Talk:LIM-49 Spartan

Wrong missile
The photograph labeled as a Spartan missile in this article is a Nike Zeus B, not a Spartan. You have the wrong rocket.Magneticlifeform (talk) 04:33, 25 March 2013 (UTC) The 4 photographs in the "Photo Gallery" are in fact photos of the Spartan missile, or in one case, a mock-up of a Spartan missile. It is only the photo at the top of the dimensions table which is a Nike Zeus B. Nike Zeus B and Spartan are similar in appearance because Spartan was derived from Nike Zeus B, but the 2 are distinctly different missiles in terms of weight, dimensions, range, etc. Nike Zeus B was a stand-alone ABM while Spartan was part of the 2-tier Safeguard ABM system in which Spartan was the upper-tier interceptor and Sprint was the lower-tier interceptor. Magneticlifeform (talk) 05:10, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I have commented out the image. If true, this photo needs to be replaced here, AND the the image needs to be renamed in WikiMedia! Student7 (talk) 19:21, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Name a coincidence or designers irony?
The short service life of the W-71-Spartan and Safeguard Program in general, is believed to have been partly tied to it largely becoming obsolete with the development of Soviet offensive MIRV(Multiple independent re-entry vehicles) warheads, that unlike MRVs(multiple re-entry vehicles), can create a substantial spacing distance between each warhead once they arrive in space - and therefore would require at least about 1 Spartan missile launch to intercept each MIRV warhead. Fatally though, as the cost of the Spartan missile interceptor and an enemy ICBM were roughly the same, an adversary could afford to simply overwhelm the ABM system by adding ICBMs with MIRV warheads to its nuclear arsenal. (See more Spartan (missile)).

However against MRVs, ABMs like Spartan would be effective; under ideal conditions, a single Spartan could destroy all the warheads launched by a single missile. Though as mentioned, with the addition of a small rocket motor and a suitable guidance system, MRVs become "MIRV" relatively easily. In MIRVs, each warhead could be directed against a different target, separated by great distances. This meant that several Spartans would have to be launched to shoot down a single missile's payload. Thus, like the Spartan warrior civilization that the name of the missile derives from, the Spartans were unable to match their adversary in numbers, and both would therefore lose in a war when faced against an overwhelming number of individual attackers - Battle of Thermopylae/Nuclear war against MIRVs.

By comparison, the Soviet Union's closest contemporary counterpart to the W71-Spartan, the ABM-1 Galosh, had a much longer service history and has since been replaced with the fielding of the 51T6 Gorgon missile, still in service in Russia's A-135 ABM. Henceforth the Soviet Union regarded an ABM shield, no matter how ineffective it might be, as worth having as it may even prove adequate enough in certain scenarios, such as in the event of an accidental US launch of a few missiles or with the threat of a total nuclear war with the People's Republic of China- which relied solely on comparatively primitive Dong Feng 4-MRVs until relatively recently and has had strained relations with the Soviet Union (see more Sino-Soviet split). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.251.175.116 (talk) 03:03, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Still, the initiative has been with the attackers and against defense since the invention of the cannon in the Middle Ages, all other armaments and personnel being more or less equal. Not really new. With each increase in offense, a new method of defense is tried, appears to succeed for a time, then is discarded and improved defense tried. Mutual assured destruction seems to work, but makes everyone a bit nervous! :)  Student7 (talk) 20:00, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Zeus EX
The material in section 'Zeus EX' was completely unsourced, except for the lethal ranges, which were questionably sourced. Additionally, a Google search bring up very little on the term 'Zeus EX' and I don't see support for the claims on warhead mechanism made here. I have removed the section for now. - Crosbie 08:07, 1 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Please undo your blanking edits, as talked about on the W71 talk page.
 * 178.167.208.192 (talk) 12:37, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Dense Tungsten inside
A Declassified/Released US Department of State communique states that:

"THERE HAS BEEN NO SIGNIFICANT CHANGE IN THE USE PATTERN OF PRESSED-SINTERED TUNGSTEN AND PRESENT CONTROLS SHOULD BE RETAINED. THE HIGHLY DENSIFIED, UNINFILTRATED FORMS TYPIFIED BY SUB-ITEM (A) ARE STILL ESSENTIAL COMPONENTS OF ON-GOING MISSILE SYSTEMS SUCH AS THE SPARTAN AND THE POROUS AND/OR INFILTRATED FORMS TYPIFIED BY SUB-ITEM (B) ARE BEING USED IN THE MORE ADVANCED AIRCRAFT AND MISSILE SYSTEMS REQUIRING A HIGHER DEGREE OF STABILITY." https://search.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1974STATE235933_b.html

Suggesting that the spartan used Tungsten, most probably(given the context) as a counterweight/to shift the missiles Center of gravity. This is typical in aircraft and missiles and not at all surprising. However there are a number of other nuclear related uses of Tungsten, so all we can say for sure is that the Spartan used Tungsten, not for what exactly.
 * 92.251.182.174 (talk) 23:52, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

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