Trident II D5 Missile: Keeping Up with Changing Times

Over $1 billion in contracts. (Dec 15/11)

Nuclear tipped missiles were first deployed on board US submarines at the height of the Cold War in the 1960s, to deter a Soviet first strike. The deterrence theorists argued that, unlike their land-based cousins, submarine-based nuclear weapons couldn’t be taken out by a surprise first strike, because the submarines were nearly impossible to locate and target. Which meant that Soviet leaders couldn’t hope to destroy all of America’s nuclear weapons before they could be launched against Soviet territory. SLBM/FBM offered shorter ranges and less accuracy than their land-based ICBM counterparts, but the advent of Trident C4 missiles began extending those ranges, and offering other improvements. The C4s were succeeded by larger Trident II D5 missiles, which added precision accuracy and more payload.

The year that the Trident II D5 ballistic missile was first deployed, 1990, saw the beginning of the end of the missile’s primary mission. Even as the Soviet Union began to implode, the D5’s performance improvements were making the Trident submarine force the new backbone of the USA’s nuclear deterrent – and of Britain’s as well. To ensure that this capability was maintained at peak readiness and safety, the US Navy undertook a program in 2002 to replace aging components of the Trident II D5 missile called the D5 Life Extension (LE) Program…

• D5 Life Extension Program
• Contracts and Key Events, 2005-Present [updated]
• Additional Readings

Displaying 253 of 7,997 words (about 20 pages)

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