Forums | MacLife

It's also helpful to have a large supply to get around anti missile defenses.
Fire 100 missiles at, say, Madrid - even if their defenses catch 95% of them before they reach their target, there's still serious damage done.

Madrid was picked at Random, nothing against them nor do I think there is remotely any cause to go to war with Spain.

Last edited by resedit (2009-09-20 4:38 pm)

I suspect they really won't save any money, it's old deprecated missiles they will get rid of.

Storage and maintenance, maintaining and staffing the silos, etc. has to cost something. Not replacing them with newer weapons should also save some coin as well.

We just need to leave a few in Montana so Zefarm Cochrane can build his warp ship...

Pariah wrote:

Two men are standing in a tank filled up to their waists with gasoline.
The first man has 7 matches the second man has 5.

Who is safer?

How big is the tank? If it gives a vapor level outside the LEL/UEL, they're both safe.

Pariah wrote:

Two men are standing in a tank filled up to their waists with gasoline.
The first man has 7 matches the second man has 5.

Who is safer?

Neither.

I throw in my lit match.

Last edited by daemon (2009-09-20 7:20 pm)

resedit wrote:

It's also helpful to have a large supply to get around anti missile defenses.
Fire 100 missiles at, say, Madrid - even if their defenses catch 95% of them before they reach their target, there's still serious damage done.

Madrid was picked at Random, nothing against them nor do I think there is remotely any cause to go to war with Spain.

That's why we have the nuclear submarine fleet with missiles armed with MIRVs. It's very hard to hit those, and the only people likely to even try would be the Russians.

Wouldn't want the Air Force to loose out on their big club, would we.

They already have decommissioned many silos.

And the B-52 fleet is more susceptible to interception and destruction than an SSNB.

sturner wrote:

And the B-52 fleet is more susceptible to interception and destruction than an SSNB.

Irrelevant. Each system has its weaknesses, together the nuclear triad makes it virtually impossible to negate the possibility of a second strike.

Come to think of it, the available SSBNs and land based missiles would likely have launched and hit their targets before the airfleet even penetrated enemy airspace and closed on their targets.

sturner wrote:

Possibility. An interesting word. It doesn't asses the probability of success.

The SSBN fleet is what changed the equation and led the Soviet and U.S. military to believe that they could accept nuclear arms reduction. The probability of aircraft penetrating to their targets in a high intensity environment is very, very small. Even with current counter-electronic warfare suites in place on the aircraft, their survivability to target is small.

Against a less than technological equal it becomes much more likely.

Arms reduction is a completely different concept than dismantling two legs of the strategic nuclear triad. Nuclear subs are an important part obviously, but they are unable to command nuclear deference on their own.

KHannon wrote:

Steyr AUG wrote:

sturner wrote:

Possibility. An interesting word. It doesn't asses the probability of success.

The SSBN fleet is what changed the equation and led the Soviet and U.S. military to believe that they could accept nuclear arms reduction. The probability of aircraft penetrating to their targets in a high intensity environment is very, very small. Even with current counter-electronic warfare suites in place on the aircraft, their survivability to target is small.

Against a less than technological equal it becomes much more likely.

Arms reduction is a completely different concept than dismantling two legs of the strategic nuclear triad. Nuclear subs are an important part obviously, but they are unable to command nuclear deference on their own.

What command and control functions are provided by having missiles in silos or missiles/bombs on long range bombers that are NOT present on SSBNs?  One possibility I suppose (and Geesie would have to tell me if this is true) is that SSBNs may be harder to contact if they aren't at a depth that allows for contact.  But that can't really be, because I doubt they would place a major portion of the nuclear arsenal outside of immediate contact...

Redundant high speed data connections that are much more reliable and survivable (various communications techniques have notable weaknesses) than those used to communicate with submerged vessels. The navy has struggled for years to develop a system that allows highly reliable communications with submarines.

Last edited by Steyr AUG (2009-09-21 1:47 am)

robco wrote:

We need to move beyond what is the best at any cost and start looking at what will be sustainable for defense going forward. A triad of nuclear deterrence may be the ideal situation, but we need to really examine how likely a nuclear war really is and determine if it's worth the cost.

The triad system is what makes a nuclear war unlikely.