Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!ukma!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!cbnews!esco@tank.uchicago.edu From: esco@tank.uchicago.edu (ross paul weiner) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: ABM Message-ID: <6265@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 5 May 89 00:35:06 GMT Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM Lines: 65 Approved: military@att.att.com From: ross paul weiner Newsgroups: sci.military In-Reply-To: <6183@cbnews.ATT.COM> References: <5553@cbnews.ATT.COM> <5739@cbnews.ATT.COM> <5881@cbnews.ATT.COM> Organization: University of Chicago Computation Center Cc: esco Bcc: In article <6183@cbnews.ATT.COM> you write: >From: asulaima@udenva.cair.du.edu (SULAIMAN) >In article <5881@cbnews.ATT.COM> mchamp@wpi.wpi.edu (Marc J. Champagne) writes: >>The Moscow ABM system DOES NOT contain any X-ray laser weapons. It >> consists of a series of Galosh interceptor missiles housed in >> above-ground canister launchers and a smaller high acceleration >> missile housed in an underground concrete lined launcher. There >> are a total of 100 launchers, although the high-acceleration >> missile bunkers may have several missiles in a "ready magazine" (a >> violation of the '72 ABM treaty, but that's another story). >As I recall the ABM treaty allowed each side to have one ABM site however >development of new ABM systens was banned. The Sovs as mentioned put their >system around Moscow. The US for reasons best known chose not to put such a >system up. I imagine it might have been hard to sell that Washington really >needed to be saved :-) But I think they were considering utilising this >option when the MX were all going to be put into silos in a very small specific >area. I think it was a while back and the deployment had a catchy name >associated with it. Obviously not very memorable. > Ameer Z. Sulaiman. > >[mod.note: I know this has been covered fairly recently, but as I >couldn't remember the names and sites involved, I figured many others >didn't, either. Someone care to set the record straight ? - Bill ] Dense Pack, a basicly good idea that was ridiculed to death. The original ABM treaty allowed two sites with 100 interceptors each. One was to be at the national capital and one at a missile field. Due to some obvious geography et al we realized this was not a great deal, the treaty was amended to allow only one site each. I'm refering to the fact that their capital is in the middle of the Eurasian landmass and is the hub of their economy, ie both defensible and worth defending. Our capital is arguably neither. Densepack would have consisted of 100 MX missiles located within 1 square mile. When combined with hardening, dust defence (ground blast nuclear explosions north and south of the missile field to raise destructive dust clouds), ABM, and the fratricidal effect that incoming missiles coming in fast enough to attempt a pin down of our missiles would have on each other the result would have been the expenditure of far more than 1000 hard target warheads by the attacker in any first strike effort to eliminate the 1000 MX warheads. Within the SALT/ABM constraints the soviets would have to expend their entire hard target kill capability on a portion of our forces. If they broke out from the treaty or if we opted for a STAR WARS type active defense the basing mode would still have been useful. The beauty of the idea was that, unlike other basing-defense schemes, we would clearly benefit more from every dollar spent on adding a missile or a defense than they would gain from every dollar or ruble spent trying to defeat the system. Enviornmentally and economically it was a lot nicer than the MPS shell game. Ross P. Weiner Dandy Dirks Discount Disclaimers esco@tank.uchicago.edu "You can't sue me, I'm broke!"