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70-491: ALCC may refer to: Airborne Launch Control Center , a portion of the US Air Force's Airborne Launch Control System Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church , an American Evangelical Catholic Christian denomination Ashton Ladysmith Cricket Club , an English cricket club Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with

140-428: A D-17 disk revolution was 10 ms. The D-17 also used a number of short loops for faster access to intermediate results storage. The D-17 computational minor cycle was three disk revolutions or 30 ms. During that time all recurring computations were performed. For ground operations, the inertial platform was aligned and gyro correction rates updated. During a flight, filtered command outputs were sent by each minor cycle to

210-498: A length of 55 ft 11 in (17.04 m). The Minuteman I weighed roughly 65,000 lb (29,000 kg), had an operational range of 5,500 nmi (6,300 mi; 10,200 km) with an accuracy of about 1.5 mi (2.4 km). The Minuteman I Autonetics D-17 flight computer used a rotating air bearing magnetic disk holding 2,560 "cold-stored" words in 20 tracks (write heads disabled after program fill) of 24 bits each and one alterable track of 128 words. The time for

280-479: A newly built missile would take its place. The missile design was based purely on lowest possible cost, reducing its size and complexity because "the basis of the weapon's merit was its low cost per completed mission; all other factors – accuracy, vulnerability, and reliability – were secondary." Hall's plan did not go unopposed, especially by the more established names in the ICBM field. Ramo-Wooldridge pressed for

350-427: A program to improve transistor and component reliability 100 times, leading to the "Minuteman high-rel parts" specifications. The techniques developed during this program were equally useful for improving all transistor construction, and greatly reduced the failure rate of transistor production lines in general. This improved yield, which had the effect of greatly lowering production costs, had enormous spin-off effects in

420-474: A single Soviet missile. In any conceivable scenario where both sides had similar numbers of ICBMs, the US forces would survive a sneak attack in sufficient numbers to ensure the destruction of all major Soviet cities in return. The Soviets would not risk an attack under these conditions. Considering this countervalue attack concept, strategic planners calculated that an attack of "400 equivalent megatons" aimed at

490-409: A single axis only. Autonetics' design meant that only two gyros would be needed for the inertial platform, instead of the typical three. The last major advance was to use a general-purpose digital computer in place of the analog or custom designed digital computers. Previous missile designs normally used two single-purpose and very simple electromechanical computers; one ran the autopilot that kept

560-634: A single target, whose precise trajectory information was hard-coded directly in the system's logic. In 1957, a series of intelligence reports suggested the Soviet Union was far ahead in the missile race and would be able to overwhelm the US by the early 1960s. If the Soviets were building missiles in the numbers being predicted by the CIA and others within the defense establishment, by as early as 1961 they would have enough to attack all SAC and ICBM bases in

630-595: A sneak attack. This had initially been proposed as a way to defend the SAC bomber fleet. The Army argued that upgraded Soviet missiles might be able to attack US missiles in their silos, and Zeus would be able to blunt such an attack. Zeus was expensive and the Air Force said it was more cost-effective to build another Minuteman missile. Given the large size and complexity of the Soviet liquid-fueled missiles, an ICBM building race

700-478: A solid fuel ICBM. Development of the SM-65 Atlas and SM-68 Titan ICBMs was progressing, and "storable" ( hypergolic ) liquid propellants were being developed that would allow missiles to be left in a ready-to-shoot form for extended periods. These could be placed in missile silos for added protection, and launch in minutes. This met their need for a weapon that would be safe from sneak attacks; hitting all of

770-572: A surprise attack. The missile was named for the colonial minutemen of the American Revolutionary War , who could be ready to fight on short notice. The Minuteman entered service in 1962 as a deterrence weapon that could hit Soviet cities with a second strike and countervalue counterattack if the U.S. was attacked. However, the development of the United States Navy (USN) UGM-27 Polaris , which addressed

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840-529: A system with higher accuracy, but Hall countered that the missile's role was to attack Soviet cities, and that "a force which provides numerical superiority over the enemy will provide a much stronger deterrent than a numerically inferior force of greater accuracy." Hall was known for his "friction with others" and in 1958 Schriever removed him from the Minuteman project, sending him to the UK to oversee deployment of

