Roles Chapter Four The Role of Nuclear Weapons in U.S. and Allied Military Forces In 1980, 722 military units were "certified" for nuclear weapons in the nuclear stockpile and the diversity of warfare.l The units comprised 100,000 specially trained weapons types. and cleared personnel, with properly wired and U.S. military forces, which are deployed worldwide, inspected weapons. These units are to play a contin- continue to follow a practice of widespread "nucleariza- gency role in the nuclear strategy of the United state^.^ tion" of military equipment and units begun in the The purpose of this chapter is to explain the nature and 1950s. The Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP), magnitude of the nuclear weapons support structure- the central nuclear war plan for strategic forces, broadly delivery units, maintenance, and storage. This will shed determines the requirements for roughly 10,000 strategic light on a number of reasons for the large number of warheads. A variety of tactical/theater plans account Figure 4.1 Nuclear Weapons Locations in the United States. 1 SAC, FY 1981 DOD, Part 3, p, 730: GAO, "Accountability and Control of Warheads in the 2 A nuclear certified unit is "a unit or an activity assigned responsibilities for assembling, Custody of the Department of Defense and the Energy Research and Development Admin- maintaining, transporting, or storing war reserve nuclear weapons, their assorted compo- stration," PSAD 77-115, 2 June 1977, p. 5, reported 636 nuclear certified units in October nents and ancillary equipment"; Defense Nuclear Agency, Department of Defense Nuclear 1976. Weapons Technical Inspection System, TP 25-1, 1 January 1974, p. 2. 82 Nuclear Weapons Databook, Volume I 4 Allocations competitive and aggressive development of new tech- Table 4.1 nologies in warheads and delivery systems. Allocation of Nuclear Warheads in the The annual Nuclear Weapons Stockpile Memoran- Service Branches (1983) dum, approved by the President, determines the number of weapons to be produced and retired. However, the Air Marine composition of the operational weapons stockpile is pri- Warhead ----Force Army Corps Navy marily influenced by a variety of other plans: W25/GENIE 628 bomb W31 /NIKE- Annual Unified and Specified Commander- HERCULES/ in-Chief requirements as validated by the HONEST JOHN Joint Chiefs of Staff; W33/ 8-inch artillery 643 bomb Annual joint military requirements pro- W44/ ASROC posals produced by the Joint Chiefs of W45/TERRIER Staff, the Joint Strategic Planning Docu- W45/ MADM ment Nuclear Weapons Annex, Joint Stra- W48/ 155mm tegic Capabilities Plan, and Joint Planning artillery W50/ PERSHING 1a Assessment Memorandum Nuclear Weap- 653 bomb ons Annex; W53/TITAN I1 Annual Secretary of Defense memorandum W54/ SADM (Nuclear Weapon Development Guidance) W55/ SUBROC coordinated with the Consolidated Gui- W56/MINUTEMAN I1 B57 bomb dance and DOD planning, programming, B61 bomb and budgeting activities; and W62/ MINUTEMAN Ill Annual DOD memorandum (Nuclear W68/ POSEIOON Weapon Deployment Plan) produced W69/ SRAM together with the Nuclear Weapons Stock- W70/ LANCE W76/TRIDENT I pile Memorandum delineating the alloca- W78/ MINUTEMAN Ill tion of warheads to theater commanders W79/8-inch artillery and their storage. W80/ALCM Military units with nuclear capabilities must pass a for approximately 11,500 tactical warheads. Roughly certification inspection which determines if they are 8000 of the tactical warheads are allocated for NATO/ capable of performing their assigned mission. This European plans, 1000 for U.S. Pacific Command plans, inspection is called a Technical Proficiency Inspection and 2500 for anti-submarine warfare. A few hundred in the Army, a Nuclear Weapons Acceptance Inspection warheads are for strategic defense of the United States, (NWAI) in the Navy and Marine Corps, and a Capability and the remaining 4000 comprise a strategic and tactical Inspection in the Air Force. The certification is not only reserve. All four services have a wide variety of nuclear to ensure knowledge of the unique capabilities of weapons (see Table 4.1, Allocation of Nuclear Warheads nuclear weapons, but also to indoctrinate the unit as to in the Service Branches). the safety and control procedures accorded these weap- However, the large number of warheads far exceeds ons. The control procedures create enormous additional any level of use or destruction which could be contem- cost over conventional weapons. plated in the plans. This is due to a variety of factors: One of the most important ways to prevent the inad- the duplicative and competitive nuclear weapons mis- vertent or accidental use of nuclear weapons is the Per- sions of the services, the large number of fixed targets sonnel Reliability Program (PRP) (see Table 4.2, Person- designated to be destroyed by strategic forces, the possi- nel with Nuclear Weapons Duties).' The PRP insures the bility of the use of thousands of battlefield weapons reliability and qualifications of people who have cus- against mobile and