Lightning Bolts: First Maneuvering Reentry Vehicles

by William Yengst

History shows that demands of wartime military and political leaders have often motivated development of new and advanced technologies. The German desire to attack American cities with long-range variants of V-2 missiles during the latter years of World War II stimulated development of maneuvering reentry vehicle concepts. In the mid-1960s, these concepts were secretly refined and tested by the United States to provide accurate delivery of strategic nuclear warheads at intercontinental ranges and to assure their penetration of newly developed Soviet anti-ballistic missile defenses. First Maneuvering Reentry Vehicles, by William C. Yengst, describes the initial feasibility programs to test three alternative designs for implementing hypersonic maneuvers and accurate guidance of long-range reentry vehicles. It identifies the political and military motivations, environmental challenges, design difficulties, innovative technology solutions, test failures, and spectacular successes. It also summarizes development of operational maneuvering reentry vehicles prepared for U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Army long-range missile systems during the 1980s. The technology has been adopted and further refined by foreign nations (India, China and Russia) in building their latest missile systems. Therefore, it is important to understand the capabilities and performance characteristics of future potential threats. Written as a first-hand account of the technology's evolution, the book honors the dedicated engineers and scientists who worked to make these programs a success.

305 pages, Paperback

First published April 6, 2010

Reviews

[Tech Historian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is real contribution to the history of cold war technology. There's almost no declassified literature covering maneuvering reentry vehicles. The author weaves a coherent narrative of the projects he worked on.

Of special note were the nuggets including the description of internal details of reentry vehicles, size and weight of nuclear weapons, the Chinese DF-21D MARV, aurora hypersonic spy plane, earth penetrating warheads which in tests went through 184 feet concrete and steel.

The problem with the book is it’s hard to tell where his personal knowledge of the programs (other than the ones he worked on) starts and his speculation begins. To escape breaking security, authors often use references to open source literature to talk about code word classified projects - but that means it's hard to tell if the author is trying to provide a declassified paper trail, or simply isn't knowledgable. Given Yengst's background I would tend to bet that he may have been read-in to some of these other programs, but as others point out the gaffe about the DC-X makes me wonder.

Still, a great addition to the cold war history technology shelf.

[Joseph II · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book looks self-published and is in need of copyediting badly. Some of the text was just hard to swallow.

The golden nugget of information in this book - one that makes it worth purchasing - is the information on Minuteman ICBM and Advanced Ballistic Re-Entry Systems (ABRES). Very little information out there on ABRES.

Bottom Line: unless you are a fan of Minuteman or ABRES, borrow at the library.

[Philski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book a bit light on details and the editing could use some help but a nice summary of maneuverable reentry vehicles.