Midgetman Missile System (MGM-135A)
The Small Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (SICBM) or MGM-135A Midgetman was a development project from 1986 to 1992. The idea was to create a lightweight, road-mobile ICBM that would be capable of surviving a Soviet nuclear attack. The U.S. military intended to base the SICBMs at widespread locations, thus making them difficult to locate and destroy in a Soviet first strike.
The Scowcroft Commission had recommended the development of an SICBM in the early 1980s. President Reagan authorized full-scale development in December 1986. On April 18, 1991, the system's first successful flight test was conducted. An SICBM was launched from a canister at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and reached its target at the Kwajalein Test Range in the Marshall Islands. President George H. W. Bush canceled the SICBM program in January 1992, attributing reduced tensions between the U.S. and Russia following the end of the Cold War.
Nonetheless, the SICBM development program produced a prototype SICBM mobile launcher. Designed by Boeing Aerospace and Electronics and Loral Defense Systems Division, it weighed 108,500 kg and was capable of traveling up to 88 km/h on highways. The launcher used a trailer-mounted plow to dig the launcher into the earth for additional protection form a nuclear blast. Delivered to the U.S. Air Force in December 1988, the launcher was tested until 1991 at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana.