Georgios Koutsoumpos

Trident II D5: a Silent Weapon from Nuclear to Conventional Strike Georgios Koutsoumpos

The Germans developed the first ballistic missile, during the WW II. After the end of WW II, scientists began to develop ballistic missiles that could be launched from submarines. These submarines play strategic importance for the USA and the Russia and other nuclear powers, since the start of the Cold War, as they can hide from reconnaissance satellites and fire nuclear weapons with virtual impunity. This makes them immune to a first strike directed against nuclear forces, allowing each side to maintain the capability to launch a devastating retaliatory strike, even if all land-based missiles have been destroyed. UGM-133 Trident II, or Trident D5 is a submarine-launched ballistic missile, built by Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Sunnyvale, California, and deployed with the US and the Royal Navies. Trident II was firstly deployed in 1990, and still is in service. Each Trident II missile can carry up to twelve nuclear MIRV W88 warheads W76, but according to START I treaty, it carries only up to eight. The book should help shed some light on exciting environment of ballistic missiles and should be useful to anyone who is interested in the development of missiles to conventional.