[PaulHoule]

The Russians were interested in hypersonic glide vehicles as a platform for nuclear weapons.

They really hated the Pershing 2 because that kind of reentry vehicle can break suddenly two or more times confounding the Moscow ABM system. (which might have been able to fire multiple nuclear shots, get lucky to disable the warhead, and burn out all the electronics for 1000 miles away with the EMP -- the American hit-to-kill ABM will just fail)

Russia was trying to outboondoggle us with Buran and the Energyia booster. Like the space shuttle Buran was a hypersonic glide vehicle that could land on a runway with a wing and a prayer, emphasis on the prayer. The rocket engines were on the booster but not the orbiter, so Energia by itself was a capable heavy lift vehicle which the russians planned to out-boondoggle us: one Energia exploded when Russia tried to launch a 1-MW class laser satellite with optical targeting and all the facilities to start burning up targets. (e.g. in response to the Reagan era SDI talk, the Russians tried to hastily launch real hardware)

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BTW I have seen the boxes on the Iowa class and they are a hoot. The US Congress had a lot of resistance to Robert Macnamara's plan to switch the Navy to vertical launch tubes because they didn't look menacing enough but if you look at Chinese films like Wolf Warrior you see they are very proud of their missile destroyers and their cluster munitions too.