You seem to have forgotten the Peacekeeper missile fielded in the 80's. 1985-2005, these missiles had twelve Mark 21 reentry vehicles, each armed with a 300-kiloton W87 warheads. They were BEASTS!

We should be building an updated version of the Peacekeeper ICBM, which had all the *claimed* capabilities of the Sarmat 40 years ago. We don’t have to put 12 MIRVs on them while the treaty is sort of still in effect, but if the treaty system breaks down, it would be nice to have that option without having to build 4x as many Sentinel missiles, just because someone thought 3 MIRVs would be enough.

Fun fact! The Minutemen use super detailed gravity anomaly maps to guide them to their targets. Minutemen are controlled at FE Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming. I went to college about 45 minutes down the highway from there. One year when the school was cleaning out old maps from the library and giving them away, I found a gravity anomaly map, a full book of the northern hemisphere actually. So I have a copy of the map that is used to aim these missiles!

Bracketing a target with 2 nukes of 100kt is generally more effective than hitting target with 1 200kt bomb.

The US Army just chose General Dynamics and Rheinmetall as finalists for the 4000 Bradley replacement IFVs. Could you do a Firepower series video about this program, the two finalists and the other three that dropped out. Or more generally the current state of IFVs (Bradley, CV90, Puma, Lynx) and their most likely future. Maybe even including anti air IFVs like some CV90 variants and SkyRanger.

A surreal feeling is that my previous job required me many times to drive from Bismarck North Dakota to Minot North Dakota. That highway would take me right through the midst of the ICBM fields. They would be anywhere from several hundred yards to several miles away from the highway in various directions. I thought wow not a good place to be if world war 3 breaks out

You can see the inspiration for the B-21 "Raider" when you see a diving Peregrine Falcon in profile.

A superb commentary. AH’s passion? Unrivalled.

America needs more nuclear missiles and warheads like it had in the 80s. USA needs these as Russia and China are building huge amounts of new nuclear weapons. The USA needs a new MX missle carrying upto 12 warheads and at least a stockpile of 10000 nuclear warheads. The US military needs also to increase the number of nuke submarines, its planning to build only 16😢. This needs to increase at least to 20-24 new submarines.

Love your videos Alex! Your channel is the reason I waited up all night for the b21 reveal :) Keep up the good work in 2024 and beyond 🤟

In actuality, the most potent nuclear deterrent United States capability is embodied in its sea leg. Each of the 14 Ohio Class submarines carry 24 UGM-133A Trident II, or Trident D5 missiles. Each missile on average carries only four Mk-4A RV 100 kt W76-1warheads due to the warhead limitations placed by the START treaty. Development is in work on a new Mk-7 RV and W93 warhead. The Ohio themselves are being replaced by the Columbia-class boats. The first is expected to enter service in 2031. At the present, the sea leg element of the nuclear deterrent is considered invulnerable to a preemptive attack and the most creditable leg of the Triad.

Kim walking out of that hanger was hilarious!😂 He looked like a mix of a break dancer and a member of the MOB!!!😂😂

You do such a great job with your content and your reporting. Keep up the good work Alex!

I appreciate you, and your channel! Thanks for keeping me informed.

Alex, I always come away after watching your videos, especially this one, knowing more about important things. Thank you!

You’re always making videos on stuff that truly matters. Good job. Been here since 5k subs and I’ve loved every video. You’re easily one of my top 10 creators and I’m a KZfaq connoisseur and basically spend all day every day on KZfaq and subbed to literally thousands of channels.

You’re channel is so amazing. Literally the best channel on KZfaq for this type of info!

Came for the forensic analysis and journalistic rigour... Stayed for the "has the world gone M.A.D?" pun.. 👌

sandboxx i just want to say, your the most reliable news for military stuff in general for me on youtube, alot of the other ones are usually ridiculous or lack luster clickbait fests that have the same voice ALL the time, you are the only one i recognize that actually puts effort into it, and for that i commend you.

Love your videos. Have you done a video of the E7A replacing the E3 ?

Good news. We can't afford to fall behind.

First new ICBM since the 70s? Did we forget about the LGM-118 Peacekeeper (MX)? We deployed them starting in 84 or 85, until we threw them away and destroyed the last one in 2005.

Thank you for sharing this, I was not aware of it.

To put this into perspective, little boys actual yield has been debated forever. The estimates range from 6-21 KTs. The current official estimate is about 13. Fat man was estimated at 23. The W-80 warhead at low yield is actually around half of Hiroshima. And either of those weapons would be considered tactical weapons now. Damn.

Just a note correction, NG does infact build the 1st & 2nd stage motors for Sentinel. Aerojet does the the 3rd stage.

"whether or not the world has gone MAD" in the intro - kudos

By far your best an most informative video you have done!! Always appreciate your extensive research to inform the uninformed!

Awesome channel!! Subscribed!! 👌👍🏻 Bravo 👏

A video about the AAS / FARA (armed scout helicopter) program would be cool. Sikorsky has the S-97 Raider compete with the Bell+Textron 360 Invictus. The Raider has troop capacity while the Invictus does not, but that gives the Invictus better stealth properties, just like the Boeing-Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche had. Not sure why Sikorsky abandoned that design, as they first came up with it. Just to push a common scout and transport design when they already lost the Blackhawk transport replacement to the Bell V280 Valor?

Deterrence is based on an overwhelming power, you have to continually build on that power. Proud our country continues show they understand that. Now if we could just show some accountability for every dollar outside of the military for our taxes that’s the next step.

@6:40 I've seen this animation of this hypersonic glide vehicle so many times that I have it memorized. It shows up in every video on every channel that talks about hypersonic glide vehicles.

I agree and fully support updating/replacing our strategic nuclear deterrent however at the same time we also need to protect our electrical grid from EMP attack and CME events from the Sun. Failure to do so could result with some estimates of up to 90% of the population in the USA being ended by starvation within one year of an EMP event. The Lexington Institute article from July 2020 by Paul Steidler determined that the projected cost at that time to protect the electrical grid in the USA at approximately $50 billion. That is one percent of the estimated total cost that would be needed to replace the entire grid, which would be about $5 Trillion dollars! In my opinion let's do both protecting our power grid and updating our deterrent while we still can for less than a Trillion dollars.

No mention of the AGMs being used for Rapid Dragon? Nothing like measuring nukes by pallet.

That’s some Teddy Roosevelt action, “Speak softly & carry a big stick”.

Could you do a video about upcoming (or returning) vehicle types? Laser trucks/tanks seem to be coming soon, the anti air cannon is back from the grave (Gepard is back, SkyRanger will come soon), drone carrier trucks or tanks will add to howitzers, artillery and mortar launchers, drone command center tanks seem plausible as well, EW/jamming trucks will probably become a lot more common, and is the future of the MBT to become a nible sub 50 ton racing tank while IFVs get up to 50 tons as well?

I read the title as “nuclear service weapons,” and began wondering where that would end up on the use-of-force pyramid.

Alex, the answers to your opening questions are YES and YES. Yes, new Cold War. Yes, Business as Usual. During the Cuban Missile Crisis my father was in the Air Force and my family was in base housing in West Germany. We spent about two weeks in the basement fallout shelters wearing our dog tags so that our charred and crushed bodies could be identified. I was all of five at the time. Business as usual...

I hope this new sustainable ICBM is also kind to the environment and made from ethical, locally sourced materials .

Thank you Alex , your input is invaluable, to those of us who believe in peace through strength.

Greetings from Colorado, brother! First, thank you, Alex. You and the Dark family of podcasts are among the very last holdouts for grammatically correct, spoken colloquial, non-talking heads text spoken by humans instead of congenial (think STUPID writ large) AI computer generated voices. Can you think of a better synonym for 'computer-voices' than 'dumb-bombs?' Since the beginning of covid, the removal of time limits on podcasts and the advent of TickTock (Gak), there's been an accelerating attrition in the number of highly successful and profitable videographers. They're being overtaken by those willing to do the hard, expensive and time consuming WORK (also writ large) of fact checking, editing and quality guest acquisition. Yours continues to improve in the number and topical range of your shows. For which I am grateful. You're doing well, grasshopper. Thank you!

Major issues with the Sentinel from what I’ve heard . Delayed and over budget as always . Not to mention all the necessary new infrastructure required . Alex can you talk about this ?

I love seeing concepts for the new future stealth fighter planes. Though I love looking at the future helicopters!!!!

Thank you, Alex

The Mark Milley Hyperactive Nuke when you fire it, it constantly broadcasts its position and targeting info to enemy anti-missile systems

The Air Force is definitely trying to do a life extension on the MinuteMan 3. I've seen job ads for the life extension out to 2040. I can't believe they kept these and retired the MX PeaceKeeper instead.

Russia: Look at our new nukes. China: Look at our new nukes. America: … Yo Raytheon! Northop: Yes? America: We need to reestablish our place at the top of the nuclear food chain. Northop: Let me cook

Excellent work!

Really love your videos - what about the MX?

Great presentation. Though I can’t help but wonder if something “new” (as in from conceptually forward) should be done instead… The more I think about these so called upgrades, the more I can only see them in the light of yesteryears Cold War. Also: This whole not making any more fissile material while russia has been doing precisely this nonstop since 1991… 🤦‍♂️

a wonderful note too, that shocked me but didn't hit headlines too hard, was the patriot missle system in ukraine stopping a kinzhal missle, meaning our standard AA system can stop the "unstopple" hypersonic nuclear deliever vehicle. so these new- focused anti-nuke missles must be fantastic.

12:55 Maybe, Devil Dog. Maybe, indeed. But... ...because there's Always a But... We've all had the experience of using electronic devices that were "Made In China"...lol 😆

I know we are way ahead of our competition in technology we always have been, you don't even know what we have out there you couldn't imagine. But man that cruise missile look like it was flying pretty slow...lol.. love the show keep up the great work

When it comes to content creators, this is one of two channels regarding this type of subject matter that I watch religiously. The information for me is sometimes scary yet also been there done that because I’m a Gen Xer and have already lived through this scenario. As real as it is, there’s really nothing that we can do if doomsday does come around so I don’t sweat it. There’s way too many things to concern ourselves with other than worrying about who’s going to strike first. Anyhow it’s great information and thanks for video.

Good timing on this video.

The odds of anyone using these weapons on any given day is very small. The odds of anyone using them over long time periods is 100%.

The B61 -13 is a thing of beauty

There is definitely a new cold war going on.

Excellent as always

0:30 -- "first new ICBM since the 70s" The MX (LGM-118 Peacekeeper) was in service from 1985 to 2005. The Minuteman III was first deployed in 1970; I assume you meant that.

When Obama was nominated for the 2009 Nobel peace prize after fewer than 10 days in office, one of the main reasons cited was Obama's promotion of nuclear nonproliferation. Obama went on to initiate a $1 trillion facelift of the US nuclear triad

Russian leadership and key strategic C2 facilities are buried 2-3 kilometers deep, under mountains in the Urals. Ground shock coupling at these depths is not feasible. In the late Cold War 2-3 sequential strikes, spread an hour or so apart, by W/B53 9 MT weapons, were required to take these out. Thats a major reason the Titan IIs hung around so long. China has similar extremely deep key sites.

would love a breakdown on reentry vehicles mirvs and maneuvering hypersonic vehicles

Great video! Thanks

I think there is something to be said for just having at least one massive 1-10 MT weapon to deploy. Russia scares a lot of people when talking about a 50-100 MT weapon, and I think there is some inherent value in having that.

50-60 megatons is as big as ypu can go in an atmosphere and have its blast be effective. Any bigger and the bulk of the boom is lost to space. Its pretty much the only useful bit of info we got from the tsar bomba. So while 100 megatons is easy enough to build it would do any more good than a 50 megaton weapon and the physical size would be prohibitive for deployment

love your channel bro sendit😎🤙🏼

A lot of numbers and math being tossed around in this video, so I had to go back and re-watch sections. Is the B61-13 not going to penetrate or only penetrate as far as the Mod 11, which I've heard was about 20 ft? I always thought a simpler and more effective solution might be to use a BLU-113 with a W72 (yield ~1 KT), since the latter was used in an 8" artillery shell and the former was based on an 8" artillery tube, both designed for the high accelerations of firing, and the tube used as the bomb case in the GBU-28, bunker buster that could penetrate 200+ ft.

It would be interesting to talk about whether France and the UK would retaliate with nukes if Russia or China nukes some USA foreign bases or mainland. Also does a China attack mean article 5 can be invoked?

I vote for keeping the 1 megaton bad boys in service. they create fear much more than the smaller yield for sure. and in this deterrence game, it's all about fear.

Here we go, let's check it out.

I find the chemistry of these things fascinating.

If you have to ask if we're in a new cold war, that means we've been in one for a long time.

Duck & Cover ended in the early 80’s after the TV movie The Day After Tomorrow which showed how ineffective all the little drills they had us do. With modern weapons the lethality is exponentially more than our 40+ year old warheads. I hope we never need to use them again.🤞

The B61-12/13 are likely nuclear JDAM. With GPS/IMU guided flight paths to a similar flyout range of 12-15nm, right on the detection threshold of threats like S-350 and Pantsir, an average munition speed of 600 knots equates to (12 .16nm/sec) 75 seconds flyout. millionths ) Never mind much larger, hypervelocity, systems like the S-400/500/550 (which can detect VLO at 40nm and track at 20nm), as a direct threat to mission as predrop delivery platform, the ballistic munition itself becomes targetable over such a prolonged flight time. And single vehicle systems like the 96K6 are both cheap enough (20-25 million) to be scatterable, all across likely ingress routes and have the dual channel, 38km, RFCG missile plus optronic 3-5km guns, to kill the bomb, with several engagements, even accounting for an airburst. If you want to have direct delivery, you still need to have the speed to collapse the engagement window and the variable flight path/decoy penaids to come in _fast_, below the radar maskline as clutter boundary, while generating multiple divergent decoy tracks. Like AGM-131 SRAM-2/SRAM-T could. The notion of lone wolfing an 800 million dollar heavy bomber or 110 million fighter thru some kind of a hide and seek, lone intruder, laydown attack, with a nuclear wardet as the desired endgame, is brutally stupid. Because the other side likely knows you're coming for mazcat blood, and will prepare a particularly aggressive, overlapping, defense. So you fire multiple missiles, each with multiple penaids, and hide the genuine special munition in a cloud of similar .63nm/sec clones so that the live weapon is engaged, if at all, with only a 5-7 second residual Ukrainian kill chain completion window and the delivery platform never enters the terminal defensive MEZ at all. If we ever go hammer and tongs with The Big Boys, everything will likely be resolved in a MAD SIOP level, 'like rain' exchange of MIRV and MARVs. But for the rather more likely Pak-Indi, DPRK, Ukrainian or Iranian terrorism event conditioned retaliatory strike, the need to be decisive, with limited mission assets and controlled fallout inhibitors to multiple munitions overlaps, all point towards a more tactically profile flexible, single platform and powered munition redundant, set of options. No rollback prep, fast-tasked. Because it may well happen as an escalation of an ongoing conventional war with other warfighters either already fully committed elsewhere, or newly destroyed.

Good stuff!

I disagree about Russia’s nuclear capabilities. Everything, and I mean everything, that Russia has boasted about as being the best of its kind and has no counterpart, have all been overhyped and utter disappointments. The Bulava has had numbers failures; the Kinzhal is merely a ballistic missile whose trajectory can be calculated to intercept; the Zircon has never been shown in flight; and its bomber fleet is ancient. China’s nuclear capabilities are much more credible; how I don’t see China threatening to use nukes like Russia has, and China hasn’t attacked another country for around 40 years, and that was against its neighbor Vietnam. Russia’s not that stupid to test the United States. Unlikes Russia’s own nukes, the Russians know that US weapons work.

I think the US is working on directed energy weapons for a next generation version of an iron dome/iron grid. They cost about 10k dollars less to fire each shot, and travel at the speed of light, which is probably the biggest reason the US never got much into the maneuverable hypersonic missile thing as those are insanely expensive. There have already been multiple tests of the success of these types of weapons on naval ships, and they are being fast tracked to be more powerful and miniaturized for use in the NGAD program and the B-21. Former President Trump also created Space Force as another military branch and I can see one of their missions would be to deploy a set of these weapons in space, which is essentially an updated Reagan initiative of Star Wars. What I think the future of weapons of mass destruction will be in the form of antimatter. The large particle colliders already produce extremely small quantities of antimatter but amounts needed for weapons is only theoretical at this phase. However, it would surprise people to know that more than a decade ago, small antimatter particles/atoms were successfully stored at Berkeley. This type of technology would be the holy grail for weapons and energy use for the conceivable future if it could be produced in enough quantities, but that is still a ways off. For that reason, this material is the most expensive material in the world coming in at over $60 trillion (yes that's right, with a T) per gram of the material. Nuclear weapons are nothing new, but the process and delivering them is rapidly advancing, and that's why I think the US is looking at next geneational technology to be able to destroy them before they are ever delivered to any target. Don't forget that the modular system discussed in this video could be outfitted with a number of these types of counter measures as well as any combination of decoys and real warheads that could be delivered to a target. All the research is out there and there is real test footage of the USS Ponce testing a laser and destroying small vessels (similar in shape and size to those ships that current pirates use). This stuff is no longer just speculation in the realm of science fiction. It just is not widespread and deployable in the energy needed, but that won't be long.

Great video. I wonder if your team could find something more speculative information or thoughts about the X-37B being an MIRV-Carrier

Excellent video!

Russia having missiles carrying more warheads is not necessarily a good thing for them. It means that limited amount of strategic warheads is concentrated in fewer missiles/silos, so easier to destroy

Alex, do your sources indicate any confidence that the new generation of ICBMs can be immune to space alien interference?

Great Video!

Intro beat hard AF. W to the producer.

This is exciting! We're going to see all kinds of cool new nuclear weapons and delivery systems. We're fortunate to see these things finally as it's been decades since we've seen any advancements in these areas. What a time to be alive.

Russia threatened to Nuke Yellowstone with the biggest volcano in the worldis

The older weapons will still deter a nuclear war, but they are at an end of service. For reliability, they must be replaced or completely updated with solid rocket motors and propulsion systems.

LET'S GO BRANDON

Should shift to an all megaton yield nuclear weapon force. Conventional weapons in volume can adequately strike precision targets with sufficient effects and have no nuclear threshold issues. Modernized B83 based cores can be used inside high supersonic to hypersonic short to medium range air to air missiles and replace all B61 series devices and all legacy B83 devices. A weapon similar to thus was proposed but unfunded, with focus on low yield weapons instead. This is a mistake. Focusing on high yield weapons allows mitigation of reducing total numbers of warheads in stockpiles by keeping strategic deterrence the central and only mission. Numbers in inventory could then drop to 2000 or less without watering down deterrence with a so called lower threshold low yield weapon option that according to studies is highly likely to immediately escalate into a full scale nuclear war. Avoid this by turning back the clock and providing large scale advanced conventional weapons options and platforms to deliver them rapidly in volume. This is a more useful and more cost efficient strategy. W87 and W88 series warheads should also be updated and upgraded to megaton yields. Then reduce the number of warheads per missile and fill with more penetration aids instead. This disperses treaty limited warheads among more missiles and platforms to increase resilience and reduce vulnerability to a surprise attack on warhead dense platforms. Spread them out and increase defense measures protecting each platform. This prevents the risk of another costly unrestricted production volume arms race by having more than sufficient strategic assets that are better protected and have greater individual yield.

13:22 that silo door flies off the rails and through a fence lmao

I watched this tonight & I'm old enough ro remember the Cuban Missile crisis and touring fallout shelters. You mentioned putting some of these Nukes out to pasture. Could you supply me the addresses of those pastures. Not to visit them but to avoid driving within several hundred miles of them. Maybe Google could mark these pastures in there Google Maps or Google what's left of Earth map. Thank You.

Perfect Alex

That would be great if it wasn't for our completely unprotected power grid.

$50million/year to maintain 1.2MT bombs is peanuts. Carping about maintenance expense is missing the point

We think it is just a matter of when and that BIG little word (if)......Thanks Alex🇺🇸

The recent launch was a really a test of our interception options

I'm so relieved!

The UGM-133A Trident II, or Trident D5 is a submarine-launched ballistic missile, is constantly being tested/upgraded and is capable of launching the following warheads 1-12 Mk-5 RV/W88 (475 kt) or 1-14 Mk-4 RV/W76-0 (100 kt) or 1-14 Mk-4A RV/W-76-1 (90 kt)[3] Single or multiple W76-2 (5-7 kt)[4][5] that is a lot of MIRV's en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UGM-133_Trident_II

All of these hypersonic nukes are all vulnerable in their terminal phase. They can't do even Mach 5 in the lower atmosphere.

Makes this old 46350's heart all warm and fuzzy.

Open System Architechture Is The Key! However, limiting access to that Architecture is Very Important.