Heavy Barrel is an overhead run and gun video game released for arcades in 1987 by Data East .
95-446: Terrorists have seized the underground control complex of a nuclear missile site, and it is up to the player to infiltrate the base and kill the enemy leader. Players begin armed with a gun with unlimited ammunition and a limited supply of grenades. Improved weapons and grenade powerups are made available within the game, either in plain sight or within crates that must be unlocked using keys. Additionally, crates may contain orbs or one of
190-513: A Labor Day weekend in 1973, a meeting of about twelve military officers at the Pentagon discussed the creation of a Defense Navigation Satellite System (DNSS) . It was at this meeting that "the real synthesis that became GPS was created." Later that year, the DNSS program was named Navstar , or Navigation System Using Timing and Ranging. During the development of the submarine-launched Polaris missile,
285-593: A Soviet first strike was being prepared for. This led to the development of the aforementioned Pershing II , the Trident I and Trident II , as well as the MX missile , and the B-1 Lancer . MIRVed land-based ICBMs are considered destabilizing because they tend to put a premium on striking first. When a missile is MIRVed, it is able to carry many warheads (up to 8 in existing U.S. missiles, limited by New START , though Trident II
380-510: A West Bloomfield Township , Michigan company. The graphics engine and much of the gameplay was in place, but the development company folded before the project could be finished. In February 2010, Majesco Entertainment published Heavy Barrel for the Wii , as part of Data East Arcade Classics , and for the Zeebo . In Japan, Game Machine listed Heavy Barrel on their January 15, 1988 issue as being
475-545: A decapitation strike or a countervalue strike , a counterforce strike might result in a potentially more constrained retaliation. Though the Minuteman III of the mid-1960s was MIRVed with 3 warheads, heavily MIRVed vehicles threatened to upset the balance; these included the SS-18 Satan which was deployed in 1976, and was considered to threaten Minuteman III silos, which led some neoconservatives (" Team B ") to conclude
570-414: A second-strike retaliation anywhere in the world. France also has a number of nuclear capable fighter aircraft. Both have nuclear policies that are believed to be effective deterrence towards a would-be nuclear strike against themselves, NATO, European Union members, and other allies. MIRVed land-based ICBMs are generally considered suitable for a first strike or a counterforce strike, due to: Unlike
665-534: A "non-discriminatory" space-based missile defense system, even if it is—actually, precisely because it is—of global reach. Such a system would be designed to destroy all weapons launched by any nation in a ballistic trajectory, negating any nation's capability to launch any strike with ballistic missiles, assuming the system was sufficiently robust to repel attacks from all potential threats, and built to open standards openly agreed upon and adhered to. No such system has yet been seriously proposed. According to
760-553: A "read" on the strategic intentions of U.S. leaders, as well as inflammatory U.S. rhetoric combined with classical Soviet mistrust of the NATO powers. This culminated in a war scare that occurred during 1983 due to the inopportune timing of a NATO exercise called Able Archer , which was a simulation of a NATO nuclear attack on the Soviet Union; this exercise happened to occur during a massive Soviet intelligence mobilization called VRYAN , that
855-652: A bunker under Kosvinsky Kamen, who can then, if they so determine, launch Russia's arsenal. Instead of relying on sophisticated communications links and launch-on-warning postures, the French, the British, and the Chinese have chosen to assume different nuclear postures more suited to minimum credible deterrence or the capability to inflict unacceptable losses to prevent the use of nuclear weapons against them, rather than pursuing types of nuclear weapons suitable to first-strike use. China
950-584: A cruise missile attack. Prior to the development of nuclear-armed submarine-launched ballistic missiles , the United States and the Soviet Union conducted their first at-sea deterrence patrols using modified submarines armed with very large nuclear-armed cruise missiles ; The US operated various diesel-electric submarines armed with the Regulus missile , and the Soviets operated Modified Whiskey -class armed with
1045-431: A device into orbit, they could equally cause a device to re-enter the atmosphere and impact any part of the planet. John F. Kennedy capitalized on this situation by emphasizing the bomber gap and the missile gap , areas in which the Soviets were (inaccurately) perceived as leading the United States, while heated Soviet rhetoric added to political pressure. The 1960 U-2 incident , involving Francis Gary Powers , as well as
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#17330923036181140-459: A direct nuclear hit, but a sufficiently hardened silo could defend against a near miss, especially if the detonation is not from a multimegaton thermonuclear weapon . In addition, ICBMs can be placed on road or rail-mobile launchers ( RT-23 Molodets , RT-2PM2 Topol-M , DF-31 , Agni 5 , Agni 6 , MGM-134 Midgetman ), which can then be moved around. As an enemy has nothing fixed at which to aim, that increases its survivability. The effectiveness of
