Atlas and Titan mirved version?

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Info about mk 14 rv for Atlas and Titan I and mk13 RV for Titan II?

Many thanks
 
W. Emrick and M. Watter, USAF Advanced ICBM Concepts, PEN-X Paper 58, Institute for Defense Analyses, (1965) (Title U, Report SRD)

Excerpt from "USAF Advanced ICBM Concepts (U)" (1965) (Ref. 24)

[...]

The TITAN II improvement proposal includes several MIRV configurations:

1. 6 x MARK-17 reentry vehicles
2. Two buses each carrying 8 x MARK 12 [DELETED] RV
3. Five buses each with 6 x MARK 100 [DELETED] advanced technology reentry vehicles.
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Mk 12 is MM3 RV of 170 KT.

Mk 100 is ???

Mark 17 is...

https://super-octopus.com/2022/08/13/some-details-on-the-w67-mark-17/
Technical Details of the W67/Mark 17

Normally they are very cagy about reentry vehicle and RV warhead weights, so I was surprised to come across them.

The total RV and warhead weight was planned to be 410 kg (900 lb) and by November 1966 they had managed to get it down to 425 kg (938 lb). The bare warhead weight was 306 kg (675 lb).[5, p. 43] The yield is classified, but it was comparable to that of the W56/Mark 11, i.e. 1.2 Mt.
Click to expand...
 
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Did SAC ever considered procuring more than 54 operational Titan II ? was there a higher number early on, say in 1960-61 ?
 
Archibald said:
Did SAC ever considered procuring more than 54 operational Titan II ? was there a higher number early on, say in 1960-61 ?
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I'm not certain but I think so however I suspect that McNamara stopped anymore being built (Launch sites, LCCs and missiles), apparently the Titan II scared the crap out of the Soviets.
 
Archibald said:
Did SAC ever considered procuring more than 54 operational Titan II ? was there a higher number early on, say in 1960-61 ?
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McNamara on 30 March 1961 ordered Lt. General Thomas Hickey, the Staff Director of the NSC's Net Evaluation Subcommittee (NESC) to perform an advanced study to serve as the "foundation for the determination of requirements for delivery vehicles for strategic nuclear weapons."

This generated "A Study of U.S. Requirements for Strategic Systems" which was also known as the "Hickey Study" when it came out in late 1961.

It recommended the development of (among other things)

Titan II Advanced -- 12,000 lb payload to 5,500 nm.mi; with yields around (or over) 50 MT.

85% of the Hickey Study is still classified in open versions; but an OSD review had some more details on Advanced Titan:

c. Titan II (Advanced). A highly-reliable, storable liquid propellant missile capable of carrying a payload of 12,000 lbs. at least 5,500 nm with a CEP of [REDACTED]. Re-entry body capable of carrying highly-sophisticated penetration aids. [REDACTED SENTENCE] Hardened to 500 psi. Employed primarily against very hard nuclear storage sites and ABM defenses. Some retained in Reserve for very hard targets. Required availability 1968.
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The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) was dubious:

The rationale for the Advanced Titan II system depends on the requirement for a very high yield weapon [REDACTED SENTENCE] Based on military considerations, the need for this system is not apparent. The Hickey Study indicates that Titan II would be able to deliver a [REDACTED SENTENCE] and is competitive with the advanced version.
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Around the same time that the Hickey Report came out; McNamara's OSD put out the DPM Recommended Long Range Nuclear Delivery Forces 1963-1967 (C) (Appendix I) on 23 SEP 1961 and there is a line:

Titan II

The 18 extra Titan missiles proposed by the Air Force would cost approximately $372 million to procure and operate for 5 years. The Titan II has a substantially larger payload than Minuteman. It will be able to deliver 9 megatons rather than 1.2 megaton warheads now programmed for Minuteman. But the total system cost of a Titan II is about four times that of a Minuteman hard and dispersed. At equal cost, four Minutemen are to be preferred to one Titan because, first, they are less vulnerable, and second, they provide more target coverage.

Moreover, we already plan to have a substantial force of Atlas and Titan which should be adequate for those special purposes requiring large payloads. Therefore I do not recommend procurement of additional Titans.
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Additionally, the original plans were to keep 54 x Titan I in the inventory until FY1968; but this phaseout was accelerated to FY1965.
 
