No, they will be used to launch small satellites or used for research. This happens will all old ICBM components from Atlas to Titan to Peacekeeper and the surplus early Minuteman boosters
They were out of budget because they didn't factor in having to buy the land that the 1960s wires were buried under to replace them. There is a lot that has been built on top of that land in 50 years.
@@dexterplameras3249 Not really. Most of it is open fields and those cables are not very deep. They can trench new cables in another location and path much cheaper than buying buildings.
Woah there Alex. Northrop Grumman did not purchase Aerojet Rocketdyne. Northrop Grumman purchased Orbital-ATK. Both companies make solid rocket motors but Orbital-ATK is the only company making large monolithic solid rocket motors suitable for ICBM first stages. Orbital-ATK (now Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems) is a decedent of Thiokol who made the first stages for the Minuteman III. That's a mighty big mistake.
Was just going to say this. Totally the wrong information in this video. Also, why do they keep showing Space Shuttle Main Engines and other liquid rocket engines when ICBMs use solid rocket motors?
Spot on. That's a glaring mistake. Not sure how they got something so wrong. Aerojet Rocketdyne was bought by L3Harris but that was after the GBSD competition.
I love sandboxx news but the quality of videos seems to be decreasing. More and more clickbaity titles and thumbnails with little of substance said in the actual video.
@@BilTheGalacticHero wow, way to “umm, actually…”. What does that really change on the thrust of the video? They bought the major competitor and now have the US Government but the short and curlies.
When I was in the Royal Canadian Air Cadets, I got the chance to tour the training centre for Minuteman Missiles at Malmstrom AFB in the late 1970's..... Even got to simulate launching the Missiles! Hard to believe it's the same missiles still sitting there!
Hey Alex I just wanted to say I found your channel about a year ago and I look forward every week to your videos. I’m glad there are people out there keeping us up to date about the many aspects of our military. You sir are a rockstar. Keep up the awesome content. -Tim in Philadelphia
I think it would be more clear to say we stopped making new things, so the corporations providing these services all had to merge to survive. Government policy created monopoly. Yay for "peace dividends".
@@crbielertIn the 90s after the Soviet collapse, the US Government actually encouraged these mergers of defense companies because of the lack of projects and orders going forward.
@@doujinflip Yeah, it was done. And it's a pretty insane thing, because when a few people are both that rich and that much in control of the military... and they're already using that money both in legalized political bribes (Super PACs) and in shaping media narratives... that's oligarchy.
One of my first jobs used a 286 PC with an attached 20MB Bernoulli cartridge hard disk drive. I thought that was a lot back in 1989, but I download bigger pr0n than that these days.
@@DefiantSix for sure, it wasn't that long ago 64 MB of ram was huge, right. When hard drives were measured for the first time in Gigabytes all of a sudden we're into terra bytes. It won't be but a couple of years we'll be into petabytes on thumb drives.🤔🤔🤔 EXPONENTIAL!!!
Alex, showing Titan ICBMs and talking about them as if they were Minuteman, and showing liquid fueled space rocket engines undergoing testing while talking about the age-out of ICBM solid-propellent motors isn't up the your normal technical standards. As a Minuteman combat crew member and test program launch officer, I notice things like that. But your script was fairly good and I learned things from your research, especially from Aerojet being bought out by Northrup Grumman ... shrewd maneuver ... stunning how that was permitted.
Because most people watch channels like this that tell them how amazing all of our stuff is, until they need to tow the industry line about how more money must be spent.
Most people wouldn't believe how much we waste on a department who can't pass a single audit. Not to mention this never ending spending even during peace time, while everything is crumbling all around us. On one side we have our government screwing us by taxing the life out of us while delivering basically nothing in return. On the side we have the billionaires and wealthy sucking every penny and opportunity while using these politicians to do their bidding. And somehow the immigrants who can't speak English working the fields, or construction, or house cleaning is to blame for everything that goes wrong. Who can people just buy this bs.
I would love to see a series where you covered ground vehicles and rotary aviation in as much depth as you do for fast air...you have an enjoyable channel keep it up
Also noteworthy... those of us playing Oregon Trail in the 90s, did so using 5.25in floppies! 😅 Thus further illustrating *_how old_* 8in ones were. _(as we all know, tech shrinks over time, as it's developed further)_
Used to play Oregon Trail in my homeroom in 8th grade (1986) on those very same 5.25 flops! When the 3.5's hit, man they were so futuristic lookin'! Good times, for sure!
@@michaellee6489 I agree! My school had those archaic systems into the mid-90s, as it was a catholic school, so minimal funds. They finally set enough aside to start a new Mac Lab, and the special system the new teacher had, came with a really snazzy CD drive, the likes of which I've never seen since! The CD's stayed their plastic case, having the very same sliding-door that 3.5" floppies had!
@@DUKE_of_RAMBLEAhhhh, one of the early CD caddy drives! That was a holdover from Sony and Philips's different visions for the format. Sony wanted the case to be a part of the media for durability, similar to their 3.5" microfloppy, UMD, and MiniDisk formats. Philips wanted it to not be, for cost. The argument went very close to the format's launch, and some early mechanisms were essentially built for a package that didn't exist.
I remeber a mainframe computer that used those big Really Floppy 💾. Also the huge 500MB hard drive on it was the size of a washing machine... with power requirements to match though it sounded like a dishwasher. 😂
When I started work they, 8 inch floppy, were used by the WANG word processor used by the chief engineers secretary to type up manuals. IBM PC came in about 2 years latter with 5.25 inch floppy drives Initially to provide spread sheet functions for the cost estimating team. Slowly they took over word processing as well. GANT charts were run on Apple Macs also with 5.25 inch because of their vastly superior graphics allowing display of the chart. Quite revolutionary as we could have a person purely deicated to updating the GANT. Protel a printed circuit board program came in as well as various forms of auto cad. By Mid to Late 80s draugtsen became moving of their paper drawing boards. Can't say it made everything better.
