Minuteman Weapon System History and Description (2001) [pdf]

https://minutemanmissile.com/documents/MinutemanWeaponSystemHistoryAndDescription.pdf

by Bezod • 2 years ago

94 55 2 years ago

lwhalen2• 2 years ago

Gosh I really wish this WASN'T of general interest these days, but in the immortal punchline of Dave Chappelle - "I understand"

trollerator236• 2 years ago

What?

lwhalen2• 2 years ago

I said:

Gosh I really wish this WASN'T of general interest these days, but in the immortal punchline of Dave Chappelle - "I understand"

timekiller• 2 years ago

Wasn’t that Chris rock in his bit about O.J.?

detourdog8• 2 years ago

I feel compelled to post some images of inertial guidance systems. Most of these parts are from the Minuteman 1 although there are some earlier and later guidance system components.

The white backplane and the gyroscopes are Minuteman 1 parts.

https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0YG4TcsmGWIVSf

trollerator236• 2 years ago

Good ole' Autonetics.

BTW you can see some of these at the Air and Space Museum in DC, and a smaller set at the Computer Science Museum in ... Palo Alto? Mountain View? (that area)

fragmede• 2 years ago

Mountain View

https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/10268625...

iab3• 2 years ago

These are great, how did you come across / where did you get them?

detourdog8• 2 years ago

I have been collecting Autonetics material since the early days of eBay.

jcims• 2 years ago

The MGS is an inertial guidance system which directs the flight of the missile. The guidance system operates continuously while the missile is in alert status, thus enabling the missile to be launched in less than one minute.

I wonder how often the missile is in alert status? Presumably regular testing?

For those just skimming the guidance system info (for Minuteman III) starts on page 49. Looks like they miniaturized it some and that giant moon lander backplane seems to be substantially reduced?

Amazing pics, thanks for sharing!

teeray• 2 years ago

Apart from regular testing, I would imagine anything at or above DEFCON 3 would put missiles in alert status. That level requires the USAF to be ready to go in 15 minutes.

jdubner• 2 years ago

I wonder how often the missile is in alert status?

In 1972-74 when I was a Minuteman I launch officer (DMCCC) our 10 missiles were /always/ on alert. You would expect to see 10 green "Strategic Alert" lights across the crew commander's (MCCC's) console unless something was wrong (requiring maintenance or a brief calibration).

IIRC we were in a perpetual state of DEFCON 4 in those days.

dumah• 2 years ago

Regular testing is one of the few times a US ICBM would _not_ be in alert status.

Ground-based launchers are not survivable and must be ready to fire promptly after attack warning.

nocoiner• 2 years ago

This has more detail than I would have expected, but I see there’s virtually nothing about the reentry bus. From what I’ve read, that’s where most of the secret sauce involving accuracy comes into play.

detourdog8• 2 years ago

What I know about re-entry is that while out of the atmosphere it was using star charts to determine location.

My favorite fact is that the hard drive also acted as the clock. Each rotation grabbed the program codes from the disk to execute them.

trollerator236• 2 years ago

What do you mean, the warhead (the reentry body) or the last stage? Because the warhead is passive.

lobochrome• 2 years ago

It's bizarre that this type of information is made publicly available due to freedom of information legislation. What is the benefit? Or is it merely an acceptable side effect of the greater good that FoIA delivers?

Not that my curiosity isn't triggered, but...

ghaff3• 2 years ago

I guess… Why wouldn’t it be? At some point why would you keep it classified?

Funnily enough I’m just reading a book on Draper Labs and there’s a huge amount of detail on old inertial guidance systems.

pinewurst2• 2 years ago

The book to read is “Inventing Accuracy” by Donald Mackenzie

ThisIsMyAltAcct• 2 years ago

What is the benefit?

Sticking to our principles

CTDOCodebases• 2 years ago

Maybe they know the information has already been compromised.

Also what kind of a deterrence is this if the enemy doesn’t know about it?

LargeTomato• 2 years ago

We want to make sure people believe in the deterrent. If people start to think they could take out all of our nukes somehow that would be dangerous.

vkou2• 2 years ago

It would almost be as dangerous as us building a system that we think could take out all of their nukes.

dopa42365• 2 years ago

How many decades of well known mutually assured destruction would you consider adequate to release this information?

Not exactly a new system, surely has been inspected many times by all major nuclear powers over the years.

fergie• 2 years ago

It might be part of a disinformation campaign- a mostly correct document that includes some intentional inaccuracies or falsehoods.

KineticLensman• 2 years ago

It's lacking in information of real military value, e.g. accuracy, failure rate, effectiveness of countermeasures, precise alloys used, etc. It's basically a description of a rocket, which probably isn't a surprise to other nations who are themselves building rockets.

trollerator236• 2 years ago

Exactly. There's nothing here that "they" don't know already.

PostOnce• 2 years ago

If you like this site you'll also like www.ed-thelen.org (about Nike missiles)

ghaff3• 2 years ago

There’s also a Nike site across the Golden Gate Bridge from SF.

m1keil• 2 years ago

Related: Command and Control by Eric Schlosser

Great book.

cameldrv• 2 years ago

On the guidance side, "Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance" is awesome.

dmd• 2 years ago

As implied in the title, this book focuses on sociology and philosophy of science and has very little technical content.

jrmcauliffe• 2 years ago

Genuine page turner.

daltonlp• 2 years ago

And on the policy side:

The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner by Daniel Ellsberg

DavidPeiffer• 2 years ago

South Dakota is home to a preserved missile site. I'd highly recommend stopping by if you're ever in the area. It was fascinating to see the control room as the tour guides talked through the launch protocol.

Back in high school ~17 years ago I came across a website talking about it, then a couple months later on a road trip, I remembered it as we were driving though South Dakota. We were about 7 miles away when I remembered, and it was well worth stopping.

https://www.nps.gov/mimi/index.htm

bufordtwain• 2 years ago

It's very interesting. I think you have to book ahead for a tour these days.

ricksunny2• 2 years ago

Fun fact: The Air Force's Minuteman guru, Edward Hall,

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_N._Hall

had a brother in the Manhattan Project, Theodore Hall,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Hall

who passed early atomic weapon design information to the USSR.

The irony of a family exercising pivotal roles on both sides of a global power-shaping conflict. The 2nd Wikipedia article's cited background, from The Nation:

https://www.thenation.com/article/world/ted-hall-espionage-f...

2OEH8eoCRo0• 2 years ago

I love the artwork on this Minuteman blast door: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Minutema...

Minuteman Weapon System History and Description (2001) [pdf]

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