Silo costs 1960s.

[Spark]

Silo costs 1960s.
What were the Titan 2 silo costs (1960$)?
What were the 1960 Blue Streak silo cost estimates?
How did they compare?
How did they compare with Polaris costs?

 

[Michel Van]

who compare the two ?

the K11 silo for Blue Streak http://www.spaceuk.org/bstreak/bs/k11.html
was all in one Bunker means ICBM and crew, also storage of LOX in a separated tank from Blue Streak, were in one and same place.
the Titan II slios were peripheral, the Crew had there bunker separated with tunnels from Silos
http://www.titan2icbm.org/titanC.html

Cost
after Air Ministry estimates they needed 60 K11 silos in Britain, each cost 2.3 million pound sterling in 1959
each the Titan II silos cost 8 million US dollars in 1962/63 http://www.colindaylinks.com/arizona/titan1.html

the Polaris "silo" cost is here to compare apples and oranges
because the "Silo" is a nuclear submarine with estimate cost of 40 million pound sterling (from Defences Estimates)
about Polaris program total cost, i have only one information that the cost were £150 million less than that of the V bomber force. from Wiki.

 

[Bill Garvin]

Silo costs 1960s.
What were the Titan 2 silo costs (1960$)?
What were the 1960 Blue Streak silo cost estimates?
How did they compare?
How did they compare with Polaris costs?

According to the FY61 defense budget, a Titan II silo cost US$16 million; a Minuteman silo cost US$14 million. That includes all the necessary infrastructure to make a silo system work. However, the actual cost is hard to get at since the silos were continuously upgraded and modernized and the cost of each tranche of modernizations was funded seperately.

The earlier "coffin" and trench systems were much less expensive.

 

[alertken]

Polaris Cost

“by 10/68 the program had cost some £350Mn., only 5% (>) the estimated sum”, Vickers’ Chairman: “the best defence bargain the Br. taxpayer ever had.” Grove,Vanguard to Trident,Bodley Head,1987,P.243. The Nassau Connection,HMSO, 1994 asserts good management. Such claims were unverifiable because of security;the datum lacked any benchmark. Unused contingency funds yielded the savings: these boats were estimated by bloat: R.Moore,RN & Nuclear Weapons,H’wood,2001,P17, quoting RN's SPO: “I hadn’t the faintest idea (of hull build) so I took projected cost of Valiant (SSN) and doubled it.”

Nobody had any notion about these things in 1957-60. Separate budgets for each activity, never drawn together. UK did not introduce a feeble attempt at Project Costing until 1964.

 

[Grey Havoc]

With regards as to the Titan 2 silos:

 

[TMD]

Titan II Missile Silo Tour & Photos. For those interested in the details of what the Titan II ICBM silo and control center looks like, here are photos of the tour. This museum is located just south of Tucson, Arizona and is the only remains (inactivated) Titan II silo in Cold War condition. Tours are led by docents who served as missile officers during the period. The tour goes into the crew control capsule, the connecting tunnel to the missile silo, which features an inactivated Titan II in the silo. The large, heavy silo doors are left partially opened and blocked, and the warhead heat shield set to comply with SALT agreements. Above ground are Titan II engines and the fueling apparatus, as well as various antennas for communications. Note that a the warhead is a 9 megaton fission triggered fusion device and not just a uranium physics package as it says in Legend 6A

I have added descriptions to the photos, but I am happy to answer any additional questions.

 

[TMD]

Titan Missile Silo- Part 2.
I hit the 20 file limit in the above post.

 

[GTX]

Titan II Missile Silo Tour & Photos. For those interested in the details of what the Titan II ICBM silo and control center looks like, here are photos of the tour. This museum is located just south of Tucson, Arizona and is the only remains (inactivated) Titan II silo in Cold War condition. Tours are led by docents who served as missile officers during the period. The tour goes into the crew control capsule, the connecting tunnel to the missile silo, which features an inactivated Titan II in the silo. The large, heavy silo doors are left partially opened and blocked, and the warhead heat shield set to comply with SALT agreements. Above ground are Titan II engines and the fueling apparatus, as well as various antennas for communications. Note that a the warhead is a 9 megaton fission triggered fusion device and not just a uranium physics package as it says in Legend 6A

I have added descriptions to the photos, but I am happy to answer any additional questions.

Visited this just recently - well worth the visit if you find yourself in Tucson AZ.

 

[TMD]

Yes, definitely a worthwhile tour, and the massive Pima Air Museum is also in Tucson.

One correction to the above photos.
The description of the B-53 physics package carried by the Titan II is very simplified. The W-63 missile warhead was a 3 stage fission/fusion/fission device. The B53 used highly enriched uranium implosion device instead of plutonium for the primary fission reaction. This generated the neutrons for the secondary of lithium-6 deuteride fuel to be converted to tritium and deuterium fuel for fusion, as well as the the primary's X-rays intensely ionizing and ablating the secondary's tamper surface, imploding it around the secondary, heating and compressing the tritium and deuterium to fusion conditions. The B53-Y1 weapon employed a U-238-encased secondary, which underwent fast fission from the secondary's fusion reaction's fast neutrons, adding a major portion to the 9 megaton yield of the Titan II warhead.

The Titan II had a CEP of 900 meters. Designed to attack hardened and buried targets, a 9-megaton air burst would result in a fireball with an approximate 2.9 to 3.4 mi (4.7 to 5.5 km) diameter. Blast effects would be sufficient to collapse most residential and industrial structures within an approximately 9 mi (14 km) radius.

 

[sdmuleman]

According to the FY61 defense budget, a Titan II silo cost US$16 million; a Minuteman silo cost US$14 million. That includes all the necessary infrastructure to make a silo system work.

Rather surprising those number are as close as they are since a Titan silo was physically large with more complex missile support systems and there's an associated launch command center with each silo, whereas Minuteman has a single control center for 10 silos. Consequently, I'd expect the titan to be significantly more expensive to construct than a minuteman on a per missile basis.

 

[BlackBat242]

Rather surprising those number are as close as they are since a Titan silo was physically large with more complex missile support systems and there's an associated launch command center with each silo, whereas Minuteman has a single control center for 10 silos. Consequently, I'd expect the titan to be significantly more expensive to construct than a minuteman on a per missile basis.

Inflation. A Titan complex contracted at the same time as Minuteman would cost much more.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Rather surprising those number are as close as they are since a Titan silo was physically large with more complex missile support systems and there's an associated launch command center with each silo, whereas Minuteman has a single control center for 10 silos. Consequently, I'd expect the titan to be significantly more expensive to construct than a minuteman on a per missile basis.

I suspect that a separate LCC is a relatively trivial portion of the construction costs. But it means that you only need 1 set of command and control gear per 10 missiles instead of 1 set per missile.