My understanding was the same: Minuteman 3s aren't hackable. Unfortunately I can't for the life of me remember where I got that from. Was hoping for some explanation on the "cyber security" element because an entire fleet of heavily networked ICBMs seems to me as a layman like a major step backwards.
You don’t even need a source tbh you can figure that from the fact that they were built before networking existed and haven’t been updated since then, which is a REALLY good thing in that respect as they are completely unhackable since you can’t connect to them at all. Being out of support is a problem with every repair being a custom project essentially, but for cyberattacks they absolutely need to keep them off network to be airtight
The command communications infrastructure is partly digital. It may or not be hackable. This structure has the purpose to issue the command "FIRE"! Oops! Needs to be taken care of ASAP.
They treated everyone that worked on Peacekeeper like crap and Old Man Bush couldn't wait to shut it all down. There were old grandpas working Minuteman systems even in the 1980s trying to keep that crap equipment going. And all the nice 80s and 90s tech and talent in Peacekeeper just cast aside. Now Northrop trying to bid cheap to fix 50 yrs of complacency. Job Openings salaries for Northrop jobs seem to be really low. I guess they expect engineering work to be done in Alabama or Mississippi because nobody getting a decent living anywhere in California on that pay. USAF don't want to pay for the Strategic Triad any more than just quit it.
Replacing a computer that uses floppy disks and doesn't even know what Ethernet is to mitigate cyber risks sounds like they asked ChatGPT to give them as many reasons as possible.
1:14 you also forgot Colorado and Nebraska. Trust me, I lived less than 5 miles from an active minute man 3 silo. The guards don’t greet you with riles for no reason if you’re dumb enough to walk up and shake the fence.
Of course not, that was so 80's. What they did back in the 90's was connect it to a self-aware AI supercomputer called Skynet. Currently, Skynet is still weighing whether Gen Zs are capable of creating a future for humanity, or not and just wipe humanity out. Tick Tock!🤣
The Soviets and now the Russians allegedly have deployed an autonomous system to launch their missiles in the event their leadership is killed and the system has detected that the Russian mainland was hit by nuclear war heads. The system is called Dead Hand, also known as Perimeter.
Stringing metal phone lines worked in the 70's, fiber is a better idea in avoiding electrical interference, being a bit harder to find under ground and tap, as well as being a bit more corrosion resistant. Real estate costs for locations and interconnect ditches for the comms have skyrocketed in recent years. Not to repeat your hint at single-source / non-competitive contracting. Add in the fact that everyone who ever built a nuclear warhead has retired...
@@Chuck_Hooks really mic spending is totally ok at these levels. we spend 10 times the nearest adversary and we loose every war we fight. plus who knows what the black budget is doing since there's no oversight. congress is not up to that task and by some accounts certainly by richard dolan we have a breakaway govt running thats also totally un accountable. mic spending is the most disastrous problem we face.
If it was cost effective to just continuously refurbish them, we would. But they're not. Better to design a newer generation of missiles and launch systems and buy a few decades of reduced maintenance costs.
@@namyun2743assuming all the thinktanks mentioned in the video were more or less correct in their assessments, it would still be cost effective to continuously upgrade the Minuteman IIIs compared to a new platform if the goal was just to maintain existing capabilities. But not if we discovered we needed add new capabilities or improve existing ones to maintain effectiveness as adversaries begin to introduce new countermeasures.
So, the analog nature of the C&C of these weapons makes them very good at deterring cyber threats. To interfere with the C&C of these weapons required a very analog approach. You could argue that modem air defense is highly computerized and rightfully so, the the kinetic interception itself is … analog
We had the MX missile in the 80's called the Peacemaker. Reagan sacrificed it as part of the SALT talks with the USSR. I think it was a good deal overall. I think Russia has replaced their whole fleet several times since 1980. We do need to replace the Minuteman. Unless we can convince Russia and China at least to eliminate their ICBMs. I don't think that they will do that.
No, Bill Clinton sacrificed them without getting anything in return simply because he found this drunken Yeltsin funny and entertaining.😂😂. The MX was the most feared weapon by the Russians each delivering 10 MIRV's. İn my opinion, this Sentinel project with enourmus cost increase is already doomed and will be cancelled anyway leaving the US without land based deterrence..The existing Mınutemans with a single low yield warhead belong to Museum. ... Much older than the USAF officers who operate them..
The "cyber security threat" for these systems is a joke. There is none. If we modernize them, then we will likely have a threat. First, no one uses the code that these things are run on anymore. So the likelihood of being hacked is minimal. Second, the code wasn't like what is done today. It was several orders of magnitude less dense and thoroughly checked for bugs and vulnerabilities. Modern code has an acceptably number of bugs per lines of code. Third, these systems aren't even online. And because they are so old, 19 year old kids won't be checking their Facebook accounts on them. Oh, and they don't have USB ports. It's not like someone is going to find an 8" floppy lying in the parking lot and just give it a try.
The whole physical structure (hardened silos, hardened command centers etc.) will also need attention. Early 60's technology for the structures and 70's for the missles.... Remember when the Air Force Project Office sent Boeing's Classified Bid to Northrup by mistake????? Boeing dropped out because Northrup had all their secrets. No competition and the price goes up.
As we’ve seen from the dated ATACMS with inertial navigation systems, which preform much better than the GPS reliant GMLRS, being dated is often a good thing.
Only to an extent. ATACMS's *originally designed* inertial navigation is 80s-90s hardware/software - fortunately still relevant, easily upgradeable, and acceptable for theatre-ranged work. This is not the case for Minuteman, of which the inertial navigation upgrade of the mid 90s was a band-aid on a band-aid for a system that must exit and reenter the atmosphere AND evade evolving defensive systems that don't include GPS jamming.
