BGM-75 AICBM
American advanced intercontinental ballistic missile program, cancelled 1967
The ZBGM-75 Advanced Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, also known as Weapons System 120A (WS-120A), was a program to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), proposed by the United States Air Force in the 1960s as a replacement for the LGM-30 Minuteman as the Air Force's standard ICBM. Funding was not allocated for the program and the project was cancelled in 1967.
Background
The Department of Defense began the STRAT-X study on 1 November 1966 to evaluate a new ballistic missile proposal from the Air Force, which was designated the Advanced Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (AICBM). The project was intended to provide a successor to the LGM-30 Minuteman ICBM then in United States Air Force service. The program was officially launched in April 1966, and in June the project received the designation ZBGM-75, the "Z" prefix indicating a project in the planning stage.
The specifications for the ZBGM-75 called for a large solid-fuel-powered missile, which would be fitted with between 10 and 20 multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs). The missiles would be based in silo launchers, which were specified to be hardened by a factor of 10 over the existing silos used by Minuteman missiles. In addition, there was also a plan to develop a railroad-based deployment system for the AICBM. Improvements in accuracy over existing missiles, combined with penetration aids under development to enhance the effectiveness of each missile, were expected to make the AICBM capable of defeating existing and projected Soviet anti-ballistic missile systems.
Cancellation
Ultimately, the Navy won the STRAT-X competition with the design that would become the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines. Nevertheless, the final report, issued in August 1967, recommended that the ZBGM-75 also be developed. Accordingly, the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara that the ZBGM-75 be funded starting in Fiscal Year (FY) 1969, with a projected entry into service by 1973.
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This entry incorporates text from “BGM-75 AICBM” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.