Minuteman III Missiles Are Too Old to Upgrade Anymore, Stratcom Chief Says
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But IRL you don't need that many to create a strong deterrence.
Even just the SLBM fleet alone should probably be sufficient to scare anyone away (not that I think that should be the only platform, just saying).
There are fewer SLBMs and they’re more expensive (and difficult) to maintain. Were I forced to wager, I’d bet on a given SLBM failing over an ICBM. Balancing that are the larger number of ICBMs, and the fact that nobody wants to wager.
As good as ICBM MIRVs are and assuming a minor nuclear war is as bad as a bit one, if I had to choose to reduce capability on a tighter budget I'd make it about that. The fear of the unpredictability and small response times via having it potentially parked next door adds to the deterrence.
Not even the US? I was under the impression that the US had enough SLBM to implement MAD, so that the land and bomber-based forces were pretty much redundant.
1,750 warheads, per New START [1], on a few hundred missiles. That’s enough to wreak havoc. But given missile defense and offshore basing, reality for most of our adversaries, it leaves a lot of the enemy’s fighting capacity intact.
[1] https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/103rd-congress-1993-...
Even if that's the correct interpretation of the capabilities, it doesn't mean MAD can't be implemented. It just means it needs countervalue targets (cities and industry) vs only counterforce targets (military).
This is what the UK did, in shrinking its nuclear forces to Trident submarines.
If you doubt me just look how little the sanctions have actually hurt them militarily.
Obviously with sanctions these parts are near impossible to come by in quantity, but if you're looking to maintain a few missiles it shouldn't be too hard to smuggle it.
Russia is stuck at 140nm/70nm with no visible path forward but this is more than enough for this kind of application.
They don't have now access to super-computing for running complicated simulations, and will probably have to do some live testing in the coming years if the Chinese doesn't sell them a few supercomputers.
> Russia is stuck at 140nm/70nm with no visible path forward but this is more than enough for this kind of application.
Latest fab processes isn't the problem I was referring to (but it could be part of it). It's the knowledge+expertise for controls systems. This could be guidance, detonation, communications, etc.
If any of those systems were imported they're now forced to either source the chips or develop it in country.
Developing it on shore is way more than a "140nm/70nm" process. You'll have to reverse engineer the current chip to communicate with all the other chips it has to communicate with. What if the chip you need to replace uses a smaller fab process? You possibly have to replace the sub-system. Well now you better hope you have the expertise to build that system AND have it work with all the other systems. How long would that take? How expensive is it just to maintain your capabilities vs before?
Again, for the few missiles, smuggling seems way better. Your ROI on black market cost for missile parts that never get used is amazing vs say a fleet of tanks.
A lot of people seem to think that Russia is still stuck in the malaise years of post-soviet Yeltsin administration, when in fact, this couldn't be further from the truth.
There are several fields where Russia is far ahead of the west, like AD a EW. In fact, the F-35 design was centered on stealth to the detriment of range and payload specifically to be able to counter the threat of Soviet SAMs.
Of course, a lot of their civilian manufacture depended on cheaper, less power hungry and more advanced western chips. Also, for ground applications, simulation and design tasks we can be pretty sure that they use western technology and now are having to resort to smuggling.
But for the guts of weapon systems? Radars and Military Glonass systems? Very unlikely that they depend on western chips for that.
I don't know how many fighters Russia is still selling after the poor performance of its air force during the Ukrainian conflict but, I don't know... given who they normally sell to, I hope it's a lot. Lots of crappy fighters. (not to discount the might of their propeller-driven strategic bomber force, of course)
Given the failure of the Patriot system to protect the Saudi from the primitive Houthi missiles I think that those analysts have a point. Ukraine is sometimes too enthusiastic on the information war front, to put it mildly.
To be perfectly honest, neither is the US/NATO arms industry. IIRC, it also cannot replace missiles and artillery shells at the rate they're being consumed in Ukraine.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/24/us/politics/military-weap...:
> His open frustration reflects a problem that has become worryingly apparent as the Pentagon dispatches its own stocks of weapons to help Ukraine hold off Russia and Washington warily watches for signs that China might provoke a new conflict by invading Taiwan: The United States lacks the capacity to produce the arms that the nation and its allies need at a time of heightened superpower tensions.
> Industry consolidation, depleted manufacturing lines and supply chain issues have combined to constrain the production of basic ammunition like artillery shells while also prompting concern about building adequate reserves of more sophisticated weapons including missiles, air defense systems and counter-artillery radar.
> ...
> In the first 10 months after Russia invaded Ukraine, prompting Washington to approve $33 billion in military aid so far, the United States sent Ukraine so many Stinger missiles from its own stocks that it would take 13 years’ worth of production at recent capacity levels to replace them. It has sent so many Javelin missiles that it would take five years at last year’s rates to replace them, according to Raytheon, the company that helps make the missile systems.
> If a large-scale war broke out with China, within about one week the United States would run out of so-called long-range anti-ship missiles, a vital weapon in any engagement with China, according to a series of war-game exercises conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.
The US and EU are barely even showing up. The US is just kicking down whatever old hardware Congress will allow them to, and paying for replacements. There's some indication things might change. Rheinmetall is planning to build a new plant to help out Ukraine - in Ukraine! But in general, the problem is still that the NATO countries aren't spending enough. It's a fairly different problem than what Russia has to contend with: industries that are just barely on the ragged edge of being capable. (which isn't to say Russia aren't capable of doing a great deal of harm...)
