The aging Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles that have formed the land-based leg of the nation’s nuclear deterrent triad for half a century can no longer be upgraded and require costly replacements, Adm. Charles Richard, head of U.S. Strategic Command, said Tuesday.
“Let me be very clear: You cannot life-extend the Minuteman III [any longer],” he said of the 400 ICBMs that sit in underground silos across five states in the upper Midwest.
“We can’t do it at all. … That thing is so old that, in some cases, the drawings don’t exist anymore [to guide upgrades],” Richard said in a Zoom conference sponsored by the Defense Writers Group.
Where the drawings do exist, “they’re like six generations behind the industry standard,” he said, adding that there are also no technicians who fully understand them. “They’re not alive anymore.”
Surely, the Chinese must have the drawings.
Ask Bill Clinton. He helped them.
They should look in Joe’s garage in Delaware …. y’know behind his Corvette.
As a heads up to the alphabet boys, no they’re not in Melania’s lingerie drawer.
Minuteman. What a relic of the misogynist, white male patriarchy.
We prefer the Trudopian term “Minuteperson”
/sarc
And let’s not forget that being on time is racist, so it will need to be “Fewminuteperson”.
Best to go with something less likely to be divisive, lets go with “Swoosh” or “Wave”.
atlas-centaur
but they look so so phallic . though one minute isnt near long lasting
And “Minuteman” is a verbal relic of the Colonialist militia who slaughtered their way to lay claim to native lands. The term coming from the readiness of those murderous militiamen. Common farmers who would grab their guns … ohhhhhhhh mommmaaaaaaa … guns!! To murder the legitimate government troops so they could STEAL the land from the peaceful, noble, British and their Native partners.
See how easy it is to be stupid … and sound “knowledgeable” doing it ?
In fact … my level of “scholarship” should land a job as President of Harvard ! No?
Trudeau otherwise pronounced as My Nute person.
It actually is nothing. Just an acknowledgement that old technology is old, and must be replaced. In this case, at great cost and with political difficulty, but there’s nothing unusual in this story whatsoever.
Just kook at Canada, everything is obsolete.
Exactly so, Steve. Minuteman was important for confronting the Soviet Union, and it filled that role. It’s political role was to be the principal nuclear component controlled by the US Air Force. It’s now long obsolete just as WW2 battleships were obsolete after about 1960 or flintlock muskets were obsolete by about 1850. Scrap them and move on.
Easier said then done when we have been bankrupted and competent leadership is almost non existent.
The l is too close to the k.
There’s something you want to advertise to the world!
Hey! Our ballistic defense equipment is as old, useless and out of touch as our President!
Pretty much my thought
Budget time.
Time to call Musk. He’s good at this stuff
Wonder if the state would avoid doing business with Musk even if it sends the state into oblivion.
I think the world is well aware of the aging military capabilities, and the fact that the west doesn’t have the resources to replace anything. The concept of looking after our own was one that I really liked. Too bad I seem to be in the minority on this one.
I’m wondering what happened to the Minutemen I and II?
And why are we only up to III? Shouldn’t we have a few Minutemen X by now?
So what has happened on this file since 2021?
Maybe they’ll give them to Zelensky.
@YeahWell…
No need, by all MSM military experts & SDA strategic warfare analysts here, Russia ran out of ammunition back in Dec 2022. Do the research it’s all there in video and print.
One would have thought they could have dug out of the mud they’ve been stuck in with the shovels they use instead of rifles.
Ran out of ammunition?
Is that why Russia is using Iranian and North Korean ammunition?
LOL.
Ukraine ran out of ammo right at the beginning, and had to start begging globohomo.
Did Ukraine invade it’s neighbor for no reason other than imperialism?
Allan S (for Soros) swings and a misses with a weak strawman!
@joe,
Don’t know, wouldn’t that be something the military experts would have calculated beforehand?
Like “oh my god, what if Russia bought or traded ammunition with its neighbours”? Nah just the Ukrainians would even think of doing something like that.
Paul
I’m puzzled why Russia needs to get ammunition, missiles, drones from North Korea and Iran. Supposedly they had lots of stuff stored.
For example. the Russians supposedly had on the order of 7000 T72 tanks. What happened to them? Why aren’t they using them?
Could it be that they didn’t perform maintenance on them, and they’re just 7000 forty-five ton hunks of rusting metal?
JOKE
It’s easier to put a gas cap on a tank, and cheaper, than building one from scratch. And maybe Russia ain’t using them bc they don’t need them. When yer that stupid just STFU and FO!
