Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!military
From: amdcad!amdcad.AMD.COM!cdr@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Carl Rigney)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Reliability of Ballistic Missiles
Summary: 20% or less
Message-ID: <6706@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 19 May 89 01:41:22 GMT
References: <6594@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM
Organization: Advanced Micro Devices
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Approved: military@att.att.com



From: amdcad!amdcad.AMD.COM!cdr@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Carl Rigney)

In _The Threat_, Andrew Cockburn suggests that perhaps 10-20% of our
ICBMs would make it to Russia; whether they would hit what they're
aimed at ...  obviously we've never fired one over the poll to see if
the guidance models are accurate.

Note that the US has *never* fired a missile from an operational silo -
they move them to a special test silo and (I believe) spend a month or
two going over them very carefully before launch.

The Russian missiles are almost certainly much less reliable than
ours.  Isn't liquid fuel fun?  (Especially on those Russian boomers!)

I'd be interested in other people's sources.  I find Cockburn
convincing (his other comments on the Soviet army match well with
Suvorov and other sources I've seen), but I'm willing to have my mind
changed.

	--Carl Rigney
	cdr@amdcad.AMD.COM
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