1235-402: A first strike is contingent upon the aggressor's ability to deplete its enemy's retaliatory capacity immediately to a level that would make a second strike impossible, mitigable, or strategically undesirable. Intelligence and early warning systems increase the probability that the enemy has the time to launch its own strike before its warmaking capacity has been significantly reduced, which renders
1330-506: A first strike pointless. Alert states such as DEFCON conditions, apart from serving a purpose in the internal management of a country's military, can have the effect of advising a potential aggressor that an escalation towards first strike has been detected and therefore that effective retaliatory strikes could be made in the event of an attack. Looking Glass , Nightwatch , and TACAMO are US airborne nuclear command posts and represent survivable communication links with US nuclear forces. In
1425-458: A fuse to initiate detonation. US nuclear weapons that met these criteria are designated by the letter "B" followed, without a hyphen, by the sequential number of the " physics package " it contains. The " B61 ", for example, was the primary bomb in the US arsenal for decades. Various air-dropping techniques exist, including toss bombing , parachute -retarded delivery, and laydown modes, intended to give
1520-409: A high kill ratio could be achieved easily. As the number of targets increases, the defensive network becomes "saturated" as each asset must target and destroy more and more warheads in the same window of time. Eventually the system will reach a maximum number of targets destroyed and after this point all additional warheads will penetrate the defenses. This leads to several destabilizing effects. First,
1615-547: A navigational fix approximately once per hour. In 1967, the US Navy developed the Timation satellite that proved the ability to place accurate clocks in space, a technology required by the latter Global Positioning System . In the 1970s, the ground-based Omega Navigation System , based on phase comparison of signal transmission from pairs of stations, became the first worldwide radio navigation system. Limitations of these systems drove
1710-522: A nuclear first strike capability, was greatly feared during the Cold War between NATO and the Soviet Bloc . At various points, fear of a first strike attack existed on both sides. Misunderstood changes in posture and well understood changes in technology used by either side often led to speculation regarding the enemy's intentions. In the aftermath of World War II , the leadership of the Soviet Union feared
1805-751: A nuclear strike to be launched with reduced fear of mutual assured destruction . Such a system has never been deployed, although a limited continental missile defense capability has been deployed by the U.S., but it is capable of defending against only a handful of missiles. This does not apply, in general, to terminal missile defense systems, such as the former U.S. Safeguard Program or the Russian A-35 / A-135 systems. Limited-area terminal missile defense systems, defending such targets as ICBM fields, or C ISTAR facilities may, in fact, be stabilizing, because they ensure survivable retaliatory capacity, and/or survivable de-escalation capacity. This also might not apply to
1900-605: A requirement to accurately know the submarine's location was needed to ensure a high circular error probable warhead target accuracy. This led the US to develop the Transit system. In 1959, ARPA (renamed DARPA in 1972) also played a role in Transit. The first satellite navigation system, Transit , used by the United States Navy , was first successfully tested in 1960. It used a constellation of five satellites and could provide
1995-495: A single missile to strike multiple targets, or to inflict maximum damage on a single target by attacking it with multiple warheads. It makes anti-ballistic missile defense even more difficult, and even less economically viable, than before. Missile warheads in the American arsenal are indicated by the letter "W"; for example, the W61 missile warhead would have the same physics package as
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#17330923036182090-444: A state that is not building similar defenses may be encouraged to attack before the system is in place, essentially starting the war while there is no clear advantage instead of waiting until they will be at a distinct disadvantage after the defenses are completed. Second, one of the easiest ways to counter any proposed defenses is to simply build more warheads and missiles, reaching that saturation point sooner and hitting targets through
2185-430: A strategy of attrition. Third, and most importantly, since defenses are more effective against small numbers of warheads, a nation with a defense system is actually encouraged to engage in a counterforce first strike. The smaller retaliatory strike is then more easily destroyed by the defense system than a full attack would be. This undermines the doctrine of MAD by discrediting a nation's ability to punish any aggressor with
2280-423: A three-branched nuclear capability is to significantly reduce the possibility that an enemy could destroy all of a nation's nuclear forces in a first-strike attack; this, in turn, ensures a credible threat of a second strike , and thus increases a nation's nuclear deterrence . Historically the first method of nuclear weapons delivery, and the method used in the twin instances of nuclear warfare in history,
