relatively comfortable about the relative costs but we don't feel comfortable at all about our ability to estimate their absolute value. So please don't take the number of digits here as indicating a measure of precision.

Mr. SMITH. Admiral, one question on methodology.

If you run your eye across the bottom line of aggregate cost for each alternative, what unit of worth do you divide that by to compare the actual cost effectiveness of each alternative? Is it the number of warheads of certain probabilities of damage against certain targets for each alternative that you then divide into aggregate figures, or how do you go about it analytically?

Admiral WERTHEIM. Well, you are asking me a very sophisticated question, as I am sure your are aware. In order to answer that question one would have to know precisely what the objective of the system was. Are we acquiring the system for the purpose of replacing land-based systems and, therefore, assigning some role to the system that it does not now have, or are we hedging against survivability of the force, in which case we use a different measure of effectiveness?

I am evading you.

Mr. SMITH. I thank you.

Admiral WERTHEIM. For comparison's sake, on the chart I have shown the Trident I system. Measured in 1978 dollars, the development costs are about $42 billion. Of course, that is sunk but it is used as a basis for comparison with some of these Trident II alternatives. Similarly, should we choose to continue to produce Trident I missiles and not to develop Trident II, we estimate the production costs for a force of [deleted] Trident submarines would be $4.3 billion. So the cost of the decision to continue the unmodified Trident I for a [deleted] boat force, with the assumptions shown on this chart, would be $4.3 billion.

As we move across to the right we see that the development costs of a modified Trident I, which is primarily concerned with accuracy improvement, is on the order of $3 billion. If we go to the long C-4, we add a little more cost. The total would be on the order of $31⁄2 to $4 billion.

As we proceed into the Trident II systems, the large missiles, the development costs range on the order of $6 billion. Costs for almost all of these versions of Trident II are within 10 percent of being the same until you get all the way up to the most exotic designs incorporating terminal sensing systems, in which case the development cost could go as high as $7 billion.

Now, the production costs, similarly, are shown across here. I would like to call your attention to the assumptions that were used in making the calculations.

The assumption was that the Trident II missile is installed initially in the [deleted] boats, the [deleted] of which have been originally

tfitted with Trident I, and are then backfitted to carry Trident II— arly if the IOC of the system were later there would be more Triat I's about and more backfits.

DEVELOPMENT RISKS

ALL RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH UNCERTAINTY IN ACCURACY AND COST PROJECTIONS OF

CANDIDATE CONFIGURATIONS

FOLLOWING TECHNICAL ISSUES MUST BE RESOLVED TO REDUCE UNCERTAINTIES:

ISSUES RELATED TO STELLAR INERTIAL SYSTEMS EXPECTED TO BE RESOLVED BY COMPLETION OF IAP (END FY81)

SCHEDULE FOR RESOLVING TERMINAL SENSING ISSUES DEPENDS UPON PROGRESS

IN ABRES PROGRAM

A word about development risks. As I said before, the only area of echnology that is really represented as new and different in Trident I is in the accuracy-related areas. This is the area which is potentially isky, and I would like to suggest that those risks can fall into two general categories: One, what I referred to earlier as extrapolation of vhat we are doing now, and here the risk is primarily in our ability o achieve the improvements that I have suggested may be possible. They lie in our understanding of the error models, our ability to chieve the necessary performance in components which are critical to ccuracy improvement, and there is a large area of concern about our bility to acquire gravity data and to properly handle that data for

he submarine.

The terminal sensing systems list of uncertainties is a little bit onger, and I have spoken to them at some length, so I won't dwell on them further unless you have questions.

In our accuracy improvement program, which is not being discussed at the moment but relates rather closely to this whole subject, we are concentrating most of the funds available on this left-hand column, which is an extrapolation of what we are doing today.

The ABRES program is working in the terminal guidance area and we are depending on them for most of the information that we need on such things as fix accuracy potential and signature availability. Some of the other risk areas are not being addressed in ABRES either, and so it would be a longer period of time before we would be in a position to be comfortable with that right-hand column.

CONCEPTUAL DEVELOPMENT EFFORT

REQUIRED TO SUPPORT DSARC I

REFINE PRESENTLY IDENTIFIED CONFIGURATIONS

EXTEND CANDIDATE CONFIGURATIONS TO INCLUDE MID COURSE AND OTHER TERMINAL SENSING CONCEPTS

CONDUCT DESIGN STUDIES TO EXPLORE TRADE-OFFS RELATED TO:

The final viewgraph, sir, is where do we go from here. We have during the remainder of this year and next the job of refining those configurations that I have indicated to you. We want to extend the list of candidate configurations to include perhaps other alternatives or variations. We have tradeoffs in these areas to conduct, and hopefully will be ready by early fiscal year 1980 to go into a DSARC Milestone I, enroute to advanced development.

Subject to your questions, Mr. Chairman, that completes my testimony.

Senator MCINTYRE. General Bratton?

STATEMENT OF MAJ. GEN. JOE BRATTON, DIRECTOR FOR OPERATIONS, DIVISION OF MILITARY APPLICATIONS, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

General BRATTON. My remarks will supplement those of Admiral Wertheim and I will talk about the warheads and the responsibilities the Department of Energy has to support the Trident I program and the Trident II options.

SEA BASED DETERRENT

TRIDENT I STATUS

• W76

• MK 500

TRIDENT II OPTIONS

Deleted

I am going to be talking about this portion of the reentry body. This is an artist's portrayal of the W76 Trident warhead going into he Mark IV reentry body. The loading on the missile can also be een. The physics package in the center is the responsibility of the Department of Energy.

W76 TRIDENT WARHEAD

DESCRIPTION

SUBMAR

• STRATEGIC WARHEAD FOR NEW TRIDENT SUBMARINE & POSEIDON BACKFIT Deleted

The Trident W76 warhead is a [deleted] warhead. It is a replacement, with respect to backfitting the Poseidon boats, for the W68. which was a [deleted] warhead. The W76 does this with a very small increase in weight.

The warhead package itself is about [deleted] reentry body about [deleted]. For an additional [deleted] an increase of [deleted]. [De leted] is realized. There are some increased safety features, and an improved [deleted].

W76 TRIDENT (MK4)

The estimate of our life cycle cost, that is [deleted] for the total build of the Trident warhead in DOE money, not DOD money, is just under [deleted]. The first production is [deleted] although the chart only shows the build through fiscal year 1985, it is planned to continue through [deleted] with a total build now planned of over [deleted] warheads.

During the month of [deleted], our first production unit will be produced at our Pantex plant at Amarillo, Tex. [Deleted.]

The IOC, that we feel confident will be no problem to meet as far as our warhead is concerned, is the same as the Poseidon backfit IOC that has been discussed. We will have warheads available for the first Trident submarine to support a [deleted] IOC. The warhead is fully tested. We are, however, going to conduct [deleted].