Original vintage 1965 Boeing advertisement for the company's Minuteman II nuclear missile warhead nose cones for the Minuteman nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) - "Capability has many faces at Boeing"
Dimensions: Approx. 8 inches wide by 11 inches high.
The Minuteman LGM-30 ICBM
As the Cold War progressed and missiles became more numerous and advanced, U.S. defense planners recognized their ICBM arsenal was becoming increasing vulnerable. The limitations of liquid-fueled, gantry-launched missiles, such as Atlas and Titan sparked fears that a Soviet first strike could potentially negate the U.S. ability to retaliate effectively.
For several reasons, the Minuteman was America’s first modern ICBM. Chief among these was the missile’s use of solid fuel. Using solid fuel meant that the missile did not require fueling prior to launch, differentiating it from the Atlas and Titan. This substantially reduced the time between receiving launch orders and the missile launch. Moreover, solid fuel is generally considered more reliable – solid-fuel engines are generally less complex, which reduces the number of failure points and simplifies maintenance.
Furthermore, solid fuel is less volatile, does not leak, or require refrigeration. This stands in contrast to the liquid oxygen and Aerozine fuels which caused several major accidents with missiles like the Atlas and Titan.
To this day, the Minuteman remains in service with the Air Force Global Strike Command – as of at least 2024, the LGM-30G (Version 3) is the only land-based ICBM in service in the United States and represents the land leg of the U.S. nuclear triad, along with the Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) and nuclear weapons carried by long-range strategic bombers.
Development of the Minuteman began in the mid-1950s when basic research indicated that a solid-fuel rocket motor could stand ready to launch for long periods of time, in contrast to liquid-fueled rockets that required fueling before launch and so might be destroyed in a surprise attack. The missile was named for the colonial minutemen of the American Revolutionary War, who could be ready to fight on short notice.
The Minuteman entered service in 1962 as a deterrence weapon that could hit Soviet cities with a second strike and countervalue counterattack if the U.S. was attacked. However, the development of the United States Navy (USN) UGM-27 Polaris, which addressed the same role, allowed the Air Force to modify the Minuteman, boosting its accuracy enough to attack hardened military targets, including Soviet missile silos.
The Minuteman II entered service in 1965 with a host of upgrades to improve its accuracy and survivability in the face of an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system the Soviets were known to be developing. In 1970, the Minuteman III became the first deployed ICBM with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRV): three smaller warheads that improved the missile's ability to strike targets defended by ABMs.
However, the Minutemen III missiles were later "de-MIRVed"; since 2016 they have had only a single warhead per missile, either a W78 (335 kT) or W87 (300 kT).