2375-476: A tourist attraction. The Russians have a system called SPRN (СПРН), which can detect nuclear launches and providing early warning so that any such strike would not be undetected until it is too late. However, their unique and special capability can be found with their Dead Hand fail-deadly computerized nuclear release system, which is based at Kosvinsky Kamen in the Urals . Apparently, Dead Hand, named for either
2470-406: A wide arc of fire and can be fired as fast as the player's trigger finger permits, but after thirty seconds its use is exhausted, at which point the bearer reverts to his previous weaponry. The Heavy Barrel is best used to get past tough bosses, and the game only contains enough pieces to allow the weapon to be built three times in a single game. In a two-player game, whoever collects the sixth piece
2565-471: Is a jet- or rocket-propelled missile that flies aerodynamically at low altitude using an automated guidance system (usually inertial navigation , sometimes supplemented by either GPS or mid-course updates from friendly forces) to make them harder to detect or intercept. Cruise missiles can carry a nuclear warhead. They have a shorter range and smaller payloads than ballistic missiles, so their warheads are smaller and less powerful. The AGM-86 ALCM
2660-645: Is believed that the, in development successor to the nuclear A-135, the A-235 Samolet-M , will dispense with nuclear interception warheads and instead rely on a conventional hit-to-kill capability to destroy its target. Small, two-man portable tactical weapons (erroneously referred to as suitcase bombs ), such as the Special Atomic Demolition Munition , have been developed, although the difficulty to combine sufficient yield with portability limits their military utility. According to an audit by
2755-562: Is believed to be the Pentagon 's relocation site if Washington, DC , is destroyed, as well as Mount Weather , located in Virginia , which is believed to be the relocation site for top executive branch officials. The Greenbrier , located in West Virginia , was once the site of the Supreme Court of the United States and Congress 's relocation bunker, but it is no longer a secret but is now
2850-627: Is believed to pursue a minimum credible deterrent / second strike strategy with regards to the US. That may or may not be true with regards to China's stance with regard to Russia, as few Chinese nuclear platforms are intercontinental, and most of the platforms are deployed on the Russian-Chinese border. Unlike relations of the US and China, Russia and China have had military conflicts in the past. In recent years, China has improved its early warning systems and has renovated certain of its platforms for intercontinental strike, which may or may not be due to
2945-422: Is capable of carrying up to 12 ) and deliver them to separate targets. If it is assumed that each side has 100 missiles, with 5 warheads each, and further that each side has a 95 percent chance of neutralizing the opponent's missiles in their silos by firing 2 warheads at each silo, then the attacking side can reduce the enemy ICBM force from 100 missiles to about 5 by firing 40 missiles with 200 warheads, and keeping
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3040-636: Is equipped with the Heavy Barrel. Heavy Barrel ports by Quicksilver Software for the Apple II and MS-DOS were released in 1989. The NES port was developed by Data East and released in North America and Japan in 1990. All versions of Heavy Barrel were published by Data East. In 1989, Heavy Barrel was contracted to be ported to the Commodore 64 by F.A.C.S. (Financial Accounting and Computing Software),
3135-403: Is greatly decreased by the distance from the impact point of the nuclear weapon. So a near-direct hit is generally necessary, as only diminishing returns are gained by increasing bomb power. Any missile defense system capable of wide-area (e.g., continental) coverage, and especially those enabling destruction of missiles in the boost phase, is a first-strike-enabling weapon because it allows for
3230-557: Is limited only by food supply. It is unlikely that any conceivable opponent of any nuclear power deploying ballistic missile submarines can locate and neutralize every ballistic missile submarine before it launches a retaliatory strike in the event of war. Therefore, to increase the percentage of nuclear forces surviving a first strike, a nation can simply increase SSBN deployment and the deployment of reliable communications links with SSBNs. In addition, land-based ICBM silos can be hardened. No missile launch facility can really defend against
3325-694: Is the US Air Force 's current nuclear-armed air-launched cruise missile . The ALCM is only carried on the B-52 Stratofortress which can carry 20 missiles. Thus the cruise missiles themselves can be compared with MIRV warheads. The BGM/UGM-109 Tomahawk submarine-launched cruise missile is capable of carrying nuclear warheads, but all nuclear warheads were removed following the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty . Cruise missiles may also be launched from mobile launchers on
3420-497: Is twofold. It results in a tighter target impact circular error probable and therefore by extension, reduces the need for the earlier generation of heavy multi- megaton nuclear warheads, such as the W53 to ensure the target is destroyed. With increased target accuracy, a greater number of lighter, multi-kiloton range warheads can be packed on a given missile , giving a higher number of separate targets that can be hit per missile. During
