Rationalised First-Generation US Ballistic Missiles

I would argue that a more "rational" and coherent program starting in the 1940s would focus not on pushing into service a weapon which people at the time quite rightly recognized was not particularly useful, but rather on developing the necessary underlying technology, such as large rocket engines, precise automatic guidance, storable and solid fuels, and so on, many of which would have useful applications in other areas in any case. Then, when the development cycle made ballistic missiles more practical, one or several could be developed with considerably less crash effort and expense, and probably with a longer service lifetime due to being more fit for purpose from the beginning rather than raiding bits and bobs of old German weapons for the underlying (engine) technology. Some people halfway grasped this, but a coherent development program was lacking, probably because of the Buck Rodgers factor.

Might have a point but I'd argue that it was both a failure to recognize future potential and a lack of incentive that hindered early development. Couple that with the post-WWII draw-downs, then Korea, followed by obvious Soviet progress and constant inter-service rivalry and you pretty much end up on the path that was taken. Change any element and/or the underlying situation and you may get a different outcome but I'm skeptical that any one factor is that critical.

I don't think storables were all that much of a killer for the Titan II. It served about as long as the contemporary solid missiles Minuteman I/II and Polaris, and was only retired as part of an ordinary military replacement cycle. Sure, once you work out big solids you probably aren't going to build a storable liquid missile, but if you have 'em they're probably not going to be replaced early over it, unlike the kerolox missiles that have too many operational disadvantages to have a long service lifetime.

Not a "killer" for the Titan II but the reason there was a Titan 1 first. Titan 1 had operational issues dealing with it's launch time cycle where as Titan II had operational issues related to it's propellants and maintenance life cycle. It wasn't actually replaced due to any military life cycle issues but due to its higher cost for maintenance and that was directly tied to it's propellants. A small example would be the hydraulic fluid used in the silos. This was standardized prior to the introduction of the Titan II and despite efforts to develop a fluid that would NOT react to the Titan II propellants none was ever found to be cost effective.

Liquid propellants where never very "cost effective" for the military which is why most missiles went to solids as soon as the tech matured, Storables were somewhat acceptable as interim solutions but overall were only marginally better than cyro-propellants and only because they were somewhat operationally "better" even if they were functionally inferior. (Which many were) One wonders what would have been the effect if the US hadn't been so biased against (and arguable worse at handling than the Germans who at least had the excuse of an on-going war to their credit :) ) peroxide and kerosene as a standard "storeable" propellant?


Unlike a spill of LOX or RP-1, Hydrazine and RFNA got your attention to get the hazmat crews on it, pronto, and was expensive to clean properly

The Synthetic rubber and perchlorate in the Solids, you just didn't have to worry about.

This as well :) To be honest though the military is actually willing to use the more toxic propellant combinations if they have to as can be seen today. Hypergolics were in the end "cheaper" due to existing engines than developing a new peroxide/kerosene engine even though that was the initial goal as part of the X37 development.

An interesting question here would be what would happen if someone other than Eisenhower was setting defense policy at the time, for instance if Dewey had won the 1948 election. Dewey was in the same general circles, so things probably wouldn't look too much different, but if there's less focus on massive retaliation as the answer...? Maybe IRBMs and ICBMs would be seen as a lower-priority program then (at least until Sputnik) and you might get a smaller number of programs out of it.

I highly suspect that "New Look" and massive retaliation that turned the Air Force into the primary service was very much a part of the equation. For the most part the "bomber generals" were very much dead set against ballistic missile development and it took a combination of Gardner and Schriever to ram a "compromise" development program through the Air Staff in the first place.

Dewey's appointments might have butterflied away Gardner and without that pressure... On the other hand if something happens to Schiever then there's no support (or very little) on the Air Staff to support missile development.

Then again, if missile and rocket development are slowed down you have even MORE pressure once the Sputnik-panic hits and the US starts out even further behind...

Although this is not a "What if the MX-774 wasn't cancelled?" or similar thread, that is what I think too. An additional benefit would probably be that they would be more reliable because they had more time to test the components. More reliable launchers would be very helpful in the early years of the space programme too.

Maybe? Because really there was a good amount of work done but the direction was spotty at best except for a few programs and support wavered a lot.

Reliability was variable even at the best of times and you really needed to push more than a few areas to get significant progress. For example the Viking sounding rocket of the NRL was a pretty reliable and effective launch vehicle but it was neither cheap nor easy to turn it into the first stage of the Vanguard LV. And in the end a more effective "solution" was using the Thor IRBM as a first stage leading to the Delta launch vehicle.

