Thread by @realhumanschwab

Not a single ICBM with a live warhead has ever been tested.

The ICBM is, substantially, a hoax. Scientifically unproven, a semi-imaginary technology.

Warheads have been tested, and ICBMs with warheads removed have been tested, but never together.

Imagine only ever testing a gun with powder and casing, but no projectile.

In 1961, the Armed Services Committee of the United States House of Representatives asked, "Who knows whether an intercontinental ballistic missile [ICBM] with a nuclear warhead will actually work?..."

On 6 May 1962, USS Ethan Allen successfully launched a Polaris A-1 with a live nuclear warhead toward Christmas Island. Codenamed FRIGATE BIRD, this was the only test the United States ever conducted of any nuclear ballistic missile from launch to detonation.

The Polaris A-2 was not an ICBM, it was a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) with a range of only 1,700 miles. The differences between the Polaris and an ICBM are extreme in every area: flight ceiling, maximum speed, range, computation, mass, etc.

The W 47 Polaris warhead had been modified following an earlier test showing it was prone to "inadvertent detonation". It was later estimated that half of W 47 warheads would have failed to detonate.

There was no experimental program on FRIGATE BIRD. Little in the way of "scientific rigor" was applied. The documentation is minimal.

"Documentary photography from a C-54 aircraft was planned, but there Is no evidence that this took place."

Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis LeMay stated in 1964: "We have only had one test, it was not under fully operational conditions, we fired one Polaris out in the Pacific with a warhead on it. It was not truly operational. It was modified to some extent for the test."

Barry Goldwater campaigned in 1964 warning that absent a full test "we are building a Maginot line of missiles," saying "the fact is that not one of our ICBMs has ever been subjected to a full test (of all component systems, including warheads) under simulated battle conditions."

Unfortunately, Goldwater was vilified by the communist media and painted by his opponents as "bomb happy." The entire discussion was swept away and forgotten. We now live in a fantasy realm, armed only with weapons of mass delusion.

If you believe in the beauty and majesty of thermonuclear weapons as I do, we must dispel this hideous senility, and return to our rightful timeline. When Trump wins in 2024, we must demand he break the chains of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and let Prometheus be unbound once more

To the doubters: the Joint Chiefs of Staff thought the need for proofing was such that they were willing to nuke southern California,

“Does a test conducted dead still at the bottom of a hole provide reliable assurance that the same weapon will work after traveling several thousand miles an hour in a reentry vehicle?"

A. L. Meyers, “Nuclear Testing,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 43 (1986)

Correction: it was the only test conducted by the United States where a live nuclear ballistic missile completed the entire flight sequence, including launch, flight, reentry, and detonation.

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