LGM-35A Sentinel - Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) program

[Desertfox]

It may very well be smaller, enough for a single W87 Mod 0/1 and penaids, since just like the Minuteman. The penaids may give it a paper throw weight similar to Minuteman's triple warhead configuration but the warhead will probably be singular. There aren't many W87s left and no real capacity to make more after all!



The best option is to use TELs disguised as freight vehicles and use your commercial truck fleet as cover, duh.

Proper VID is one of the big reasons why Russia has trouble targeting HIMARS and Brimstone carriers in Ukraine. It would be even harder for a strategic attack on the U.S. requiring VID of all road mobile TELs.

There will be more W87s...

W87 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Figure out what it would take to take three W87s to max range and work from there. The missile might be smaller than a MMIII but the throw weight will be more.

The problem with "commercial" TELs is keeping them safe while dispersed, might not be an issue during nuclear war, but its a big issue at any other time. Can't have disguised nukes just running around anywhere.

 

[Archibald]

Can solid fuel rockets hit 300 seconds specific impulse ? And a 0.95 propellant mass fraction ? With three stages being optimal number to (near) orbital velocity; end result would be a very remarquable ICBM.

 

[TomS]

Can solid fuel rockets hit 300 seconds specific impulse ? And a 0.95 propellant mass fraction ? With three stages being optimal number to (near) orbital velocity; end result would be a very remarquable ICBM.

An impulse of 280 seconds is achievable with ammonium perchlorate solids. Solids using sensitive propellants like RDX, HMX or CL-20 could reach 310 seconds but have a nasty tendency to transition from burning/deflagration to detonation. RUD to the max.

 

[bobbymike]

So question to the rocket surgeons out there.

Does weight savings from moving to a lighter casing, ceteris paribus, translate directly to increased payload of the same amount, roughly speaking?

Either way I’m back to my original complaint that the GBSD program was a massive, especially with a rising China, missed opportunity to build an ICBM with a significantly higher payload that ultimately will have a service life out to 2070.

 

[sferrin]

There were a couple of demonstrator programs. One was LCS-1 which was a tech demonstrator using SR-118 (Peacekeeper 1st stage) as the baseline. There was also MCS-III which was a tech demo designed to show technology insertions within the MMIII 3rd stage OML that could be put into production.

As I said previously, Sentinel 3rd stage will be roughly the same diameter as MMIII 1st stage. MMIII 1st stage is about 54” in diameter. Sentinel will be intermediate in size between MMIII and Peacekeeper. As to the question of how I know, as I have stated in the past, I work in the industry.

That doesn't really mean anything. If you actually knew then you'd know enough to know that you shouldn't be talking. Thus, I have doubts.

 

[bobbymike]

L3 Harris Parent Co. of Aerojet Rocketdyne looks as MMIII as one could imagine

 

[Scott Kenny]

Why? This is a genuine question. Did you forget that Trident II has a higher "throw weight" than any ICBM deployed by the U.S. Air Force? Any future proofing is making the missile smaller and cheaper, both because the future is DOE downsizing, and because the Navy has the really big rockets anyway.

Giving it enough room to carry a decoy or something, or perhaps fit a future anti-simulation RV, or hyperglider, and making it small enough to be mass producible, are serious enough concerns by themselves. The last U.S. designed land-based ICBM was MGM-134, so they're going to look at that, because it's what USAF determined was optimal in the 1980's, and it's probably correct.

MX was only born out of an early 1970's requirement for a "heavy" ICBM to suppress SS-18 fields. These no longer exist. Why rebuild it?

Because the RS-28 Sarmat does exist? And can deploy up to 24 Avanguard HGVs, or 10-15 MIRVs?

 

[Kat Tsun]

Because the RS-28 Sarmat does exist? And can deploy up to 24 Avanguard HGVs, or 10-15 MIRVs?

Yeah, that'll be a problem if Russia ever launches a first strike, unless America does it first I guess. But why does the USAF need something to replicate RS-28 Sarmat? Simply because the Russians did?

The USAF simply has no need for a Sarmat-type missile because it has literally 3-6x as many silos as the Russians, depending on how many they want to get rid of and end up with over the next 10 years. This will likely not change in the future, as the Russian land-based missile force is shifting from silos to TELs, which cannot be targeted by present ICBMs anyway.

If anything, the USAF "needs" fewer silos and more B-21s, but the triad is supposed to cover each others' weaknesses in case Sentinel collapses or Columbias have bad welds, or whatever.

The last U.S. missile designed (and the last one whose requirements are actually originating within the past 40 years) was Midgetman. It's closer to Sentinel than Sentinel will be to either Peacekeeper or Minuteman. It had a single warhead with a fairly small motor body. Sentinel may be similar in size to Minuteman, but like Midgetman, will probably be designed to deploy a single highly accurate RV with a large number of penetrating aids to ensure the warhead arrives on target.

MIRVs are ultimately either a compensation for crummy accuracy or an effective assurance for destroying large numbers of hard targets. The former was the case for anything pre-MX, the latter was the case for Peacekeeper, and neither are the case now.

The problem now is that targets move, and these cannot be reliably targeted without a self-guiding warhead, which does not exist (yet).

 

[Calphor]

MMIII first stage is 66” diameter, second 52” diameter, third stage 52”

You are correct. My apologies for the incorrect assertion. That’s what I get for trusting my memory before posting information. Although I gave an incorrect MMIII first stage diameter and inaccurate stage comparison, Sentinel will be larger than MMIII.