Conversely the Redstone tactical missile was robust and reliable and pretty easy to turn into the "Juno-1" launch vehicle when the tank was stretched and the motor upgraded. And it was very conservatively based on well understood developments of the V2 and eventually contributed to the Saturn-1 LV.

Different teams, different services, different levels of support and different outcomes...

Randy
 
Might have a point but I'd argue that it was both a failure to recognize future potential and a lack of incentive that hindered early development. Couple that with the post-WWII draw-downs, then Korea, followed by obvious Soviet progress and constant inter-service rivalry and you pretty much end up on the path that was taken. Change any element and/or the underlying situation and you may get a different outcome but I'm skeptical that any one factor is that critical.
I'm not sure what this has to do with what I said. I was talking about what a rational, forward-thinking missile program in the 1940s would look like, not what was necessarily realistic or likely. That being said, I think such a program could be constructed if there was more recognition on the part of senior advisors that missiles did have long-term future potential, but only if developed, and that such a development program would not be too expensive and have benefits in other areas.

Not a "killer" for the Titan II but the reason there was a Titan 1 first. Titan 1 had operational issues dealing with it's launch time cycle where as Titan II had operational issues related to it's propellants and maintenance life cycle.
No...? The reason there was a Titan I first was because, as was discussed earlier in the thread, the Air Force wanted a backup to the "risky" Atlas design. It was just later thrown out and totally redesigned to produce the Titan II once it became clear that the Atlas would work fine (for a certain value of fine). When the Titan I program started in 1955, no one was envisioning a Titan II.

It wasn't actually replaced due to any military life cycle issues but due to its higher cost for maintenance and that was directly tied to it's propellants. A small example would be the hydraulic fluid used in the silos. This was standardized prior to the introduction of the Titan II and despite efforts to develop a fluid that would NOT react to the Titan II propellants none was ever found to be cost effective.
No, it was retired for military life cycle reasons, just like other contemporary missiles. It was originally supposed to be retired in the 1970s, but had its life extended (mostly, I suspect, due to the R-36/SS-18), and was finally completely retired just the comparable (in terms of loft capacity) Peacekeeper was entering service, similar to how Polaris was retired due to the introduction of the far superior Poseidon and Trident systems, and Minuteman I/II due to the introduction of Minuteman III.

The higher cost of maintenance and operations due to its propellants were certainly a factor in its retirement, but in of themselves they were not enough to spur retirement until a new, equivalent system was on the verge of coming on line, which is about all you can ask for in terms of system durability. It was clearly in an entirely different class from Atlas or Titan I, which were phased out just a few years after entering service.

Unlike a spill of LOX or RP-1, Hydrazine and RFNA got your attention to get the hazmat crews on it, pronto, and was expensive to clean properly
Yes, but the LOX has to be stored in special tanks and pumped at high speed into the rocket right before launch, so that it was nearly impossible to build a missile using it that wouldn't be blown up by enemy missiles before it could take off. Which is a bigger disadvantage than needing hazmat teams to clean up after leaks, since it negates the entire purpose of building nuclear missiles in the first place.

The Synthetic rubber and perchlorate in the Solids, you just didn't have to worry about.
And yet the Titan II served for about as long as contemporary solid rocket systems. And the Soviets used storable liquids almost exclusively for their boosters until the 1980s. I don't think storables are as much of a disadvantage as you do.
 
I wasn't going to skip the IRBM. That is: partially because of the above; partially as a backup to the ICBM in case it was delayed; and finally my main reason, which is AFAIK the USA still needs an IRBM based space launcher for payloads that were too small to justify using one of the ICBM based launchers.

Well I wasn't suggesting that was your position but really the only service that "needed" and IRBM was the Navy and what they "required" wasn't going to be very effective as a basis for an orbital launch vehicle :)

The Army on the other hand could more easily justify both a tactical missile and an IRBM (hence Redstone and Jupiter) but lacked the political 'backing' to make such development an integral part of their mission beyond the tactical level.

An interesting POD possibility (but probably off topic for this thread :) ) is what if the long range missile decision had gone to the Army instead of the Air Force? Logically it would mean that each branch then would have a "leg" of the triad with SLBM in the Navy, ICBMs in the Army and Bombers in the Air Force, but I suppose the politics of the time wouldn't have looked at it that way as the Air Force was already moving to establish themselves in the launch vehicle arena for satellite launch. Still...

