American Response to the R-36 - Titan II Successor

[isayyo2]

A more theoretical question than alternative history, was there any interest within SAC to develop a "Heavy" ICBM to match the R-36's capabilities?

If so, could it fit within the existing Titan II launch sites? Titan II and R-36 are somewhat surprisingly similar in diameter and height, though the R-36 is significantly heavier.

What would its payload look like? A single large multi-megaton RV, or potentially 6-10 MIRV'd W56s?

If a Heavy ICBM entered service before 1970, what effects, if any, would it have on the MX Program?

 

[Forest Green]

A more theoretical question than alternative history, was there any interest within SAC to develop a "Heavy" ICBM to match the R-36's capabilities?

If so, could it fit within the existing Atlas II launch sites? Atlas II and R-36 are somewhat surprisingly similar in diameter and height, though the R-36 is significantly heavier.

What would its payload look like? A single large multi-megaton RV, or potentially 6-10 MIRV'd W56s?

If a Heavy ICBM entered service before 1970, what effects, if any, would it have on the MX Program?

It would probably be something like the BGM-75.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Some posts from other threads that are likely to be of interest with regards as to a few of the known US 'Super Heavy' ICBM proposals during the Cold War:

The Titan II what an great missile/space launcher/ICBM. The US should have developed a solid propellant Titan ICBM to match the 308 SS-18s. The WS-120A project explored a heavy US solid propellant ICBM in the 60's for deployment in the early 70's but it was cancelled. I am still searching for any drawings of the WS-120A!

Military variant?

An article at GlobalSecurity, talking about an ICBM conversion of the Japanese H-2, had this to say:

The H-2 launch vehicle core stage propellants are cryogenic liquid hydrogen and oxygen. As such, it is ENTIRELY unsuited for conversion to ballistic missile applications. Although it is comparable in performance to the American Titan 34D launch vehicle, the Titan 3 family has never been used as an ICBM, and was only very briefly considered for such an application in the early 1960s, when though was given to using it to carry very high yield [~100 MT] nuclear warheads.

Does anyone know what that reference is about? I can't find any other reference to the use of Titan III as an ICBM, much less with a super-high-yield warhead, unless it's something to do with the Icarus project. I'd love to see a source that bears out this assertion.

H-2 as ICBM ? ROLF

several years ago a Japanese newspaper
publish a secret government document about
a possibility of Japanese Nuclear weapons program (against North Korea)
the Nissan build M-V play a role as Mobil ICBM

Encyclopedia Astronautica Index: 1

www.astronautix.com

on 100MT US. warheads
the Icarus project was based on Apollo & Saturn V hardware


with the Soviet Tsar Bomb http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czar_bomb
its seem logical that US would have also goes for a 100 MT nuke
lucky Robert McNamara ignore, those demands after the Tsar Bomb test,

USAF had take a trust increased Titan as launcher for this 44,000-pound (20 tons) nuclear bomb
but in beginn of 1960s the plans for a Trust increased Titan II was not like the Titan IIIC
like this two segment booster like here http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=498
but launching this from underground Silo ? ? ?

Returning to the super-heavy ICBM derived from Titan 34D, there is an hint in an AW&ST of 1963 I seem to remember. Will have a look to my photocopies. i t was in the same timeframe of the studies on tyxotropic (metallized) propellant for ICBMs.

Returning to the super-heavy ICBM derived from Titan 34D, there is an hint in an AW&ST of 1963 I seem to remember. Will have a look to my photocopies. i t was in the same timeframe of the studies on tyxotropic (metallized) propellant for ICBMs.

the Titan 34D in 1963 ?
i thought the Titan 34D fly first in 1982, or is this a typing error ?

Returning to the super-heavy ICBM derived from Titan 34D, there is an hint in an AW&ST of 1963 I seem to remember. Will have a look to my photocopies. i t was in the same timeframe of the studies on tyxotropic (metallized) propellant for ICBMs.

Yes please any and all information on heavy US ICBM proposals would be welcome (WS-120A configurations?), thanks.