910-611: A wider range of targets. Some missiles also carried penetration aids, allowing the higher probability of kill against Moscow's anti-ballistic missile system . The payload consisted of a single Mk-11C reentry vehicle containing a W56 nuclear warhead with a yield of 1.2 megatons of TNT (5 PJ ). The Minuteman II had a length of 57 ft 7 in (17.55 m), weighed roughly 73,000 lb (33,000 kg), had an operational range of 6,300 mi (10,200 km) with an accuracy of about 1 mi (1.6 km). The major new features provided by Minuteman II were: System modernization

980-443: Is on alert around-the-clock. The ALCS mission has been held by multiple aircraft during the last 50 years: From 1967 to 1992, three dedicated Airborne Launch Control Centers (ALCC) were on ground or airborne alert around the clock providing ALCS coverage for five of the six Minuteman ICBM wings. These dedicated ALCCs were mostly EC-135A aircraft but could also have been EC-135C or EC-135G aircraft depending on availability. ALCC No. 1

1050-730: The LGM-30G (Version 3) is the only land-based ICBM in service in the United States and represents the land leg of the U.S. nuclear triad , along with the Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) and nuclear weapons carried by long-range strategic bombers . Development of the Minuteman began in the mid-1950s when basic research indicated that a solid-fuel rocket motor could stand ready to launch for long periods of time, in contrast to liquid-fueled rockets that required fueling before launch and so might be destroyed in

1120-728: The Strategic Air Command 's arsenal in 1962. After the first batch of Minuteman I's were fully developed and ready for stationing, the United States Air Force (USAF) had originally decided to put the missiles at Vandenberg AFB in California, but before the missiles were set to officially be moved there it was discovered that this first set of Minuteman missiles had defective boosters which limited their range from their initial 6,300 miles (10,100 km) to 4,300 miles (6,900 km). This defect would cause

1190-569: The Thor IRBM . On his return to the US in 1959, Hall retired from the Air Force. He received his second Legion of Merit in 1960 for his work on solid fuels. Although he was removed from the Minuteman project, Hall's work on cost reduction had already produced a new design of 71 inches (1.8 m) diameter, much smaller than the Atlas and Titan at 120 inches (3.0 m), which meant smaller and cheaper silos. Hall's goal of dramatic cost reduction

1260-457: The UK , they cast the fuel into large cylinders with a star-shaped hole running along the inner axis. This allowed the fuel to burn along the entire length of the cylinder, rather than just the end as in earlier designs. The increased burn rate meant increased thrust. This also meant the heat was spread across the entire motor, instead of the end, and because it burned from the inside out it did not reach

1330-517: The 1960s, became increasingly vulnerable to surface-to-air missiles . The B-1 of the early 1970s eventually emerged with a price tag around $ 200 million (equivalent to $ 600 million in 2023) while the Minuteman IIIs built during the 1970s cost only $ 7 million ($ 30 million in 2023). The Air Force countered that having a variety of platforms complicated the defense; if the Soviets built an effective anti-ballistic missile system of some sort,

1400-610: The 1990s. It's not clear exactly why the W59 was replaced by the W56 after deployment but issues with "... one-point safety" and "performance under aged conditions" were cited in a 1987 congressional report regarding the warhead. Chuck Hansen alleged that all weapons sharing the "Tsetse" nuclear primary design including the W59 suffered from a critical one-point safety issue and suffered premature tritium aging issues that needed to be corrected after entry into service. The LGM-30F Minuteman II

1470-653: The ALCC mission is performed by airborne missileers from Air Force Global Strike Command 's (AFGSC) 625th Strategic Operations Squadron (STOS) and United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM). Starting on October 1, 1998, the ALCS has been located on board the United States Navy's E-6B Mercury . The ALCS crew is integrated into the battle staff of the USSTRATCOM " Looking Glass " Airborne Command Post (ABNCP) and

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1540-402: The Air Force saw them at the time. This would require huge deployments, which would not be possible with existing weapons due to their high cost and operational manpower requirements. A solid fuel design would be simpler to build, and easier to maintain. Hall's ultimate plan was to build a number of integrated missile "farms" that included factories, missile silos , transport and recycling. He

1610-427: The Air Force's EC-135Cs ceased to perform USSTRATCOM Looking Glass operations and was subsequently retired. The Navy's E-6B Mercury took over USSTRATCOM's Looking Glass mission and associated ALCC mission. Today, at least one E-6B Looking Glass Airborne Command Post (ABNCP) is on alert around the clock performing the ALCC mission. It is postured with a full USSTRATCOM battlestaff and ALCS crew on board to perform