It is insane that the Minuteman was originally developed in about 5 years, upgraded almost immediately, re-updated in 1970, all within budget, and today, we can't seem to build a replacement, cost effectively. We have lost our minds. And we really need it. What if Russia and China chose to launch together? We would take a massive hit, if they were crazy enough to try. (Of course, if we become an "America First" dictatorship built on the Chinese model, they would likely cease to worry about us, but our own lives of the common folk would be a shitty as theirs.)
As a stop-gap measure before the Sentinel ICBM deployment, the Air Force could always re-deploy the 50 Peacekeeper ICBMs that they have in storage. The Peacekeepers are newer than the Minuteman 3 ICBMs and carry 10 MIRVs as opposed to the 3 MIRVs the Minuteman 3 carries. A hundred Minuteman 3 ICBM only carries 300 MIRVs while 50 Peacekeeper ICBM carry 500 MIRVs but the Peacekeeper actually can carry up to 12 MIRVs, existing nuclear treaties in the 80's was what limited it to deploying only 10 MIRVs on each ICBM.
The Peacekeeper warheads were transferred to the Minutemen and the rockets were/are being transferred to a private company for space launches. And there were only 50 Peacekeepers ever made. So think you may have some of your info. wrong.
Peacekeeper had it's issues late in the program. All support equipment has been disposed of. The silos were imploded and even the post boost system (stage IV) was demiled and destroyed. It would cost as much if not more as Sentinel to bring it back for just 50 missiles. Not worth the costs. I worked on this weapon system for 15 years in the AF and it's existence belongs in the history pages. Far too late to bring it back
1973, I was the first student to bring a pocket calculator into my High School math class.... It added, subtracted, multiplied, and divided.... And had a percentage key.... It was approximately 5"x5"x3/4" and the old Red digital display that ate up the amps and Nicads like they were going out of style.... At that point, Hewlett Packard was just coming out with their new Electronic Slide Rule for about $650.00.... The Phoenix Missiles was Top Top Secret ‼️🇺🇲‼️ Those were the days....😊
The most amusing thing about this video, interestingly enough, is the fact that this particular '69 Charger is with Russian number plates. Saint Petersburg's to be more precise :) Oh, well...Carry on...
It's not the point that the Minuteman 3 is old and needs replacing. The point is yet again an aerospace company has quoted one price, made the sale, and again says they need way more money to do the job. Does it have to happen every damned time?
Cost overruns were one of the reasons why I was always up in other people's business during duty hours when I was in the US Army Reserves and the US Air Force Reserves. The pentagon could still keep us safe for half of the cost.
@@donaldbadowski6048 these are exceedingly complex projects and can’t be estimated perfectly. No one would quote. They would tend to be cost plus incentive until production begins. The cost over runs are in part due to the cost of upgrading interconnect wires between silos due to construction over the wires.
They run a Bait and Switch scheme on the American taxpayer,using the lives of our children as leverage against us. The last speech that Eisenhower gave as POTUS warned the American people that the defense contractors would seek to extort the American people. Far as I can tell,that is EXACTLY what came to pass.
I enjoy your videos quite a lot. I would like to ask though, is the volume difference for the intro music needed? It reminds me of the "Dolby surround" ear bleeding garbage at the beginning of movies in the theatre and I just wonder why? The music is cool, I would enjoy it, but the higher volume is startling and sometimes at an uncomfortable level. Why not keep it at the same volume as your speaking voice? Please?
23:50 The circuit-switch system actually has some useful advantages - it operates largely on analog technologies, which significantly improves its protection against possibly being hacked or being impacted by electronic warfare 👍
@RaytheonTechnologies_Official a $75.00USD Raspberry Pi cost more than billions of dollars? This should be good. Please enlighten us, Professor Economics..
Going over budget by over 80% may seem bad news. But everything does. And think how much money would have been spent had they been replace after the projected 10 years. And again after the next 10, and the next, and the next, and the next…..
Please reduce the volume of your intro music clip! The loud surge of harsh sound hurts my ears and I can’t get to my volume control quickly enough. Thanks in advance for your help.
The Air Force should deploy the MGM-134a Small mobile ICBM in place of Minuteman 3 missiles. By having mobile launchers capable of driving around to random launch locations is better than silos! Also one can deploy some of these mobile missiles in modified silos if one wants to maintain instant launch response as well!
Just to be simple, the rockets themselves are OLD. The solid fuel can rot, spoil, & just not work. Next add OLD structure & electrical items. Digital came later in its history. Its digital systems are also obsolete. The bunkers also need rebuilding & command & control needs modernization. Its availability during war is of concern. Implementation of MAD policies likely needs to be redone to ensure it's viable.
I think you should be straight forward that electronics grow old and must be maintain more frequent as they age. Overtime, metal rust and must be check and clean regularly. Ten years service life is base on normal consumer data where most consume don't do regular cleaning, upgrading and testing. The labor force probably take for granted many of simple electronic concepts, practices and methodologies as complex or too hard. This is very common.
I love your coverage despite my 2 nit-picks. I used to be into aerobatics so acrobatic is different and you caught that. ❤. I make way more mistakes in my first few sentences. I appreciate your work and research. I respect you man!
They should have developed ONE new missile to replace the Trident and the Minuteman. The SLBM version carries 3 RVs around the third stage bus to 15,000km; the ICBM version carries 1 warhead atop third stage bus with a longer, pointier nose with enough delta v to reach LEO giving unlimited range. This can easily be achieved by replacing the RVs with booster vehicles with their own rocket motor, which also has the effect of allowing the three warheads on the SLBM to be targeted across a much larger geographical spread. They should also have made the W93 warhead a greatly adjustable yield design which can be set at launch to anywhere between 20 kilotons and 2 megatons.
another five video, aside from the Rocketdyne faux pas, I really enjoy your content. The need for a ICBM replacement can't be overstated, with the cancellation of the MX that has left us in a major pinch.
I’m not sure that what was effectively an air gapped system separated from outside digital communications is especially vulnerable to hacking remotely.