 

[Forest Green]

Because the RS-28 Sarmat does exist? And can deploy up to 24 Avanguard HGVs, or 10-15 MIRVs?

More like 5 Avangards per missile tops, or 15 MIRVs. At the moment they're only on SS-19s as single warheads.

 

[uk 75]

If Russia goes over to a mobile launched ICBM force with enough weapons to take out US ICBM silos what would be the role of Minuteman or Sentinel?

 

[sferrin]

If Russia goes over to a mobile launched ICBM force with enough weapons to take out US ICBM silos what would be the role of Minuteman or Sentinel?

Same as always. There is no physical law that says missiles have to stay in their silos and wait to be destroyed.

 

[Josh_TN]

If Russia goes over to a mobile launched ICBM force with enough weapons to take out US ICBM silos what would be the role of Minuteman or Sentinel?

Launch on warning , or failing that, exhaustion of said missiles and RVs.

 

[Desertfox]

The role of Minuteman/Sentinel is simple, they are a warhead sink and require massed nuclear strike to neutralize. Which means that currently only Russia has the capability to take them out and only with a massive silo-based strike. They are a stabilizing force as they can not be taken out conventionally or with a limited strike.

 

[Kat Tsun]

If Russia goes over to a mobile launched ICBM force with enough weapons to take out US ICBM silos what would be the role of Minuteman or Sentinel?

First strike.

Russia simply has no IRBMs, stealth bombers, or SLBMs in range that might catch them by surprise before American sensors can spot the launch, track the missiles, and confirm their targets, and American missileers still have time to remember they loaded a training data casette into NORAD only because someone remembered "691 missile tracks" as a curiously specific quantity of missiles or whatever. Something similar happened a few times in the past.

Russia lacks comprehensive (what is called "dual phenomenology"; i.e. combination radar/infrared, or whatever other sensors, for warhead tracking) launch-on-warning, but it's better than the Soviet era. Still, the only real confirmation of a nuclear attack would have been detonations in the silo fields or in downtown Moscow. As an aside, this is why SS-18 had its "black paint": it was an ablative coating and radioprotective layer, designed to assist its survival in an ascent through mushroom clouds, and it's also why Perimetr relies on "super hard" command centers like the one built under Yamantau.

Mobile TELs are more survivable in the face of the present structure of DOD nuclear forces. There are too few B-2s to seriously threaten the Topol and Yars mobile force. There may even be too few B-21s. A very long range "Strike Lightning"/F-35E may be appropriate to compensate the number of B-21s, which themselves could operate from Poland or possibly Ukraine and attack Siberian TELs. A loitering, stealthy, unmanned combat system like Thirsty Saber may also be a solution, if LRSO gets to that point, perhaps carrying Stormbreaker internally. A self-guiding RV, like the Navy's backpack flap kit for W76, with a high performance radar seeker (or integration into an orbital GMTI) can also work.

Either way those are all in the future, and hypothetical, while the tiny B-2 force and the lack of self-guiding RVs or TEL busters are real.

The role of Minuteman/Sentinel is simple, they are a warhead sink and require massed nuclear strike to neutralize. Which means that currently only Russia has the capability to take them out and only with a massive silo-based strike. They are a stabilizing force as they can not be taken out conventionally or with a limited strike.

Silos can't both be a "warhead sink" and "not be taken out conventionally or with a limited strike". That doesn't make sense. The only people with a "warhead sink" were the Soviets, who knew the Americans were soft and valued damage limitation over megadeaths, because Americans were averse to European-style warfare.

There is no feasible way to defeat the Minuteman force without stationing IRBMs in Canada (Hudson Bay), Cuba (Caribbean), or Mexico (the Gulf) anyway, which the Soviets didn't have, but the Americans had in West Germany, Italy, and Turkey.

SS-18 was meant to obliterate the Bos-Wash and San Angeles megapolises because the USSR, being Marxist and Leninist, correctly recognized that the center of power of Capitalism was in its stock markets and international trade ports. This was the same argument used by Osama bin Laden after attacking the Twin Towers. The role of MIRVed missiles in both strategic forces' planning were almost inversions, but the U.S. treated it as a mirror image, while the Soviets simply didn't really care.

Most U.S. "planning" for a warhead sponge was simply the Air Force jockeying for funding over the Navy during the '70's and '80's. Considering MX got built, it worked. Unfortunately, American generals aren't as flamboyant as Russian ones, so it's unclear how many Datsun 720s and Ford F-150s the MX missile's funding bought.

Meanwhile, Sentinel will be a cool redux of Midgetman, at best, and a product improved Minuteman at worst.

 

[Desertfox]

SS-18 isn't for taking out cities, you don't need highly accurate Megaton-size warheads for that, you do need them to take out silos. To destroy Minuteman requires a minimum of 500 warheads and realistically 1,000 (2 per silo/command center). Neither Soviet road-mobile or -sub-launched missiles had the needed accuracy/boom needed to do that job, but guess who did? The SS-18s. Also MIRVed silo-based missiles are by nature first-strike weapons, the mobile missiles where retaliatory second-strike.

Note that the Russian SS-18/Sarmat fields can be taken out by a decapitation strike by Trident, making the system destabilizing.