1680-412: The ICBM and SLBM fleet might be rendered useless, while the bombers would remain. This became the nuclear triad concept, which survives into the present. Although this argument was successful, the number of manned bombers has been repeatedly cut and the deterrent role increasingly passed to missiles. The LGM-30A Minuteman I was first test-fired on 1 February 1961 at Cape Canaveral , entering into

1750-683: The Looking Glass mission in the event the USSTRATCOM Global Operations Center (GOC) is incapacitated. The aircraft can take off quickly to avoid any threat. The ALCS crew on board still provides a survivable launch capability for the Air Force's Minuteman III ICBMs located at the three remaining missile wings located at Malmstrom AFB, Montana, Minot AFB, North Dakota; and F.E. Warren AFB, Wyoming. Just like its original inception, ALCS on alert today provides an adversary with an insurmountable task of trying to destroy

1820-880: The Minuteman ICBM Wings at Minot AFB and Grand Forks AFB, both in North Dakota, providing ALCS assistance if needed. ALCC No. 2 was dedicated to orbiting near the Minuteman ICBM Wing at Malmstrom AFB, Montana, providing ALCS assistance if needed. After 1992, with the end of the Cold War and the disbanding of the Strategic Air Command (SAC), ALCS remained on alert with the SAC and the US Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) EC-135C Airborne Command Posts. On October 1, 1998

1890-583: The Minuteman ICBM force. Even if the ground Launch Control Centers are destroyed, airborne missileers utilizing the ALCS can fly overhead and launch the Minuteman ICBM force. LGM-30 Minuteman Minuteman II: 6,300 nmi (7,200 mi; 11,700 km) The LGM-30 Minuteman is an American land-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in service with the Air Force Global Strike Command . As of 2024 ,

1960-461: The Minuteman II had a CEP of 0.26 nautical miles (0.48 km; 0.30 mi). Additionally, the computers were upgraded with more memory, allowing them to store information for eight targets, which the missile crews could select among almost instantly, greatly increasing their flexibility. From that point, Minuteman became the US's primary deterrent weapon, until its performance was matched by

2030-524: The Navy's Trident missile of the 1980s. Questions about the need for the manned bomber were quickly raised. The Air Force began to offer a number of reasons why the bomber offered value, in spite of costing more money to buy and being much more expensive to operate and maintain. Newer bombers with better survivability, like the B-70 , cost many times more than the Minuteman, and, in spite of great efforts through

2100-483: The Soviet Union, and thus impossible to attack by either ICBM, because they were moving, or long-range interceptor aircraft , because they were too far away. In the shorter term, looking to rapidly increase the number of missiles in its force, Minuteman was given crash development status starting in September 1958. Advanced surveying of the potential silo sites had already begun in late 1957. Adding to their concerns

2170-493: The US in a single first strike . It was later demonstrated that this " missile gap " was just as fictional as the " bomber gap " of a few years earlier, but through the late 1950s, it was a serious concern. The Air Force responded by beginning research into survivable strategic missiles, starting the WS-199 program. Initially, this focused on air-launched ballistic missiles , which would be carried aboard aircraft flying far from

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2240-503: The US's primary weapon of nuclear war. Chief among these qualities was its digital computer, the D-17B. This could be updated in the field with new targets and better information about the flight paths with relative ease, gaining accuracy for little cost. One of the unavoidable effects on the warhead's trajectory was the mass of the Earth, which contains many mass concentrations that pull on

2310-532: The bases had 150 missiles emplaced; F.E. Warren had 200 of the Minuteman IB missiles. Malmstrom had 150 of the Minuteman I, and about five years later added 50 of the Minuteman II similar to those installed at Grand Forks AFB , ND. The Minuteman I's length varied based on which variation one was to look at. The Minuteman I/A had a length of 53 ft 8 in (16.36 m) and the Minuteman I/B had

2380-563: The computer, the D-17B , was built in the form of a drum machine but used a hard disk in place of the drum. Building a computer with the required performance, size and weight demanded the use of transistors , which were at that time very expensive and not very reliable. Earlier efforts to use computers for guidance, BINAC and the system on the SM-64 Navaho , had failed and were abandoned. The Air Force and Autonetics spent millions on

2450-411: The electronics industry. Using a general-purpose computer also had long-lasting effects on the Minuteman program and the US's nuclear stance in general. With Minuteman, the targeting could be easily changed by loading new trajectory information into the computer's hard drive, a task that could be completed in a few hours. Earlier ICBMs' custom wired computers, on the other hand, could have attacked only

