs when a fixed, high level of destruction of defended urban targets is required of an ICBM striking force? (S)

The possibly surprising result obtained shows that decoy weight is in fact of relatively limited importance, over a significantly wide range of AICBM strength deployed.

Given that an AICBM penetration problem exists, the analysis suggests that greatest benefit accrues to the offensive ICBM force through the use of multiple warheads, and that AICBM strengths corresponding to the capability to intercept many hundreds to perhaps thousands of reentering objects must be manifest before decoys as light as even 25 to 30 percent of a reentry vehicle (with warhead) become more attractive. (S)

MIRV A Brief History (COVD-1571) Pages 113

Excerpt from "USAF Advanced ICBM Concepts (U)" (1965) (Ref. 24)

[...]

The TITAN II improvement proposal includes several MIRV
configurations:

1. 6 x MARK-17 reentry vehicles
2. Two buses each carrying 8 x MARK 12 [DELETED] RV
3. Five buses each with 6 x MARK 100 [DELETED] advanced technology reentry vehicles.

MIRV A Brief History (COVD-1571) Pages 116-118

Note 26

Conclusions from the PEN-X study entitled "The PEN-X Report" (Aug. 1965)(Ref. 27)

1.9 CONCLUSIONS

General conclusions are presented here in condensed form. Some conclusions have been inferred from effectiveness tables such as Table 1.8-A; others derive from review of intelligence information, and some are primarily judgments.

[...]

THREAT

The possibility that the Soviets are deploying active missile defense must be taken seriously. Ballistic missile defense might be scheduled for an initial capability as early as 1966 or 1967. Such a deployment could be long-range (area) defense or terminal defense or a combination of the two.

[...]

The effect of area BMD on present US missile force capability may be substantial, even at low levels of defense.

The concern over the possible effects of area defense on the present force reflects the highly defense-favorable target prices and cost ratios exacted by first generation area defenses against present U.S. missile systems. This conclusion also underlines the fact that a modest level of area defense can provide substantial defense of a few -- perhaps crucial -- military targets by (unpredictable) preferential defense.

[...]

PENETRATION

Neglecting considerations of preferential defense, it is feasible to achieve a counter to area defense, by using decoys and warheads which must be individually intercepted, that will result in a cost ratio substantially favoring the offense, regardless of the level or details of the defense.

This results from the judgment (based only on theoretical analyses) that reasonably light, hardened, exoatmospheric decoys can be made to be indiscriminable from reentry vehicles, regardless of defense sophistication. It can be seen that fully defense-insensitive payload options such as Option 15 provide substantially offense favorable cost ratios. However, the effects of preferential defense are not accounted for in these cost ratios.

[...]

It is feasible to achieve a counter to terminal defense by the use of multiple small reentry vehicles, at a cost ratio somewhat favorable to the offense, regardless of the details of the defense. Larger reentry vehicles used with reentry decoys are competitive in cost but involve some risk.

These points are illustrated by payloads such as Option 16 and Option 9, respectively. Note that each of these include exoatmospheric decoys to counter area defense. If they were designed against terminal defense only, the cost ratios would be slightly more favorable to the offense.

[...]

Techniques have been identified which can provide cost ratios more favorable to the offense. Their effectiveness, however, depends more on the details of the defenses.

Good examples of this are Option 25 and Option 37. Effectiveness against both area and terminal defense is quite good. By use of a short skip maneuver, maneuvering reentry vehicles can prevent preferential defense by area defenses.

[...]

While there are other penetration techniques which could be even more efficient, they reduce the price of penetration significantly only if the defense is generally poor or has specific weaknesses which can be exploited.

These techniques make use of defense-sensitive modes of penetration and are not included in the list of payload options. The relative effectiveness of such payloads was studied, and sensitivity to defense details was found to be extreme.

[...]

# RESPONSES

Penetration aids presently ready for the force would not contribute to penetrating area defense and cannot be relied upon to be effective against early terminal defense.

Present penetration aids are not designed to operate at the frequency (VHF) of likely radars for area defense. Moreover, inter-object spacing is too small to prevent multiple kills from area defense interceptor bursts. The effectiveness against terminal defense depends upon the defenses' reaction time and discrimination capability. Since the reentry vehicles are all blunt (Mark 2, 6, 11A) and the defense would have ample warning from nearby tankage, decoy effectiveness in drawing fire is likely to be very limited.

[...]

By 1967 or 1968 accelerated programs could add chaff and decoy packages to POLARIS A-3, and MINUTEMAN-II, which then would yield cost ratios favoring the offense when used against first generation area defense.