Back in January 1960 under Eisenhower; the original plan was for fourteen Titan Squadrons; of which the last 8 would be "Advanced Titan" (aka Titan II); for a total of 54 x TITAN I and 72 x TITAN II.

In March 1961, McNamara killed two of the Titan II Squadrons (18 missiles) in the same action that terminated Mobile Minuteman (3 squadrons programmed).

I believe this action is what McNamara's office was referencing in "Long Range Nuclear Delivery Forces 1963-1967 (C)"
 
RyanC said:
W. Emrick and M. Watter, USAF Advanced ICBM Concepts, PEN-X Paper 58, Institute for Defense Analyses, (1965) (Title U, Report SRD)



Mk 12 is MM3 RV of 170 KT.

Mk 100 is ???

Mark 17 is...

https://super-octopus.com/2022/08/13/some-details-on-the-w67-mark-17/
Technical Details of the W67/Mark 17

Normally they are very cagy about reentry vehicle and RV warhead weights, so I was surprised to come across them.

The total RV and warhead weight was planned to be 410 kg (900 lb) and by November 1966 they had managed to get it down to 425 kg (938 lb). The bare warhead weight was 306 kg (675 lb).[5, p. 43] The yield is classified, but it was comparable to that of the W56/Mark 11, i.e. 1.2 Mt.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

I actually stumbled across a document a while back that had the precise yield of the Mk17/W67, which turned out to be 1500 kt.

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/...-deputy-assistant-secretary-politico-military (see page 14)
 
NMaude said:
So the Mk-17 RV was a sphere-cone type RV like the Mk-12?
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Blog author here.

Almost certainly as it was spun off from the Mk12 program.

I suspect that this RV photographed at Vandenburg is the Mk17 as it's quite a bit larger than the Mk12 or Mk21 RVs in the background. Just waiting for someone to visit someday and get some better photos or maybe an ID plate.

https://flic.kr/p/dWx3xk
View: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kevlar/8493429017/in/gallery-195235598@N07-72157721108430479/


JTR said:
I actually stumbled across a document a while back that had the precise yield of the Mk17/W67, which turned out to be 1500 kt.

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/...-deputy-assistant-secretary-politico-military (see page 14)
Click to expand...

Excellent find. That's on the low end of what I had estimated, but I can't argue with the actual numbers in front of me.
 
JTR said:
I actually stumbled across a document a while back that had the precise yield of the Mk17/W67, which turned out to be 1500 kt.

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/...-deputy-assistant-secretary-politico-military (see page 14)
Click to expand...
Download said:
Excellent find. That's on the low end of what I had estimated, but I can't argue with the actual numbers in front of me.
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There's a 1800 kiloton figure out there too, I think in one of the USAF Ballistic Missile Programs histories.
 
Yellow Palace said:
There's a 1800 kiloton figure out there too, I think in one of the USAF Ballistic Missile Programs histories.
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Do you know which one? To the best of my knowledge I have read every one of those that has been released, and I don't recall seeing a yield figure for the Mark-12(H)/Mk17/W67 in any of them, let alone a 1800 kt figure.
 
JTR said:
Do you know which one? To the best of my knowledge I have read every one of those that has been released, and I don't recall seeing a yield figure for the Mark-12(H)/Mk17/W67 in any of them, let alone a 1800 kt figure.
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Ah, here it is:
https://web.archive.org/web/2020022.../DOD/Project_List_CY1964_IIIb_SEP-15-1964.htm
Not one of the official histories at all, but a 1964 memo for SecDef. Probably a preliminary figure, given the earlier date, and a heavier warhead than the later version, but perhaps an indication of what was hoped for.
 
RyanC said:
Titan II Advanced -- 12,000 lb payload to 5,500 nm.mi; with yields around (or over) 50 MT.
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Standart Titan II had payload of 8,200 lb for 9 MT warhead
designed to destroy hardened targets, like commando centres and bunkers.

Now to use larger yields up to 50 MT against hardened targets is total overkill
At 50 MT you can erase small nations like Belgium from the map !
Or megapolis like Moscow, Paris, London, Tokyo or New York

other issue were cost for Titan II Advanced program
design and build ICBM and New Warhead and infrastructure including new Silos, follow by maintenance cost

Minuteman was far cheaper in this aspect.
 
