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Great Falls Area Chamber of Commerce www.greatfallschamber.org
Minuteman Missile System
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Great Falls and Cascade County have a thriving relationship
with Malmstrom Air Force Base (AFB). Malmstrom AFB serves
as one of the key installations in nuclear deterrence for the
United States due to our Minuteman III ICBM (Intercontinental
Ballistic Missiles), also known as the LGM-30G.
The history of the Minuteman missile system is impressive,
with the first ten Minuteman 1/As achieving operational
capability in 1962. Over the course of 15 years, our country
stood up a total of 1,000 Minuteman silo-based ICBMs. During
that time, we were at the peak of the "Cuban Missile Crisis,"
and President John F. Kennedy coined the term, "Ace in the
Hole" when he spoke about the newly fielded capability and
their role in our national defense strategy.
The Air Force continued to make upgrades to the Minuteman
system from 1962 – 1968, including an upgrade to a new rocket
dubbed the Minuteman 1/B. The new capability gave the United
States a reach of up to 6,000 miles, allowing the warheads to
impact their target within 30 minutes of receiving the launch
order. In 1968, the first Minuteman III went into service with
the ability to hold three MIRVs (Multiple Independent Reentry
Vehicles) allowing the warheads to prosecute targets miles
apart from each other. Since then, the Minuteman III has
stood watch, with multiple upgrades by Boeing over the
last fifty years.
