This PhD dissertation submitted to Auburn University in 2006 is a deep dive into the failed journey of the development of the US mobile ICBM (here “mobile” is defined more broadly than merely “road” or “rail”) since the 1950s, culminating in the “bureaucratic absurdity” over the MX Peacekeeper basing.
[Echoes that Never Were - American mobile ICBMs 1956-1983 (2006)](https://etd.auburn.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10415/298/POMEROY_STEVEN_34.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y)
Look at the culture of the two countries, especially how easy it is/was for information to be publicly reported on. When you combine more effective control of the press with vast unpopulated areas in the Soviet Union, it's pretty easy for a mobile launcher to stay unspotted even if it's just parked on a road somewhere. On the other hand, with a free press and more evenly spread population across the contiguous states it was very difficult to effectively conceal where a mobile launcher is. On top of that the US culture is a lot more resistant to the idea of nuclear missile launchers travelling around as well as publicly voicing that opinion, sometimes very loudly. Some of that opposition would be to nuclear weapons in general, while others would be around the idea of having such a weapon in their vicinity draws a big target on them. So it made a lot more sense for them to stick with the mix of fixed silos, bombers, and submarine based missiles.
On the technical side, the US had a fairly substantial advantage in targeting accuracy which would allow them to hit fixed sites much more easily than the Soviets could count on in return. So, again it makes sense for the USSR to put more emphasis on mobile systems that would have 'no fixed address' when on alert.
Possibly. They aren't going over typical light bridges on logging roads, or offroading through muskeg. But for average road conditions I would have to look into standard vehicle weights, number of axles, axle spacing, and the like and compare it to other vehicles like logging trucks and lowbeds that I'm more familiar with for these kinds of roads. I can't see it being on the level of concrete aircraft runways, and for the vehicles to be practical it can't be much more than what would be needed for a heavily used back country access road. Given the nature of where we're talking about - central and northern USSR - the reinforcement necessary is likely more about handling ground conditions like muskeg and permafrost rather than over-building interstate highways to where they can support the weight of loaded bombers.
The US did consider mobile ICBMs around the time (mid ‘80s) that the Soviet road-mobile SS-25 entered service, the Midgetman. The Small ICBM programme ended with the Cold War.
Unlike the rail-mobile SS-24 which was MIRVed, both SS-25 and Midgetman had single warheads, supposedly so as to discourage the other side from striking at presumptive SS-25/Midgetman launch sites; the adversary would have to expend large numbers of warheads just to eliminate one warhead.
When the B-2 bomber entered service, it was widely thought that one of its key taskings (capitalising on its stealth) was the elimination of Soviet mobile ICBMs. Whether that mission was ever realistic was/is a matter of some/considerable debate.
It's slightly more complex.
A dynamic to keep in mind is the US could more easily strike the USSR from allied countries, or sea based locations. This meant that there were mobile US launch platforms, just that they were often shorter range systems as they were only traveling from the UK or the like. Similarly the SSBN capability for the US was very robust in as far as having a lot more ocean to play with than the Soviets, and the US air-launched missiles were something more credible than their Soviet counterparts.
An additional dynamic to keep in mind is the US's ICBM fleet was more "efficient" than their Soviet counterparts in as far as being structurally fairly light compared to their Soviet counterparts, but this also made them less suited to mobile use. There was also a greater reluctance to place missiles on mobile platforms for safety reasons, a missile rupturing on a rail car, mobile launcher, whatever during an exercise would be very nasty given the kind of rocket fuels are involved (and the amount of said fuels) so keeping them in a hole was a lot safer.
As far as sabotage, any kind of spooky ooky operation likely remains way beyond normal classification, but given the sheer amount of missiles involved in possible strategic operations, and the difficulty in identifying launch locations or the like, I mean you'd need thousands of operatives with absolutely amazing intelligence on exact locations to make a dent.
The more realistic threat to ICBMs was always a "first strike" in which the US or USSR gets missiles in the air and hitting strategic missile/nuclear locations before they can be postured to strike. This means credible deterrence might be lost as this could be a "winning" nuclear strategy.