2520-718: The engine nozzles. Unlike modern computers, which use descendants of that technology for secondary storage on hard disk , the disk was the active computer memory . The disk storage was considered hardened to radiation from nearby nuclear explosions, making it an ideal storage medium. To improve computational speed, the D-17 borrowed an instruction look-ahead feature from the Autonetics-built Field Artillery Data Computer ( M18 FADAC ) that permitted simple instruction execution every word time. At its introduction into service in 1962, Minuteman I

2590-416: The fast reaction time was an advantage for weapons that might be attacked by Soviet aircraft. But Hall was convinced that they could be used for a true ICBM with a 5,500-nautical-mile (10,200 km; 6,300 mi) range. To achieve the required energy, that year Hall began funding research at Boeing and Thiokol into the use of ammonium perchlorate composite propellant . Adapting a concept developed in

2660-408: The future, as it allowed the missile to be extended and carry more fuel and payload. During Minuteman's early development, the Air Force maintained the policy that the manned strategic bomber was the primary weapon of nuclear war. Blind bombing accuracy on the order of 1,500 feet (0.46 km) was expected, and the weapons were sized to ensure even the hardest targets would be destroyed as long as

2730-413: The gyroscopes which used ball bearings . Autonetics had an experimental design using air bearings that they claimed had been running continually from 1952 to 1957. Autonetics further advanced the state of the art by building the platform in the form of a ball which could rotate in two directions. Conventional solutions used a shaft with ball bearings at either end that allowed it to rotate around

2800-414: The high atmosphere, and could be fitted to existing missiles like Minuteman. The shape of these reentry vehicles required more room on the front of the missile than a traditional reentry vehicle design. To allow for this future expansion, the Minuteman silos were revised to be built 13 feet (4.0 m) deeper. Although Minuteman would not deploy a boost-glide warhead, the extra space proved invaluable in

2870-416: The initial position, and program in the target coordinates. Minuteman was designed from the outset to be launched in minutes. While solid fuel eliminated the fueling delays, the delays in starting and aligning the guidance system remained. For the desired quick launch, the guidance system would have to be kept running and aligned at all times. This was a serious problem for the mechanical systems, especially

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2940-418: The largest Soviet cities would promptly kill 30% of their population and destroy 50% of their industry. Larger attacks raised these numbers only slightly, as all of the larger targets would already have been hit. This suggested that there was a " finite deterrent " level around 400 megatons that would be enough to prevent a Soviet attack no matter how many missiles they had of their own. All that had to be ensured

3010-407: The missile flying along a programmed course, and the second compared the information from the inertial platform to the target coordinates and sent any needed corrections to the autopilot. To reduce the total number of parts used in Minuteman, a single faster computer was used, running separate subroutines for these functions. Since the guidance program would not be running while the missile sat in

3080-511: The missile's ability to strike targets defended by ABMs. They were initially armed with the W62 warhead with a yield of 170 kilotons . By the 1970s, 1,000 Minuteman missiles were deployed. This force has shrunk to 400 Minuteman III missiles as of September 2017 , deployed in missile silos around Malmstrom AFB , Montana ; Minot AFB , North Dakota ; and Francis E. Warren AFB , Wyoming . The Minuteman III will be progressively replaced by

3150-694: The missiles to fall short of their targets if launched over the North Pole as planned. The decision was made to station the missiles at Malmstrom AFB in Montana instead. These changes would allow the missiles, even with their defective boosters, to reach their intended targets in the case of a launch. The "improved" LGM-30B Minuteman I became operational at Ellsworth AFB , South Dakota , Minot AFB , North Dakota , F.E. Warren AFB , Wyoming , and Whiteman AFB , Missouri , in 1963 and 1964. All 800 Minuteman I missiles were delivered by June 1965. Each of

3220-612: The new LGM-35 Sentinel ICBM, to be built by Northrop Grumman , beginning in 2030. Minuteman owes its existence largely to Air Force Colonel Edward N. Hall , who in 1956 was given charge of the solid-fuel-propulsion division of General Bernard Schriever's Western Development Division , created to lead development of the SM-65 Atlas and HGM-25A Titan I ICBMs. Solid fuels were already commonly used in short-range rockets. Hall's superiors were interested in short- and medium -range missiles with solids, especially for use in Europe where