Greetings from Spain . There are several questions. 1st Should we have another missile apart from the Sentinel (heavy ICBM) and have a lighter one Ex: MGM-134A Midgetman...? 2º Should we consider other platforms apart from silos, such as trains or launching from airplanes? 3º To what extent are combined cruise missiles (Ex:TAURUS) and ballistic missiles with a kinetic warhead a threat to the silos?
1) DoD very much prefers a single type of missile due to cost and logistics to develop, test, build in numbers, deploy, and house them. Even in the 80s when budgets for strategic line items were generous, the cost did not warrant the benefits compared to more spending on sea- and air-based systems. As Alex in the vid pointed out, the point of land-based ICBMs is to act as more or less a missile sponge to force Russia/China to direct too high a number of their nukes to hit an almost unpopulated area. Land-based ICBMs just need to be a credible-enough threat to warrant Moscow wasting a nuke or two on it. 2) The Peacekeeper and Midgetman's supposed road/rail-mobile launchers were cancelled because it was deemed superfluous given the above justification for keeping land-based missiles. Air-launched ICBMs were proposed but they were deemed superfluous compared to ALCMs. 3) It's impossible to get a plane to have enough fuel to breach NORAD defenses (the fighters and air defense systems in the post-9/11 era) and get Taurus or any other ALCM within firing range of Montana/the Dakotas/Wyoming/Nebraska silos. The time it takes from entering US airspace to getting Taurus to hit a silo is far higher than the time it takes to launch Minuteman. Ballistic missiles with a kinetic warhead would be faster and more likely to hit the silo but, again, it would take more time to reach it and hit it than it would for Minuteman to launch, thereby ruining the whole point of the strike. And how are you going to get ballistic missiles within firing range and launch without the US noticing and launching preemptively or launching a preemptive strike to take out your ballistic missiles on the ground?
I really thing going to new missiles is the route, cause itll mean new control systems. I think the cost of modernization of the Minuteman III leaves the potential for a overlooked weakness. Like trying to build up an old sports car, you tend to find more and more rust and broken things as you go. I really think we could build a far scarier missile.
13:57 someones never played a racing game, classic cars always get love along side modern hyper cars, its the quirky late 90's early 00's stuff that gets ignored
Now here's the most important question...
Will they be sold to the public as surplus?
No, they will be used to launch small satellites or used for research. This happens will all old ICBM components from Atlas to Titan to Peacekeeper and the surplus early Minuteman boosters
I thought they are usually sent to the police for patrol duty. 🤔
@@re2248 Dang, I was really hoping to hop down to the old Surplus store and pick up a boonie hat and a minuteman.
Will an american or buryat become a minister in his region (khabarovsk furgal)
What, costs spiraling out of control? No, say it ain't so, we're all shocked....
Not really out of control. Estimate too low.
They were out of budget because they didn't factor in having to buy the land that the 1960s wires were buried under to replace them. There is a lot that has been built on top of that land in 50 years.
@@dexterplameras3249 Not really. Most of it is open fields and those cables are not very deep. They can trench new cables in another location and path much cheaper than buying buildings.
Woah there Alex. Northrop Grumman did not purchase Aerojet Rocketdyne. Northrop Grumman purchased Orbital-ATK. Both companies make solid rocket motors but Orbital-ATK is the only company making large monolithic solid rocket motors suitable for ICBM first stages. Orbital-ATK (now Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems) is a decedent of Thiokol who made the first stages for the Minuteman III. That's a mighty big mistake.
Was just going to say this. Totally the wrong information in this video. Also, why do they keep showing Space Shuttle Main Engines and other liquid rocket engines when ICBMs use solid rocket motors?
Beat me to it. Massive mistake. Doesn't somebody at Sandboxx fact check the scripts before they're produced?
Spot on. That's a glaring mistake. Not sure how they got something so wrong. Aerojet Rocketdyne was bought by L3Harris but that was after the GBSD competition.
I love sandboxx news but the quality of videos seems to be decreasing. More and more clickbaity titles and thumbnails with little of substance said in the actual video.
@@BilTheGalacticHero wow, way to “umm, actually…”. What does that really change on the thrust of the video? They bought the major competitor and now have the US Government but the short and curlies.
When I was in the Royal Canadian Air Cadets, I got the chance to tour the training centre for Minuteman Missiles at Malmstrom AFB in the late 1970's..... Even got to simulate launching the Missiles! Hard to believe it's the same missiles still sitting there!
I have always enjoyed the professionalism of your videos and presentations. Thank you very much Sir!
Hey Alex I just wanted to say I found your channel about a year ago and I look forward every week to your videos. I’m glad there are people out there keeping us up to date about the many aspects of our military. You sir are a rockstar. Keep up the awesome content. -Tim in Philadelphia
The computer technology used in the MMIII, @Sandboxx, is so old it's actually very difficult to hack.
None of it is connected to the internet either
So basically, because we forgot about antitrust laws, competition disappeared and prices skyrocketed. Shocker
I think it would be more clear to say we stopped making new things, so the corporations providing these services all had to merge to survive. Government policy created monopoly. Yay for "peace dividends".
You forgot the 34 trillion in debt too
@@crbielertIn the 90s after the Soviet collapse, the US Government actually encouraged these mergers of defense companies because of the lack of projects and orders going forward.
@@doujinflip Yeah, it was done. And it's a pretty insane thing, because when a few people are both that rich and that much in control of the military... and they're already using that money both in legalized political bribes (Super PACs) and in shaping media narratives... that's oligarchy.
Also explains the F-35 to a degree.
You really know how the name "floppy", got there, if you've ever held an 8" floppy disk.
The original portable read-only data memory disk with its amazingly huge 80 kb. Good gravy, how did that seem Star Trek-like? 😂🤣😂
Little 3.5 inch stiffy disc
One of my first jobs used a 286 PC with an attached 20MB Bernoulli cartridge hard disk drive. I thought that was a lot back in 1989, but I download bigger pr0n than that these days.