non preplanned targets, and the 3 The unified commands with nuclear weapons responsibilities include the European Com- 4 The Personnel Reliability Program is called the Human Reliability Program in the Air mand, Pacific Command, Atlantic Command, Readiness Command, and Central Command Force. (formerly Rapid Deployment Force). The specified commands with nuclear weapons re- sponsibilities are the Strategic Air Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command. Nuclear Weapons Databook, Volume I 83 4 Air Force Roles Table 4.2 Personnel with Nuclear Weapons Duties United States Military Civilian2 Contractor3 U.S. TOTAL Pacific Military Civilian Contractor PACIFIC TOTAL Europe Military Civilian Contractor EUROPE TOTAL TOTAL Military Civilian Contractor Source: DOD, OSD "Annual Status Report, Nuclear Weapon Personnel Reliability Pro- 1 Breakdown for 1977 and 1976 not available. gram," RCS DD-POL[Al 1403, Year Ending 31 December 1980; 31 December 1979, 2 Federal Civilian Personnel. 31 December 1978, RCS DD-COMP[A] 1403, 31 December 1977; 31 December 3 Contractor Personnel. 1976. tody of, control access to, or have access to nuclear capability. Theater bombers constitute the most impor- weapons. The investigative and administrative proce- tant long-range regional strike forces. dures of the PRP also create higher expenses in manning The kinds of nuclear weapons employed and the mis- nuclear weapons. For example, it is expensive to train sions undertaken by the Air Force nuclear certified units personnel in technical nuclear weapons electronics and are governed by the regularly revised USAF Program maintenance ski1ls.j The training costs for each nuclear Nuclear Weapons Capabilities and Equipage Document, weapons technician (over the first ten years) is approxi- deriving from JCS, Secretary of Defense, and Presiden- mately $11,700 for Air Force, $52,300 for Army, and tial guidelines. In October 1976, Air Force capabilities $55,200 for Navy personnel. Training over the second ten consisted of 74 nuclear certified units; a similar number year career period costs $22,600 for the Navy and $26,900 is estimated to be active today.6 Generally, the nuclear for the Army. certified combat unit in the Air Force is a squadron. A squadron consists of 15-24 aircraft (see Table 4.3, Air Force Nuclear Weapons Units), 18 TITAN missiles, or 50 Air Force Nuclear Weapons Roles MINUTEMAN missiles. The squadrons are normally The Air Force has the dominant position in U.S. stra- subordinate to a wing or group, where the munitions tegic and long-range theater nuclear forces, because it maintenance unit has custody of the nuclear weapons. controls land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, An exception is in the case of missiles, where the war- bombers, and tactical nuclear fighter bombers. The mis- heads are present in underground silos. sile and bomber force comprises the bulk of the strategic 5 SASC, FY 1980 DOD, Part 1, p. 238 6 GAO, op. cit. 84 Nuclear Weapons Databook, Volume I Air Force Roles Figure 4.2 F-16 FALCON, the newest nuclear-capable fighter in the Air Force The central maintenance and storage of Air Force work.qncluding the above number, in FY 1980, 119,802 nuclear weapons takes place at three bases: Barksdale military and 16,043 civilian personnel were engaged in AFB, Louisiana: Nellis AFB, Nevada; and Kirtland AFB, strategic weapons work within the Air Force. Many of New Mexico. The warheads are shipped to these bases these personnel were obviously not certified for direct from the Department of Energy's final assembly plant contact work with nuclear weapons (PRP) even though (PANTEX) at Amarillo, Texas and stored and main- assigned to nuclear weapons units.9 An additional 3460 tained prior to dispersal to other air bases. Three of five military and civilian personnel were engaged directly in Air Force Air Logistic Centers (ALCs) are also involved theater nuclear forces work.l0 in supply and repair of nuclear weapons systems: Ogden Air Force strategic offensive forces represent about 90 ALC, Hill AFB, Utah for missiles; Oklahoma ALC, percent of the total megatonnage delivery capability of Tinker AFB, Oklahoma for bombers: and San Antonio U.S. strategic forces." The bomber squadrons of the ALC, Kelly AFB, Texas for nuclear bombs. Air Force Strategic Air Command (see Table 4.4, Strategic Bomber nuclear weapons training takes place at six main bases: Force Basing) each have 14-15 B52 or FBI11 aircraft Chanute AFB, Illinois; Indian Head, Maryland; Kirtland assigned and approximately 150 nuclear weapons. The AFB, New Mexico; Lowry AFB, Colorado; Sheppard nuclear weapons include B28, B43, B53, B57, and B61 AFB. Texas: and Vandenburg AFB, California.? bombs, SRAM missiles, and, increasingly, ALCMs. The As of 31 December 1982, there were 53,144 Air Force ICBM MINUTEMAN strategic missile squadrons (see personnel in the PRP involved in nuclear weapons Table 4.5, ICBM Deployments) each consist of 50 missile 7 AFM 50-5, Volume 11, 9 SAC, FY 1980 DOD, Part 3, p 721, 8 HAC, FY 1983 DOD, Part 3, p.