Shipbucket

In between working on 3A2 and my current challenge entry I decided to pump out a quick rendition of what I view as one of the sillier submarines from the cold war. The USAF's MX carrying small submarine, one of the more grounded concepts out of the numerous proposals for basing the new MX Missile . Proposed in the early 80s with entry into service expected between 1992 and 1994, the basic concept was for a small diesel-electric submarine* carrying 4 missiles stored horizontally in steel canisters. On launch hatches would open and latches released. The canisters would then float to the surface where the missiles would then be launched.

Technical Details are rather sparse and I suspect little,if any real engineering work was done beyond basic sketches of the layout. Most of the work done seems to have focused on the pros/cons of basing the missile this way. Things like how it would affect missile accuracy, the vulnerability of the submarines to soviet attack, how many subs would need to be at sea at a time and where would the subs be based from.

Overall if you're thinking that this seems to be a worse version of Trident, you're not wrong. I suspect that this, along with many of the other proposed MX basing schemes was put forward in order to make some of the USAF's preferred option, multiple protective shelter and deep underground basing, more attractive by comparison. In the end, when the MX missile finally entered service as the Peacekeeper, the USAF eventually would ended up sticking the then missiles into old Titan II silos.


*Nuclear electric was considered an option, but diesel electric seems to have been the preferred choice.

Never come across this MX concept before.
I can imagine the USN would be very pissed with the USAF trying to operate SSBs of its own!

_________________
Hood's Worklist
English Electric Canberra FD
Interwar RN Capital Ships
Super-Darings
Never-Were British Aircraft

Perhaps the best work about the MX carryng submarine is here:

https://www.princeton.edu/~ota/disk3/19 ... 811607.PDF

Weird but certainly original. Well done.

While I concur on the basing issues, the only thing I can think of adding is a SAC stripe and shield.

_________________
𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐍𝐄𝐓- 𝑻𝒐 𝑪𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝑺𝒐𝒍𝒗𝒆

This is a wonderous idea, I'm going to start tinkering with the markings.


EDIT:

Initial Draft of markings.
"Tail Code" located on the fin follows USAF conventions
The large two letters "MX" in this case are symbolic of the missiles being carried. The small two letters "AK" represent the proposed basing of Anchorage Alaska. In terms of the numbers, USAF has the first 2 as the Fiscal Year the air frame was approved with the other digits being sequential for that year.
Since the service entry was expected to be 1992, I figure an 8 year development time for the lead boat would be reasonable. In addition some Peacekeeper missiles were approved that year so it seemed a good fit. IRL for the FY 1984 budget the missiles received serial numbers in the 84-0540/0560 range. Following this range there's a jump to USAF serial numbers 84-0809/0812 (These were F117s). I feel that it's plausible the boats would be approved alongside the missiles so I decided to use the allocated (as far as I can tell) 84-0570 range for the serial numbers.