3515-567: The AIR-2 Genie . Further developments of this concept, some with much larger warheads, led to the early anti-ballistic missiles . The United States have largely taken nuclear air-defense weapons out of service with the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Russia updated its nuclear armed Soviet era anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system, known as the A-135 anti-ballistic missile system in 1995. It
3610-601: The Bay of Pigs Invasion in April 1961. During the crisis, Fidel Castro wrote Khrushchev a letter about the prospect that the "imperialists" would be "extremely dangerous" if they responded militarily to the Soviet stationing of nuclear missiles aimed at US territory, less than 90 miles away in Cuba. The following quotation from the letter suggests that Castro was calling for a Soviet first strike against
3705-761: The Berlin Crisis , along with the test of the Tsar Bomba , escalated tensions still further. This escalating situation came to a head with the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The arrival of Soviet missiles in Cuba was conducted by the Soviets on the rationale that the US already had nuclear missiles stationed in Turkey , as well as the desire by Fidel Castro to increase his power, his freedom of action, and to protect his government from US invasion, such as had been attempted during
3800-541: The Brookings Institution , between 1940 and 1996, the US spent $ 11.3 trillion in present-day terms on nuclear weapons programs. 57 percent of which was spent on building delivery mechanisms for nuclear weapons. 6.3 percent of the total, $ 709 billion in present-day terms, was spent on weapon nuclear waste management, for example, cleaning up the Hanford site with environmental remediation , and 7 percent of
3895-562: The Medium Atomic Demolition Munition and the novel Blue Peacock , nuclear depth bombs , and nuclear torpedoes . An 'Atomic Bazooka' was also fielded, designed to be used against large formations of tanks. In the 1950s the US developed small nuclear warheads for air defense use, such as the Nike Hercules . From the 1950s to the 1980s, the United States and Canada fielded a low-yield nuclear armed air-to-air rocket ,
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3990-638: The Meteor 1 was launched on 26 March 1969 on the Vostok rocket , a derivative of the R-7 ICBM . WD-40 was first used by Convair to protect the outer skin, and more importantly, the paper thin "balloon tanks" of the Atlas missile from rust and corrosion. These stainless steel fuel tanks were so thin that, when empty, they had to be kept inflated with nitrogen gas to prevent their collapse. In 1953, Dr. S. Donald Stookey of
4085-571: The P-5 Пятёрка . These early nuclear-armed SSGs served for a few decades until there were enough SSBNs put in service, after which they were retired. Their spiritual successors, armed with larger amounts of more modern, smaller cruise missiles continue to serve to this day serving in a tactical strike role, although they could be rearmed with nuclear cruise-missiles if need be. Air- or Ground-launched nuclear-armed cruise missiles (sometimes even nuclear-powered ) were considered by both sides early in
4180-707: The Polaris SLBM . The subsequent arms-race culminated in some of the largest submarines ever designed; the Trident-armed 170 meter long Ohio -class submarine armed with 24 x 8 MIRV Trident missiles , and the battlecruiser-sized 48,000 tonne Project 941 Акула , the Typhoon -class submarine , armed with 20 R-39s with 10 MIRVs each. After the Cold War, SSBN and subsequently SLBM development have slowed, but nascent nuclear powers are building novel classes of SSB (N)s, while
4275-594: The SSC-X-9 "Skyfall" (9М730 Буревестник ) was revealed by Russian President Vladimir Putin . It is under development and is slated to enter service sometime in the 2020s . Missiles using a ballistic trajectory deliver a warhead over the horizon; in the case of the most capable of these, classified as intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) (and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) if transported by submarine ), they can reach distances of nearly tens of thousands of kilometers. Most ballistic missiles exit
4370-537: The US government has several command and control bunkers , the most famous of which is that of NORAD , which is tunneled a few thousand feet into the granite of Cheyenne Mountain Complex , outside Colorado Springs , Colorado . It is believed to be able to withstand and to continue to operate after a nuclear direct hit. Other US C ISTAR bunkers include an installation called Site R , located at Raven Rock , Pennsylvania , which
4465-449: The dead man's hand in poker or the dead man's switch in dangerous or deadly machinery, can be turned on whenever the Russian leadership fears a nuclear attack. Allegedly, once Dead Hand is activated, if it detects a loss of communications with Moscow as well as nuclear detonations inside Russian territory, it can give final authority for the release of nuclear weapons to military officers in
4560-446: The B61 gravity bomb described above, but it would have different environmental requirements, and different safety requirements since it would not be crew-tended after launch and remain atop a missile for a great length of time. While the first modern ballistic missile designed is the basis of contemporary rocket- and missilery, it never carried a nuclear warhead. The first ICBM ever designed