@@DefiantSix for sure, it wasn't that long ago 64 MB of ram was huge, right. When hard drives were measured for the first time in Gigabytes all of a sudden we're into terra bytes. It won't be but a couple of years we'll be into petabytes on thumb drives.🤔🤔🤔 EXPONENTIAL!!!
8 inch, 5.25 inch, 3.5 Diskettes, Rewritable CD & DVD, Removable Hard Disks, "the beat goes on".
Alex, showing Titan ICBMs and talking about them as if they were Minuteman, and showing liquid fueled space rocket engines undergoing testing while talking about the age-out of ICBM solid-propellent motors isn't up the your normal technical standards. As a Minuteman combat crew member and test program launch officer, I notice things like that. But your script was fairly good and I learned things from your research, especially from Aerojet being bought out by Northrup Grumman ... shrewd maneuver ... stunning how that was permitted.
“Kirk and Spock era weapons” 😂 was not expecting that!!
@@xodiaq Very logical
Most people simply aren't paying attention. That's why we need Sandboxx News.
KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!
Me neither. Where’s McCoy?
@@starbase218dammit Jim, he’s a doctor, not a missile man. 😂
Most people simply wouldn't believe the state of some of our weapon systems.
Because most people watch channels like this that tell them how amazing all of our stuff is, until they need to tow the industry line about how more money must be spent.
Most people wouldn't believe how much we waste on a department who can't pass a single audit.
Not to mention this never ending spending even during peace time, while everything is crumbling all around us. On one side we have our government screwing us by taxing the life out of us while delivering basically nothing in return. On the side we have the billionaires and wealthy sucking every penny and opportunity while using these politicians to do their bidding.
And somehow the immigrants who can't speak English working the fields, or construction, or house cleaning is to blame for everything that goes wrong.
Who can people just buy this bs.
Most people are clueless about US military systems and make ridicules comments from a position of ignorance.
@@LackofFaithifySeems to me that you are one of those people who watch channels like this.
@@heathwirt8919 you can say that about all military systems from every country
I would love to see a series where you covered ground vehicles and rotary aviation in as much depth as you do for fast air...you have an enjoyable channel keep it up
Also noteworthy... those of us playing Oregon Trail in the 90s, did so using 5.25in floppies! 😅
Thus further illustrating *_how old_* 8in ones were. _(as we all know, tech shrinks over time, as it's developed further)_
Used to play Oregon Trail in my homeroom in 8th grade (1986) on those very same 5.25 flops! When the 3.5's hit, man they were so futuristic lookin'!
Good times, for sure!
@@michaellee6489 I agree!
My school had those archaic systems into the mid-90s, as it was a catholic school, so minimal funds.
They finally set enough aside to start a new Mac Lab, and the special system the new teacher had, came with a really snazzy CD drive, the likes of which I've never seen since! The CD's stayed their plastic case, having the very same sliding-door that 3.5" floppies had!
@@DUKE_of_RAMBLEAhhhh, one of the early CD caddy drives!
That was a holdover from Sony and Philips's different visions for the format. Sony wanted the case to be a part of the media for durability, similar to their 3.5" microfloppy, UMD, and MiniDisk formats. Philips wanted it to not be, for cost. The argument went very close to the format's launch, and some early mechanisms were essentially built for a package that didn't exist.
I remeber a mainframe computer that used those big Really Floppy 💾. Also the huge 500MB hard drive on it was the size of a washing machine... with power requirements to match though it sounded like a dishwasher. 😂
When I started work they, 8 inch floppy, were used by the WANG word processor used by the chief engineers secretary to type up manuals. IBM PC came in about 2 years latter with 5.25 inch floppy drives Initially to provide spread sheet functions for the cost estimating team. Slowly they took over word processing as well. GANT charts were run on Apple Macs also with 5.25 inch because of their vastly superior graphics allowing display of the chart. Quite revolutionary as we could have a person purely deicated to updating the GANT. Protel a printed circuit board program came in as well as various forms of auto cad. By Mid to Late 80s draugtsen became moving of their paper drawing boards. Can't say it made everything better.
The old school hardware does keep the system relatively safe from hacking. . .? Just a thought.
My understanding was the same: Minuteman 3s aren't hackable. Unfortunately I can't for the life of me remember where I got that from. Was hoping for some explanation on the "cyber security" element because an entire fleet of heavily networked ICBMs seems to me as a layman like a major step backwards.
You don’t even need a source tbh you can figure that from the fact that they were built before networking existed and haven’t been updated since then, which is a REALLY good thing in that respect as they are completely unhackable since you can’t connect to them at all. Being out of support is a problem with every repair being a custom project essentially, but for cyberattacks they absolutely need to keep them off network to be airtight
The command communications infrastructure is partly digital. It may or not be hackable. This structure has the purpose to issue the command "FIRE"! Oops! Needs to be taken care of ASAP.
So, getting rid of the Peacekeeper was a bad idea?
That was supposed to replace the MM3. Now they have a real problem on their hands.
They treated everyone that worked on Peacekeeper like crap and Old Man Bush couldn't wait to shut it all down. There were old grandpas working Minuteman systems even in the 1980s trying to keep that crap equipment going. And all the nice 80s and 90s tech and talent in Peacekeeper just cast aside. Now Northrop trying to bid cheap to fix 50 yrs of complacency. Job Openings salaries for Northrop jobs seem to be really low. I guess they expect engineering work to be done in Alabama or Mississippi because nobody getting a decent living anywhere in California on that pay. USAF don't want to pay for the Strategic Triad any more than just quit it.
Replacing a computer that uses floppy disks and doesn't even know what Ethernet is to mitigate cyber risks sounds like they asked ChatGPT to give them as many reasons as possible.
1:14 you also forgot Colorado and Nebraska. Trust me, I lived less than 5 miles from an active minute man 3 silo. The guards don’t greet you with riles for no reason if you’re dumb enough to walk up and shake the fence.
Some might say the missile replacement isn't as 'sexy' a topic for a video, but I'm damn glad you made the video. Can't wait for the next part...
