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From: MG9G%CMCCTF@sri-unix.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re:Land/Sea based ICBMs/Cruise missiles
Message-ID: <1356@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 28-Jun-84 08:56:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.1356
Posted: Thu Jun 28 08:56:44 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 1-Jul-84 04:27:59 EDT
Lines: 20


	Beg to differ.  If ICBMs are replaced by cruise missiles, that
doesn't necessarily rule out nuclear holocaust.  Certainly, at the 
present time cruise missiles carry smaller warheads than ICBMs, but
only because they are designed with a different purpose.  So the ALCM
or the Tomahawk can only carry a 5KT(Not sure if that's true-but it's
good enough for the sake of argument) warhead, while a Minuteman III
carries 3 1.5MT warheads.  Picture, if you will, a cruise missile the
size of an F-14, and tell me that it will have a smaller warhead.

	What so many people seem to ignore or rule out when postulating
plans for various kinds of disarmament is that any time you find a way
to stop a weapon, someone, somewhere, finds a new way to use it.  
If ICBMs become obsolete, cruise missiles will fill the gap.  When
the US, or the USSR, surrounds their coastline with Phalanx CIWS to
shoot down the cruise missiles, sommeone will come up with something
else.  And so it goes...
							Deej
							(mg9g@cmu-cc-tf)
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