 

[Josh_TN]

Mobile TELs are more survivable in the face of the present structure of DOD nuclear forces. There are too few B-2s to seriously threaten the Topol and Yars mobile force. There may even be too few B-21s. A very long range "Strike Lightning"/F-35E may be appropriate to compensate the number of B-21s, which themselves could operate from Poland or possibly Ukraine and attack Siberian TELs. A loitering, stealthy, unmanned combat system like Thirsty Saber may also be a solution, if LRSO gets to that point, perhaps carrying Stormbreaker internally. A self-guiding RV, like the Navy's backpack flap kit for W76, with a high performance radar seeker (or integration into an orbital GMTI) can also work.

The weapons used to destroy the TELs don't have to be directly carried by the system that detects the target. I would think any rocket regiment is clustered sufficiently close (for C2 and security reasons) that a single strategic weapon could engage the whole regiment. If an ISR platform can localize it, it can be attacked as a soft area target by whatever platform has sufficiently fast retarget capability and sufficiently low warning time. Satellites, HALE UAVs, or local observation (perhaps using group 1-2 UAVs) could all be targeting sources. A short enough flight time that prevents a launch order from being delivered will also preclude them moving sufficiently far away from a strategic weapon's air burst radius. This is why I think the reliability of TELs in open country is eroding and some kind of hardened protection scheme using multiple shelters per TEL will be needed in the future.

 

[Kat Tsun]

SS-18 isn't for taking out cities,

Says you.

The men who designed the SS-18, the defense planners who organized it, and the policy wonks who interviewed them say otherwise.

you don't need highly accurate Megaton-size warheads for that,

SS-18 isn't "highly accurate".

you do need them to take out silos.

This is a bizarre American brainworm that has no real bearing on how the Soviets planned to fight nuclear war. Damage limitation is an American fetish, not a Soviet one, because it lets the Americans get away with not investing in defense infrastructure or the civilian population. The Soviets had no qualms about civilian casualties.

It would be sad, but Communism would win when the West launches its third attack on Russia in as many centuries, so it would be okay.

(...)

To understand what happened, we need to go back to the early days of the Soviet program. At the end of the 1960s, when MIRVed missiles became a technical reality, the Soviet Union had a force that included about 1000 light and inexpensive UR-100/SS-11 missiles and about 200 "heavy" R-36/SS-9 ICBMs. It appears that a preemptive strike was indeed the primary option that the Soviet military had in mind at the time, but there is no way the purpose of such a strike was to blunt a US response, limit damage to the Soviet Union, and somehow emerge "victorious" from the nuclear exchange. The missiles were simply not capable of that - the only mission they could accomplish was to deliver a certain number of warheads to the US territory - unacceptable damage and all that. Striking first was the only way to achieve that.

But wasn't the new generation of missiles, with multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles, developed to do what their predecessors couldn't - limit the damage in a nuclear exchange by launching a first disarming strike against the opponent's ICBMs? Since this is how the United States was planning to use its own MIRVed ICBM force, it seemed like a sensible thing to do.

In reality, building a first strike capability what exactly the opposite of what the Soviet Union was about to do. Even before the Soviet Union embarked on its modernization program that will eventually produce its first MIRVed missiles, it initiated a thorough review of its nuclear posture. This discussion became known as a "small civil war" as it was a rather high-intensity conflict between two factions. The military (Andrey Grechko, the minister of defense, in particular) argued that any change would be too complex and expensive and that simple missiles in relatively soft silos provide reliable deterrence as long as they are deployed in large numbers and a preemptive strike is an option. The military were supported by Sergey Afanasyev, the head of the Ministry of the General Machine Building. They also had Vladimir Chelomey, the designer of the UR-100 missile, on their side. The opposing group argued that relying on a force of vulnerable missiles is not a sustainable (or, indeed, reasonable) option and advocated a move to hardened silos and retaliation as the strategy. Among the prominent members of that group were Yuri Mozzhorin, the head of TsNIIMash, and Leonid Smirnov, the head of the Military-Industrial Commission. Importantly, the group had support of Dmitry Ustinov, a Secretary of the Central Committee.

(...)

In defense of silo-based MIRVed ICBMs - Blog - Russian strategic nuclear forces

The deployment of MIRV R-36 and their hard silos was mainly an economic measure.

To destroy Minuteman requires a minimum of 500 warheads and realistically 1,000 (2 per silo/command center).

What planning norms of the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces told you this?

Neither Soviet road-mobile or -sub-launched missiles had the needed accuracy/boom needed to do that job, but guess who did?

Not the SS-18s, that's for sure, even if the Soviets intended to use them that way.

The SS-18s.

Nah.

(...)

Evaluation of the motives behind the Soviet modernization program of the 1970s has always been a difficult task. Testimonies of senior Soviet military officers involved in military planning in the 1970s and 1980s, collected after the end of the Cold War, strongly supported the view that the Soviet Union did not seek a first-strike or war-fighting capability for its strategic forces.[15] To be convincing, however, such testimonies require corroboration, including documentary evidence on the direction of the Soviet Union’s missile development efforts, as well as on technical details of its missile programs, in particular details about the accuracy of its missiles, warhead yields, and the hardness of its silos. Although there have been publications that describe some of these aspects, most of their relevant data were taken largely from U.S. sources.[16]

This situation has recently changed, as archival documents of the Soviet period have become available for the first time.[17] These documents, combined with information from other sources, such as official historical accounts published by various design bureaus within the Soviet defense complex and by the military, allow a reconstruction of key developments in the Soviet strategic modernization programs of the 1970s and 1980s. This essay introduces this new evidence and discusses some of its implications for the analysis of Soviet capabilities and intentions at the time.

