Posted on 01/09/2024 2:42:17 AM PST by davikkm
DurkaDurka
(ROTFLOL)
“Likes The Squad’s Intelligent and Thought-Provoking Discussions”
watch " the African Queen" , Humphrey Bogart knew where and how hard to kick the boiler to keep it from blowing up. That wasnt in any manual.
Also not existing anymore are competent heads of the U.S. Strategic Command who see to it that all existing drawings and instructions for old, but still operational, equipment are maintained to guide any upgrades.
They should asked me. I still remember how to peen welded steel from a stint in a food factory years ago. Easy if you follow the procedure(s) - which I am certain are in my archives.
???
It's almost all done by contract, usually by the same companies that built the equipment. Most of the contractors are former military.
From basic firearms, through the most complex weapons systems, nuclear carriers, satellite systems, etc., they were all built by civilian companies. Adding maintenance to the contract is standard operating procedure.
That is so spot on.
Sad, but spot on.
I have a very good friend who was deployed as maintenance on one of these installations in Montana through his whole hitch.
https://time.com/6212698/nuclear-missiles-icbm-triad-upgrade/
In fact, he was personally there and witnessed the Malmstrom AFB UFO incident in 1967.
I hired on at a semiconductor company only to find that their process was 100% 'tribal knowledge'.
Took me a couple years to document every. single. step.
As a side effect I doubled the yield...
That is way funny.
“no-one had welded steel that thick since 1945”
My grandpa did that. He went to Pearl Harbor to weld damaged ships back together. Apparently also had a randy old time with the locals that nearly destroyed his marriage. I wear his 1960s Pendleton shirts and custom Wyoming shearling coat.
I responded to the initial post after I read an article in post 4 referring to similar issues with the B2 Spirit, A Northrop-Grunman plane.
Lockheed Martin has the plans and ability and engineers with the necessary security clearance to recreate any parts for the ICBM as, I am certain, is in their initial production contract. They are not going to allow some military mechanics McGyver any parts on a nuclear missile.
We know
It’s not just education and brains the new generation is lacking!
https://popularmilitary.com/us-army-general-says-new-recruits-not-strong-enough-throw-grenades/
“We are finding that there are a large number of trainees that come in that quite frankly just physically don’t have the capacity to throw a hand grenade 20 to 25 to 30 meters. In 10 weeks, we are on a 48-hour period; you are just not going to be able to teach someone how to throw if they haven’t thrown growing up.”
Hard to imagine kids that grow up and never learn to throw....anything! Not a baseball, not a football, not a rock. Just a temper tantrum when they’ve been “triggered”!
Same thing with the 16” steel on the battleships of yore.
C’mon, man. /s
Minuteman III Missiles Are Too Old to Upgrade Anymore, STRATCOM Chief Says
The Air Force has awarded Northrop Grumman a $13.3 billion contract to engineer and manufacture its next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile. (U.S. Air Force Photo by Staff Sgt. J.T. Armstrong)
Military.com | By Richard Sisk
Published January 06, 2021
The aging Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles that have formed the land-based leg of the nation’s nuclear deterrent triad for half a century can no longer be upgraded and require costly replacements, Adm. Charles Richard, head of U.S. Strategic Command, said Tuesday.
“Let me be very clear: You cannot life-extend the Minuteman III [any longer],” he said of the 400 ICBMs that sit in underground silos across five states in the upper Midwest.
“We can’t do it at all. ... That thing is so old that, in some cases, the drawings don’t exist anymore [to guide upgrades],” Richard said in a Zoom conference sponsored by the Defense Writers Group.
Read Next: Facing Sexual Assault Charges, Air Force Colonel Heads to Court-Martial
Where the drawings do exist, “they’re like six generations behind the industry standard,” he said, adding that there are also no technicians who fully understand them. “They’re not alive anymore.”
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Richard rejected suggestions by several think tanks that the incoming Biden administration should consider life extensions for the Minuteman IIIs as a cost-saving measure, delaying replacement with new missiles called the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD).
“I don’t understand, frankly, how someone in a think tank, who actually doesn’t have their hands on the missile looking at the parts, the cables, all of the pieces inside” can make judgments on the way forward, he said.
With new GBSD missiles built by Northrop Grumman, “we will replace a 60-year-old, basically circuit switch system with a modern, cyber-defendable, up to current standards command and control system,” Richard explained.
But he had a different take on life extensions for the B-52 Stratofortress bomber fleet, saying that current modernization programs for the B-52H versions of the bomber, which can carry nuclear weapons, are “going quite well.” The aircraft was developed in the 1940s and entered the Air Force inventory in the 1950s.
He said he wants to add command-and-control improvements into the B-52H modernization program but overall, “I’m satisfied with where we are with that.”
According to the Defense Department, the nuclear triad’s bomber force currently consists of 46 nuclear-capable B-52H bombers and 20 B-2A Spirit aircraft. The undersea leg consists of 14 Ohio-class submarines, each equipped with Trident II missiles; and the land leg consists of the 400 Minuteman IIIs.
In assessing the effectiveness of the nation’s nuclear deterrent, Richard warned of Russia and China’s growing capabilities and the challenges ahead for the U.S.
“What’s different in the world today than it was, say, back in the Cold War [is the fact that] this nation has never before had to face the prospect of two near-peer, nuclear-capable adversaries who have to be deterred differently,” he said. “Actions done to deter one have an impact on the other. This is way more complicated than it used to be.”
The U.S. also must contend with the divergent worldviews of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, he said, explaining, “Putin makes decisions differently than Xi.”
Richard said he has made his concerns known in several meetings with President-elect Joe Biden’s transition teams. Without giving specifics, he said the meetings had “gone very well” and added that he is open to a review of the nation’s current nuclear strategy, should the incoming administration find it necessary.
The 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, conducted by then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on the order of President Donald Trump, called for a $1.2 trillion modernization of the triad, with an estimated $85 billion going to the new GBSD missile system.
The review stated that all three legs of the triad will be vital to the nation’s defense for the foreseeable future. “Eliminating any leg of the triad would greatly ease adversary attack planning and allow an adversary to concentrate resources and attention on defeating the remaining two legs,” it said.
One of the review’s controversial recommendations was a call for the development of small-yield nuclear weapons to be placed on ballistic submarines to counter Russia’s stockpile of small-yield weapons.
Last January, the Federation of American Scientists reported that a small-yield W76-2 Trident submarine warhead had been deployed aboard the Ohio-class submarine Tennessee. The Navy declined to confirm the deployment.
Richard said he looks forward to a discussion with the incoming administration on small-yield weapons as part of a new review of the nuclear deterrence mission.
“I welcome an examination of the nation’s strategy here,” he said. “I recommend that, based on the threat. … The threat is moving so fast that, even given the [short] time since the last Nuclear Posture Review, [it] warrants another look at it to make sure that we still endorse our strategy, and we have sufficient capability to execute that strategy.”
He said STRATCOM is “prepared to execute whatever the political leadership of this nation would like to do.”
LOL...... I am reminded of my conversations with sailors on a Nuclear SUB at Cocoa Beach, FL back in the mid-late 60s. Their sub was at the Cape, test firing the Polaris. They said that, due to the paperwork and long delays in getting basic discrete electronic components (resisters, capacitors, etc.) through requistions, they often resorted to buying parts from the local Radio Shack store! Obviously, those components were not top notch 1% acccuracy items but, they were available off the shelf and restored dead circuits aboard the sub.
Government procurement red tape often leads to innovative solutions in all agencies!
Okay, play on “leading edge”?
Tee hee.
Ping
That’s the spamiest link I’ve clicked in a long time.
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