4655-452: The Cold War, but both concluded that it was impractical with the technology of the time. Nuclear-powered aircraft were considered due to the nascent aeronautical and rocketry technology of the time, especially when considering the temperamental and inefficient nature of early jet engines , which limited the range and use cases of strategic bombers and cruise missiles. Later on in the Cold War both disciplines had advanced far enough that it
4750-775: The Corning Research and Development Division invented Pyroceram , a white glass-ceramic material capable of withstanding a thermal shock (sudden temperature change) of up to 450 °C (840 °F). It evolved from materials originally developed for a US ballistic missile program, and Stookey's research involved heat-resistant material for nose cones . Precise navigation would enable United States submarines to get an accurate fix of their positions before they launched their SLBMs, this spurred development of triangulation methods that ultimately culminated in GPS . The motivation for having accurate launch position fixes, and missile velocities,
4845-529: The Earth's atmosphere and re-enter it in their sub-orbital spaceflight . Ballistic missiles aren't always nuclear armed, but the conspicuous and alarming nature of their launch often precludes arming ICBMs and SLBMs, the most capable classes of ballistic missiles, with conventional warheads . Placement of nuclear missiles on the low Earth orbit has been banned by the Outer Space Treaty as early as 1967. Also,
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#17330923036184940-725: The R-7 is still in use as the launch vehicle for the Russian Federation, in the form of the Soyuz spacecraft . The first true weather satellite , the TIROS-1 was launched on the Thor-Able launch vehicle in April 1960. The PGM-17 Thor was the first operational IRBM (intermediate ballistic missile) deployed by the US Air Force ( USAF ). The Soviet Union 's first fully operational weather satellite,
5035-494: The U.S., a powerful social backlash was afoot, prompted by Senator Joseph McCarthy , the House Un-American Activities Committee , and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg , U.S. citizens executed in 1953 after conviction of espionage. This atmosphere was further inflamed by the 1957 launch of Sputnik , which led to fears of Communists attacking from outer space , as well as concerns that if the Soviets could launch
5130-489: The US if it responded militarily to the placement of nuclear missiles aimed at the US in Cuba: If the second variant takes place and the imperialists invade Cuba with the aim of occupying it, the dangers of their aggressive policy are so great that after such an invasion the Soviet Union must never allow circumstances in which the imperialists could carry out a nuclear first strike against it. I tell you this because I believe that
5225-692: The US missile defense system. In general, it appears that China's leaders do not greatly fear a first strike, because of their posture of inflicting unacceptable losses upon an adversary, as opposed to the American and Russian policy of trying to "win" a nuclear war. The Chinese arsenal is considered to suffice in ensuring that such a first strike would not go unavenged. The United Kingdom and France have sophisticated nuclear weapons platforms, and their nuclear strategies are minimum credible deterrent-based. Both have ballistic missile submarines , armed with intercontinental submarine-launched ballistic missiles , to ensure
5320-566: The USSR quickly countered by testing their own thermonuclear weapons, with a test in 1953 of a semi-thermonuclear weapon of the Sloika design, and in 1956, with the testing of Sakharov's Third Idea – equivalent to the Castle Bravo device. Meanwhile, tensions between the two nations rose as 1956 saw Soviet invasion of Hungary ; the U.S. and European nations drew certain conclusions from that event, while in
5415-497: The United States would use its nuclear superiority to initiate a full-scale attack , as from 1945 to 1948 the U.S. was the only state possessing nuclear weapons and until the late 1960s preserved an overwhelming superiority. The USSR countered by rapidly developing their own nuclear weapons, surprising the US with their first test in 1949. In turn, the U.S. countered by developing the vastly more powerful thermonuclear weapon , testing their first hydrogen bomb in 1952 at Ivy Mike , but
5510-416: The aim is to create the impression of the maximum possible force and survivability, which leads the enemy to make increased estimates of the probability of a disabling counterstrike, and in terms of strategy and politics, the aim is to cause the enemy to believe that such a second strike would be forthcoming in the event of a nuclear attack. One of the main reasons to deter a first strike is the possibility of
5605-479: The dropping aircraft time to escape the ensuing blast. The earliest gravity nuclear bombs ( Little Boy and Fat Man ) of the United States could only be carried, during the era of their creation, by the special Silverplate limited production (65 airframes by 1947) version of the B-29 Superfortress . The next generation of weapons were still so big and heavy that they could only be carried by bombers such as
5700-618: The established powers, all members of the United Nations Security Council , are plotting the next - generation of nuclear-powered nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines. Hypersonically-Gliding Warheads are a novel form of warhead to arm ballistic missiles. These maneuverable devices threaten to obsolate current forms of ABM defences, thus various nascent and established nuclear powers are racing to field examples of such systems . Other delivery methods included nuclear artillery shells, mines such as
