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Found at: gopher.quux.org:70/Archives/usenet-a-news/FA.arms-d/81.06.04_ucbvax.1517_fa.arms-d.txt

Aucbvax.1517
fa.arms-d
utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!CBF@MIT-MC
Thu Jun  4 00:06:28 1981
SALTed MIRVs
			       Now, if SALT forced MIRVing, then we are
    now building less economical missiles than we otherwise would: it's
    cheaper to build 10 unMIRVed missiles-with-single-warheads than 1 MIRVed
    single-missile-10-warheads.  I may be dense, but why aren't ten such
    independently enmissiled warheads more dangerous than one MIRVed one
    (assuming for the sake of argument that they are of equal cost).  Remember
    the old saying "Don't put all your eggs in one basket."?
Just where did you come up with the idea that 10 missiles with single
warheads are cheaper than 1 missile with 10 warheads?  This is the
opposite of the truth.  To a first approximation the warheads are free.
Boosters are expensive.  Silos + the rest of the ground support (launch
crew etc.) are even more expensive.  MIRVing was viewed as a great saving
for the U.S.  Not necessarily that we thought we needed more warheads were
needed to deter a first strike, but that a smaller number of surviving
boosters could still deliver a devastating retaliation.  The chances that
the Soviets would launch a first strike are obviously reduced if they fell
they must destroy 95% of our missles rather than 80% (these numbers are
purely hypothetical).  More important perhaps than the MIRVing of the
Minuteman was the Posiedon; a single surviving Polaris class submarine
could deliver something on the order of 160 warheads (each apx. 100 Kt
according to published sources).
I think therefore it is fairly clear that MIRVing is not a totally
senseless idea in the context of a rtaliatory strike.  Unfortunately it is
also clear that the concept provides a first strike attacker with a much
greater advantage.  With 20/20 hindsight, perhaps we might have been more
secure had we not intented and proven the concept for the Soviets; on the
other hand that reasoning is rather condescending in our opinion of the
Russian imagination.  It is clear we would be in far worse shape now had
the Russians come up with and implemented MIRVing without our having done
so.
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 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.


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