3290-548: The open. Since there was no system to detect the ICBMs being launched, the possibility was raised that the Soviets could launch a sneak attack with a few dozen missiles that would take out a significant portion of SAC's bomber fleet. In this environment, the Air Force saw their own ICBMs not as a primary weapon of war, but as a way to ensure that the Soviets would not risk a sneak attack. ICBMs, especially newer models that were housed in silos, could be expected to survive an attack by

3360-524: The rocket nozzle that were opened when the guidance systems called for engine cut-off. The reduction in pressure was so abrupt that the remaining fuel broke up and blew out the nozzle without contributing to the thrust. The first to use these developments was the US Navy. It had been involved in a joint program with the US Army to develop the liquid-fueled PGM-19 Jupiter , but had always been skeptical of

3430-427: The role of the missile was to present an unassailable threat to the Soviet population, Polaris was a far better solution than Minuteman. The document had long-lasting effects on the future of the Minuteman program, which, by 1961, was firmly evolving towards a counterforce capability. Minuteman's final tests coincided with the start of John F. Kennedy 's presidency. His new Secretary of Defense , Robert McNamara ,

3500-587: The same role, allowed the Air Force to modify the Minuteman, boosting its accuracy enough to attack hardened military targets, including Soviet missile silos. The Minuteman II entered service in 1965 with a host of upgrades to improve its accuracy and survivability in the face of an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system the Soviets were known to be developing. In 1970, the Minuteman III became the first deployed ICBM with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRV): three smaller warheads that improved

3570-437: The silo, the same computer was also used to run a program that monitored the various sensors and test equipment. With older designs this had been handled by external systems, requiring miles of extra wiring and many connectors to locations where test instruments could be connected during servicing. Now these could all be accomplished by communicating with the computer through a single connection. In order to store multiple programs,

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3640-402: The silos within a limited time window before they could launch simply did not seem possible. But Hall saw solid fuels not only as a way to improve launch times or survivability, but part of a radical plan to greatly reduce the cost of ICBMs so that thousands could be built. He envisioned a future where ICBMs were the primary weapon of the US, not in the supporting role of "last ditch backup" as

3710-535: The system. The Navy felt that liquid fuels were too dangerous to use onboard ships, especially submarines. Rapid success in the solids development program, combined with Edward Teller 's promise of much lighter nuclear warheads during Project Nobska , led the Navy to abandon Jupiter and begin development of their own solid-fuel missile. Aerojet's work with Hall was adapted for their UGM-27 Polaris starting in December 1956. The US Air Force saw no pressing need for

3780-463: The title ALCC . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ALCC&oldid=829280616 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Airborne Launch Control Center Today,

3850-410: The wall of the missile fuselage until the fuel was finished burning. In comparison, older designs burned primarily from one end to the other, meaning that at any instant one small section of the fuselage was being subjected to extreme loads and temperatures. Guidance of an ICBM is based not only on the direction the missile is traveling but the precise instant that thrust is cut off. Too much thrust and

3920-533: The warhead as it passes over them. Through the 1960s, the Defense Mapping Agency (now part of National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency ) mapped these with increasing accuracy, feeding that information back into the Minuteman fleet. The Minuteman was initially deployed with a circular error probable (CEP) of about 1.1 nautical miles (2.0 km; 1.3 mi), but this had improved to about 0.6 nautical miles (1.1 km; 0.69 mi) by 1965. This

3990-444: The warhead will overshoot its target, too little and it will fall short. Solids are normally very hard to predict in terms of burn time and their instantaneous thrust during the burn, which made them questionable for the sort of accuracy required to hit a target at intercontinental range. While this initially appeared to be an insurmountable problem, it ended up being solved in an almost trivial fashion. A series of ports were added inside

4060-556: The weapon fell within this range. The USAF had enough bombers to attack every military and industrial target in the USSR and was confident that its bombers would survive in sufficient numbers that such a strike would utterly destroy the country. Soviet ICBMs upset this equation to a degree. Their accuracy was known to be low, on the order of 4 nautical miles (7.4 km; 4.6 mi), but they carried large warheads that would be useful against Strategic Air Command 's bombers, which parked in

4130-483: Was a Soviet anti-ballistic missile system which was known to be under development at Sary Shagan . WS-199 was expanded to develop a maneuvering reentry vehicle (MARV), which greatly complicated the problem of shooting down a warhead. Two designs were tested in 1957, Alpha Draco and the Boost Glide Reentry Vehicle. These used long and skinny arrow-like shapes that provided aerodynamic lift in