(...)

The Window of Vulnerability That Wasn't: Soviet Military Buildup in the 1970s - Pavel Podvig

It's been known for literal decades now that the SS-18s were mainly an economic measure, intended to allow allocation of resources to other sectors of the Soviet economy, like civil nuclear energy and space launch vehicles. Their primary war-fighting purpose was to attack American cities, kill millions (or tens or hundreds of millions) of Americans, and cause moral-political support for fighting in Europe to collapse.

Whatever surviving elements of the Red Army and Soviet state existed would be able to carry victory to the shores of the Atlantic.

The Soviet view of nuclear war is refreshingly optimistic compared to the American view derived from Christian eschatological belief.

Also MIRVed silo-based missiles are by nature first-strike weapons, the mobile missiles where retaliatory second-strike.

No, first strike is first strike lol.

The Soviets intended to use the hardened silos of the Satan/Spanker/Stiletto as a second-strike reserve force, under the expectation that the Titan II, FBM, and Minuteman force would be unable to kill all of them when spread between the UR-100s, various airbases, strategic SAM systems, and R-36s. That's why it had so many warheads and why they were so "accurate".

Bearing in mind that the U.S. intelligence consistently doubled (or tripled) the accuracy estimates to make their silos look bad, of course. The -UTTH modernization would leave about as many Minuteman silos alive in 1985 after a mass raid as America has today. Do you think America today lacks for Minuteman missiles?



Most DOD intelligence estimates were based on squeezing money out of Congress to keep generals employed. They still are. The "window of vulnerability" that oldsters talk about with regards to American missiles in the 1980's is literally nothing more than a second "missile gap".

Yeah that window existed, just in the other direction. The Soviets were always on the back foot in strategic weapons, except in a very very brief period in the mid-to-late 1970's (less than 4 years) where they were roughly equivalent to America. It's why the General Staff planning kept American cities under threat.

Note that the Russian SS-18/Sarmat fields can be taken out by a decapitation strike by Trident, making the system destabilizing.

"Destabilizing" is another weird American bugbear. More destabilizing in real terms is the Eastwards expansion of NATO, but that somehow escapes policy "wonks", probably because they want to put "negotiated Estonian entry into European NATO" on their CV.

Trident isn't destabilizing, it's just reality, and Russia lives under it. It is relying more on road mobile TELs and highly dispersed regiments with independent patrols (like submarines) to survive under the GMTI electric eye that the U.S. Space Force wants. Survive long enough to fire their nuclear missiles, as carried out by 15A11 emergency communications rockets (Perimeter), that is.

America used to have something pretty similar to Perimeter in the 1980's but it got rid of it in 1991.

The weapons used to destroy the TELs don't have to be directly carried by the system that detects the target.

It would make the entire concept much easier if they were, as isn't "interrupting kill chains" one of the big U.S. Navy ideas at the moment?

Attacking TELs with a Strike Lightning loaded with SDBs would be unlikely to trigger Russian retaliation immediately, as well, because of the lack of nuclear detonations. This was the actual problem with Conventional Trident: it would force Russia to move to a launch-on-warning due to lack of immediate understanding (gamma ray flash) its strategic weapons were under attack.

Such a capability will probably be filled by B-21 in practice, though. Nuclear weapons are only useful for attacking soft area targets now.

 

[Desertfox]

Trident isn't destabilizing, big MIRVed silo-missiles (SS-18/Sarmat) are. SS-18/Sarmat (and silo SS-27s) is likely the most accurate missile currently in the Russian stockpile.

I'm not talking about Soviet nuclear policy but about current Russian/US policy. There is a huge difference between then and now in both technology and numbers.

 

[Kat Tsun]

Trident isn't destabilizing, big MIRVed silo-missiles (SS-18/Sarmat) are.

What do you think Trident is?

SS-18/Sarmat (and silo SS-27s) is likely the most accurate missile currently in the Russian stockpile.

Yeah it's almost as accurate as a LGM-30.

I'm not talking about Soviet nuclear policy but about current Russian/US policy.

Soviet policy is Russian policy. It's not a fixed decision process based on "science", nor a nomenklatura iceberg, like in America.

The Soviets derived their "policy" based on fixed geographic and material understandings. They were Marxist. That's what Marxists do. Geographic dictates that Russia cannot, based on the position of its enemies, have launch-on-warning without making a mistake. Russians are like Americans in that they don't want to be the people who start a global nuclear war that kills hundreds of millions. They're unlike Americans in that they have no qualms about finishing such a war.

This means launch-during-attack or launch-after-ride-out. The Soviets chose the latter, as the initial R-36s had ablative coatings to protect them during ascent through mushroom clouds, which means launching after initial detonations but before the smoke has cleared.

Russia, both Soviet and Federal, do not have massive economies either. They cannot afford to spend money on frivolous trinkets or obscene quantities of rockets, which is what determined the deployment of MIRV systems in hard silos: to ride-out an American nuclear strike and retaliate by obliterating all major U.S. cities. This allowed the Soviets to allocate the fairly scarce rocket motors and uranium to the civilian economy, to provide electrical energy or put television transmission satellites in orbit, for example.