This conclusion refers to Options 4 and [illegible]. As has been explained, there are significant engineering problems to be solved before these payloads can be achieved.

[...]

By 1969, and possibly earlier, the MINUTEMAN-II PBCS can be used to deploy Mark-12 reentry vehicles, heavy decoys, and chaff. Such penetration systems can exact somewhat favorable cost ratios from terminal defense, and substantially favorable cost ratios from area defense. The target price against defense-in-depth is about the sum of the prices exacted by the area and terminal defenses individually. By 1970 or 1971 POSEIDON could have similar payloads.

This is illustrated by Option 9.

[...]

Continued vigorous RDT&E on a wide variety of penetration aids will serve to hedge against errors in analysis and planning, to press the defense planner to increase complexity and cost, and to provide a ready-capability to exploit defense weaknesses if they become known.

This conclusion is obviously a statement of judgments, and is stated to emphasize that the PEN-X study reinforces such judgments. It is clear, for example, that studies such as this can be misleading and therefore the subject must be reexamined periodically. It is also clear that a strong and broad R&D program is the price of admission to the game of responsive payload options.

MIRV A Brief History (COVD-1571) Pages 121

NOTE 28
Excerpts from BSD Exhibit 62-59A "MARK 12 Reentry Vehicle Design Criteria" (U) (Feb. 1966) (Ref. 28)

Fuzing

The fuzing system shall be capable of providing the warhead with either surface burst or air burst signals. The option shall be capable of being remotely selected prior to launch with surface burst fuzing as back-up for the air burst fuzing. (S)

Surface Fuze

The surface fuze shall cause warhead detonation from 0-50 ft (15.2 m) above ground impact. The surface fuze shall provide a warhead firing signal a minimum of 100 microseconds prior to warhead deformation. (S)

Air Burst

The airburst fuze shall detonate the warhead at a pre-set height above the target within the specified accuracy limits. (S)

The height of burst shall be remotely settable prior to launch between 1000 and 10,500 ft (305 and 3200 m) above mean sea level. The targets of concern will be at altitudes between sea level and 4500 feet (1372 m) above sea level [i.e., maximum height above terrain is 6000 ft (1830 m)]. It is assumed that the standard deviation of target altitude above sea level does not exceed 75 ft. (S)

MIRV A Brief History (COVD-1571) Pages 127

NOTE 31

Excerpt from "BSD Exhibit 66-11, MARK 12 Penetration Aids Subsystem Design Criteria (U) (25 April 1966)(Ref. 30)

TABLE II MARK 12 DECOY REQUIREMENTS (1)

[(1) The decoys shall be designed to operate in the range from 4000 to 5400 nautical miles (7400 to 10,000 km) for reentry angles from 20 to 40 degrees referenced to the local horizontal. Critical system parameters shall be optimized for a range of 4550 nautical miles (8420 km) and a reentry angle corresponding to a minimum energy trajectory.]

Simulation Altitude -- From 200 nautical miles (370 km) slant range from impact point down to 50 K ft. (15.25 km)

Survival Altitude -- Through reentry down to 30 K ft. (9.25 km)

X-ray Vulnerability -- Any decoy in the train shall be able to survive [DELETED]

Blast Hardness -- 150 g. axial, 100 g. lateral

Neutron and Gamma Hardness - [DELETED]

===============================================

The Advanced Research Projects Agency 195x-xxx [illegible] [ADA154363]

Page VI-15

In May 1964, ARPA's BMD Advisory Committee initiated the mammoth "Pen-X" study, which examined the whole penetration problem in great detail and proved to be one of the most influential studies conducted under the DEFENDER program.

Page VII-9

There were, however, a number of significant developments occurring in DEFENDER as Dr. Herzfeld became Director. One major accomplishment was completion of the massive "Pen-X" study in July 1965. The study is said to have had a major impact on advanced penetration concepts and recommended changes in emphasis in ARPA's program in specific technical areas.

According to Dr. Ben Alexander, the study Director, Pen-X reinforced both the Air Force's interest in MIRV's and the AEC's interest in small warhead development and may have considerably stimulated developments in both areas.

In layman's terms, the study essentially concluded that the tradeoff between small multiple warheads and a single larger warhead accompanied by sophisticated decoy systems was favorable to the former.

Or, as Herzfeld put it "Pen-X proved that, for all practical purposes, multiple warheads are better than decoys [and] that's why MIRV's are around fellas." [24]

24. Discussion with Dr. R. L. Sproull, May 29, 1975.

I have an idea for a perfect decoy. It has the same ballistic behavior as a live warhead, and generates a nuclear yield at end of flight, so they can't possibly ignore it.