GeorgeA said:
Intrigued by the “Improved Capability Minuteman” reference, which looks to be on the low end of the WS-120 range.
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It does seem to be the early stages of that effort.

Size and performance are broadly in line with the contemporary 'Advanced ICBM' work, which included a full scale trial of cold launch with a 300,000-pound dummy missile from a Minuteman silo at Edwards AFB, and that led to WS-120.
 
It's a pity a MIRVed version of the Titan II wasn't developed and put into production.
 
Yellow Palace said:
Depends how hard the targets are. If you're imagining the enemy having something like DUCC, then multiple 50 Mt weapons are needed to kill it.
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It'd take a heck of a lot of megatons to blast out Cheyenne Mountain et sim for sure!

Even assuming 18-25MT warheads, you're talking needing to put every warhead within the crater of the preceding warhead to successfully dig out the complex, and then you need to have a really good guess how long for the worst of the debris to fall so you're not fragging the next incoming. Or know how quickly behind the next warhead can be, so that the lofted debris is above the approach altitude.
 
Yellow Palace said:
Ah, here it is:
https://web.archive.org/web/2020022.../DOD/Project_List_CY1964_IIIb_SEP-15-1964.htm
Not one of the official histories at all, but a 1964 memo for SecDef. Probably a preliminary figure, given the earlier date, and a heavier warhead than the later version, but perhaps an indication of what was hoped for.
Click to expand...
Very interesting.

Regarding the Mk17, they give a weight of 1200 lb here, where as later sources give a weight of 900 lb. This higher yield version might be a preliminary design before the firmed up the specifications.

The other warheads mentioned:

My impression was that Livermore promised that the W62 warhead would be 200 kt and then fell short. For them to state it's 170 kt in 1964, years before first production unit is surprising.

The W58 is also interesting. Most sources I have seen were very confident in a 200 kt yield. 225 kt is the yield often quoted for the British Chevaline warhead though, which is supposed to be a the same secondary in a new reentry vehicle and using a new rad hard primary.

I have to wonder if the 200 vs 225 kt yield figure has to do with limited life components. Maybe it gets 225 kt with new boost gas, and 200 kt at end of life? It might also be some confidence factor, something like average yield is 225 kt, and a random W58 warhead as a 99% chance of producing at least 200 kt?
 
Download said:
My impression was that Livermore promised that the W62 warhead would be 200 kt and then fell short. For them to state it's 170 kt in 1964, years before first production unit is surprising.

The W58 is also interesting. Most sources I have seen were very confident in a 200 kt yield. 225 kt is the yield often quoted for the British Chevaline warhead though, which is supposed to be a the same secondary in a new reentry vehicle and using a new rad hard primary.

I have to wonder if the 200 vs 225 kt yield figure has to do with limited life components. Maybe it gets 225 kt with new boost gas, and 200 kt at end of life? It might also be some confidence factor, something like average yield is 225 kt, and a random W58 warhead as a 99% chance of producing at least 200 kt?
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I also can't help but wonder if there's something similar going on with both warheads, and that someone has their thumb on the scale. If you wanted Polaris to look better than Minuteman, you might well report the 'good day, fresh tritium' yield for the former and the 'bad day, end of life' for the latter.
 
Yellow Palace said:
I also can't help but wonder if there's something similar going on with both warheads, and that someone has their thumb on the scale. If you wanted Polaris to look better than Minuteman, you might well report the 'good day, fresh tritium' yield for the former and the 'bad day, end of life' for the latter.
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Perhaps, but the author is Harold Brown, who at the time was director of Livermore. With both warheads being Livermore designs, this seems unlikely.
 
Download said:
Perhaps, but the author is Harold Brown, who at the time was director of Livermore. With both warheads being Livermore designs, this seems unlikely.
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He was DDRE from 1961-65 and SecAF from 1965-69. The context of the memo is a briefing for McNamara on whether next-gen missiles were needed to survive a Soviet MIRVed first strike. I think the warhead discussion is adjacent to that.
 
GeorgeA said:
He was DDRE from 1961-65 and SecAF from 1965-69. The context of the memo is a briefing for McNamara on whether next-gen missiles were needed to survive a Soviet MIRVed first strike. I think the warhead discussion is adjacent to that.
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Ah, you are right. I didn't realise he only lasted a year as director.
 

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