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MGM-134 Midgetman

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The MGM-134A Midgetman, also known as the Small Intercontinental Ballistic Missile,[1] was an intercontinental ballistic missile developed by the United States Air Force. The system was mobile and could be set up rapidly, allowing it to move to a new firing location after learning of an enemy missile launch. To attack the weapon, the enemy would have to blanket the area around its last known location with multiple warheads, using up a large percentage of their force for limited gains and no guarantee that all of the missiles would be destroyed. In such a scenario, the U.S. would retain enough of their forces for a successful counterstrike, thereby maintaining deterrence.

MGM-134A Midgetman
Test launch of Midgetman
TypeIntercontinental ballistic missile
Place of originUnited States
Service history
In serviceprototype only (1991)
Used byUnited States
Production history
DesignerMartin Marietta
Specifications
Mass13,600 kg (30,000 lb)
Length14 m (46 ft)
Diameter1.17 m (3 ft 10 in)
Blast yield
  • W87-1: 475 kt (1,990 TJ)
  • W61: 340 kt (1,400 TJ)
EngineSolid-fuel rocket
Propellantsolid propellant
Operational
range
11,000 kilometers (6,800 mi)
Guidance
system
Inertial, GPS
Accuracy90 m (300 ft) CEP
Launch
platform
Hard Mobile Launcher (HML)
TransportHard Mobile Launcher (HML)

Overview edit

The Midgetman grew out of a requirement expressed in the mid-1980s by the U.S. Air Force for a small ICBM which could be deployed on road vehicles. Fixed silos are inherently vulnerable to attack, and with the increasing accuracy of submarine-launched ballistic missiles there was a growing threat that the Soviet Union could launch large numbers of missiles from off the coast, destroying most of the U.S. ICBM force before it could be used (first strike). By producing a mobile missile which could not easily be targeted by enemy forces, and thus survive a first strike attempt, the Air Force hoped to reduce this possibility and maintain the ability to deter (second strike). It was also a response to the Soviet development of SS-24 (rail mobile) and the SS-25 (road mobile) ICBMs.

System definition studies for the Small Intercontinental Ballistic Missile commenced in 1984 under an Air Force Program Office located at Norton AFB, CA, with TRW providing system engineering and technical assistance support. Contracts were awarded by the end of 1986 to Martin Marietta, Thiokol, Hercules, Aerojet, Boeing, General Electric, Rockwell and Logicon and authorization to proceed with full scale development of the MGM-134A Midgetman was granted. The first prototype missile was launched in 1989, but tumbled off course and was destroyed over the Pacific Ocean after about 70 seconds.[1] The first successful test flight took place on April 18, 1991.[2]

Design edit

In design the XMGM-134A was a three-stage solid-fuelled missile. Like the LGM-118 Peacekeeper it used the cold launch system, in which gas pressure was used to eject the missile from the launch canister. The rocket would only ignite once the missile was free of the launcher.

The Midgetman had a range of some 11,000 kilometers (6,800 mi). Two warheads were developed for the missile: the W87-1 warhead in a Mark 21 re-entry vehicle with a yield of 475 kt (1,990 TJ), and the W61 earth penetrating warhead with a yield of 340 kt (1,400 TJ).[3][4]

Carrier vehicle: Hard Mobile Launcher edit

 
Hard Mobile Launcher

The Midgetman was to be carried by an eight-wheel drive Hard Mobile Launcher (HML) vehicle. Most of these vehicles would normally remain on bases, only being deployed in times of international crisis when nuclear war was considered more likely. The Hard Mobile Launcher was radiation hardened and had a trailer mounted plow to dig the HML into the earth for additional nuclear blast protection.[5]

Cancellation edit

With the end of the Cold War in the 1990s the U.S. scaled back its development of new nuclear weapons. The Midgetman program was therefore cancelled in January 1992. The legacy of its lighter graphite-wound solid rocket motor technology lived on in the GEM side boosters used on the Delta rockets, and the Orion stages of the Pegasus air-launched rocket.

The Soviet equivalent of this missile was the RSS-40 Kuryer which was tested but cancelled in October 1991. This could have filled the role of the more cost effective Topol M road mobile ICBM.

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ a b Rosenthal, Andrew (12 May 1989). "Unarmed Midgetman Missile a Failure in First Test". The New York Times. p. A32. eISSN 1553-8095. ISSN 0362-4331. LCCN sn00061556. OCLC 1645522. Archived from the original on 27 January 2022. Retrieved 6 July 2022. An unarmed Midgetman missile tumbled off course and was destroyed over the Pacific Ocean today about 70 seconds after the Air Force launched the first test flight of the new weapon, which has been at the center of a political struggle between Congress and the Pentagon.
  2. ^ Pike, John (24 July 2011). "MGM-134A Midgetman / Small ICBM". Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). GlobalSecurity.org. Archived from the original on 15 May 2022. Retrieved 6 July 2022. It achieved its first totally successful flight test on 18 April 1991, when a SICBM that had been cold-launched from a canister at Vandenberg AFB reached its target in the Kwajalein Test Range.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  3. ^ Kristensen, Hans; Norris, Robert (27 November 2015) [2014]. "The B61 family of nuclear bombs". Nuclear notebook. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 70 (3): 79–84. doi:10.1177/0096340214531546. eISSN 1938-3282. ISSN 0096-3402. LCCN 48034039. OCLC 470268256. S2CID 146744069. The B61-7 laydown bomb also served as the basis for the W61 program in the late 1980s and early 1990s, an effort to equip a small intercontinental ballistic missile (Midgetman) with a strategic earth-penetrating warhead. Engineering authorization was granted for the W61 in 1990, only to be canceled 18 months later when the George H.W. Bush administration discontinued the Midgetman as the Cold War wound down.
  4. ^ University Of California, Academic Senate (21 November 1989). "III The Laboratories' Current Activities | Table 3: Nuclear Warheads and Bombs Entering New Phases of Design, Development, or Production (Jan. 1985-July 1989)". Subj: Report of the Special Committee of the Academic Senate on the University's Relations With the Department of Energy (DOE) Laboratories (Report). University of California. Archived from the original on 8 March 2021. Retrieved 6 July 2022. This letter forwards a report on the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) as received by the Academic Council. It is the work of a special committee of eight Senate members, started in 1986.
  5. ^ Small Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (SICBM) | Hard Mobile Launcher (HML) (Museum Signage Plate). Wright-Patterson Air Force Base: National Museum of the United States Air Force. n.d. Archived from the original on 29 December 2021. Retrieved 6 July 2022 – via Federation of American Scientists. This vehicle was the last engineering model, or Engineering Test Unit (ETU), of a mobile, raditional-hardened, truck launcher designed to carry and launch the MGM-134A Small Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (unofficially known as "Midgetman"). [...] The vehicle is capable of using the trailer-mounted plow to dig the launcher into the earth for additional protection from a nuclear blast.

Further reading edit

External links edit

 
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