§ Mr. Cryerasked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will give the number of strategic warheads currently deployed by the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, assuming the Poseidon C3 MIRV number to be 10.
§ Mr. PymI assume the hon. Gentleman is referring to nuclear warheads, including bombs, on currently operational systems covered by the SALT agreements. The number of warheads carried on some strategic missiles can vary. However, based on the maximum number with which each type of missile is known to be deployed, and assuming that each Poseidon missile carries 10 warheads, the United States of America deploys approximately 9,000 warheads and the USSR deploys about 8,500 warheads.
Any comparison of relative effectiveness would need to take into account factors other than numbers of warheads alone.