Joe
Why does India buy Russian ammo, they’re not even in a major conflict?
India has lots of manufacturers too, dontcha know.
At least Russia buys ammo, and doesn’t depend foreign taxpayers to get buy it for them.
Why doesn’t the Ukraine buy ammo like everybody else, instead of relying on western taxpayers to provide it for them.
@Joe,
Lastly, Russia is still supplying its trading partners with ammo. Is Ukraine doing as much?
Why does the Ukraine need to get all its ammo from the west?
If Russia “needs” all this ammo, why is Russia India’s biggest import supplier?
I think you are just parroting western MSM claims to try to prove guilt by association, ignoring all the baddies the west supplies with weapons, like the perps of 9/11, for starters.
Perhaps once you can tune out Anderson Cooper, you may have something of some relevance to say.
Ho Lee said
“It’s easier to put a gas cap on a tank, and cheaper, than building one from scratch.”
Okay, why are the Russians building new tanks when they have so many old ones in storage?
Russia’s forces are suffering a shortage of tanks, the country’s defence minister has admitted. Sergei Shoigu, on a visit to a military factory in western Siberia (in mid 2023), said that production of armoured vehicles needed to be increased.
Ho Lee Fuc said
“Russia ain’t using them bc they don’t need them.”
Ho Lee, I’m afraid Sergei Shoigu (he’s Russia’s Defence Minister) disagrees with you.
An increase in the manufacture of tanks was said by Shoigu to be necessary “to satisfy the needs of Russian forces carrying out the special military operation”.
@joe – “I’m puzzled why Russia needs to get ammunition”
Well I’m not a military strategist like you guys, but I’d would presume that any country would stay ahead of it’s ammo supply if it could, just encase.
I would presume that Russian military strategists would view NATO “chomping at the bit” sitting on the borderlands waiting for it’s supplies to deplete and then send NATO troops in. Therefore they would stockpile using foreign bought munitions and keep plenty back for a NATO flank.
Other than building new alliances with new found friends, hording ammo seems like a sensible thing to do. But that’s just me, obviously no one else in the west see’s any logic in that sort of tactic.
So assuming RAND Corp. is fairly biased to the west with their reporting, they claim Russian arms Exports are down but not gone, and they are continually looking for new markets. As the second largest arms exporter globally 2020 it seems fairly realistic that they are not running out completely as they explore new markets while “down” in 2023. But you know whatever MSNBC say’s.
Look around, some good interactive maps.
RAND – National Security Research Division
“Russian Arms Sales and Sanctions Monthly Snapshot” – Latest Issue: November 2023
https://www.rand.org/nsrd/projects/russian-arms-sales-and-sanctions-compliance/monthly-snapshot.html
Paul
I’m not a military strategist, I just asked a legitimate question. Why does Russia need to import ammunition?
They were supposed to have lots of ammo and lots of tanks. What happened to it all?
@joe
Gave you a pretty reasonable possibility based on some common sense.
It doesn’t matter what you or I or anyone in the west thinks, it’s how Russia views the west. An untrustworthy threat on their borders, so they aren’t overextending and are playing careful. Saving resourses and making new allies.
A frugal strategy that any games-man would get without any military experience. Unfortunately we in the west have a Hollywood expectation of how the Russians will do things. Got it wrong by the looks of it so far, maybe the tranny geniuses in our think tanks will get it right in the long run, but they aren’t batting a good average to date.
Paul
I understand Russia is getting arms from other countries. Why/ they don’t have enough of their own.
my question is Why didn’t they have enough ammunition and tanks of their own. What happened to it all?
@joe
So now you’ve obviously moved into the realm of being an imbecilic troll “joe”.
Repeating a dumb question over and over after receiving a valid answer is the tell.
Yes Russia is getting arms from other countries as is Israel & Ukraine. Russia is also selling arms to countries, the fact that you don’t seem intelligent enough to understand the business is moot to the reality. Deal with it.
JOKE
Not a strategic thinker I see!
The missiles aboard the US submarine fleet are more than sufficient to do the job. This is just a reason to give the MIC more money.
Those submarine missiles are about the same age…
No, they are not.
The Minuteman III dates to the 1970s.
The Trident dates to the 1990s.
The Tomahawk dates to the 1980s.
Trident is 40 years old at least, Margaret Thatcher was talking about it to Jimmy Carter according to Wikipedia. Pretty ancient for a machine that runs around in salt water. Also extremely ancient for a computer system. Like, ‘they’ve lost the source code’ ancient.
The “life extension” program for the Trident II started in 2002, more than 20 years ago. They’re on their second extension at this point, looking at the third.
And nothing new on the horizon, which does not seem good. Or smart.
Lets hope that if they are fired they don’t go off in the launch tube. Things would be really f*****, no pun intended.
Just get an H1B to whip up a ChatGP script to solveit, but please wait until a minute after it needs to be done. AI wins!
but they look so so phallic . though one minute isnt near long lasting
Anyone else have a problem with the head of US Strategic Command stating this in a Zoom call by something called the Defense Writers Group for all the public to see?
I’m old enough to remember that you NEVER EVER EVER gave your enemies (and friends) concrete readiness information when it came to ballistic weapons. The very reason we no longer see the USSR (at least in name) is that we challenged them to a game of “Keeping up with the Jones’s”. The USSR eventually spent themselves out of existence. But, they had no real idea what capabilities the US had and where it was pointing, and what (and how many) would be pointing at them in the future. As a result, they were forced to assume. And, trust me, we pranked them more than once on capabilities. We even doctored some of the test films (badly I might add).
Your disingenuous conflation of the USSR with the Russian Federation is noted.
Well, I know that in the last Russian election nearly 10 Million people voted for the Communist party candidate. That hardly seems disingenuous…especially since over 56 Million voted for the ex-KGB officer.
Using voting patterns in free elections to defend your statement is even more disingenuous.
Apparently you cannot distinguish between pre-1990 and post-1990 electoral practices in Russia, and still think that Russia is full of collective farms and factories.
Heh…you’re a card. “Free” elections. Internally, Russia is nothing more than Kabuki theater…as is the US, by the way. Both countries try (in Russia’s case, succeed) to throw opposition in jail…as well as contrary journalists.
Guess what, every single country that uses a democratic selection process has criteria by which elected officials are considered eligible. In Russia, if you get your funding from foreigners, you’re disqualified, and thrown in jail if you use foreign money to rabble rouse, like Navalny was, which is more than I can say for the west.
Remember Derek Sloan?
Currently, Russia has a much more transparent and fair electoral system than the Ukraine has had since the 2014 coup.
Again, you fail to discriminate between post-1990 electoral practices (one man, one vote, just like us), and pre-1990 systems, where Soviet ideology was the criterion for who could vote and who could run for office.
You seem incapable from discriminating between One Man One Vote systems that have private sector economies and systems that select eligibility to vote based on Soviet ideology and have collective farms and factories because you are so blinded by western propaganda that further communication with you seems pointless.
Nice straw man and deflection attempt, though.
Have a nice day.
Closest one to my house is 50.0 km, according to Google Maps.
I grew up on top of these, literally. My family farmed on top of them. My elementary school had a fallout shelter.
What boggles my mind is letting the world know they lost the drawings. Someone really needs to drum up support for this. If it’s a no brainer, why the need to air it publically? Something tells me Biden has done nothing about this.
Duck.
Do you expect anyone to care?
The purpose of the US defense industry is to help the elites steal money. The only war Uncle Sam ever won fair and square was against his own people, in 1865.
I suppose you never heard of WW2. Or the Spanish-American War. Or WW1.
cghCOLON
“I suppose you never heard of WW2.”
Hahahahahaha, yer about as good as the phantomCOLON.
The Americans won WW2
Them and us.
Them, us, and Luxembourg.
We have gotten out of the habit of actually building something anymore.
We went from the Atlas to the Titan to Minuteman 1, 2, 3, and then the Peacekeeper. We retired the big Peacekeeper missiles as part of SALT.
We were supposed to be building new “Midgetman” Ballistic Missiles about 20 years ago, then 9/11 and the endless pointless proportional War on Terror started.
Now that the WOT has wound down to a few thousand servicemen staked out in Iraq and Syria, and a dozen other unnamed shitholes, it’s time to get back to Strategic Arms again.
The Software for the Missile Systems will cost 100X what the hardware will cost, and delay completion of the new missiles by a decade. Maybe two decades or even NEVER, if the vendor emphasizes Diversity
The USA is concentrating on submarine-based systems, it seems.
So according to this Defense officer Kim Jong Un has more modern nuclear missiles then does the US. But on the other hand our military is stronger due to it’s diversity, equality and inclusion.