Just don’t attach it to a Government AI supercomputer that could launch it because it played a strategy game vs a high school nerd from Seattle 😂
Would you like some fries with your WOPR?
Of course not, that was so 80's. What they did back in the 90's was connect it to a self-aware AI supercomputer called Skynet. Currently, Skynet is still weighing whether Gen Zs are capable of creating a future for humanity, or not and just wipe humanity out. Tick Tock!🤣
@@ecleveland1 no…I want to play a game
😂😂😂
The Soviets and now the Russians allegedly have deployed an autonomous system to launch their missiles in the event their leadership is killed and the system has detected that the Russian mainland was hit by nuclear war heads. The system is called Dead Hand, also known as Perimeter.
Our government's inefficiency never ceases to amaze me. Why not build in an upgrade option when designing a system? Just seems stupid.
Stringing metal phone lines worked in the 70's, fiber is a better idea in avoiding electrical interference, being a bit harder to find under ground and tap, as well as being a bit more corrosion resistant. Real estate costs for locations and interconnect ditches for the comms have skyrocketed in recent years. Not to repeat your hint at single-source / non-competitive contracting. Add in the fact that everyone who ever built a nuclear warhead has retired...
In 1963, US military spending was 9% of GDP.
Today, about 3.5%.
These are affordable
What is the comparison in pure dollars?
We weren’t 35 trillion in debt then
@@HubertofLiegeEntitlement programs were in their infancy then.
Military spending isn't the problem
@@Chuck_Hooks really mic spending is totally ok at these levels. we spend 10 times the nearest adversary and we loose every war we fight. plus who knows what the black budget is doing since there's no oversight. congress is not up to that task and by some accounts certainly by richard dolan we have a breakaway govt running thats also totally un accountable. mic spending is the most disastrous problem we face.
@@marsmotion Winning and losing is done at a political level, not a military one.
Age wise, these missiles are just BUFFs without wings?
If it was cost effective to just continuously refurbish them, we would. But they're not. Better to design a newer generation of missiles and launch systems and buy a few decades of reduced maintenance costs.
@@namyun2743assuming all the thinktanks mentioned in the video were more or less correct in their assessments, it would still be cost effective to continuously upgrade the Minuteman IIIs compared to a new platform if the goal was just to maintain existing capabilities. But not if we discovered we needed add new capabilities or improve existing ones to maintain effectiveness as adversaries begin to introduce new countermeasures.
Well I figured out the problem while watching this, the DOD has an Admiral in charge of USAF toys. I'm happy to have helped.
So, the analog nature of the C&C of these weapons makes them very good at deterring cyber threats. To interfere with the C&C of these weapons required a very analog approach. You could argue that modem air defense is highly computerized and rightfully so, the the kinetic interception itself is … analog
We had the MX missile in the 80's called the Peacemaker. Reagan sacrificed it as part of the SALT talks with the USSR. I think it was a good deal overall. I think Russia has replaced their whole fleet several times since 1980. We do need to replace the Minuteman. Unless we can convince Russia and China at least to eliminate their ICBMs. I don't think that they will do that.
No, Bill Clinton sacrificed them without getting anything in return simply because he found this drunken Yeltsin funny and entertaining.😂😂. The MX was the most feared weapon by the Russians each delivering 10 MIRV's.
İn my opinion, this Sentinel project with enourmus cost increase is already doomed and will be cancelled anyway leaving the US without land based deterrence..The existing Mınutemans with a single low yield warhead belong to Museum. ... Much older than the USAF officers who operate them..
I remember playing oregon trail. My ox always died 😂
My children would always die!
@@ruthnoya8424 O NO! 🤣
The "cyber security threat" for these systems is a joke. There is none. If we modernize them, then we will likely have a threat. First, no one uses the code that these things are run on anymore. So the likelihood of being hacked is minimal. Second, the code wasn't like what is done today. It was several orders of magnitude less dense and thoroughly checked for bugs and vulnerabilities. Modern code has an acceptably number of bugs per lines of code. Third, these systems aren't even online. And because they are so old, 19 year old kids won't be checking their Facebook accounts on them. Oh, and they don't have USB ports. It's not like someone is going to find an 8" floppy lying in the parking lot and just give it a try.
Yeah, we do not need a computer asking one day. "Do you want to play a game" 😮😂
Hello Joshua , how about a nice game of Chess ?
Wargames please that would be nice
Mr falken
I saw a tweet about the cost overruns. Thanks for the video 👍
The whole physical structure (hardened silos, hardened command centers etc.) will also need attention. Early 60's technology for the structures and 70's for the missles.... Remember when the Air Force Project Office sent Boeing's Classified Bid to Northrup by mistake????? Boeing dropped out because Northrup had all their secrets. No competition and the price goes up.
No, not Boeing!!!
Space X
Shut up
You have been killed, by knowing things you shouldn’t.
@@meanman6992
Now you know. And knowing is half the battle…
Isn't that about the same price as California High Speed Rail?
As we’ve seen from the dated ATACMS with inertial navigation systems, which preform much better than the GPS reliant GMLRS, being dated is often a good thing.
Only to an extent. ATACMS's *originally designed* inertial navigation is 80s-90s hardware/software - fortunately still relevant, easily upgradeable, and acceptable for theatre-ranged work. This is not the case for Minuteman, of which the inertial navigation upgrade of the mid 90s was a band-aid on a band-aid for a system that must exit and reenter the atmosphere AND evade evolving defensive systems that don't include GPS jamming.
It is insane that the Minuteman was originally developed in about 5 years, upgraded almost immediately, re-updated in 1970, all within budget, and today, we can't seem to build a replacement, cost effectively. We have lost our minds.
And we really need it. What if Russia and China chose to launch together? We would take a massive hit, if they were crazy enough to try. (Of course, if we become an "America First" dictatorship built on the Chinese model, they would likely cease to worry about us, but our own lives of the common folk would be a shitty as theirs.)
"Ore-E-Gone trail". Dang
Physical pain...
