ABM R & D at Bell Labs - Chapter 9: Sprint Missile Subsystem

[Winston]

ABM R & D at Bell Labs
Chapter 9: Sprint Missile Subsystem

https://srmsc.org/pdf/004431p0.pdf
Text and diagram from that PDF plus lousy images from the web which I have enhanced slightly. There's got to be a bunch of good development and launch images of this incredible missile somewhere, but they aren't on the web as far as I can find. BTW, the neutron bomb was developed for this application.

SPRINT gallery 1:

https://srmsc.org/mis2050.html
SPRINT gallery 2:

https://srmsc.org/mis2080.html

 

[aerostadt]

The Spartan and the Sprint were part of the Sentinel ABM system proposed way back during the days of the President Johnson administration. I remember going to college in those days. The Spartan was design to intercept Soviet ballistic missile warheads a long way out from their US targets. Those that got past the ABM Spartan intercepts were left-over warheads that were to be intercepted by the Sprints. One aspect of the system was the Perimeter Acquisition Radar or PAR. It was a huge ground-based stationary radar structure. The counter arguments against the Sentinel system was that the enemy could target the relatively fragile PAR and neutralize the entire Sentinel system. Another counter argument was the advent of Multiple Independent Re-entry Vehicles or MIRV. In that case it was argued that one ICBM could send many warheads towards the US and many ABM interceptors would be needed to destroy the one ICBM launch. Clearly, the kill-ratio favored ICBM's with MIRV's over the ABM interceptors. The defender with the ABM system could spend itself into oblivion. Henry Kissinger once said that the MIRV solution to the so-called smart idea of the the ABM, was a response that made the arms race even more difficult to control.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinel_program

 

[Sooner Boomer]

youtube search using sprint abm give some interesting, but short, videos.

 

[shockie]

can you believe they built this in the late 60's to very early 70's...... I'm beginning to believe that the military-industrial war machine complex just keeps re-inventing the same wheel with more money......