Customer Reviews

U.S. Nuclear Arsenal: A History of Weapons and Delivery Systems Since 1945

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4 star:		(1)
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2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

An OK book, but rather disappointing. This book has a complete list of nuclear bombs and warheads, but focuses on the delivery platforms. It also lacks any information on nuclear physics or weapons design.

Personally, I'd look very, very hard for a copy of Chuck Hansen's "U.S. Nuclear Weapons", as that book remains the best unclassified reference. I had hoped that this work would be able to challenge Hansen's volume, but it falls short.

This book is essentially a compendium of data that has already been presented in greater detail by other authors - notably Chuck Hansen's Swords of Armageddon, (And his earlier if dated book US Nuclear Weapons) or is readily accessible on the web or from previous published works. Many of the photographs are tired and have been reproduced many times before. There is little new insight or information here for anyone who has looked into this subject. Neither is there any real context about why various nuclear systems were developed. Above all there is no coverage of US nuclear testing which is a fundamental part of this story.

The book does have some value in that it puts all the information about weapons and delivery systems in one place for those unfamiliar with the subject. Also as a reference it is clear in its presentation and is thankfully relatively free of the political bias or moral outrage that bedevils so many books on nuclear history.

Given the authors reputations and previous research in this area, I was disappointed in this book and feel that an opportunity was missed. Certainly classification presents huge challenges in any book of this type, but an updated synthesis of post war nuclear weapons and delivery systems development is long overdue. This book is more of a catalogue than a history and it does not deliver as advertised.

Norman Polmar and Robert Norris state in the dust-jacket that the book "present[s] a complete and fully up-to-date history of the development of U.S. nuclear weapons and detailed descriptions of the entire American nuclear arsenal, including the variety of systems capable of delivering them." Polmar and Norris are each recognized defense analysts who have published numerous books and periodicals on nuclear weapons. These two experts deliver a book is fully successful in meeting these stated goals.

The book begins with a look at the evolution of American nuclear weapons development from the only operational uses of nuclear weapons in combat; through the post-Cold War drawdown. It reviews various topics such as Mutual Assured Destruction; the Strategic Triad. Polmar and Norris do a great job covering the essentials of understanding the key milestones in American nuclear policy.

With a foundational understanding of the nuclear weapon employment strategy, the reader is now ready to learn about the different types of weapons in the US arsenal. The first section focuses on nuclear warheads - the actual explosive devices capable of leveling cities. The entries for each warhead follow a standard format of a description; the production run; and the operational periods of availability for the weapon.

Chapter three focuses on strategic aircraft, which the authors state "Strategic aircraft are generally considered those that can reach an opponent's homeland." Many airpower proponents would modify this to state "are those that can reach more than 250 miles into an opponent's homeland," which would make the entries for the first sub-section focused on carrier-based attack aircraft more applicable for the tactical aircraft section. Airpower debates aside, both chapters follow the familiar format for the entries first introduced in the warhead section.

The balance of the book examine the strategic missile delivery systems; tactical missile delivery systems; artillery delivery systems; and anti-submarine weapons. Along with the weapons that were developed, the authors also document weapons that never made it past research and development, such as the Navy's A-12 Avenger. For readers looking for more information, the authors include a 2-page+ bibliography.

Many of the entries contain black and white photos of the warhead or delivery system being discussed. This is a great book to introduce the reader to the US nuclear arsenal covering the basic areas of the overall strategy of how the weapons would be used and also what weapons are available.

None of the other reviewers has mentioned the most serious problem with this book: it has a lot of factual errors. Let's look at Chapter 5, "Strategic Missiles" which is a subject I have studied extensively:

p. 165: Kerosene is not a cryogenic fuel and is not stored at low temperature

p. 169: The numbers of Jupiters deployed in Italy and Turkey are reversed

p. 180: The table of RAF Thor squadron assignments is based on the original plan; in reality each three-missile launch site had its own squadron number (and RAF units are never given ordinal numbers like "7th")

p. 181: Titan I was never deployed in soft sites; all squadrons used hardened silos from the beginning

p. 182: Titan II did not have a larger diameter than Titan I -- as shown in the data tables.

When fundamental errors like this are present in a familiar subject area, I cannot trust anything a book says in other areas. This work has a lot of interesting information about obscure nuclear delivery systems that never became operational -- but is it accurate?

When I first opened "The U.S. Nuclear Arsenal," by Norman Polmar and Robert S. Norris, I had a strong sense of déjà vu (all over again). A quick search through my library turned up James Norris Gibson's "The History of the U.S. Nuclear Arsenal," which was published in 1989. At first glance, the two books seem almost the same. Both are similar in size, shape and layout, and both are similarly organized by the general types of nuclear weapon delivery systems--strategic missiles, tactical missiles, strategic aircraft, tactical aircraft, submarine-launched missiles, etc. Gibson's book features many color photos, while Polmar and Norris's is all in black-and-white. Gibson's photos are also generally larger. Page counts are 192 for Gibson and 275 for Polmar and Norris. All in all, we're talking two very similar books on the same subject separated by a time span of 20 years.