Uh, I meant there was a hint on something like a boosted-up Titan for use as an ICBM...

Uh, I meant there was a hint on something like a boosted-up Titan for use as an ICBM...

Skybolt - Did you see the 260" ICBM thread? Interesting talk about a super heavy lift ICBM. My dream would be more limited just 120" and about 110' for MMIII replacement and conventional prompt global strike

Global strike of 250 MT
if 206" ICBM use TEN B41 nuclear bomb each 25MT as payload
General LeMay would be delighted…
more here http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=10434

Is the 10 B41 thing confirmed or just speculation?

just speculation of my on wat this 260" ICBM carry 110000 pounds over 8000 n.mi.

This was from another thread I started might interest people here:

From what appears to be a book abstract by Maurice F. Crommie. His website has this in his resume

Dec 1962 - Sept 1971

Consulting Engineer, Senior Scientist and Project Leader in strategic nuclear weapon design at General Electric, McDonald Douglas, Stanford Research Institute, Conductron Corporation and Avco Research and Advanced Design.

Jan 1960 - Dec 1962

Senior Engineer and Heat Transfer Specialist in rocket nozzle design and space capsule re-entry at TRW and Avco Research and Advanced Design.

March 1955 - Dec 1959

Aerothermodynamicist / jet engine designer

Link to his bibliography - http://home.olemiss.edu/~mcrommie/

“The subject of our paper was multiple warhead delivery systems. The title of our paper was “CLAW”, which stood for “Clustered Atomic Warheads”. We delivered this paper at a top secret restricted session of AMRAC at the secure Naval Station in San Diego in 1962. It was the first paper of its type advocating multiple warhead payloads. MIRV hadn’t been invented yet. The capability for Multiple Independently Targeted Re-entry Vehicles didn’t exist in 1962. Our system could deliver multiple warheads, but only on a single target in a circular or elliptical pattern. This was an advance in the state of the art at that time.

[snip]

“Following the success of our AMRAC paper, I was promoted to Project Engineer for the design of a heavy payload system, 39,000 pounds on top of a Titan III missile. The mission was to negate the Leningrad SAM defense system to allow our B 52′s access to the target. My liaison officer was a U.S.A.F. major, who was a B 52 pilot. His idea was that when we softened up the target with our nuclear barrage, he would fly in and finish it off.

“Me and my team designed a three tiered payload with 13 one megaton Mark 11 RV’s in each tier (39 total) which would be spun out in space and impact the Leningrad defenses in three concentric elliptical rings. Our liaison officer was ecstatic, his bomb run would be unopposed. What he didn’t seem to realize was that there would be nothing left to bomb after we laid down a barrage equal to 2000 times the weapon that destroyed Hiroshima.”

http://home.olemiss.edu/~mcrommie/aerospace.html
---------------------------------------------------------------
Now that's my kind of ICBM

(CLAW thread here: https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/clustered-atomic-warhead-claw-project-and-titan-iii.12169/)

WS-120A/BGM-75 was a "smaller" version of ICBM-X with "10 to 20" warheads.

BGM-75 AICBM - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

My understanding was the WS-120A was to be a large solid rocket and weigh about 400,000 pounds, over twice as big as MX ended up.

Although with the STRAT-X study ICBMs up to 120" to 156" diameter and weighting much more so maybe a reference to one of these beasts.

I'd love for someone to write a book on large US ICBMs built and unbuilt.

Reading stuff about Minuteman WS-120A and MX basing. Pretty interesting to note that despite 30 years of intensive debates and a bazillion studies they could never beat the basic Polaris system: big solid fuel rockets in a nuclear submarine roaming the ocean depths.

Wish there was more information about the WS-120 in general. A super heavy 20-25 RV solid fuel ICBM with one basing option being deeply buried inside a mountain!!

Largely a function, I assume, that it came and went from the “nuclear discussion” very quickly.

Me too. That Sierra-granite-moutain-silo idea was quite... daring.