5795-456: The event of a surprise attack. Early ballistic missiles carried a single warhead , often of megaton -range yield. Because of the limited accuracy of the missiles, this kind of high yield was considered necessary in order to ensure a particular target's destruction. Since the 1970s modern ballistic weapons have seen the development of far more accurate targeting technologies, particularly due to improvements in inertial guidance systems . This set
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#17330923036185890-599: The event of significant political-military tensions between the nuclear powers, they would take to the skies and provide survivable communications in the event of enemy attack. They are capable of the full exercise of all available MAOs (Major Attack Options) , as well as the full SIOP , in the event of a first strike or the destruction of the NCA . They can directly initiate launch of all American ICBMs via radio and satellite communication, signal SLBMs to launch and send bombers on their strike missions. In addition to those airborne assets,
5985-580: The eventual Soviet Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) that served a similar purpose—it was just deliberately designed to deorbit before completing a full circle—was phased out in January 1983 in compliance with the SALT II treaty. An ICBM is more than 20 times as fast as a bomber and more than 10 times as fast as a fighter plane , and also flying at a much higher altitude , and therefore more difficult to defend against. ICBMs can also be fired quickly in
6080-442: The evolution of US human spaceflight. The Atlas vehicle sent John Glenn , the first American into orbit. Similarly in the Soviet Union it was the R-7 ICBM / launch vehicle that placed the first artificial satellite in space, Sputnik , on 4 October 1957, and the first human spaceflight in history was accomplished on a derivative of the R-7, the Vostok , on 12 April 1961 , by cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin . A modernized version of
6175-531: The existence of the United States was the one need that did justify this cost in the view of the United States Congress. This deterrent effect is why GPS was funded. The nuclear triad consisted of the United States Navy's submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) along with United States Air Force (USAF) strategic bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Considered vital to
6270-489: The form of missiles. Gravity bombs are designed to be dropped from planes, which requires that the weapon be able to withstand vibrations and changes in air temperature and pressure during the course of a flight. Early weapons often had a removable core for safety, known as in flight insertion (IFI) cores, being inserted or assembled by the air crew during flight. They had to meet safety conditions, to prevent accidental detonation or dropping. A variety of types also had to have
6365-558: The former have much larger yield than the latter, even though it is not a rule. The bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 (with TNT equivalents between 15 and 22 kilotons ) were weaker than many of today's tactical weapons, yet they achieved the desired effect when used strategically. A nuclear triad refers to a strategic nuclear arsenal which consists of three components, traditionally strategic bombers , intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). The purpose of having
6460-681: The general, quickly became convinced of the undesirability of such outcomes." However, tensions were inflamed again in the late 1970s and early 1980s with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan , the Soviet deployment of the SS-20 Saber and the SS-18 Satan , and the decision of NATO to deploy the new Pershing II IRBM as well as the Tomahawk Ground Launched Cruise Missile , along with U.S. President Ronald Reagan 's talk of 'limited' nuclear war. This increased Soviet fears that NATO
6555-675: The ground , and from naval ships. There is no letter change in the US arsenal to distinguish the warheads of cruise missiles from those for ballistic missiles. Cruise missiles, even with their lower payload, speed, and thus readiness, have a number of advantages over ballistic missiles for the purposes of delivering nuclear strikes: However, cruise missiles are vulnerable to typical air-defence means as they are essentially one-use unmanned aircraft ; strategies such as combat flights of fighter aircraft , or an integrated air-defence system comprising both CAP and ground-based elements, such as surface-air missiles (SAM) , can be used to defend against
6650-511: The imperialists' aggressiveness makes them extremely dangerous, and that if they manage to carry out an invasion of Cuba—a brutal act in violation of universal and moral law—then that would be the moment to eliminate this danger forever, in an act of the most legitimate self-defense. However harsh and terrible the solution, there would be no other. The Cuban Missile Crisis resulted in Nikita Khrushchev publicly agreeing to remove
6745-399: The later Cold War – according to former Soviet General Andrian Danilevich, "(...in the early 1980s...) Cuban leader Fidel Castro pressed the USSR to take a tougher line against the United States, including possible nuclear strikes. The Soviet Union, in response, sent experts to spell out for Castro the ecological consequences for Cuba of nuclear strikes on the United States. Castro, according to
