The Titan II had twice the payload as the original version and featured a storable fueling system. The new modifications gave the Titan II the capability to fire from its underground silo, though the fuel was highly toxic and experienced many leaks that made the weapon difficult to handle. After a briefing by Col. Boeing Airplane Company won the contract to assemble and test this weapon in September Malmstrom was the only base to house the Minuteman 1A and received the first one on July 23, As the smallest ICBM ever deployed, the Minuteman 1A was initially designed to be a mobile weapon, which limited its range and firepower, compared to other models.
On Feb. On Oct. The Minuteman II was not only an upgrade in size from the Minuteman I models, but also introduced a new guidance system and had the capacity of storing up to eight sets of target coordinates. This new system would also be resistant to a nuclear blast. The first tested silo launch of the Minuteman II was achieved on Aug.
White described the launch as "one of the most significant steps this Nation has ever taken toward gaining intercontinental missile supremacy. By the time the flight test took place, the Air Force was already planning for Minuteman missile deployment.
The missile would be sited inside fixed, underground facilities; it was to have a quick launch reaction; it was to be stored in a launching position; the launch site would require minimal support; and the launch units were to be self-supporting for two weeks. Turning these ideas into reality, however, proved difficult. Before the missiles could be fired, servicemen had to raise each missile vertically on a launch pad and add fuel.
The later Titan and Atlas F series missiles were stored upright in underground silos capped with massive "clamshell" doors. But Air Force engineers were worried that vibrations from the rocket engines might shake the missiles apart before launch. As a result, the Air Force equipped each silo with an elevator that raised the missile to the surface for firing.
Although the missiles were stored with their tanks full of fuel, workers still needed to add volatile liquid oxygen right before launch. The Air Force took a major step toward achieving its ideal basing system in with the development of Titan II, which used storable liquid propellants. The Air Force could store Titan II missiles with fully-loaded propellant tanks, and fire them directly from underground silos.
Nonetheless, Titan II missiles still needed constant attention from an on-site crew. Historian Ernest Schwiebert noted:. With the successful utilization of solid propellants, the Minuteman could hide in its lethal lair like a shotgun shell, ready for instant firing. The operational launcher could be unmanned, underground, and hardened to withstand the surface burst of a nuclear weapon.
Each launcher housed a single weapon and the equipment necessary to support and fire it, and required only periodic maintenance. The missiles could be fired Just as ICBMs evolved, so did their launch facilities. The first Atlas missiles were stored upright on launch pads, where they were vulnerable to attack. Later, the missiles were kept in horizontal, concrete "coffins" and raised vertically before launch.
President John F. Power right , and Lt. General Howell M. Estes, Jr. The Air Force wanted to deploy Minuteman as a single, immense, "missile farm," equipped with as many as 1, missiles. However, the Air Force soon determined that "for reasons of economy launchers should be concentrated in a single area, whenever possible, and that no area should contain fewer than 50 missiles. Each squadron was further subdivided into five smaller units, called "flights.
The silos were separated from the launch control facility and from each other by a distance of several miles. But when early models of Minuteman missiles fell short of their intended 5,mile range, the Air Force selected sites in the northern part of the United States, which was closer to the Soviet Union.
In the event of a nuclear accident or attack, the low population density near Malmstrom AFB would minimize civilian casualties. In addition, the region offered an established network of roads and, like much of the West, a large amount of easy-to-acquire public land. In the spring of , the Associated Press reported that the Montana silos were being "rushed to completion," and that the first missiles, each loaded with "one megaton of death and destruction," would be ready by late summer.
Air Force crews began lowering the weapons into the silos at the end of July, and Malmstrom AFB's first ten-missile flight was hurriedly activated on October 27, , at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Military strategists began planning for a second Minuteman installation shortly after work got underway at Malmstrom AFB.
In June , the Air Force was authorized to add another missiles to the Minuteman force. By early October, military strategists had narrowed their search for a new site to three locations in North and South Dakota.
The Air Corps used the airfield to train B bomber crews, and Ellsworth eventually served as home base for many of America's largest strategic bombers.
The base was also headquarters for a Titan I missile squadron. Each squadron was further subdivided into five smaller units, called flights. A flight consisted of a single, manned, underground launch control center LCC , which was linked through a system of underground cables to ten, unmanned, launch facilities LF. Each LF held one Minuteman missile stored in an underground silo. The silos were separated from the LCC and each other by a distance of several miles.
Although the Defense Department had not yet officially authorized the South Dakota Minuteman installation, Senator Case wanted the land acquired immediately so there would be "no loss of valuable time" once the project was approved. Local ranchers did not share Case's sense of urgency. Fearing that the government might offer below-market prices for their land, the ranchers established the Missile Area Landowners' Association to negotiate fair prices.
The association assured fellow citizens that its actions would "not necessarily slow the national defense effort. By June , Boeing was busy improving the infrastructure.
Anticipating that the project would bring in more than 3, workers, the company raced to build mobile home camps and cafeterias near Wall, Sturgis, Belle Fourche, and Union Center, as well as in Rapid City.
By early summer, more than three-quarters of the local landowners agreed to give the government access to their land. Once the sites were finalized, the Ralph M. Parsons Company, an architectural and engineering firm from Los Angeles, prepared plans for the Minuteman installation. In July , four of the nation's largest construction firms submitted bids for the project. The festivities started with a bang. Despite extreme cold, high winds, and heavy snowfall, construction proceeded at a furious pace through the winter of In mid-December, the Corps of Engineers told reporters that "men are working seven days a week, three shifts a day on Minuteman construction.
Each takes from four to ten days. If this guy in Russia wants to start a show, we'll be there to put a hole in him to the best of our ability. By early summer of , the steel fabrication was finished at all South Dakota sites, and crews were completing the silos at the rate of one per day. On the last day of June, the first 20 silos were turned over to the Strategic Air Command.
The work was completed nearly three weeks ahead of schedule. The Rapid City Journal described how a Minuteman silo was built: "Conventional earthmoving equipment scoops an open cut 12 feet deep. A backhoe perclies on the edge of a large hole in this cut and digs a hole 20 feet deeper. Reinforced concrete is poured between the can and earth. Subsequent U. The competition to build rockets now also became a competition to reach space. I n October the R-7 launched Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite.
The Peacekeeper was only deployed in Wyoming and housed in retrofitted Minuteman silos. The Peacekeeper also used solid fuel technology, which gave it all the advantages of the Minuteman, but with much greater potential firepower.
It was deployed from until The Ground Based Strategic Deterrent is a next generation intercontinental ballistic missile under development for the U. Air Force.
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