How do they differ? First, Polmar and Norris include a far better, 35-page introduction that summarizes the history of nuclear weapons from before the Manhattan Project to after the Cold War ended. Gibson's introduction is a scant paragraph. The new book also has a detailed nine-page index, compared to Gibson's cursory, essentially useless one-pager that doesn't even list weapons by their "B," "Mark" or "W" designations. Polmar and Norris also include a good "Recommended Reading" list for those who want to delve further.

The new book clearly benefits from additional material declassified during the last 20 years. Let me offer two examples. I compared the treatments of the B-43 and the B-61, two weapons with which I am somewhat familiar. The lengths of the sections on the B-43 are about the same in both books (Gibson runs a bigger picture, almost a half-page), but Polmar and Norris offer a few more details about the weapon's selectable yields and its fuzing and delivery modes. For the B-61, Norris has four short paragraphs plus three photos showing a "laydown landing" test. Polmar and Norris offer much more information in almost a full page (no pictures at all, though) and considerably more about the weapon's design and operational deployment. Although not nearly at the level of detail of Chuck Hansen's out-of-print "U.S. Nuclear Weapons," Polmar and Norris offer a comprehensive, if relatively shallow, treatment of a very broad subject.

So is "The U.S. Nuclear Arsenal" a must-have book? Is it worth buying if you already have a copy of "The History of the U.S. Nuclear Arsenal?" The answer is a qualified "Yes." If you're at all interested and don't have Gibson's book, by all means buy this one. It is a good single-volume reference that covers a lot of ground at a level of detail sure to satisfy most readers. On the other hand, if you already own Gibson's book and don't care about the additional details that have come to light in the last 20 years, then there's probably no compelling need for you to pick up Polmar and Norris' work. However, if you're a real techno-geek who can't get enough of this stuff, you'll definitely need both books. They do fit together nicely side-by-side on my bookshelf--right next to Hansen's magnum opus.

This is more than a well written and researched reference book, but also an examination by experts of the evolution of nuclear weapons policy. When you absolutely need to know everything about how, why and where a US nuclear warhead and its delivery system was developed this is the book you must have. You are spared the technical details, like nuclear physics, but you get a basic understanding of how the warhead reached the target, avoided countermeasures, and the expected damage. Some examples of these fascinating details follow.
The rapid development of nuclear weapons delivery technology is presented from its beginnings with the German World War II V-1 (Buzz Bomb) and V-2 rocket designs. The US Army produced an operational German V-1 cruise missile a month after they were used to attack England in June 1944. The design was copied and put into production, but this stockpile was not needed after Japan surrendered. This allowed these "jet bombs" to be used as test platforms for the development of nuclear and conventionally armed cruise missiles including the submarine launched Regulus, the land launched Snark and the Tomahawk.
The first Intercontinental Missile was the strategic cruise missile Snark (Snark is a Lewis Carroll fictional creature from the 1876 book, that survives in modern usage as "snarky"). The 10-year troubled, test program led to so many Snark crashes near Cape Canaveral, FL that these waters became known as "Snark infested." The only operational Snark Wing was retired in June 1961 just one year after the first missile went on alert.
Sometimes these programs went to the extreme, even bizarre. In 1955 the Secretary of Defense directed that Jupiter-S liquid fueled Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles be designed for seaborne launch. The submarine version was proposed to carry three missiles in the middle section where the sail would help accommodate the 50 foot long missiles. The plan to fit these large, liquid-fueled missiles in a submarine that had to surface to launch them only seems bizarre (interesting drawing on page 184). This plan is exactly what the Soviets used in their GOLF and HOTEL class ballistic missile submarines (see Cold War Submarines by Norman Polmar and Kenneth Moore).
The Pluto Supersonic Low-Altitude Missile (SLAM) does achieve the bizarre status with its nuclear ramjet engine. This "unmanned bomber" was supposed to cruise at Mach 3 speeds at tree top levels over the Soviet Union while tossing out hydrogen bombs. The program was cancelled in 1964 after spending 320 million dollars because of radiation issues involving the nuclear-powered ramjet.

The book is ok. It's mostly a catalogue type book with many black and white photos of weapons and a brief description of the weapon. The book starts out with the basics of nuclear weapons and a short history. The book discusses the nuclear triad. The aurthor discusses different types of tactical and strategic aircract in the fleet. There is also an area which discusses artillary and anti submarine weapons. Throughout the book every weapon is discussed in a brief and detailed manner the book is in a catalogue style form.

My copy has page missing, and I am sure it is not the only one!