As someone from the Pacific Northwest, I cringed.
Where did the ore go?
The hacking is impossible because the missile system is closed loop!!
This was my thought as well… that and sometimes simple tech is more durable and reliable…. 🤷♂️
Closed-loop doesn't mean it's hack-proof. Just look at Iran and STUXNET.
@@meanman6992 I completely agree with you. They are saying the new warheads will be able to be disarmed midflight. sounds like a nightmare
As a stop-gap measure before the Sentinel ICBM deployment, the Air Force could always re-deploy the 50 Peacekeeper ICBMs that they have in storage. The Peacekeepers are newer than the Minuteman 3 ICBMs and carry 10 MIRVs as opposed to the 3 MIRVs the Minuteman 3 carries. A hundred Minuteman 3 ICBM only carries 300 MIRVs while 50 Peacekeeper ICBM carry 500 MIRVs but the Peacekeeper actually can carry up to 12 MIRVs, existing nuclear treaties in the 80's was what limited it to deploying only 10 MIRVs on each ICBM.
The Peacekeeper warheads were transferred to the Minutemen and the rockets were/are being transferred to a private company for space launches. And there were only 50 Peacekeepers ever made. So think you may have some of your info. wrong.
Peacekeeper had it's issues late in the program. All support equipment has been disposed of. The silos were imploded and even the post boost system (stage IV) was demiled and destroyed. It would cost as much if not more as Sentinel to bring it back for just 50 missiles. Not worth the costs. I worked on this weapon system for 15 years in the AF and it's existence belongs in the history pages. Far too late to bring it back
1973, I was the first student to bring a pocket calculator into my High School math class....
It added, subtracted, multiplied, and divided....
And had a percentage key....
It was approximately 5"x5"x3/4" and the old Red digital display that ate up the amps and Nicads like they were going out of style....
At that point, Hewlett Packard was just coming out with their new Electronic Slide Rule for about $650.00....
The Phoenix Missiles was Top Top Secret ‼️🇺🇲‼️
Those were the days....😊
The first one I ever saw went for $185!! In today's money......❤
excellent analysis.
The most amusing thing about this video, interestingly enough, is the fact that this particular '69 Charger is with Russian number plates. Saint Petersburg's to be more precise :) Oh, well...Carry on...
Alex - quite a sobering video of our strategic capabilities. Good job.
This is “Space Power”
Star wars theme intensifies
Alex, you've convinced me to trade in my 1969 Dodge Charger for a 2024 Toyota Corolla.
They don’t have to replace them. It is just time to enrich the contractors on this project.
"..these Kirk and Spock era weapons in service.." Loved it. I think Alex may be a TOS fan.
🙏⭐🤗🏆
Thank you for sharing this
Ooh, a multi-video series... Almost worthy of being called, not _Air Power!,_ but *_Nuclear_*_ Power!_ 😊
"Voluntary euthanasia" 😂😂😂
Never change Alex. That was hilarious.
I hate to be that guy but Oregon is pronounced Ory-gun, we haven’t Oregone anywhere Alex, love your videos, keep up the great work!
This video is bomb
It's not the point that the Minuteman 3 is old and needs replacing. The point is yet again an aerospace company has quoted one price, made the sale, and again says they need way more money to do the job. Does it have to happen every damned time?
Yep !
And of coarse the usual suspects get money in there offshore accounts
Cost overruns were one of the reasons why I was always up in other people's business during duty hours when I was in the US Army Reserves and the US Air Force Reserves. The pentagon could still keep us safe for half of the cost.
@@donaldbadowski6048 these are exceedingly complex projects and can’t be estimated perfectly. No one would quote. They would tend to be cost plus incentive until production begins. The cost over runs are in part due to the cost of upgrading interconnect wires between silos due to construction over the wires.
They run a Bait and Switch scheme on the American taxpayer,using the lives of our children as leverage against us.
The last speech that Eisenhower gave as POTUS warned the American people that the defense contractors would seek to extort the American people. Far as I can tell,that is EXACTLY what came to pass.
If the US is having to update them with this cost, I can only imagine what state the Russian nuclear arsenal is in.
Great video as usual!.. any updates on the NGI?.. NEXT GEN INTERCEPTOR?
I enjoy your videos quite a lot.
I would like to ask though, is the volume difference for the intro music needed? It reminds me of the "Dolby surround" ear bleeding garbage at the beginning of movies in the theatre and I just wonder why?
The music is cool, I would enjoy it, but the higher volume is startling and sometimes at an uncomfortable level. Why not keep it at the same volume as your speaking voice? Please?
Agreed
Awesome! Thank you Sir.
Incredibly informative !! I have been wondering why for quite a while.
"Warhead Sponge"
Sounds like an '80's hair band name...
Love it!
Zk
12:09 Oregon Trail reference - You don't say you watched John Oliver's Last Week Tonight show, Nuclear Weapons episode... 😀
I absolutely loved the Charger analogy. It fit so perfectly for laymen.
Born in the late 1970's, and I've never seen a 8" floppy.
Tritium boosting capsules? Routine maintenance? Pit replacements? Kickbacks? Bribes?
23:50 The circuit-switch system actually has some useful advantages - it operates largely on analog technologies, which significantly improves its protection against possibly being hacked or being impacted by electronic warfare 👍
Looking forward to Part Two!
To sum it up, a Raspberry Pi SBC is a super computer in comparison.
A raspberry pi 5 also costs more than this missile program
@RaytheonTechnologies_Official a $75.00USD Raspberry Pi cost more than billions of dollars? This should be good. Please enlighten us, Professor Economics..
@@SCP-POOL hyperbole
[noun] exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.
@@RaytheonTechnologies_Official I can actually feel my iQ dropping just reading your crap.
@@SCP-POOL ok buddy
Going over budget by over 80% may seem bad news. But everything does. And think how much money would have been spent had they been replace after the projected 10 years. And again after the next 10, and the next, and the next, and the next…..