For modern Russia, it is more sheer incapacity, due to the quantitative lack of Federal industries capable of equivocating the Union's former industrial nexuses which were also in Kazakhstan and Ukraine.

These are the conditions under which the Strategic Rocket Forces work.

These conditions have either not changed, or gotten far more stringent, which is reflected in the greater Russian emphasis on mobile stealth systems like SSBN and TEL modernization, and a decreasing emphasis on hard silos.

There is a huge difference between then and now in both technology and numbers.

Yeah, the U.S. got a lot weaker. Good thing it's making Midgetman 2 to get a reliable rocket that won't fail on launch, and a good thing the Russians got rid of lots of silos and rockets too. Otherwise the U.S. downsizing could leave America in a precarious position.

 

[Desertfox]

Trident is most certainly NOT a silo-based ICBM.

So only the SS-18/Sarmat is capable of taking out a Minuteman silo.

Russian policy is not Soviet policy, it can't be. Technology, resources, and threats have changed significantly since the 80's.

The US didn't get weaker, conventionally it is far stronger than Russia (not the case in the 80's) and is a peer in the nuclear realm. And no it is not making Midgetman, no matter how much you claim it is.

 

[NMaude]

Yeah, the U.S. got a lot weaker.

No it hasn't, the composition of its' forces certainly have changed and in terms conventional it is much stronger than Russia.

Good thing it's making Midgetman 2 to get a reliable rocket that won't fail on launch

It's not recreating the Midgetman, the LGM-35 is a much larger ICBM to replace the MMIII and generally speaking US ICBMs are very reliable.

 

[Kat Tsun]

Trident is most certainly NOT a silo-based ICBM.

No, it's much better than a silo.

So only the SS-18/Sarmat is capable of taking out a Minuteman silo.

If only the Russians intended to target empty silos. Do you even read what you reply to?

This is a made up, invented delusion of the USAF's '80s fever dreams, or it's a scheme to buy pickup trucks, and maybe both?

Russian policy is not Soviet policy, it can't be. Technology, resources, and threats have changed significantly since the 80's.

Policy as in the decision-making algorithm?

The US didn't get weaker, conventionally it is far stronger than Russia

Strategically, as in nuclear weapons, the U.S. is far weaker lol.

And no it is not making Midgetman, no matter how much you claim it is.

I didn't "claim" anything.

I've been pretty specific in saying "probably" and "maybe", mostly bolstered by the fact that the last USAF missile was the MGM-134.

MX dates from the early 1970's, mainly as a reaction to the fact that the Soviets had 1,500 superhard silos that could survive single-RV Minuteman missiles. There's no reason to make it in a world where Russia has equivalent numbers of rockets, and fewer silos, than America's missiles. It was a pure silo buster to let the Minutemen target cities, radars, and airbases instead.

There's plenty of reason to equivocate the Russian arsenal with a single warhead design with a large number of penaids to punch through ABMs. If the American predilection for mirror imaging and "making stuff up" for ulterior reasons (like funding) continues, that will be the main reason Sentinel will have between 1 and 3 design RVs.

It's a technology refresher of Minuteman. If America wanted to keep Peacekeeper around, it would have simply kept the Peacekeepers, duh.

No it hasn't, the composition of its' forces certainly have changed and in terms conventional it is much stronger than Russia.

Conventional doesn't matter in a nuclear war.

It's not recreating the Midgetman, the LGM-35 is a much larger ICBM

Where is the evidence of this? No one has published information on LGM-35. It's far too early to see anything like that considering the only tests have been done using Minotaur IIs, which are decommissioned Minuteman stages.

The only thing we have to go on is that the USAF retired Peacekeeper, instead of keeping them in service, and its last ICBM was Midgetman.

Peacekeeper wouldn't need replacement for another 20 years at least. Minuteman does. Sentinel will probably resemble Midgetman or Minuteman more than Peacekeeper, since the latter seems to be the red-headed stepchild of nuclear planners, along with the B-1.

to replace the MMIII and generally speaking US ICBMs are very reliable.

Reliability explains the failure a few weeks ago I guess? If anything, it highlights why Sentinel is needed.

 

[NMaude]

Strategically, as in nuclear weapons, the U.S. is far weaker lol.

Given the performance of Russian weapons in Ukraine since early 2022 that is highly debatable, I won't be at all surprised if much of the Russian nuclear-arsenal is unserviceable due to lack of proper maintenance.

 

[Desertfox]

Trident being better than a silo-based missile doesn't make it destabilizing.

The US might be weaker in strategic nuclear weapons but so is Russia. You do realize both have the same number of deployed warheads right?

Conventional matters when you can use conventional means to achieve strategic effects, ie taking out ICBMs/SLBMs.

Midgetman/Peacekeeper/Minutemen do not matter for Sentinel. Sentinel is a clean sheet design to replace Minuteman with better performance. Simple as that. It is none of the previous three but closest to MMIII in design and size.

If Russia has no intentions to target US silos, then why are they fielding a system that works best as a silo-buster? SS-18/Sarmat is a waste of resources if its not intended to target MMIII.

 

[NMaude]

In regards to the SS-30 Satan II haven't there been some failures in recent test flights?

 

[Kat Tsun]

Given the performance of Russian weapons in Ukraine since early 2022 that is highly debatable,

How many nuclear weapons has Russia used in Ukraine?

I won't be at all surprised if much of the Russian nuclear-arsenal is unserviceable due to lack of proper maintenance.