For those who don't know: WS-120A is kind of "missing link" between Minuteman (1958-1963 IOC) and MX Peceakeeper (early 70's to the 2000's).

Basing was already a teething problem, and one proposal had a Sierra granite mountain been partially hollowed with missile tubes.

Granite was naturally "superhardened" up to thousands of psi of pressure - of course, boring the tunnels would be horrendously expensive.

RS-28 (Sarmat) will, apparently, be able to carry up to 24 boost gliding RVs. That's just a smidgen more than a "modern SICBM". DF-41 ill be a 10-warhead missile, the longest range ICBM on the planet, and will be mobile. Their "small" ICBMs (RS-24 & DF-31) will each be able to carry twice the number of warheads of a fully loaded MM3.

SICBM? Is that the same as AICBM?

I don't know. Probably. Midgetman

The other thing about Sarmat is that, at that size, but carrying only 4 warheads (as specified in START II), it could be a FOBS.

Or boost gliders with multiple warheads on each or four LARGE warheads. (Before somebody declares large warheads are "useless" let me just stop you right there.)

Thought AICBM was the precursor to the WS-120A Super Heavy (never built) ICBM? Although no specific dimensions that I’ve seen, all solid 200t plus with 20+ warheads.

Here's the link to the 260 Inch ICBM thread mentioned earlier: https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/260-srm-as-an-icbm.12990/

 

[Grey Havoc]

Nearly forgot another little tidbit:

Thiokol 260-inch ICBM: An unreasonably large ICBM concept

 

[Grey Havoc]

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/super-hard-silos-and-us-icbm-late-60s.6635/

 

[isayyo2]

Thanks @Grey Havoc and @Forest Green !

 

[publiusr]

Now, I would like to see something like Athena III in a silo:

Athena-3

The Athena-3 is a rocket planned by ATK as a medium launch vehicle.

space.skyrocket.de

Orion style nuclear pulse unit in place of the Deep Impact copper disk…for asteroid threats. Adapted such that you could exchange any warhead for a small cubesat atop a hypergolic upper stage while still below ground level…launch on warning.

 

[Archibald]

A choice was made a) to drop liquid propulsion / hypergols after Titan II - the 1965 & 1980 incidents certainly vindicated that decision.
And b) not going with bigger solid fuel ICBMs (not larger than MX).
A larger core (15 ft rather than 10 ft, 4*LR87) Titan III-L was never build. Screw the solids on the flancs and anything above stage 2 except some nukes - and there you go. Back to Titan II roots, except on steroids.

 

[Yellow Palace]

Rough order of magnitude for an all-solid missile designed to utilise a Titan II silo is about 480,000 pounds with a throw-weight of 22,000 pounds to 6,000 nautical miles, using MX-era technology. That's scaled from a 1975 report looking at Titan replacements, which doesn't go that large, but it's a reasonable extrapolation.

Such a payload might reasonably equate to 12-14 1.7 megaton warheads, or more smaller ones. What would you do with such a thing? I have no iddea.

 

[sferrin]

Rough order of magnitude for an all-solid missile designed to utilise a Titan II silo is about 480,000 pounds with a throw-weight of 22,000 pounds to 6,000 nautical miles, using MX-era technology. That's scaled from a 1975 report looking at Titan replacements, which doesn't go that large, but it's a reasonable extrapolation.

Such a payload might reasonably equate to 12-14 1.7 megaton warheads, or more smaller ones. What would you do with such a thing? I have no iddea.

Anything a Peacekeeper could do, but better.

 

[Forest Green]

What about an MX-sized missile using metastable He IV-A as a propellant? Carry AMARV warheads but get them to target several times faster by using a non-ballistic arc, 2 stages to go up, 1 to come down.

 

[sferrin]

What about an MX-sized missile using metastable He IV-A as a propellant? Carry AMARV warheads but get them to target several times faster by using a non-ballistic arc, 2 stages to go up, 1 to come down.

Metastable helium is like antimatter - for all practical purposes it doesn't exist.

 

[Forest Green]

Metastable helium is like antimatter - for all practical purposes it doesn't exist.

