USAF To Retire Newest Nuke Missile

USAF To Retire Newest Nuke Missile

By GAYLE S. PUTRICH

DefenseNews

Beginning next year, the U.S. Air Force will retire the most modern missile in its nuclear arsenal as part of a 2002 disarmament treaty with Russia.

The decision is expected to eliminate about 400 Advanced Cruise Missiles (ACMs) deployed with the B-52 fleet at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., and Barksdale Air Force Base, La.

An Air Force spokesperson said the service does not yet know how much it will save by eliminating the missiles, nor is there an estimate of personnel reductions.

“In the long term, there will be cost and manpower savings, and the Air Force will use any potential savings to support Air Force priorities, including recapitalizing our force,” Maj. Kelley Thibodeau said. “But what those are, we’re just not sure yet.”

Air Force fact sheets state the ACM was expected to be in service through 2030. As recently as July 2006, top Air Force officials said they planned to maintain the ACM arsenal and possibly work with the Department of Energy to update the missile’s warhead.

The ACM was conceived in the 1980s as an air-launched nuclear weapon that could avoid Soviet radar and destroy heavily defended targets. It is designed to arm B-52H strategic bombers, which carry up to 12, each tipped with a 5- to 150-ton W80-1 warhead.

The original plan was to buy 1,500 ACMs to arm the B-52 and B-1 fleets, but post-Cold War budget cuts shrank the order. General Dynamics closed the production line in 1993 after only 460 missiles were delivered.

As part of the 2002 Moscow Treaty, the United States agreed to reduce its overall nuclear arsenal. The treaty does not specify which weapons should go, only directing that the United States and Russia cut nuclear stockpiles to between 1,700 and 2,200 by December 2012 — a reduction of about two-thirds from levels at the time the treaty was signed.

The Pentagon has already reduced the number of nuclear warheads on sea-launched ballistic missiles and is in the process of removing warheads from land-based ballistic missiles.

Confirmation of the ACM retirement is the first public statement about a reduction of warheads on the bomber force, the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) said.

The decision to kill the missile was revealed by FAS Director Hans Kristensen, who questioned Air Force officials when he noticed the 2008 budget proposal did not include funds for the ACM.