The HGM-25A Titan I was a liquid-fueled, silo-based, intercontinental ballistic missile built by the United States.

Titan I Development

The HGM-25A Titan I missile program began in 1954 around the same time as the Thor, Atlas, and Minuteman I programs. The Titan I was designed to function as a secondary ICBM program if the Atlas program failed to produce a viable missile. Additionally, the Titan I was designed to deliver a heavier payload and be able to strike targets outside the Atlas’ range.¹ Following the Sputnik satellite launch and concerns of a gap in U.S. and Soviet missile technology growing, Titan was given full funding and was ordered to be deployed alongside the Atlas.² The Titan’s first test flight took place in February of 1959 and the entire testing series was completed by December of 1960.³

Unlike the Atlas, Titan had two distinct separating stages, as opposed to booster rockets strapped to the sides of the main stage. This made Titan I the first true multi-stage missile developed by the United States. The Titan I’s two-stage design was implemented to account for the extra weight from the solid airframe and to reduce the missile’s weight during later stages of flight.⁴ The primary contractor of the Titan ICBM program was Martin Marietta. While testing the complicated stage separation and silo launch systems, the Titan underwent a series of failures which resulted in the missiles losing control and being destroyed by range control or exploding on the launch pad.⁵

The missile entered service in 1961. A total of 163 missiles were produced.⁶

Specifications

The Titan 1 had a range of 10,000 km with an accuracy of 1,400 m CEP. This accuracy was obtained from an inertial guidance system that used radio command updates from ground making flight corrections. It deployed a single Mk 4 Reentry Vehicle (RV) which carried a W-38 3.75 MT nuclear warhead. The missile had a first-stage diameter of 3.05 m, a second-stage diameter of 2.44 m, a length of 29.87 m and a launch weight of 99,790 kg. The missiles had a two-stage liquid propellant design, and reached a speed of 25 times the speed of sound by the time the engines cut off.⁷

Service History

The Titan I missile was a strategic weapon created to provide the United States a counter-strike capability against the Soviet Union. Unlike its contemporaries, Thor and Atlas, the Titan I was designed from the beginning as one of the first missiles that could be launched from a hardened underground silo which offered the missile protection against a Soviet attack.⁸ However, unlike modern missiles which can launch from inside the silo, Titan I’s were installed on elevators which raised the missile to ground level before firing. In order to provide a quick response to Soviet aggression, the Titan missiles were capable of being fueled, raised, and launched within 15 minutes of receiving a launch command. ⁹

The Titan I sites were under the command of six different strategic missile squadrons (568^th, 569^th, 724^th, 725^th, 850^th, and 851^st) and constructed in Air Force bases throughout California, Colorado, Idaho, South Dakota, and Washington.¹⁰ Each launch complex included three missile silos, an antenna silo, a power house, fuel and equipment terminals, and a command bunker which were all interlinked via tunnels and located at least 33 km away from other launch complexes to increase survivability in event of an attack.[Stumpf, 29.] Due to the volatility of liquid oxygen fuel, the silo locations were also widely separated from the other complex structures for safety purposes.¹¹

Due to the low numbers of ICBMs and generally poor accuracy of ICBMs in the early 1960s, missiles like the Titan were dedicated to striking counter-value targets such as industrial centers or major cities while Air Force strategic bombers were responsible for hitting smaller or hardened targets. The Titan I was retired in 1965 in favor of the Titan II.¹²