I wouldn't be surprised if it were the inverse. The money intended for conventional weapons goes to strategic weapons in Russia, while the money intended for strategic weapons went to the F-35 in America. It would explain all the troubling news about the Minuteman force, at least.

Trident being better than a silo-based missile doesn't make it destabilizing.

No American weapon since Conventional Trident has been destabilizing. Neither has Avangard, a weapon from 1987, been destabilizing. What has been destabilizing is the disconnect between the political class and the military planners in America, I guess.

Conventional matters when you can use conventional means to achieve strategic effects, ie taking out ICBMs/SLBMs.

America would need to be a lot smarter to do this. It would need to deploy things like FB-22 to Poland and Conventional Trident on submarines. I think right now it thinks it can bust LCCs with B61 Mod 11s or something even though this would trigger Perimeter/ERCS launches.

The Russians were more afraid of Small Diameter Bomb (hitting silos) or GBU-28 (hitting LCCs) in practice. It bypasses some of the main sensors for Russian attack detection: seismographs and gamma ray detectors.

Midgetman/Peacekeeper/Minutemen do not matter for Sentinel.

Ah yes, the past 50 years of Air Force planning, training, and cultural experience does not matter for the next five? Okay. Sure.

Sentinel is a clean sheet design to replace Minuteman with better performance.

Yeah, which means it will be, at biggest, "about Minuteman" in size. This calls for a single warhead and penaids, as deployed. Accuracy will likely become improved to near-Peacekeeper levels.

Simple as that. It is none of the previous three but closest to MMIII in design and size.

Then it will be a single warhead. There's only a few hundred W87s, after all, and new production will potentially be delayed (assuming it's actually new production, and the request for new pits wasn't to fund development of weapons like SLCM-N or LRSO). W87-1 will replace the W78s from the Minuteman baggage, but it isn't clear where the W87-0s will go, though presumably they will be converted to -1s.

If Russia has no intentions to target US silos, then why are they fielding a system that works best as a silo-buster?

If you thought about it, it should be obvious, but are you really thinking about it if you can't read two blog posts written by P. Podvig?

Russia has no interest in hitting silos because taking American silos by surprise is literally impossible. They are too far away. The U.S. has a multispectral warning system in high Earth orbit that is incapable of being attacked by ordinary means, its missiles can't be held under threat for longer than 8 minutes, and its rockets require about three minutes at most to launch after seeing the flare.

It's interested in hitting cities because cities don't move, they might evacuate, but they won't move. Neither will their valuable items and properties. Preferably suburbs, highways, and railroads/ports, because they will all be crammed with people and are important for starting firestorms (property destruction), destroying road transportation (food delays), and eliminating heavy freight movement (stranded armored battalions).

Accuracy is good in this regard because it means even fizzles can be lethal to soft urban infrastructure. Just look at what the USN is doing with the W76-2, which is a warhead that is no longer viable as a thermonuclear weapon (lack of fuel or simply degraded pit), but can still be used with a primary. Primaries don't expire, after all, at least not according to the DOE.

Even if Russia hasn't been refueling their weapons with tritium, they will still kill airports and seaports with Nagasaki sized bombs, duh.

SS-18/Sarmat is a waste of resources if its not intended to target MMIII.

It's not a waste of resources if it's meant to kill tens of millions of Americans. Which is what it's meant to do.

Nuclear weapons are for killing tens of millions of people. Civilians, that is, because America doesn't have enough soldiers to target and the soldiers it does have are so far away they won't be there by the time the bombs arrive. You always attack where the enemy's strength is to beat him.

Where is America's strength? 450 missile silos in the middle of the country that will be empty by the time Sarmat's bomb arrive? Or the glittering metropolises of finance, trade, and tens of millions of people that exist on every coast?

Without its missiles, America is a wealthy country. Without its metropolises, America no longer exists.

If nuclear war can be won, it's won by killing the enemy, not blowing up abandoned airbases and empty missile silos.

 

[NMaude]

How many nuclear weapons has Russia used in Ukraine?

Fortunately none yet (But that can't be ruled out if Putin gets desperate enough) however a lot the Russian cruise-missiles such as the AS-23 Kodiak have nuclear-armed variants just like the Tomahawk cruise-missile and in addition to large numbers of these missiles being shot down by the Ukrainians a large number have failed to reach their targets due to malfunctions.

which is a warhead that is no longer viable as a thermonuclear weapon (lack of fuel or simply degraded pit)

In addition the large number of primary pits stored at Pantex, Texas there are a large number of secondaries stored at the Y-12 plant in Tennessee so there are plenty of secondaries that could be reused or dismantled for their Li6D charges and used to make new secondaries.

 

[Kat Tsun]

Fortunately none yet

Then you have no basis for your assertion.

(But that can't be ruled out if Putin gets desperate enough) however a lot the Russian cruise-missiles such as the AS-23 Kodiak have nuclear-armed variants just like the Tomahawk cruise-missile and in addition to large numbers of these missiles being shot down by the Ukrainians a large number have failed to reach their targets due to malfunctions.

Except they've generally reached their targets. That was, until the Ukrainians began deploying the densest and most comprehensive air defense network this side of 1972. By comparison, Kh-101 would have little trouble detonating inside the United States, let alone Western Europe, if it came down to it.

At least no more trouble than Storm Shadow has hitting targets in Crimea or Russia, anyway.

