Dec 4 1976
From The Space Library
According to a story in the Chicago Tribune, the USSR on an undisclosed date had fired a submarine-launched missile farther than ever before. An SSN-8 missile had landed in mid-Pacific slightly more than 9000 km from its launching point, presumably a submarine in the Barents Sea. (The longest-range U.S. submarine-launched missile could reach just under 4700 km.) U.S. intelligence sources were reported unsure whether the additional 'range of the SSN-8 resulted from extra rocket power or a lighter warhead; SSN-8 had previously been identified as a single-warhead weapon used in the USSR's 17 new Delta-class missile submarines. Commenting on the report, the New York Times said the Soviets' test shot was "good news paradoxically" for the U.S. and the whole world: in contrast to large land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, the submarine-based missiles were neither large enough nor accurate enough for effective first-strike counter-silo use, and their concealment and mobility would make them ideal second-strike weapons useful only as deterrents. As long as the USSR had no submarine-launched missile, there was little possibility of lowering the ceilings set in a previous agreement to a level that would head off a Soviet first-strike capability. The ceilings had allowed each side to have 2400 strategic bombers and missiles, of which 1320 could carry multiple warheads; if the USSR should agree to deploy half its multiple-warhead missiles at sea as the U.S. did, such an agreement could eliminate the possibility of either side's constructing a high-confidence first-strike force and would help ensure stability of the nuclear balance for a long time. The NYT favored such an agreement, which would call a halt to ongoing missile programs. (C Trib, 4 Dee 76, 2-5; NYT, 6 Dec 76, 32)
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