In monoatomic form it is but:

Advanced Propulsion Concepts

Recent theoretical models have suggested that it may be possible to form a room temperature molecular solid containing diatomic molecules made from one excited and one ground state helium atom (He2*).

This solid, denoted He IV-A, could be used in solid propellant rockets; the Isp would be about 2200 lbf-s/lbm corresponding to a 50% concentration of He*. This is an Isp characteristic of electric propulsion systems and yet a metastable helium rocket would have the advantage of high thrust and high Isp. Finally, when compared to the atomic hydrogen propellant, the higher Isp and higher density of a solid metastable helium propellant would minimize the density-Isp and mass fraction difficulties encountered with an atomic hydrogen rocket.

Research on stabilization of metastable helium has been conducted under the supervision of J. S. Zmuidzinas of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and was funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) and the Air Force Astronautics Laboratory (now AF Phillips Lab, Edwards AFB). This research consisted of theoretical work and proof-of-concept experiments designed to determine the feasibility of using circularly polarized laser light to spin-align and thus stabilize He*. The theoretical model predicted that at high concentrations, He* should form a new state of helium (He IV-A) consisting of long-range spin-aligned He2* molecules. This material would be a stable (8 year lifetime), moderate density (0.3 g/cm3), solid compound (melting point of 600 K).

Proposed Stabilization With Circularly Polarized Light

• Form New State (He IV-A) at High Concentrations
  • Stable Solid (MP = 600 K)

 

[Kat Tsun]

A more theoretical question than alternative history, was there any interest within SAC to develop a "Heavy" ICBM to match the R-36's capabilities?

Not really.

R-36's strategic capabilities were to ensure the Red Army had enough warheads left after (rather, during) an American nuclear missile attack to destroy most of the major economic-political and capital-population dense regions of the US. The USSR never had a launch-on-warning posture because it was something they never quite mastered (and Russia has only recently attained, if that) nor particularly cared about, so they relied on launch-under-attack with confirmation of nuclear detonations on Soviet cities and missile bases. Hence a somewhat dizzying array of superhard silo command posts, missile field defenses, radiation detectors and shockwave seismographs in Moscow, and rather massive numbers of warheads per missile, all connected to underground command bunkers at Dombarovskiy.

R-36 itself was fairly innovative in its anti-ablative coating on the booster designed to minimize effects of dust clouds and particulate matter during the boost phase, and to reduce effects of X-ray radiation from nearby ground bursts on the electronics, so it's nothing the USAF was that interested in until it realized the USSR could do "X-ray pindown" in the 1970's, something the Soviets had already solved. America was firmly in the launch-on-warning camp though, and didn't believe itself to be at particular threat of a surprise nuclear missile attack, which is why it invested so much in DSP and why the SAC had high hopes for MiDAS, and why Minuteman could quite literally be launched in less than 60 seconds.

The Red Army expected to lose a substantial portion of its missile fleet on land in any nuclear war though. The point of the R-36's massive throw weight was to ensure it had enough warheads, that even if they lost two thirds of their force, the Strategic Rocket Forces could still inflict lethal damage to America's major urban areas. In hindsight this makes the distinctly American obsession with "nuclear sponges" and "counter-force strategies" rather silly. The USSR was always pursuing a counter-value strategy at the high level, because it correctly recognized it was the weaker force in the balance for pretty much the entire Cold War, and weaker powers target the strength of their opponents, which for America was its massively urbanized coasts with world capital markets and homeland suburban sprawls with millions of potential conscripts.

America's emphasis on accuracy mostly reflected a shift in US thinking from mass nuclear strikes on cities from the early SIOPs to more "targeted" nuclear effects on leadership and military-exclusive systems, which it sort of mirror-imaged onto the USSR for some reason, probably because it saw in R-36 another missile gap. Hence it started developing far more accurate hard-target destruction systems and in that mostly validated the USSR's concerns that targeting America's population centers was the correct strategy.

