asulaima@udenva.cair.du.edu (SULAIMAN) (05/03/89)
From: asulaima@udenva.cair.du.edu (SULAIMAN) In article <5881@cbnews.ATT.COM> mchamp@wpi.wpi.edu (Marc J. Champagne) writes: > >The Moscow ABM system DOES NOT contain any X-ray laser weapons. It > consists of a series of Galosh interceptor missiles housed in > above-ground canister launchers and a smaller high acceleration > missile housed in an underground concrete lined launcher. There > are a total of 100 launchers, although the high-acceleration > missile bunkers may have several missiles in a "ready magazine" (a > violation of the '72 ABM treaty, but that's another story). > As I recall the ABM treaty allowed each side to have one ABM site however development of new ABM systens was banned. The Sovs as mentioned put their system around Moscow. The US for reasons best known chose not to put such a system up. I imagine it might have been hard to sell that Washington really needed to be saved :-) But I think they were considering utilising this option when the MX were all going to be put into silos in a very small specific area. I think it was a while back and the deployment had a catchy name associated with it. Obviously not very memorable. Ameer Z. Sulaiman. [mod.note: I know this has been covered fairly recently, but as I couldn't remember the names and sites involved, I figured many others didn't, either. Someone care to set the record straight ? - Bill ]
military@att.att.com (Bill Thacker) (05/05/89)
From: military@att.att.com (Bill Thacker) [mod.note: I received this posting anonymously, though I'm not sure why the author wishes to remain unknown. Doesn't seem to be any sensitive information; I assume (s)he has a good reason... - Bill ] The ABM Treaty allowed 1 site to protect each nations Capital, and one missile (ICBM) field. They choose the former, and we chose the latter. Neither country completely implemented a system. The history of the ABM program began in the 1950s shortly after the Nike Hercules Program, it was first called Nike-X, it developed the Nike Zeus delivery system. That was upgraded to the Sentinel and the Safeguard Systems. It is a fallacy to believe that the missiles (Spartan (a longer range Zeus) and Sprint (a short-range, fast burn, stand-off weapon) were the corner corner stone. They used enhanced X-ray warheads to achieve their effects. There were some very sophisticated radars and parallel processing computers developed for these systems. Some notable parts of the phone company and belt-way bandits came out of these programs. Numerous ABM articles in Scientific American can be found by such authors as Herbert York, W. Panofsky, and others which describe these systems. The one of the physicist developers of the Sprint and Spartan warheads read the net for a while and gave a talk at the CPSR Palo Chapter once on the role of computers national defense.
tek@CS.UCLA.EDU (Ted Kim (ATW)) (05/05/89)
From: tek@CS.UCLA.EDU (Ted Kim (ATW)) In article <6183@cbnews.ATT.COM> asulaima@udenva.cair.du.edu (SULAIMAN) writes: > ... >The Sovs as mentioned put their >system around Moscow. The US for reasons best known chose not to put such a >system up. > ... I believe the US actually did put an ABM system on line at Grand Forks, North Dakota to protect the ICBMs. Then later (circa mid 70s), they shut it down for cost reasons. I am not sure how much of the system was actually in place, but the plan was: The Safeguard ABM system consisted of two missiles. The long range Spartan (formerly Nike-Zeus) and the short-range Sprint missile. Both missiles used nuke warheads. I think the Sprint used the technology later associated with the neutron warhead. Targets were picked up by using the Perimeter Acquisition Radar (PAR) and closer in by some other radar system (the name of which escapes me right now). Ted Kim ARPAnet: tek@penzance.cs.ucla.edu UCLA Computer Science Department UUCP: ...!ucbvax!cs.ucla.edu!tek 3804C Boelter Hall PHONE: (213) 206-8696 Los Angeles, CA 90024 ESPnet: tek@ouija.board
esco@tank.uchicago.edu (ross paul weiner) (05/05/89)
From: ross paul weiner <esco@tank.uchicago.edu> Newsgroups: sci.military In-Reply-To: <6183@cbnews.ATT.COM> References: <5553@cbnews.ATT.COM> <5739@cbnews.ATT.COM> <5881@cbnews.ATT.COM> Organization: University of Chicago Computation Center Cc: esco Bcc: In article <6183@cbnews.ATT.COM> you write: >From: asulaima@udenva.cair.du.edu (SULAIMAN) >In article <5881@cbnews.ATT.COM> mchamp@wpi.wpi.edu (Marc J. Champagne) writes: >>The Moscow ABM system DOES NOT contain any X-ray laser weapons. It >> consists of a series of Galosh interceptor missiles housed in >> above-ground canister launchers and a smaller high acceleration >> missile housed in an underground concrete lined launcher. There >> are a total of 100 launchers, although the high-acceleration >> missile bunkers may have several missiles in a "ready magazine" (a >> violation of the '72 ABM treaty, but that's another story). >As I recall the ABM treaty allowed each side to have one ABM site however >development of new ABM systens was banned. The Sovs as mentioned put their >system around Moscow. The US for reasons best known chose not to put such a >system up. I imagine it might have been hard to sell that Washington really >needed to be saved :-) But I think they were considering utilising this >option when the MX were all going to be put into silos in a very small specific >area. I think it was a while back and the deployment had a catchy name >associated with it. Obviously not very memorable. > Ameer Z. Sulaiman. > >[mod.note: I know this has been covered fairly recently, but as I >couldn't remember the names and sites involved, I figured many others >didn't, either. Someone care to set the record straight ? - Bill ] Dense Pack, a basicly good idea that was ridiculed to death. The original ABM treaty allowed two sites with 100 interceptors each. One was to be at the national capital and one at a missile field. Due to some obvious geography et al we realized this was not a great deal, the treaty was amended to allow only one site each. I'm refering to the fact that their capital is in the middle of the Eurasian landmass and is the hub of their economy, ie both defensible and worth defending. Our capital is arguably neither. Densepack would have consisted of 100 MX missiles located within 1 square mile. When combined with hardening, dust defence (ground blast nuclear explosions north and south of the missile field to raise destructive dust clouds), ABM, and the fratricidal effect that incoming missiles coming in fast enough to attempt a pin down of our missiles would have on each other the result would have been the expenditure of far more than 1000 hard target warheads by the attacker in any first strike effort to eliminate the 1000 MX warheads. Within the SALT/ABM constraints the soviets would have to expend their entire hard target kill capability on a portion of our forces. If they broke out from the treaty or if we opted for a STAR WARS type active defense the basing mode would still have been useful. The beauty of the idea was that, unlike other basing-defense schemes, we would clearly benefit more from every dollar spent on adding a missile or a defense than they would gain from every dollar or ruble spent trying to defeat the system. Enviornmentally and economically it was a lot nicer than the MPS shell game. Ross P. Weiner Dandy Dirks Discount Disclaimers esco@tank.uchicago.edu "You can't sue me, I'm broke!"
cdr@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Carl Rigney) (05/06/89)
From: amdcad!amdcad.AMD.COM!cdr@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Carl Rigney)
The US did have an ABM missile system - Safeguard - but I don't believe
it ever went operational. Just as it was ready it was decided to
dismantle it. Somewhere I have an old press clipping that shows the
massive pyramidal hardened control bunker. A lot of the equipment that
was put inside is still there, because it would cost too much to open
the walls to bring it out. It was built to take near hits from nukes,
since obviously your ABM control center is a prime first strike target.
Note that the 1 ABM system allowed to each side was required to defend
a missile field. The Moscow ABMs are there to defend the missile fields
outside Moscow; it's just "coincidence" that they're also defending the
capital & C&C center.
--Carl Rigney
cdr@amdcad.AMD.COM
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