Based on that if the USA was going to develop one IRBM it would have been Jupiter.

"Technically" you could say they did as the Thor was pretty much thrown together from existing Jupiter equipment and some other off-the-shelf parts :) The Air Force didn't want/like the mobile nature of the Jupiter in the first place and liked the fact it was developed by the Army even less but when they were "given' responsibility for all "long-range" missiles they got Jupiter whether they liked it or not and lost most of the reasoning for developing and deploying Thor.

Which in turn meant they could re-purpose Thor for satellite launch duties instead.

As Workable Goblin said I think its more likely that the first generation of missiles wouldn't enter service any sooner, but due to the earlier start they would have higher performance and be more reliable.

I'm not so sure as I'm well aware of the conflicting pressures at the time and even an earlier start would have had issues with actually developing the proper hardware, and reliability as I've noted might not be increased.

Given an earlier start and marginally more support, especially towards an operational system I suspect that we'd still end up with a "marginal" first generation system along the same line as OTL but it would have been developed and deployed differently. (As much as I'm a career Air Force man I have to admit that it took "my" service much longer than it should have to understand the possibility and promise of ballistic missiles)

Point to consider is the original consideration for the IRBM was the size of the existing atom bomb payloads while the ICBM was supposed to carry the "super-atomic" and later hydrogen bombs which were supposed to be much larger and heavier.

Therefore the USAF might have deployed an all ICBM force of 360 Atlas F or 360 Titan II or a mix of the two in favour of 132 Atlas D/E/F, 54 Titan I, 54 Titan II, 60 Jupiter and 60 Thor. Meanwhile Polaris would have been a mark ahead of the real world with A-2 deployed in place of A-1, A-3 deployed in place of A-2; and possibly Poseidon deployed in place of Polaris A-3.

Therefore it would at least be possible for a Titan I½ using hypergolic fuel to be deployed instead of the Titan I and at least Atlas E and F. 162 of them would be a better investment for the USAF in place of the 54 Titan I and 162 Atlas E/F that were deployed. Atlas D would still be deployed as an ICBM and used as a space launcher.

More optimistically Titan I½ enters service in place of Atlas D then Titan II enters service with a front-line of 216 missiles deployed instead of 54 Titan I, 54 Titan II and 162 Atlas E/F. Atlas isn't developed at all so that the payloads it launched IOTL have to be put into orbit by Titan based launchers or a Jupiter derived launcher.

Recall that Atlas started out as a five engine monster and Titan was originally designed to carry much heavier warheads. Both for the same reason though the Titan specification as never down-graded like the Atlas' was. Atlas was going to be run through a development cycle where it would be a one, then three, and finally the full-up five engine versions. Actual H-bomb tests proved out that it wouldn't be as massive as originally thought so the Atlas could be down-sized to the three engine version.

Now imagine that the Atlas development get frozen earlier due to more initial work being available... You have a 90ft long, 12ft wide, five engined, 1.5 stage ICBM instead of our more "sedate" version :)

Granted your Mercury can now be about twice the mass of OTL version with all the capability that implies, but then imagine trying to silo base this thing :)

Advance solid development at all and Titan might not have existed at all. It was originally a "back-up" for Atlas using more "conventional" technology. (As the pressure supported concept, 1.5 staging of the Atlas was still very warily regarded as "cutting-edge" and not fully trusted by many aerospace engineers) but with more payload requirement both in case of issues with more powerful bomb development and to allow penetration aids and/or multiple warheads. As guidance and control technology advanced, requirements for payload decreased markedly.

Polaris opened the way to the Minuteman and the question at that point is do you deploy "something" now or wait for the more capable missiles to arrive. (The answer we chose is 'both' of course with early deployment of less than optimal designs to be followed with and replaced by more capable designs and I don't really see a "driver" to not arriving at the same answer under different circumstances) If you have more advanced guidance then you don't need the bigger warhead or more of them to achieve the same results which was the driver behind Titan.

Though what I really wanted was a plausible way to get a force of 120 Jupiters and 240 Atlases to butterfly away the Thor based space launchers and Titan III.

Put the Army in charge of long-range missile development and deployment :) You'll never have Thor developed and Jupiter will be used as a be the default basis for launch vehicles instead. Atlas might not developed under those circumstances as von Braun and team didn't think it was a practical design. (They changed their minds later when it was proposed for the Mercury program but it took some convincing and they still felt it was only an interim design) You might have a clustered (think three barrel Redstone's for a first stage) initial ICBM design followed by an all solid missile instead. A great deal would depend on how advanced guidance technology was at the time of the decision.