6840-611: The missiles from Cuba, while John F. Kennedy secretly agreed to remove his country's missiles from Turkey. Both sides in the Cold War realized how close they came to nuclear war over Cuba, and decided to seek a reduction of tensions, resulting in US-Soviet détente for most of the 1960s and 1970s. Nonetheless, this reduction of tensions only applied to the US and the USSR. Recently declassified interviews with high level former Soviet nuclear and military–industrial planners reveal that Fidel Castro continued to favour nuclear options, even during
6935-404: The need for a more universal navigation solution with greater accuracy. While there were wide needs for accurate navigation in military and civilian sectors, almost none of those was seen as justification for the billions of dollars it would cost in research, development, deployment, and operation for a constellation of navigation satellites. During the Cold War arms race , the nuclear threat to
7030-504: The nuclear-deterrence posture, accurate determination of the SLBM launch position was a force multiplier . Precise navigation would enable United States submarines to get an accurate fix of their positions before they launched their SLBMs. The USAF, with two-thirds of the nuclear triad, also had requirements for a more accurate and reliable navigation system. The Navy and Air Force were developing their own technologies in parallel to solve what
7125-437: The opponent's hardened military facilities (like missile silos and command and control centers) possible. This is due to the inverse-square law , which predicts that the amount of energy dispersed from a single point release of energy (such as a thermonuclear blast) dissipates by the inverse of the square of distance from the single point of release. The result is that the power of a nuclear explosion to rupture hardened structures
7220-404: The point where the attacking country can survive the weakened retaliation while the opposing side is left unable to continue war. The preferred methodology is to attack the opponent's strategic nuclear weapon facilities (missile silos, submarine bases, bomber airfields), command and control sites, and storage depots first. The strategy is called counterforce . First-strike attack , the use of
7315-462: The position of detonation , on or near its target. Several methods have been developed to carry out this task. Strategic nuclear weapons are used primarily as part of a doctrine of deterrence by threatening large targets, such as cities . Weapons meant for use in limited military maneuvers such as destroying specific military, communications, or infrastructure targets, are known as tactical nuclear weapons . In terms of explosive yields , nowadays
7410-574: The rest of 60 missiles in reserve. As such, this type of weapon was intended to be banned under the START II agreement, however the START II agreement was never activated, and neither Russia nor the US has adhered to the agreement. Any defense system against nuclear missiles such as SDI will be more effective against limited numbers of missiles launched. At very small numbers of targets, each defensive asset will be able to take multiple shots at each warhead, and
7505-446: The satellite transponder in orbit. A fourth ground-based station, at an undetermined position, could then use those signals to fix its location precisely. The last SECOR satellite was launched in 1969. Decades later, during the early years of GPS, civilian surveying became one of the first fields to make use of the new technology, because surveyors could reap benefits of signals from the less-than-complete GPS constellation years before it
7600-425: The six pieces of the Heavy Barrel superweapon. Like SNK 's Ikari Warriors , the original arcade version featured 8-way rotary joysticks. The name of the game is from an in-game weapon. The Heavy Barrel is found in six pieces and is an energy cannon capable of destroying any enemy in the game with a single shot (except the final enemy, and possibly one other boss that may have required two shots). The weapon has
7695-446: The six/ten-engined, seventy-meter wingspan B-36 Peacemaker , the eight jet-engined B-52 Stratofortress , and jet-powered British RAF V bombers , but by the mid-1950s smaller weapons had been developed that could be carried and deployed by fighter-bombers . Modern nuclear gravity bombs are so small that they can be carried by (relatively) small multirole fighter aircraft , such as the single-engined F-16 and F-35 . A cruise missile
7790-415: The sixth most-successful table arcade unit of the month. Both Computer and Video Games ' s Clare Edgeley and ACE ' s Andy Smith gave an overall positive outlook to the arcade original. This arcade game -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Nuclear missile Nuclear weapons delivery is the technology and systems used to place a nuclear weapon at
7885-450: The stage for smaller warheads in the hundreds-of- kilotons -range yield, and consequently for ICBMs having multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRV). Advances in technology have enabled a single missile to launch a payload containing several warheads; the number of which depended on the missile's and payload bus' design. MIRVs has a number of advantages over a missile with a single warhead. With few additional costs, it allows
