Hopefully they're not THAT short sighted. Not building the force you need because you can't be bothered to build a new kind of truck is stupid beyond belief. And the "foam blocks" were there as much for cold launching as shock absorption.
Not exactly 'short-sighted' as the Peacekeeper trailers and infrastructure were very different than the MM stuff and that too cost a lot extra to handle and it was clear from "Midgetman" we didn't technically NEED a bigger missile to do the job. From what we're hearing on our level there is the hope/plan that the new missile will be encapsulated so that the trailers will be transporting "all-up" round, (sans warhead) inside the current trailers which should decrease the requirement for some of the trailer internal systems. Keep in mind it's NOT 'just' the trailers but the prime movers and all the support and maintenance support involved as well.
https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/mimi/images/fig13.jpg
On the silo let me be a bit clearer, (and fun fact I just yesterday got done shredding documentation on the step-by-step silo conversion process) in order to fit the Peacekeeper they had to fully gut and remove the inner silo system from the MM silo. That's neither easy nor inexpensive and once done the new silo had totally different shock and support systems. The new silo liner was larger which reduced the room and play for the shock absorbing systems so that the launch tube was going to take more shock than the MM system so the pads were needed to dampen this inside the launch tube.
https://srmsc.org/images/000106m0.jpg
This effected not only the silo inner tubing itself but the support and protection systems that had to be installed in the silo as well.
As I understood it the purpose of the self-discarding pads was to protect the missile during cold launch without adding weight during the boost phase.
I'd always thought they were a gas seal/ bit of extra shock absorption.
Yes
Multipurpose/multiple uses and all that
Hands up anybody with any expectation that anyone in the US political system willing to pay for 2 different land based ICBMs.
They've already paid for them really. The design, testing and commissioning of the LGM-118 was completed over 30 years ago and the Midgetman was like 100% designed and 99% tested 28 years ago. AMARV was also designed and tested.
So the choice is really between designing and testing a relatively poor MMIII replacement from scratch, or simply commissioning far better replacements, which have already been paid for in terms of RD&T.
Not so clear though as it's unlikely that they won't be using any previous design "work" (in the sense of copying) from previous missiles. Both companies are looking at 'clean-sheet' designs beyond the government requirements being met. There is also the problem of, (at this point) you're almost "sole-source" (only two bidders at best and most of the subcontracting for both providers ARE single source) for providers which likely means costs are going to be higher than it should be. Moreover, (and the main reason the government is insisting on using the existing infrastructure) simply putting a new missile into service is going to be expensive enough so that the idea of rebuilding the support and maintenance infrastructure, (which itself was just recently upgraded) basically "from scratch" to support two different missiles isn't going to be done. There will be a period where the systems need to support both the MM and it's replacement at the same time.
This briefly mentions it. There were 114 Peacekeeper made, so at least 114 silos must already be upgraded.
Manufactured, not deployed. In fact Congress had limited deployment to 50 missiles but I only find about 46 were every actually deployed, (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGM-118_Peacekeeper) and it looks like the silo's used were MMII's that were replaced and it looks like those were destroyed after the Peacekeeper was retired.
The big driver for Peacekeeper's greater maintenance cost was the guidance system which you wouldn't build in that form today.
Achieving rattle space through the canister might not be as much of an issue with improved shock isolation systems and
propellant grain designs that are more 'g' tolerant.
There's physical limitations to the amount of 'rattle space' (I may steal that
) in the silo's and improving the shock isolation system is problematical due to those limitations. And again part of that greater maintenance costs were tied up in the specialized transport and maintenance systems Peacekeeper required though I agree the guidance system was out-of-proportion expensive as well as being one of the major scandals of the program.
That doesn't necessarily follow since for example the current MMIII inventory is greater than the number of silos
and you expend, at a bare minimum at least one missile a year in testing.
You have missiles in various stages of maintenance and depot maintenance along with some in storage awaiting transport to the field and vice-versa so the number of missiles actually in existence will largely exceed your actual alert deployment.
A little 'yes' but mostly 'no'. The electronics might be defunct (although the F-22 is still flying on Intel 286s) but everything else is already ready to manufacture. Putting Peacekeepers and Midgetmans into service would certainly be a piece of cake compared to say the Nimrod MRA4.
Actually it's clearly a "no" as the systems and equipment to actually make those missiles no longer exists so you pretty much HAVE to start over. One of the things that's been 'worrying' the military for the past decades is that the means and ability to manufacture large solid rockets has been disappearing in the US. ATK had to actually rebuild several processing machines in order to complete the last refurbishment of the MM stage upgrade program and those are not set up to be able to turn out NEW design stages in any quantity so that's a basic bottleneck even before you know what your designing and building and its worse for something as big as a Peacekeeper stage. It's one of the reasons ATK was pushing for acceptance of a segmented design booster motor based on the Shuttle SRB making process. (The military resisted because the segmented boosters are simply not as robust as the single solid designs)
Building something the size of the Peacekeeper is going to require rebuilding a large chunk of the manufacturing and distribution system and there's still the issue with deployment on top of that. The Midetman while smaller requires different manufacturing and transportation systems as well which again adds to the overall cost. (And has the issue of being definitely unable to handle multiple warheads or conversion to an HGV) And there's going to be little support for new silo's and basing, (which is also a problem for mobile systems which need larger 'mobile' support systems and security as well as designated areas to move around in) either in public or government circles. It's a lot more complex of a problem than most people realize and in the end most don't really understand the whole problem anyway.
Randy