I'm trying to stop Titan III happening to force the USAF to use Saturn I for its heavy satellites. If the USAF is using that instead of Titan III then it would be easier for NASA to keep Saturn IB in production for the manned space program.

Uhm... There in lies a huge problem. The Air Force isn't going to use Saturn-1 unless they are forced to by outside forces. First of all, the Air Force had a very adversarial relationship with MSFC, (ex-Army team, now why would there be any conflict there I wonder :) ) secondly they were more inclined to depend on a launch vehicle they controlled most aspects of such as manufacturing and development, and lastly they had requirements that didn't really match those of NASA or civilian development.

On the other side NASA didn't exactly like the Titan as a manned launch vehicle and only used it because it was available and "cheaper" than developing their own vehicle to launch Gemini. (Saturn-1 was over qualified for that mission by a lot)

It should also be noted that the Titan III, initially, was simply a Titan II with an added "trans-stage" and additional Agena based upper stage both of which were developed to give the original Titan II a higher payload to orbit capability for satellite launch. And the needs there were specifically driven by the NRO/DoD requirements which never actually included any manned applications.

(Aside: Blue Gemini and MOL were both nominally driven by Air Force requirements but its a case of the left hand not telling the right hand what it was doing. The NRO/classified DoD development for spy satellites was in fact in opposition to the manned mission development but couldn't come right out and TELL anyone that because it was after all classified. They "won" in the end but the continued development of the Titan launch vehicle family was always driven by satellite considerations)

Which in the end meant that despite the differences in mission and capability put Titan and Saturn-1 into competition which Saturn couldn't "win" under the circumstances. Basically you have to butterfly away Titan development, if not totally at least beyond use as an ICBM. Which is hard to justify given Titan's initial payload capability and launch vehicle needs.

Again a more capable Atlas might do it or different development of a Jupiter based Delta equivalent Launch Vehicle. Economics might play a factor as the Titan was only really "economic" as long as it was in service and the production lines remained somewhat in service. Replace it in operational service or curtail it's deployment and it rapidly becomes un-economical which it did OTL. (Heck have a few more accidents IN service than OTL and it might have been retired much sooner than it was OTL. A low altitude accident during launch at the Cape such as happened OTL at Vandenburg, would have been problematic to say the least)

Randy
 
I wanted the POD to be 1955-ish rather than 1947, because that would be a spend more money thread and I wanted it to be done with the same resources. But having read the latest posts by RanaulfC and Workable Goblin is the following feasible?

1) The President decrees that ICBMs should belong to the USAF and IRBMs to the US Army. As a result 120 Jupiters are deployed by the US Army from the late 1950s instead of 60 Jupiters and 60 Thors.

2) The US Navy starts development of Polaris a year earlier. The missile doesn't enter service any earlier, but: the A-2 missile might be ready to enter service in place of the A-1; A-3 might in turn ready to be built in place of the A-2; and a lesser possibility of Poseidon might be ready to be built in place of the A-3. Furthermore the USN has more time to design the SSBN to carry it. Thus more Ethan Allen class were built in place of the George Washington class and the first 10 SSBN were given wider launch tubes so they could be refitted with Poseidon if required.

3) The earlier availability of sold propellants that enables to start Polaris leads to the USAF cancelling Atlas in January 1955 in favour of starting Minuteman 2½ years earlier than it was IOTL. Titan is not started at all.

4) Therefore the LGM-30A Minuteman IA enters service at the end of May 1960 and the first wing of 150 missiles becomes operational by January 1961. The IOC of the LGM-30B Minuteman IB missile is also brought forward by 2½ years and 650 missiles were operational by winter of 1962 instead of the summer of 1965. The Minuteman II missile also enters service 2½ years earlier and a force of 1,000 missiles was operational by October 1964 instead of April 1967.

5) Thus Jupiter is developed into a family of launch vehicles instead of Thor because Thor does not exist. Although the S-I stage had more in common with Redstone than Jupiter I still think that building Jupiter based launchers instead of Thor based ones would reduce the cost of S-I.

6) To fill the gap between Juno IV and Saturn I there would be a Saturn ½ consisting of a 4 clustered Jupiters as its first stage with Agena or Centaur serving as the second stage as required by the payload.

7) However, the USAF isn't happy about having to use NASA launchers derived from an Army weapon. So it uses the money saved from the ICBM programme to develop a family of Minuteman based launchers to replace it.
 
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