R-36 was the opposite of accuracy or hard target destruction. It was a saturation bombardment weapon meant to obliterate cities with multiple dozens of impacts instead of a single big bomb. More an evolution of the type of weapons America deployed in the Titan II than a proper MX or Minuteman III. Sarmat/UR-100N is a direct evolution of this, designed to carry the Vanguard hyperglider, which was flight tested in 1990 by the Red Army. The Vanguard and UR-100N carrier rocket complex itself is partly designed to evade Reagan's Brilliant Pebbles/Brilliant Eyes while matching the MX missile in short-burn performance and partly to avoid land-based ABM systems (hit-to-kill or nuclear) through extreme maneuverability. Emphasis on destruction of major urbanized regions is retained.

I suspect the Red Army was thinking America might deploy a nuclear ABM system similar to Gorgon by the 2000's, possibly around New York or D.C., and this is why Vanguard was important at the time. NPOMash kept Vanguard and UR-100N alive on private funding through the 1990's partly by liquidating smaller, redundant factories and partly by selling rocket motors to America IIRC.

Russian strategic nuclear doctrine has been static for the past 30 (really, 50) years because the Russian government hasn't the money nor the technical expertise for now to advance beyond late Soviet thinking really. This may change in the future but it would require significant Chinese or Indian investment to go further and neither of these countries are very interested beyond perhaps corporate poaching.

tl;dr No, very little chance of SAC getting a massive nuclear missile. The Congress's priorities were different than the Red Army's. American lawmakers were a tad more squeamish about killing a few hundred or thousand million people than the Soviet General Staff was.

 

[sferrin]

They've been talking about metastable helium since at least the 80s. From Airforce Magazine, Aug. 1984:

Superenergetic Materials

Basic research now under way also provides evidence that superenergetic materials have great potential as the fuel, power, and explosive sources of the future.

One potential energy source is metastable helium, or MSH. MSH is helium with its electrons raised to an excited state — a state in which energy is stored — and stabilized in that state. Currently, it appears that this material can be produced by bombarding liquid helium with electrons to achieve the energized state, applying a polarized laser to align the spin of the atoms, and then using a magnetic field to facilitate stabilization of the new material. Theoretical work suggests that this material will have strong bonding between atoms, resulting in a solid with a high melting temperature and a usable life span of measured in years. The right trigger mechanism will cause the MSH to return to its normal state while releasing a tremendous amount of energy.

As an energy source, MSH will offer a number of advantages, including its being manufactured from materials readily available in the United States. It can be used for electrical power. Its energy density is more than 1,200 times that of lithium batteries. Further, it may be useful in powering lasers.

MSH has more than five times the stored energy capacity of TNT. An MSH munition will outperform a TNT weapon — with thirty times the overpressure on a target of a TNT munition of similar weight at the same miss distance.

Perhaps the most exciting potential use of MSH or another superenergetic material is as a fuel source for aerospace vehicles. MSH will have about six times the propulsion efficiency of a liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen mixture. In addition to saving weight and space, it will be more easily stored and handled than the fuels now in use, and its byproducts are environmentally inert.

A Preview of the Technology Revolution | Air & Space Forces Magazine

USAF is pursuing technological progress on three levels — leading toward amazing capabilities for the

www.airandspaceforces.com

 

[uk 75]

The US to this day maintains a much more effective triad of ICBM SLBM and Bomber launched weapons.
Minuteman has been produced and maintained in service in a way which no Russian or Chinese system has. Polaris, Poseidon and Trident similarly.
The B52 has only to be compared with the Tu95 Bear force.
Titan and then MX/Peacekeeper were necessary to keep the US public reassured and for arms control talks but the Triad was and is the reason why China and Russia still have to respect the US.
.

 

[Yellow Palace]

Recent theoretical models have suggested that it may be possible to form a room temperature molecular solid containing diatomic molecules made from one excited and one ground state helium atom (He2*).

So somewhere between fusion power and antimatter then. Hardly a deployable technology in the first half of this century, much less the last one.