We must not forget the EMP of the Atomic Warhead, and how far it reaches from 0, and if it can damage the missile circuit in the silo.
Awesome episode.
When people mispronounce the state of Oregon, it grinds my gears lol you pronounce the O like a U like gun pew pew lol 😆
Damn chargers catching strays lmao
Please reduce the volume of your intro music clip! The loud surge of harsh sound hurts my ears and I can’t get to my volume control quickly enough. Thanks in advance for your help.
Very well presented video, as always. But it immediately reminds me of the movie "Dr. Strangelove" and all that went wrong there.
Gee another weapon system over budget. I find that hard to believe.
NOT !!!
$35 trillion now, we can spend more 😂
The Air Force should deploy the MGM-134a Small mobile ICBM in place of Minuteman 3 missiles. By having mobile launchers capable of driving around to random launch locations is better than silos! Also one can deploy some of these mobile missiles in modified silos if one wants to maintain instant launch response as well!
Thank you Sir:)
New intro track slaaaaaaaaps, sir.
instead of an admiral in charge of the replacement or life extension of the MM3 program, how about an engineer in charge?
Just to be simple, the rockets themselves are OLD. The solid fuel can rot, spoil, & just not work. Next add OLD structure & electrical items. Digital came later in its history. Its digital systems are also obsolete. The bunkers also need rebuilding & command & control needs modernization. Its availability during war is of concern. Implementation of MAD policies likely needs to be redone to ensure it's viable.
Alex,can you tell us about MK21A as well?
I wonder if a segmented booster would be an option?
The ultimate expression of power. Great video, Alex.
I think you should be straight forward that electronics grow old and must be maintain more frequent as they age. Overtime, metal rust and must be check and clean regularly. Ten years service life is base on normal consumer data where most consume don't do regular cleaning, upgrading and testing. The labor force probably take for granted many of simple electronic concepts, practices and methodologies as complex or too hard. This is very common.
81% over budget? That's about as bad as I am when it comes to budgets lol.
How’s that 60 year old silo concrete holding up after years of moisture exposure underground? Better than a Florida condo, I hope.
I love your coverage despite my 2 nit-picks. I used to be into aerobatics so acrobatic is different and you caught that. ❤. I make way more mistakes in my first few sentences. I appreciate your work and research. I respect you man!
Sick video thanks bro!
They should have developed ONE new missile to replace the Trident and the Minuteman. The SLBM version carries 3 RVs around the third stage bus to 15,000km; the ICBM version carries 1 warhead atop third stage bus with a longer, pointier nose with enough delta v to reach LEO giving unlimited range. This can easily be achieved by replacing the RVs with booster vehicles with their own rocket motor, which also has the effect of allowing the three warheads on the SLBM to be targeted across a much larger geographical spread. They should also have made the W93 warhead a greatly adjustable yield design which can be set at launch to anywhere between 20 kilotons and 2 megatons.
I don't know. Aren't the computer systems so old that they are practically unhackable?
another five video, aside from the Rocketdyne faux pas, I really enjoy your content. The need for a ICBM replacement can't be overstated, with the cancellation of the MX that has left us in a major pinch.
What makes anyone think that our adversarys don't have the same issues with their missels?
What makes you think they do?
Another good video, but you have a bit of mic popping. Either move a bit away from the mic, or use a better pop filter.
I second this.
3:47 "Crap samdwich" shows a person eating a salad roll 😅
I’m not sure that what was effectively an air gapped system separated from outside digital communications is especially vulnerable to hacking remotely.
Do you absolutely rock I love your channel Don't ever go anywhere.
Hey, you can't hug a child with nuclear arms. Or can you....?
Greetings from Spain . There are several questions.
1st Should we have another missile apart from the Sentinel (heavy ICBM) and have a lighter one Ex: MGM-134A Midgetman...?
2º Should we consider other platforms apart from silos, such as trains or launching from airplanes?
3º To what extent are combined cruise missiles (Ex:TAURUS) and ballistic missiles with a kinetic warhead a threat to the silos?
1) DoD very much prefers a single type of missile due to cost and logistics to develop, test, build in numbers, deploy, and house them. Even in the 80s when budgets for strategic line items were generous, the cost did not warrant the benefits compared to more spending on sea- and air-based systems.
As Alex in the vid pointed out, the point of land-based ICBMs is to act as more or less a missile sponge to force Russia/China to direct too high a number of their nukes to hit an almost unpopulated area. Land-based ICBMs just need to be a credible-enough threat to warrant Moscow wasting a nuke or two on it.
2) The Peacekeeper and Midgetman's supposed road/rail-mobile launchers were cancelled because it was deemed superfluous given the above justification for keeping land-based missiles. Air-launched ICBMs were proposed but they were deemed superfluous compared to ALCMs.
3) It's impossible to get a plane to have enough fuel to breach NORAD defenses (the fighters and air defense systems in the post-9/11 era) and get Taurus or any other ALCM within firing range of Montana/the Dakotas/Wyoming/Nebraska silos. The time it takes from entering US airspace to getting Taurus to hit a silo is far higher than the time it takes to launch Minuteman.
Ballistic missiles with a kinetic warhead would be faster and more likely to hit the silo but, again, it would take more time to reach it and hit it than it would for Minuteman to launch, thereby ruining the whole point of the strike. And how are you going to get ballistic missiles within firing range and launch without the US noticing and launching preemptively or launching a preemptive strike to take out your ballistic missiles on the ground?
@@eddietat95You explained it way better than me. I wrote my own comment 2 days ago but it got deleted.
I really thing going to new missiles is the route, cause itll mean new control systems. I think the cost of modernization of the Minuteman III leaves the potential for a overlooked weakness. Like trying to build up an old sports car, you tend to find more and more rust and broken things as you go. I really think we could build a far scarier missile.
13:57 someones never played a racing game, classic cars always get love along side modern hyper cars, its the quirky late 90's early 00's stuff that gets ignored
What about Peacekeeper missile?