In addition the large number of primary pits stored at Pantex, Texas there are a large number of secondaries stored at the Y-12 plant in Tennessee so there are plenty of secondaries that could be reused or dismantled for their Li6D charges and used to make new secondaries.

That's great. So why is W76-2 disabling the secondaries if there are so many just sitting around ready to go? What's the bottleneck there? My point is that even if the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces haven't been refilling the tritium bottles on their rockets, which is the most common fantasy dandied around by "wonks", the bombs will still have stable and functional primaries.

If it's good enough for the U.S. Navy, it's good enough for the Strategic Rocket Forces.

High accuracy, within a few dozen meters, lets even tiny tactical-sized nuclear bombs, like Hiroshima/Nagasaki things, destroy major infrastructures like the High Five, New York Harbor, and LAX. In a war where victory is measured in the differences between megadeaths, Russia plans to go for the gold and target cities and their major support infrastructures. I suspect America would as well, but only out of necessity or atavistic desire for revenge, rather than a rational calculus.

Sentinel addresses merely one problem with the U.S. nuclear forces, the rockets are ancient, and increasingly questionable in reliability. Russian rockets are newer, which even if they are unreliable right now, they can still be fixed with engineering changes during production runs, something that can't be done with either Trident or Minuteman.

 

[NMaude]

Then you have no basis for your assertion.

I do believe have I basis for my assertion, probably the main reason why Putin hasn't ordered the use of tactical nuclear-weapons yet is that he knows that would bring NATO into the war meaning the Russian forces getting curb-stomped by NATO forces. Also premier Xi Jinping has publicly stated the PRC's opposition to the use of tactical nuclear-weapons in Ukraine as that would open a massive can of worms. But I wouldn't put it past Putin to the use of such weapons if he got desperate enough (Whether or not such orders would be carried out is another question) as he knows he's a dead man if he loses power (He's made far too many enemies).

Except they've generally reached their targets.

Are, no, apparently there have been failure rates as high as 60% due to faulty missiles being launched.

By comparison, Kh-101 would have little trouble detonating inside the United States, let alone Western Europe, if it came down to it.

What has that got do with with the use of the AS-23 Kodiak in Ukraine? If those missiles were used in either the US or Europe they would be detected and shutdown by AAMs such as the AMRAAM.

even if the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces haven't been refilling the tritium bottles on their rockets, which is the most common fantasy dandied around by "wonks", the bombs will still have stable and functional primaries.

If modern Russian warheads are anything like US primaries they need the DT-boost for the warheads to achieve more than a ~0.3KT fizzle.

So why is W76-2 disabling the secondaries if there are so many just sitting around ready to go?

From what I understand with current targeting priorities such powerful warheads are no longer regarded as necessary.

 

[Kat Tsun]

I do believe have I basis for my assertion, probably the main reason why Putin hasn't ordered the use of tactical nuclear-weapons yet is that he knows that would bring NATO into the war meaning the Russian forces getting curb-stomped by NATO forces. Also premier Xi Jinping has publicly stated the PRC's opposition to the use of tactical nuclear-weapons in Ukraine as that would open a massive can of worms. But I wouldn't put it past Putin to the use of such weapons if he got desperate enough (Whether or not such orders would be carried out is another question) as he knows he's a dead man if he loses power (He's made far too many enemies).

It's not important regardless. The point is that banking on the failures of your enemy is foolish. The Russians are performing okay for a mechanized army. Certainly, they are no worse than the U.S. Army did in Korea against the People's Volunteer Army or in Vietnam against the People's Army of Vietnam.

People expected Desert Storm or Iraq, which had unique conditions, and ones that are unlikely to be replicated in the future. The solution is to adjust your expectations of performance of superpowers in future wars and not to suggest that the Russians are uniquely incompetent. They are not.

Are, no, apparently there have been failure rates as high as 60% due to faulty missiles being launched.

Use of Kh-55s makes this believable, but I doubt it would affect newer missiles. The primary losses seem to be air defense systems now.

What has that got do with with the use of the AS-23 Kodiak in Ukraine? If those missiles were used in either the US or Europe they would be detected and shutdown by AAMs such as the AMRAAM.

Big ask considering Kh-101 is a stealth cruise missile similar to Storm Shadow or JASSM-ER.

If modern Russian warheads are anything like US primaries they need the DT-boost for the warheads to achieve more than a ~0.3KT fizzle.

As I understand it, the B61 is the only one that has a 0.3 KT unboosted primary.

W76 seems to have a 7-8 KT primary, and C.R. Robinson says (in a news article from 2001, granted) the primary of the W87/W88 series warheads is something like 10 kilotons. Possibly that is boosted, although as you said a integrated lithium deuteride element would provide this innately. W76 itself is a very small warhead too, so perhaps it has some special constraints to achieve that tiny size, such as total reliance on tritium gas or whatever.

That said, all of this hinges on the idea that the Russians, somehow, cannot manufacture tritium. A very bizarre claim considering it's one of the leading producers of tritium in the world.

Did you forget that Russia has two reactors capable of producing tritium?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1581274980318601222

View: https://twitter.com/russianforces/status/1581274980318601222?lang=en

Mayak has two major tritium producing reactors. Conversely, the DOE has one tritium producing reactor in the TVA. American inventory of tritium right now is probably quite small, although no one really knows outside DOE, I guess. Increasing the capacity of tritium production isn't terribly hard, but it will require sustained effort into the 2030's.

