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MIRV
(redirected from MIRVs)

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Hutchinson 0.03 sec.
MIRV: see guided missile guided missile, self-propelled, unmanned space or air vehicle carrying an explosive warhead. Its path can be adjusted during flight, either by automatic self-contained controls or remote human control.
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MIRV

 in full multiple independently targeted reentry vehicle

Any of several nuclear warheads carried on the front end of a ballistic missile. The technique allows separately targeted nuclear warheads to be released from the missile on different trajectories, thus attacking several targets from only one launcher. MIRVed ballistic missiles were first deployed by the U.S. and then the Soviet Union in the 1970s, followed by Britain and France in the 1980s and possibly China in the 1990s. Because multiple warheads represent a significant increase in firepower, they have often been an issue in arms control negotations. The Strategic Arms Reduction Talks commit both the U.S. and Russia to limit the number of MIRVs on some missiles.


MIRV [mərv]


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One of the ways to ensure strategic stability is to refit the missiles, that is to say, to fit them, instead of MIRVs, with single-warhead reentry vehicles (SWRVs).
Lewinter, an MIT professor visiting Japan for a conference, walks into the Soviet embassy and defects, taking with him some of the most crucial and sensitive secrets of the US military, secrets that would enable the Soviets to build an effective anti-missile defense against the MIRVs, the most advanced weapons the US was building.
Such supercomputers, say experts, are helpful in developing nuclear weapons with MIRVs -- multiple, independently targeted re-entry vehicles -- as well as in information for biological warfare.
 
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