UGM-27 Titan II

From Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium

A second-generation U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile, the UGM-27 Titan II had unusually high warhead throw-weight, which let it lift the 9-megaton W53. The 54 missiles, deployed from 1962 to 1984, were reserved for the most hardened Soviet targets.

Later LGM-30 Minuteman missiles had much greater accuracy than the Titan II, so some of the same targets were now vulnerable to a more precisely placed 2MT W56, or the even more precise 340 KT W78 multiple independently targetable warhead or 300 KT W87 single warhead.

While one was destroyed in an accident caused by a heavy wrench rupturing a tank in a silo, leading to an explosion, the Titan II was considered a quite reliable rocket. After retirement, the Titan IIs were used as space launch vehicles, as, for example, in the Gemini program. Titan III boosters actually preceded the use of Titan II's; the Titan III used the basic Titan II design, but with strap-on solid boosters and a variety of upper stages. NASA, however, refurbished retired ICBMs for space use.