Stresses.

This is coolbert:

Speaking strictly here the American land-based atomic-warhead Minuteman III missile force. Considerations also for the American Trident missile-launching submarine force?

"Not a single ICBM with a live warhead has ever been tested."

"Who knows whether an intercontinental ballistic missile [ICBM] with a nuclear warhead will actually work? Each of the constituent elements has been tested, it is true. Each of them, however, has not been tested under circumstances which would be attendant upon the firing of such a missile in anger . . . [A]n intercontinental ballistic missile will carry its nuclear to great heights, subjecting it to intense cold. It will then arch down and upon re-entering the earth's atmosphere subject the nuclear warhead to intense heat. Who knows what will happen to the many delicate mechanisms involved in the nuclear war-head as it is subjected to these two extremes of temperature."

An ICBM with LIVE nuclear warhead launched downrange with atomic detonation has NEVER been done, either by American or Soviet/Russian military forces. NO ONE else for that matter. That Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963 precludes such testing

Besides extreme degrees of heat and cold the warhead would be subject to, my main concern would be more the vibrations and consequential stress on internal bomb components from the launch and flight of the missile!

With regard to Minuteman alone those missiles and atomic munitions both are just plain OLD and SHOULD constitute a major concern for American planners.

See previous blog entries, problems as having historically existed, the American Polaris ballistic missile fleet armaments:

https://militaryanalysis.blogspot.com/2017/03/slbm-polaris.html

https://militaryanalysis.blogspot.com/2015/09/w47w52.html

coolbert.