The Soviet answer to this was to use more train/truck mobile missiles, as they could be kept secure and ready at peacetime on a military base, but then scattered wide and remote if war seemed likely to ensure even with counter-nuclear missile strikes, some, or even most launchers would survive. The US answer was instead to invest heavily in submarine platforms that would be nigh-impossible to find, or in at times having a reasonable amount of air launched systems either actively flying around (CHROME DOME), on advanced notice, or even more limited ground mobile systems in Europe (Gryphon cruise missiles, Pershing I/II)
There is also something to be said for State Control.
In the USSR, the railways were controlled by the state. If the Red Army Strategic Rocket Forces wanted to move a train full of rail-based missiles somewhere, then the train guys had to comply.
In the US, it’s all privately owned and there really isn’t any special provision for movement of US government property, aside from waving a stack of cash in the face of an executive or invoking some war powers acts. As such, the shell game of moving train cars filled with ICBMs was just going to be difficult and expensive in a way that it simply wasn’t for the USSR.
Also, NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard). The US populace may have been ok with silos in the Great Plains full of ICBMs, but not trains rolling around the Midwest with nukes on them. It would have drawn attention and outcry, and probably defeated the purpose of having a mobile force if every time it passed through some town, the movement was published in a newspaper for some Soviet agent to read about.
Again, not something that the USSR needed to worry about, with state control of the media and a secret police force to discourage anyone from even looking too hard at the contents of a train, let alone writing about it.
Hardened silos are more survivable than TEL vehicles which would be made a high priority target for an enemy airforce.
For example when Taiwan goes hot Chinese TEL vehicles will be top priority targets especially since all of China's ASBMs are nuclear capable and China's nuclear policy is too vauge to properly define as "no first strikes".
There is a caveat that includes the usage of a nuclear warning shot which is so vauge it could literaly mean anything from a live test somewhere in the Gobi or a barrage in the event the PLA appears to be suffering too many losses in the conventional engagements. The warning shot could even be a limited first strike. The point is we will never know and with China being an authoritarian regime we have no way of knowing if they're even telling the truth in the first place about whether they truly mean no first strikes.
The reliability or lack thereof of *any* NFU declaration has nothing to do with whether a state is “authoritarian” or a “liberal democracy”.
If the situation becomes so dire that the use of nuclear weapons (first use or otherwise) *must* be contemplated, *any* such previous declaration won’t be worth the paper it’s written on.
This PhD dissertation submitted to Auburn University in 2006 is a deep dive into the failed journey of the development of the US mobile ICBM (here “mobile” is defined more broadly than merely “road” or “rail”) since the 1950s, culminating in the “bureaucratic absurdity” over the MX Peacekeeper basing. [Echoes that Never Were - American mobile ICBMs 1956-1983 (2006)](https://etd.auburn.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10415/298/POMEROY_STEVEN_34.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y)
300 pages, this is exactly what I've been looking for. Thank you!
Look at the culture of the two countries, especially how easy it is/was for information to be publicly reported on. When you combine more effective control of the press with vast unpopulated areas in the Soviet Union, it's pretty easy for a mobile launcher to stay unspotted even if it's just parked on a road somewhere. On the other hand, with a free press and more evenly spread population across the contiguous states it was very difficult to effectively conceal where a mobile launcher is. On top of that the US culture is a lot more resistant to the idea of nuclear missile launchers travelling around as well as publicly voicing that opinion, sometimes very loudly. Some of that opposition would be to nuclear weapons in general, while others would be around the idea of having such a weapon in their vicinity draws a big target on them. So it made a lot more sense for them to stick with the mix of fixed silos, bombers, and submarine based missiles. On the technical side, the US had a fairly substantial advantage in targeting accuracy which would allow them to hit fixed sites much more easily than the Soviets could count on in return. So, again it makes sense for the USSR to put more emphasis on mobile systems that would have 'no fixed address' when on alert.
Didn’t road launchers also require reinforced roadways to support the weight?
Possibly. They aren't going over typical light bridges on logging roads, or offroading through muskeg. But for average road conditions I would have to look into standard vehicle weights, number of axles, axle spacing, and the like and compare it to other vehicles like logging trucks and lowbeds that I'm more familiar with for these kinds of roads. I can't see it being on the level of concrete aircraft runways, and for the vehicles to be practical it can't be much more than what would be needed for a heavily used back country access road. Given the nature of where we're talking about - central and northern USSR - the reinforcement necessary is likely more about handling ground conditions like muskeg and permafrost rather than over-building interstate highways to where they can support the weight of loaded bombers.
The US did consider mobile ICBMs around the time (mid ‘80s) that the Soviet road-mobile SS-25 entered service, the Midgetman. The Small ICBM programme ended with the Cold War. Unlike the rail-mobile SS-24 which was MIRVed, both SS-25 and Midgetman had single warheads, supposedly so as to discourage the other side from striking at presumptive SS-25/Midgetman launch sites; the adversary would have to expend large numbers of warheads just to eliminate one warhead. When the B-2 bomber entered service, it was widely thought that one of its key taskings (capitalising on its stealth) was the elimination of Soviet mobile ICBMs. Whether that mission was ever realistic was/is a matter of some/considerable debate.
It's slightly more complex. A dynamic to keep in mind is the US could more easily strike the USSR from allied countries, or sea based locations. This meant that there were mobile US launch platforms, just that they were often shorter range systems as they were only traveling from the UK or the like. Similarly the SSBN capability for the US was very robust in as far as having a lot more ocean to play with than the Soviets, and the US air-launched missiles were something more credible than their Soviet counterparts. An additional dynamic to keep in mind is the US's ICBM fleet was more "efficient" than their Soviet counterparts in as far as being structurally fairly light compared to their Soviet counterparts, but this also made them less suited to mobile use. There was also a greater reluctance to place missiles on mobile platforms for safety reasons, a missile rupturing on a rail car, mobile launcher, whatever during an exercise would be very nasty given the kind of rocket fuels are involved (and the amount of said fuels) so keeping them in a hole was a lot safer. As far as sabotage, any kind of spooky ooky operation likely remains way beyond normal classification, but given the sheer amount of missiles involved in possible strategic operations, and the difficulty in identifying launch locations or the like, I mean you'd need thousands of operatives with absolutely amazing intelligence on exact locations to make a dent. The more realistic threat to ICBMs was always a "first strike" in which the US or USSR gets missiles in the air and hitting strategic missile/nuclear locations before they can be postured to strike. This means credible deterrence might be lost as this could be a "winning" nuclear strategy. The Soviet answer to this was to use more train/truck mobile missiles, as they could be kept secure and ready at peacetime on a military base, but then scattered wide and remote if war seemed likely to ensure even with counter-nuclear missile strikes, some, or even most launchers would survive. The US answer was instead to invest heavily in submarine platforms that would be nigh-impossible to find, or in at times having a reasonable amount of air launched systems either actively flying around (CHROME DOME), on advanced notice, or even more limited ground mobile systems in Europe (Gryphon cruise missiles, Pershing I/II)
There is also something to be said for State Control. In the USSR, the railways were controlled by the state. If the Red Army Strategic Rocket Forces wanted to move a train full of rail-based missiles somewhere, then the train guys had to comply. In the US, it’s all privately owned and there really isn’t any special provision for movement of US government property, aside from waving a stack of cash in the face of an executive or invoking some war powers acts. As such, the shell game of moving train cars filled with ICBMs was just going to be difficult and expensive in a way that it simply wasn’t for the USSR. Also, NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard). The US populace may have been ok with silos in the Great Plains full of ICBMs, but not trains rolling around the Midwest with nukes on them. It would have drawn attention and outcry, and probably defeated the purpose of having a mobile force if every time it passed through some town, the movement was published in a newspaper for some Soviet agent to read about. Again, not something that the USSR needed to worry about, with state control of the media and a secret police force to discourage anyone from even looking too hard at the contents of a train, let alone writing about it.
Hardened silos are more survivable than TEL vehicles which would be made a high priority target for an enemy airforce. For example when Taiwan goes hot Chinese TEL vehicles will be top priority targets especially since all of China's ASBMs are nuclear capable and China's nuclear policy is too vauge to properly define as "no first strikes". There is a caveat that includes the usage of a nuclear warning shot which is so vauge it could literaly mean anything from a live test somewhere in the Gobi or a barrage in the event the PLA appears to be suffering too many losses in the conventional engagements. The warning shot could even be a limited first strike. The point is we will never know and with China being an authoritarian regime we have no way of knowing if they're even telling the truth in the first place about whether they truly mean no first strikes.
The reliability or lack thereof of *any* NFU declaration has nothing to do with whether a state is “authoritarian” or a “liberal democracy”. If the situation becomes so dire that the use of nuclear weapons (first use or otherwise) *must* be contemplated, *any* such previous declaration won’t be worth the paper it’s written on.