In Western propaganda, that's portrayed as a desperate move, but I don't think it is. The only reason the US isn't buying equipment for Ukraine from Iran and North Korea is geopolitics. North Korea has a shit-ton of Soviet-compatible artillery shells stockpiled, which have suddenly become extremely valuable. Russia would be foolishly playing with one hand tied behind it's back if it didn't take advantage of that available resource.
> The US and EU are barely even showing up. The US is just kicking down whatever old hardware Congress will allow them to, and paying for replacements.
There are looong lead times on many of those replacements. The US's production is insufficient, so it is being forced to do things like buying (export restricted) artillery shells from South Korea to free up US-made stockpiles to supply Ukraine.
I see a lot of indications that the US/NATO would quickly run out of missiles in a hot war just like Russia has.
Have you, uh, been paying attention to Ukraine?
Russia is either pathetically weak and so we can push their buttons at our heart content or it is a all powerful evil entity and we need to spend like a trillion to close the missile gap.
They are incorrect. Russia has many thousands of nukes. If there's a possibility of defects, it's for the hydrogen part, but the plutonium part will work absolutely fine. One can envision that Russia's megaton bombs don't work anymore, but Russia still has thousands of Hiroshima-sized well functioning bombs, and most people in this world don't care if they die form a 20 kT bomb or from a 2 MT bomb.
Plutonium pits need to be constantly rebuilt. Plutonium is one of the most corrosive materials on earth and phase changes at the drop of hat, it has 7 stable phases and only the one the bomb was designed for will do the job.
Bottom line, Russia's plutonium weapons are fine (unfortunately).
[1] https://sgp.fas.org/othergov/doe/lanl/pubs/00818031.pdf
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium%E2%80%93gallium_allo...
[3] https://discover.lanl.gov/publications/national-security-sci...
That Perun video also talks about tritium [2] and estimates that they probably have enough.
They probably have none:
https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2002-10/features/breakdown-b...:
> The substantial capabilities of the Russian warhead production complex have been of concern to some U.S. policymakers and nuclear weapons experts. The Russian complex is very large relative both to the U.S. complex and to the projected size of Russia’s nuclear weapons stockpile. Because of manufacturing and technology problems that limit the lifetime of Russian warheads to 10-15 years and because of stockpile management practices that emphasize routine rebuilding of nuclear warheads, the Russian complex also maintains high levels of production. The fear, then, is that Russia could use its large and active production infrastructure to offset arms reductions by quickly building new nuclear warheads in large numbers—that it has a “breakout capability.” Russia’s secretive nuclear weapons policies and uncertainties about the technical capabilities and operational practices of its nuclear weapons complex further exacerbate these fears.
> ...
> Russian warheads are reported to have a shelf life of approximately 10 years (with newer warheads having a life of 15 years), presumably because the warheads’ conventional high explosives degrade and their fissile components deteriorate.7
> The deployment cycle for Russian warheads is reported to be three years long.8 After three years of deployment, warheads are removed from their delivery systems and shipped to a serial production facility for modernization and refurbishment. Refurbished warheads are placed in storage prior to a new cycle of operational deployment.
That's like a complex legacy application in which the original developers passed away. In this day and age one can only wonder how the american armed forces will deal with this problem in a scenario where the military struggles to attract and retain their talent.
There is no “in this day” to it. Skill degradation has been a problem since antiquity. It’s why the best armies were those that were fighting; there is no replacement for the real deal.
Live fire with a dummy warhead. Or, more productively, turning them into launch vehicles for research purposes.
There were periods of time where technology remained relatively static for hundreds of years and all that was required as practice and the generational transfer of knowledge.
Now we can go through several revolutions in a single individuals generation with the relics of several generations past still in implementation and no one really sure of how they work/how to make them work.
So I presume the military could “just” buy some modern heavy launch stages from SpaceX or the like, and then strap regular SLBMs to them as their payloads.
ICBMs are solid fuel because you can leave the rocket fuelled up indefinitely in its silo.
You can do this with the educational system, with health care, and with infrastructure. Of course they would also do it with Defense. Lockheed/Northrop/Boeing/etc executives need to have their bonuses too!
> The Air Force has awarded Northrop Grumman a $13.3 billion contract to engineer and manufacture its next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile.
The ironic thing is that they just need to bring back the LGM-118 Peacekeeper that was decommissioned for purposes of treaty compliance twenty years ago. Unlike the drawings for the Minuteman III, it should not be all that difficult to make a Peacekeeper derivative: today Northrup Grumman makes the Minotaur IV, which is a derivative of... the Peacekeeper. [0]
It's a pity geopolitics is in such a state that the countries of the world cannot simply agree to stop having weapons like this.
There is no reason why the air farce needs to host two legs of the nuclear triad. Their entire doctrine is to kill as many enemy civilians as quickly as possible, because it's cheaper to kill them from a distance than sending in the army. This entire doctrine is the reason behind the existence of an independent air force, such as the RAF, which was designed as cheap alternative for maintaining imperial control. If we ever actually need the air force then we have already lost the war.
That's what happens when you use an unsupported windows version. /s
Nobody wants to maintain old stuff, everybody want something new.
Over a 50 year life. With very strenuous time to launch requirements. By staff that is well trained, but not well experienced.
An ICBM is a lot different that putting a payload in orbit. Needs to sit for 10 years, with 21 year old technicians performing the maintenance. And then launch when desired, on short notice, perhaps with portions of the support systems inoperative.
And liquid-fueled rockets are all SpaceX knows.