4200-416: Was a success, although many of the other concepts of his missile farm were abandoned. Previous long-range missiles used liquid fuels that could be loaded only just prior to firing. The loading process took from 30 to 60 minutes in typical designs. Although lengthy, this was not considered to be a problem at the time, because it took about the same amount of time to spin up the inertial guidance system , set

4270-454: Was accomplished without any mechanical changes to the missile or its navigation system. At those levels, the ICBM begins to approach the manned bomber in terms of accuracy; a small upgrade, roughly doubling the accuracy of the INS, would give it the same 1,500 feet (460 m) CEP as the manned bomber. Autonetics began such development even before the original Minuteman entered fleet service, and

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4340-454: Was an improved version of the Minuteman I missile. Its first test launch took place on September 24, 1964. Development on the Minuteman II began in 1962 as the Minuteman I entered the Strategic Air Command's nuclear force. Minuteman II production and deployment began in 1965 and completed in 1967. It had an increased range, greater throw weight and guidance system with better azimuthal coverage, providing military planners with better accuracy and

4410-441: Was aware that new computerized assembly lines would allow continual production, and that similar equipment would allow a small team to oversee operations for dozens or hundreds of missiles, radically reducing the manpower requirements. Each farm would support between 1,000 and 1,500 missiles being produced in a continuous low rate cycle. Systems in a missile would detect failures, at which point it would be removed and recycled, while

4480-422: Was effectively invulnerable and had enough accuracy to attack Soviet cities. If the Soviets improved the accuracy of their missiles this would present a serious threat to the Air Force's bombers and missiles, but none at all to the Navy's submarines. Based on the same 400 equivalent megatons calculation, they set about building a fleet of 41 submarines carrying 16 missiles each, giving the Navy a finite deterrent that

4550-681: Was fitted with the W59 warhead with a yield of 1 Mt. Production for the W56 warhead with a 1.2 Mt yield began in March 1963 and W59 production was ended in July 1963 with a production run of only 150 warheads before being retired in June 1969. The W56 would continue production until May 1969 with a production run of 1000 warheads. Mods 0 to 3 were retired by September 1966 and the Mod 4 version would remain in service until

4620-469: Was on ground alert at Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota, and during a wartime scenario would have taken off and orbited between the Minuteman Wings at Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota, and F.E. Warren AFB, Wyoming, providing ALCS assistance if needed. ALCCs No. 2 and No. 3 were routinely on forward deployed ground alert at Minot AFB, North Dakota. During a wartime scenario, ALCC No. 3 would have orbited between

4690-405: Was one the Soviets could not afford. Zeus was canceled in 1963. Minuteman's selection as the primary Air Force ICBM was initially based on the same " second strike " logic as their earlier missiles: that the weapon was primarily one designed to survive any potential Soviet attack and ensure they would be hit in return. But Minuteman had a combination of features that led to its rapid evolution into

4760-633: Was tasked with continuing the expansion and modernisation of the US nuclear deterrent while limiting spending. McNamara began to apply cost/benefit analysis , and Minuteman's low production cost ensured its selection. Atlas and Titan were soon scrapped, and the storable liquid fueled Titan II deployment was severely curtailed. McNamara also cancelled the XB-70 bomber project. Minuteman's low cost had spin-off effects on non-ICBM programs. The Army's LIM-49 Nike Zeus , an interceptor missile capable of shooting down Soviet warheads, provided another way to prevent

4830-430: Was that the US missiles survived, which seemed likely given the low accuracy of the Soviet weapons. Reversing the problem, the addition of ICBMs to the US Air Force's arsenal did not eliminate the need, or desire, to attack Soviet military targets, and the Air Force maintained that bombers were the only suitable platform in that role. Into this argument came the Navy's UGM-27 Polaris . Launched from submarines, Polaris

4900-510: Was unassailable. This presented a serious problem for the Air Force. They were still pressing for the development of newer bombers, like the supersonic B-70 , for attacks against military targets, but this role seemed increasingly unlikely in a nuclear war scenario. A February 1960 memo by RAND , entitled "The Puzzle of Polaris", was passed around among high-ranking Air Force officials. It suggested that Polaris negated any need for Air Force ICBMs if they were also being aimed at Soviet cities. If

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