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Aviation History
1979
1979 - 1541.PDF
FLIGHT International, 5 May 1979 1475 Does America need MX? Produced by Doug Richardson Mike Hirst CONTENTS WEAPONS FOR THE BLACK- BOX WAR 1476 NEW TEETH FOR THE B-52 1496 Cover: General Dynamics has started work on a "Wild Weasel" anti-radar version of the F-I6B in response to interest from export customers. If multiple aim-point basing is adopted for MX, missile transporters similar to this Minuteman vehicle would carry the rounds from one launch shelter to another to ovoid presenting a fixed target to Soviet ICBMs PRESIDENT Carter and US De fence Secretary Harold Brown are due to decide this month whether or not to proceed with the planned MX ICBM for the USAF. Faced with the steadily growing threat to US missile silos, the USAF has investigated several MX basing methods. The original plan to bury missiles within a 3,000 mile-long network of underground tunnels seems in retrospect, bizarre science-fiction. The cost of Britain's motorway network shows just how expen sive the construction of such a trench system would have been. Shuffling several hundred rounds around a much larger number of hardened shelters seemed attrac tive at first. But objections both from the US, on whose territory the weapon would have been based, and from the Soviet Union, which faces the problem of checking the number of "peas" under the "shells", could spell the end of this idea. Air-portable or air-launched missiles were then mooted and the eventual bill for such a sys tem could total $40,000 million. As the missile concept evolves and mutates, the cost keeps rising. All the other side has done to trigger off this struggle for missile survival is to improve the guidance of existing weapons. One of the attributes of many successful weapons is that they force the opposition to spend a disproportionate amount of money on improvements to de fences. The relatively modest Tu-16, Tu-95 and Mya-4 pro gramme was an excellent ex ample of economic warfare, forc ing the US to develop and deploy all-weather fighters, heavy sur face-to-air missiles and long-range early-warning radar networks. The SS-18 and SS-19 ICBMs might repeat the process by providing the impetus for MX. Some US observers are now asking if America really needs a new ICBM. Could the money not be better spent on a new manned bomber with advanced cruise missiles or an additional Trident missile submarines? It might be possible, for example, to develop a lower-cost Trident submarine capable of hitting many Soviet targets from US Navy-controlled waters using Trident II missiles. Until now, accuracy of submarine-launched missiles has always been lower than that of ICBMs but the pros pect of "smart" warheads could give all ballistic missiles pinpoint accuracy, cutting miss distances by an order of magnitude or more. Even if an MX go-ahead is given, the chances of operational weapons ever being deployed seem poor. Unless the US tax payer becomes unusually toler ant, the USAF's days in the long- range artillery business might be numbered.
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