 

[sferrin]

The US to this day maintains a much more effective triad of ICBM SLBM and Bomber launched weapons.
Minuteman has been produced and maintained in service in a way which no Russian or Chinese system has. Polaris, Poseidon and Trident similarly.
The B52 has only to be compared with the Tu95 Bear force.
Titan and then MX/Peacekeeper were necessary to keep the US public reassured and for arms control talks but the Triad was and is the reason why China and Russia still have to respect the US.
.

The MM3, short of North Korean efforts, is the least capable ICBM on the planet. (Until Sentinel goes into service. It's less capable than MM3.)

 

[Forest Green]

So somewhere between fusion power and antimatter then. Hardly a deployable technology in the first half of this century, much less the last one.

You can never be sure of these things. If you told someone in 1939 that someone would land on the moon in a few decades, they would have thought you were on drugs.

 

[martinbayer]

So somewhere between fusion power and antimatter then. Hardly a deployable technology in the first half of this century, much less the last one.

You can never be sure of these things. If you told someone in 1939 that someone would land on the moon in a few decades, they would have thought you were on drugs.

I can think of a few people who wouldn't have...

 

[Yellow Palace]

So somewhere between fusion power and antimatter then. Hardly a deployable technology in the first half of this century, much less the last one.

You can never be sure of these things. If you told someone in 1939 that someone would land on the moon in a few decades, they would have thought you were on drugs.

If you told someone in 1939 that the Wright Brothers could have landed on the moon if they'd put a nuclear rocket on the Flyer, they'd have been quite right to.

 

[Forest Green]

If you told someone in 1939 that the Wright Brothers could have landed on the moon if they'd put a nuclear rocket on the Flyer, they'd have been quite right to.

Within about half a century there were rocket planes and nuclear bombs.

 

[uk 75]

The US to this day maintains a much more effective triad of ICBM SLBM and Bomber launched weapons.
Minuteman has been produced and maintained in service in a way which no Russian or Chinese system has. Polaris, Poseidon and Trident similarly.
The B52 has only to be compared with the Tu95 Bear force.
Titan and then MX/Peacekeeper were necessary to keep the US public reassured and for arms control talks but the Triad was and is the reason why China and Russia still have to respect the US.
.

The MM3, short of North Korean efforts, is the least capable ICBM on the planet. (Until Sentinel goes into service. It's less capable than MM3.)

i am assuming perhaps mistakenly that no other country has such an accurate and most likely to fire than the US.

 

[sferrin]

The US to this day maintains a much more effective triad of ICBM SLBM and Bomber launched weapons.
Minuteman has been produced and maintained in service in a way which no Russian or Chinese system has. Polaris, Poseidon and Trident similarly.
The B52 has only to be compared with the Tu95 Bear force.
Titan and then MX/Peacekeeper were necessary to keep the US public reassured and for arms control talks but the Triad was and is the reason why China and Russia still have to respect the US.
.

The MM3, short of North Korean efforts, is the least capable ICBM on the planet. (Until Sentinel goes into service. It's less capable than MM3.)

i am assuming perhaps mistakenly that no other country has such an accurate and most likely to fire than the US.

At this point there's no reason to believe Russian and Chinese aren't as accurate as US ICBMs. Even MM3 isn't as accurate as Peacekeeper was. Russian missiles tend to have larger warheads so accuracy is less of an issue. Most are also mobile making them more survivable.

 

[Desertfox]

The US to this day maintains a much more effective triad of ICBM SLBM and Bomber launched weapons.
Minuteman has been produced and maintained in service in a way which no Russian or Chinese system has. Polaris, Poseidon and Trident similarly.
The B52 has only to be compared with the Tu95 Bear force.
Titan and then MX/Peacekeeper were necessary to keep the US public reassured and for arms control talks but the Triad was and is the reason why China and Russia still have to respect the US.
.

The MM3, short of North Korean efforts, is the least capable ICBM on the planet. (Until Sentinel goes into service. It's less capable than MM3.)

LMAO that is quite the statement from someone who has no idea what Sentinel will be.

As for Russia's arsenal, their reliability is definitely in question as with the rest of Russia's military equipment.

 

[Forest Green]

At this point there's no reason to believe Russian and Chinese aren't as accurate as US ICBMs. Even MM3 isn't as accurate as Peacekeeper was. Russian missiles tend to have larger warheads so accuracy is less of an issue. Most are also mobile making them more survivable.

Not originally, but they may well have updated the INS, especially since they had 100+ AIRS systems going spare when the Peacekeepers were scrapped.

 

[sferrin]

At this point there's no reason to believe Russian and Chinese aren't as accurate as US ICBMs. Even MM3 isn't as accurate as Peacekeeper was. Russian missiles tend to have larger warheads so accuracy is less of an issue. Most are also mobile making them more survivable.

Not originally, but they may well have updated the INS, especially since they had 100+ AIRS systems going spare when the Peacekeepers were scrapped.

I thought I'd read that they planned to repurpose those systems to the MM3 fleet but then cancelled the effort.

 

[Forest Green]

I thought I'd read that they planned to repurpose those systems to the MM3 fleet but then cancelled the effort.

Don't know, but it would be a hell of a waste of $600+m-worth in '80s money if they just chucked them. Don't know what present value of 100+ equivalent systems would be, probably $bns.

 

[uk 75]

The US will certainly have to work hard to replace the Triad.
It has been argued by some than SSBN force would be sufficient but I still favour the resilience and range of options given by the Triad.
Not least because Western countries are much more vulnerable to nuclear blackmail than dictatorships as China's three year Covid lockdown underscores.
If Russia were to collapse into its component.parts things could get a whole lot worse very quickly. Russian strategic systems controlled by warlords or breakaway religious states would make deterrence even harder.

 

[sferrin]

Imagin ISIS with some SS-18s in their control.

 

[Forest Green]

That would make Resident Evil look like a picnic.

 

[publiusr]

SLBMs are best in wartime—but have no other real use. SS-18+ type missiles might have a role in asteroid deflection—yet it is the land-based assets most threatened with the axe.

 

[bobbymike]

SLBMs are best in wartime—but have no other real use. SS-18+ type missiles might have a role in asteroid deflection—yet it is the land-based assets most threatened with the axe.

That’s how I would justify the research, development and deployment of 50 or more super heavy ICBMs with massive warheads located in ultra-hard silos “we are just protecting the planet”

But more seriously I do think asteroid deflection is a legit concern that may require such a solution especially if we fail to detect in time for some type of DART mission.

 

[martinbayer]

I agree - better safe than sorry is the governing motto here.

 

[Archibald]

If Russia were to collapse into its component.parts things could get a whole lot worse very quickly. Russian strategic systems controlled by warlords or breakaway religious states would make deterrence even harder.

This comment has aged all too well - Wagner rebellion, cough - followed by present growing disatisfaction of russian intermediate commanders. Who seemingly approved what Prighozin did on June 24, because Bakhmut and Vulhedar parallel extreme hardships early this year.
Putin / Shoigu / Gerasimov answer to that discontent, hardships, and Wagner approval ?
FIRED, you're FIRED.
Firing the few competent commanders holding the ukrainians counter-offensive on the defensive lines... geez, this can only end well. Meanwhile, the big purge against Wagner still hasn't really happened: only his supporters in the Russian armed forces that got out of the wood that day and since then.
Prighozin was to be "neutralized" through Belarus efforts - my sorry a$$. The man is somewhere near Saint Petersburg, not purged by any mean.

I'm really not a pessimist / dystopic nor apocalyptic fellow, but I have to say that, on Saturday june 24 I closely checked the news of Wagner march on Moscow. Thinking "frack, I don't want Prighozin in the Kremlin, his finger on the trigger of 4000 to 6000 russian nukes..." Which doesn't mean I rooted for Putin either. OMFG, talk about chosing between a rock and a hard place...

 

[publiusr]

Several former Soviet warheads now supply electrical power. They all need to be used for that.