Federal Register :: Request Access

As an aside, most likely DOE will choose to option tritium production at both Watts Bar and and Sequoyah Nuclear Plant to cover its future need.

Poor performance in conventional wars suggests a high hypothetical performance in nuclear wars, that is if we use the only other case study: the United States. All the money that could go to fighting conventional wars (Korea, Vietnam) instead went to the nuclear forces in SAC and FBM, which precipitated the ultimate defeats of American conventional air and ground forces in both wars.

If the Russians operate on similar constraints to the Americans, which is to say their nuclear infrastructure has largely downsized, then increased accuracy of RS-28 is more likely to improve the performance of reduced yield, boosted fission bombs (besides, more accuracy is always good), as opposed to thermonuclear weapons, at the very worst. This would reduce the individual warhead strain on the tritium economy, which means supporting more warheads, more targets hit, and more megadeaths.

From what I understand with current targeting priorities such powerful warheads are no longer regarded as necessary.

W76 isn't "powerful" to begin with, so it's rather odd, tbh.

 

[Forest Green]

If Russia goes over to a mobile launched ICBM force with enough weapons to take out US ICBM silos what would be the role of Minuteman or Sentinel?

The role is to be launched in the 25 minutes it takes the mobile Russian ICBMs to reach them. A lot longer than would be the case for a pre-emptive strike with the solid-fuelled Tridents from 2000km away on a depressed trajectory. Can you imagine a Sod's Law postal delivery type scenario where Putin is on the toilet with a turd half way out of his bottom when suddenly a bell rings, only this time it's not DPD/UPS at the door, it's an alarm bell to tell him that a few thousand warheads are minutes away. He'd have to punch in the codes without wiping his backside and be carried to his bunker with his pants around his ankles, where the 4-D chess master would presumably resume wiping his bum while the bombs go off.

 

[Josh_TN]

That's great. So why is W76-2 disabling the secondaries if there are so many just sitting around ready to go? What's the bottleneck there? My point is that even if the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces haven't been refilling the tritium bottles on their rockets, which is the most common fantasy dandied around by "wonks", the bombs will still have stable and functional primaries.

W76 mod2 was made in very small numbers as a deliberately tactical weapon from existing W76 mod1. Its production has nothing to do with a lack of secondary material; it was made to be a quick reaction penetrating tactical weapon as an alternative to the B-61 mod 3/4/12.

I have no doubt that Russia is maintaining the tritium in its weapons. However we’re one to not replace it, a lower yield in the primary likely causes a lower yield, or even failure to initiate, in the secondary. This likely how US Dial-A-Yield weapons achieve their lowest yield settings: causing the entire primary-secondary chain to fail by sabotaging the primary efficiency. I would guess they might also mistime the conventional explosives in the lens as well for the lowest yields.

 

[Scott Kenny]

What do you think Trident is?

A second strike weapon accurate enough to hit silos.

 

[Forest Green]

Northrop Grumman Achieves Milestone in Solid Rocket Motor Development

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Dec 11, 2023 - Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) has achieved a significant milestone by successfully conducting a full-scale static test fire of a newly developed solid rocket motor. This remarkable feat w

www.spacewar.com

 

[bobbymike]

New ICBM will take US nuclear missiles out of Cold War-era

A new nuclear missile is coming, a gigantic ICBM called the Sentinel.

www.airforcetimes.com

The neglect of the nuclear enterprise since 1989 is criminal IMHO.

 

[bobbymike]

No new information but I love the “scary” headline for what is basically a modern MMIII clone.

A gigantic new ICBM will take US nuclear missiles out of the Cold War-era but add 21st-century risks

A new nuclear missile is coming, a gigantic ICBM called the Sentinel. It marks the largest cultural shift in 60 years in the land leg of the Air Force’s nuclear missile mission.

apnews.com

 

[Josh_TN]

No new information but I love the “scary” headline for what is basically a modern MMIII clone.

A gigantic new ICBM will take US nuclear missiles out of the Cold War-era but add 21st-century risks

A new nuclear missile is coming, a gigantic ICBM called the Sentinel. It marks the largest cultural shift in 60 years in the land leg of the Air Force’s nuclear missile mission.

apnews.com

Definitely a hyperbolic headline, but by the same token: the US doesn't use ICBMs as its major deterrent. I forget who coined the phrase, but someone called the modern US nuclear deterrent a "tricycle": a lot of silos with one warhead, a lot of bombers that would never leave the ground (only two bases store active nuclear weapons), and...all of the Tridents. Its a fair point, and IMO any land based weapons are second tier compared to the SSBNs. That isn't to say they aren't necessary; that is just to say perhaps we don't need uber huge liquid fueled models or to be researching how to hide land based weapons when we've already cornered the market on the best concealed strategic weapons with the highest accuracy decades ago.

 

[Forest Green]

No new information but I love the “scary” headline for what is basically a modern MMIII clone.

A gigantic new ICBM will take US nuclear missiles out of the Cold War-era but add 21st-century risks

A new nuclear missile is coming, a gigantic ICBM called the Sentinel. It marks the largest cultural shift in 60 years in the land leg of the Air Force’s nuclear missile mission.

apnews.com

That made it sound like they're connecting them to the internet??

 

[Josh_TN]

That made it sound like they're connecting them to the internet??

Probably not the internet, but wireless connections, yes.