Measures and Trends ; US and USSR Strategic Force Effectiveness

Alexandria, VA: Santa Fe Corporation, 1978. Draft. Spiral bound. [2], 105, A-5, [1], B-1, [1] pages. Footnotes. Table. Figures. List of Measures. Glossary of Terms. Appendix A was a list of the then current Strategic Weapon Systems. Appendix B is a Bibliography. Cover has some war and soiling. Some page soiling. Norman Polmar is a prominent author specializing in the naval, aviation, and intelligence areas. He has led major projects for the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Navy, and foreign governments. His professional expertise has served three Secretaries of the U.S. Navy and two Chiefs of Naval Operations. He is credited with 50 published books, including eight previous editions of Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet and four editions of Guide to the Soviet Navy. Polmar writes a column for Proceedings and was editor of the United States and several other sections of the annual publications of Jane's Fighting Ships. In 2019, the Naval Historical Foundation awarded Polmar the Commodore Dudley W. Knox Naval History Lifetime Achievement Award. This is an early collaborative work by Norman Polmar, not found in the standard references of his works! It is an example of his early career strategic analysis thinking and assessment. It is not clear if this draft was ever finalized--this may be a unique surviving draft copy. The purpose of this report was to compile and describe the measures of effectiveness which had been used in the comparisons and analyses of US and Soviet strategic nuclear forces and weapon systems. Historical trend plots of twelve general measures of effectiveness and, where applicable, relevant subsets of these measures are presented. For each of the measures, a description is also provided which identifies the limitations and uncertainties associated with the particular measure. The twelve basic measures considered are:
Strategic Nuclear Delivery Vehicles
Independently Targetable Warheads
ICBM Throw-Weight
SLBM Maximum Range
Gross Yield
Equivalent Megatons (EMT)
Ballistic Missile Delivery Accuracy
Hard Target Kill Capability
Counter Military Potential (CMP)
Surviving ICBM Launchers After a First Strike
Retaliatory Equivalent Weapons
Strategic Defensive Systems

The primary sources of system characteristics and annual inventory strengths were: Projected Strategic Offensive Weapons Inventories of the US and the USSR An Unclassified Estimate, Congressional Research Service and The Military Balance, 1977-1978.

The authors concluded that "For the general period covered by this report (1960-1982), most of the measures show a shift from a clear US advantage to a Soviet advantage."
Condition: Good.

Keywords: Nuclear Weapons, Delivery Vehicles, Strategic Forces, Throw-Weight, SLBM, ICBM, Ballistic Missile, First Strike, Retaliatory Weapons, Strategic Defense, Strategic Weapon Systems, Nuclear Yield, Equivalent Megatons, Independently Tragetable Warheads

[Book #79037]

Price: $175.00