Cancelled Cold War Weapons

[ltdanjuly10]

I have been looking into cancelled cold war weapons systems for my novel, and I ran into a couple in an old (Salamander) book, The Balance of Military Power. (Side Note: Excellent book)

I have had difficulty finding any updated information on them so if you know anything please post.

Note: Both of these systems were US/NATO systems that were in concept stages at the time of the book (Mid-late 1980s)

1. Assault Breaker: A Conventional missile system that was designed to destroy Soviet troop concentrations far behind the lines.

2. The Spray-able minefield: A substance was sprayed over a large area from either a ground vehicle or slow moving helicopter (The book said fast aircraft would not give a proper coating). Soviet forces would move into the minefield and then it would be activated somehow (electrical charge?) destroying them. (I know it sounds like Science fiction but it’s in the book)

 

[kato]

Assault Breaker was an entire package of weapon and sensor systems. Some of which were realized, in the form of the M39 missile for ATACMS, the E-8 JSTARS and the LANTIRN pods.

As for the "sprayable minefield", you sure they aren't talking simple mine launchers? More specifically "Vulcano", which was introduced on ground vehicles and helicopters in the mid-90s, after Germany introduced similar systems ("Skorpion") 10 years earlier.

 

[ltdanjuly10]

As for the "sprayable minefield", you sure they aren't talking simple mine launchers? More specifically "Vulcano", which was introduced on ground vehicles and helicopters in the mid-90s, after Germany introduced similar systems ("Skorpion") 10 years earlier.

No the book mentioned those seperately, I will try and get the exact quote from the book in a couple of days

 

[AegisFC]

2. The Spray-able minefield: A substance was sprayed over a large area from either a ground vehicle or slow moving helicopter (The book said fast aircraft would not give a proper coating). Soviet forces would move into the minefield and then it would be activated somehow (electrical charge?) destroying them. (I know it sounds like Science fiction but it’s in the book)

Have you tried the "Secret Projects Forum"? Usually that site has some pretty obscure and interesting military concepts that never got developed or past the prototype stage.

 

[kato]

Stars & Stripes (back in 1968!) described Astrolite-G as being able to be sprayed in exactly the described fashion and used as a minefield, however there's a slight problem with that: Astrolite-G tends to blow up rather uncontrollable. Application by aircraft was never intended, tests usually only involved a few 100 ml instead of the hundreds or thousands of liters that would be sprayed by an aircraft. It's also pretty much useless against tanks. Pure anti-personnel application.

 

[ltdanjuly10]

Yep book says its astrolite G, and that they still were working on it in the 1980s

 

[Spetsznaz]

The X-30 and the super secret updates cancelled due to the soviet union falling apart, the SR-71 going into the SR-91 Aurora

 

[valleyrat]

There is a book out there on failed aircraft. Some interesting concepts that never should have left the boardroom. Remember the atomic bomber ideas lol?

 

[Neutral Zone]

There is a book out there on failed aircraft. Some interesting concepts that never should have left the boardroom. Remember the atomic bomber ideas lol?

The most insane of which, and probably my favourite weapons project of all time has to be "The Flying Chernobyl" the USAF's SLAM (Supersonic Low Altitude Missile) or "Slow, Low And Messy!" It was like something that escaped from Dr. Strangelove's attic and was powered by a nuclear ramjet giving it a range equivalent to flying around the Earth four times. You actually wouldn't have needed to put a nuclear warhead on the thing you would just have programmed it to fly back and forth across the USSR a few times and the highly radioactive exhaust would do the job just as well!!

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic_Low_Altitude_Missile"]Supersonic Low Altitude Missile - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/Fileluto1955_b.jpg" class="image"><img alt="" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Pluto1955_b.jpg/220px-Pluto1955_b.jpg"@@AMEPARAM@@commons/thumb/3/34/Pluto1955_b.jpg/220px-Pluto1955_b.jpg[/ame]