Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/1544638
Three classes of airship were considered: capable of carrying one, two, and three ICBMs. The maximum payload of the largest airship was to be 150 tons. The largest airship was to exceed 300 m in length, and its endurance was assumed to be three weeks aloft. Procurement of 167 such aircraft was planned. Concerns centered on the ease with which such objects could be detected and destroyed, as well as their survival rate. The next American idea, somewhat more traditional, was MIDGETMAN. This concept, drawing on the classic deployment of ICBMs in underground silos, called for excavating thousands of such facilities, each containing a relatively small and simple single-warhead ICBM. According to calculations, between 3,000 and 4,000 such "simple" silos would need to be built in the western states of the United States. The area occupied by these installations was to be at least 4,500 square miles. The concept was impossible to implement not for logistical, but for legal reasons: the SALT II treaty then being negotiated with the Soviet Union set the maximum number of missiles of all types at 2,250. The target cost of the entire program, which would exceed the cost of the M-X/MPS program, was also significant. Another interesting concept discussed in the report was the Rock Silo. This idea was originally developed for the basing of MINUTEMAN missiles. The ICBM silos were to be excavated in hard granite rock in the western United States. This was intended to provide the highest possible resistance of such facilities to the effects of a nuclear detonation, www.fragoutmag.com