7980-626: The theories of nuclear deterrence and mutual assured destruction, full countervalue retaliation would be the likely fate for any state that unleashed a first strike. To maintain credible deterrence, nuclear-weapons states have taken measures to give their enemies reason to believe that a first strike would lead to unacceptable results. The main strategy relies on creating doubt among enemy strategists regarding nuclear capacity, weapons characteristics, facility and infrastructure vulnerability, early warning systems, intelligence penetration, strategic plans, and political will. In terms of military capabilities,
8075-462: The third one in 1974 carrying the first atomic clock into orbit. Another important predecessor to GPS came from a different branch of the United States military. In 1964, the United States Army orbited its first Sequential Collation of Range ( SECOR ) satellite used for geodetic surveying. The SECOR system included three ground-based transmitters from known locations that would send signals to
8170-535: The total, $ 795 billion was spent on the manufacturing of nuclear weapons themselves. Strictly speaking however not all this 57 percent was spent solely on "weapons programs" delivery systems. For example, two such delivery mechanisms , the Atlas ICBM and Titan II , were re-purposed as human launch vehicles for human spaceflight , both were used in the civilian Project Mercury and Project Gemini programs respectively, which are regarded as stepping stones in
8265-609: The victim of the first-strike launching a retaliatory second strike on the attacker. Nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) carrying submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), commonly known as "boomers" in the US and "bombers" in the UK, are widely considered the most survivable component of the nuclear triad . The depths of the ocean are extremely large, and nuclear submarines are highly mobile, are very quiet, have virtually unlimited range, and can generate their own oxygen and potable water. In essence, their undersea endurance
8360-455: Was a gravity bomb dropped by a plane . In the years leading up to the development and deployment of nuclear-armed missiles, nuclear bombs represented the most practical means of nuclear weapons delivery; even today, and especially with the decommissioning of nuclear missiles , aerial bombing remains the primary means of offensive nuclear weapons delivery, and the majority of US nuclear warheads are represented in bombs, although some are in
8455-476: Was declared operational. GPS can be thought of as an evolution of the SECOR system where the ground-based transmitters have been migrated into orbit. Pre-emptive nuclear strike In nuclear strategy , a first strike or preemptive strike is a preemptive surprise attack employing overwhelming force. First strike capability is a country's ability to defeat another nuclear power by destroying its arsenal to
8550-672: Was designed to discover intentions of NATO to initiate a nuclear first-strike. This poor timing drove the world very close to nuclear war, possibly even closer than the Cuban Missile Crisis over 20 years before. Because of the low accuracy (large circular error probable ) of early generation intercontinental ballistic missiles (and especially submarine-launched ballistic missiles ), counterforce strikes were initially only possible against very large, undefended targets like bomber airfields and naval bases. Later generation missiles with much improved accuracy made counterforce attacks against
8645-489: Was essentially the same problem. To increase the survivability of ICBMs, there was a proposal to use mobile launch platforms (such as Russian SS-24 and SS-25 ) and so the need to fix the launch position had similarity to the SLBM situation. In 1960, the Air Force proposed a radio-navigation system called MOSAIC (MObile System for Accurate ICBM Control) that was essentially a 3-D LORAN . A follow-on study, Project 57,
8740-420: Was feasible to create both reliable long-ranged cruise missiles and the strategic bombers able to launch them. Another arms-race began which produced contemporary post-Cold War cruise missiles and launch systems; VLS technology also allowed for surface ships to be armed with nuclear-armed cruise missiles while concealing their true payload. In 2018, the first operational nuclear-powered strategic cruise missile,
8835-417: Was planning an attack. NATO's deployment of these missiles was a response to the Soviet deployment of the SS-20 Saber , which could hit most European NATO bases within minutes of launch. These mutual deployments led to a destabilizing strategic situation, which was exacerbated by malfunctioning U.S. and Soviet missile launch early warning systems, a Soviet intelligence gap that prevented the Soviets from getting
8930-540: Was the Soviet R-7 . The first SLBM-carrying submarine was also Soviet; the prototype Modified Zulu -class and the mass-produced Golf -class ballistic missile submarines carried their SLBMs in their sails, but these pioneering designs had to surface to launch their ballistic missiles. The Americans responded with the first "modern design" of ballistic missile subs; the George Washington -class , which launched
9025-601: Was worked in 1963 and it was "in this study that the GPS concept was born". That same year, the concept was pursued as Project 621B, which had "many of the attributes that you now see in GPS" and promised increased accuracy for Air Force bombers as well as ICBMs. Updates from the Navy Transit system were too slow for the high speeds of Air Force operation. The Navy Research Laboratory continued advancements with their Timation (Time Navigation) satellites, first launched in 1967, and with
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