|
|
|||||||
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
|
#21
October 18th 03, 09:12 PM
|
|||
|
|||
Shenzhou has landed
Mary Pegg wrote: "Peacekeepers"! As has been demonstrated already in this thread, a few ICBMs of low accuracy is good enough for a retaliatory defensive strike. The only reason for a super-accurate nuke is a first strike to take out the other side's defensive ones. This completely unbalances the whole principle of MAD. Okay... so maybe some of our nuclear strategists went a little funny in the head...you know.. "funny"...and they deployed a silly thing...but you can't condemn the whole program because of one little slip-up...and besides- Mr. Commie started the whole thing with those God-damned SS-18 "Satan" missiles...we couldn't just sit there and let the lousy commie *******s vomit all over us like that, could we? Bucky 
|
|
#22
October 18th 03, 09:43 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Shenzhou has landed
Thomas Schoene wrote: OTOH, there is also the simple institutional explanation. Program managers figure that if some accuracy is good, more is better. So each time a new missile is needed, they up the accuracy requirement. Pretty soon you end up with Peacekeeper and its Soviet counterparts. And that means that warhead yield can be lowered, which means less fallout after a nuclear war...which in turn means that a nuclear war becomes more survivable, and that screws up MAD badly. Then of course there are our promulgated mini-nuke "Bunker-Buster" bombs which will remove the anathema against using nukes in a war...me, I still like MAD. Pat
|
|
#23
October 19th 03, 05:48 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Shenzhou has landed
Pat Flannery wrote in message ...
And that means that warhead yield can be lowered, which means less fallout after a nuclear war... Lessened yield was pretty much inevitable as a result of American paranoia. MIRV's came about to counter a percieved Soviet ABM deployment and because of that you started seeing major benefits from making warheads smaller and renetry vehicles more accurate. And besides, size of bomb does not scale lineraly with environmental effects. Far more important is what you are targeting and what type of detonation you are using. (Airburst produces less fallout then groundburst, targeting carbon sinks like flammable cities, petroleum storage facilities etc. creates more winter-like effects.) Size of bomb scales pretty lineraly with amount of fissile material used but not so closely with much else (all other things being equal, e.g. not comparing a fission bomb with a fission-fusion-fission of equivalent size). which in turn means that a nuclear war becomes more survivable, and that screws up MAD badly. Can everyone please stop bringing up MAD? The US has not really closely followed MAD since the late 1960's. The development of the MIRV and ABM technology pretty much killed off any chance of MAD being a truly stable system. In a highly MIRV'd environment the rewards for a first strike are simply to great for MAD alone to be reliable. This is especially true from the Soviet point of view, without the assured retaliation of the 41 for Freedom or the Tridents, or even a reliable bomber force capable of assuredly gutting the US. For the Soviets only one leg of the Triad was reliable, the land based silo's, and that leg is the one that is most vulnerable in a MIRV heavy world. The others might get off some weapons, but even going under the ice wasn't enough to guarentee protection for Soviet boomers, and the US spent a lot on Continental Air Defense for just that reason. Chris Manteuffel
|
|
#25
October 19th 03, 07:41 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Shenzhou has landed
Chris Manteuffel wrote: Can everyone please stop bringing up MAD? The US has not really closely followed MAD since the late 1960's. The development of the MIRV and ABM technology pretty much killed off any chance of MAD being a truly stable system. Bull****...even _one_ operational SLBM carrier at the end of a first strike by either side could have laid waste to the other side's cities in short order- and there is no way that either side thought itself fully confident to annihilate the opponent's capability to strike back via a decapitating first strike for that very reason...when you have 1000 Minutemen in their silos, and all it takes is for 10-20 of them to get through to their targets to kill tens of millions of your citizens, you think long and hard before you try a first strike. MAD worked like a charm. Pat
|
|
#26
October 19th 03, 05:56 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Shenzhou has landed
Pat Flannery wrote in message ...
Bull****...even _one_ operational SLBM carrier at the end of a first strike by either side could have laid waste to the other side's cities in short order- And for most of the Cold War there were USN submarines trailing Soviet boomers. Even when they started to hide under the ice-pack in the 1980's they were being tracked and hunted. Whether the boomer was Typhoon/Akula, Delta, Yankee, Hotel, or Golf, there was most likely a NATO submarine following it for much of its operational deployment. The Soviets knew this, not being fools. They tried to create strategies to adapt (escorting boomers with attack submarines, operating under the ice, etc.) but unlike for the Americans and British, they had to face the facts that their SLBM deterrance was not truly reliable. They took steps to make it more reliable, but those could not really be considered successful enough to make the sort of guarentee's that you need in this situation. and there is no way that either side thought itself fully confident to annihilate the opponent's capability to strike back via a decapitating first strike for that very reason Again, the Soviets were very worried about a decapitating first strike (witness the INF agreement, whose terms were a HUGE victory for NATO, which was motivated purely by concern over an American first strike). The Americans not so much (and even if they did worry Washington is essentially indefensible), but the Soviets did. Further evidence is the massive expenditures on the Galosh system. You are examining this purely from an American point of view, making no allowances for the very real vulnerabilities of the Soviet side. For the US a decapitating strike was not a serious threat. For the Soviet Union it absolutely was a major threat. And a disarming first strike (which is a very different thing from a decapitating first strike) was also a threat that the Soviets would have to deal with, lacking reliable other legs of the triad, the only leg they had to balance on was the one that was fixed in place, making it a perfect target for enemy warheads. The Soviet Union was extremely vulnerable to either type of nuclear first strike. So there is an incentive to strike first, if you are the Americans. And that gives the Soviets an incentive to strike first, to avoid that situation. ...when you have 1000 Minutemen in their silos, and all it takes is for 10-20 of them to get through to their targets to kill tens of millions of your citizens, you think long and hard before you try a first strike. The Soviet Union lost around 30 million people in World War Two alone. It would take a lot of warheads to kill 30 million people (at least from first order effects). Rather more then 10-20 missiles. Everyone always said 'one boomer can do it' but in a cold war nuclear exchange that's not really true. Citizens are willing to take losses if they think that the rewards are enough, and the destruction of their evil opponent and the triumph of their country is worth it- again, see WW2. Countries (other then the US and Britain) survived almost unimaginable losses and moved on. A handful of missiles would be enough to damage the other side severely, yes. Enough to wipe out their civilization, no. As Zhou En-lai told Kissinger in China, "If you kill 300 million Chinese, there will still be 300 million Chinese". MAD worked like a charm. Disagree. Note that MAD was NEVER the Soviet official nuclear doctrine. Indeed, their official nuclear doctrine (that a nuclear war would be the final confrontation between Capitalism and Communism, and that in accordance with Marxist-Lennist Scientific Socialism the Soviets would win) is completely anthetical to MAD, which is based on the idea that no one can win a nuclear war. And their nuclear targeting plans seem to follow that; they were not really a countervalue strategy (nor were they strictly counterforce either; their nuclear war plans department wasn't overrun with game theorists and buzzword spewing Beltway Bandits advocating one type or the other). Chris Manteuffel
|
|
#27
October 20th 03, 10:16 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Shenzhou has landed
Chris Manteuffel wrote: Pat Flannery wrote in message ... Bull****...even _one_ operational SLBM carrier at the end of a first strike by either side could have laid waste to the other side's cities in short order- And for most of the Cold War there were USN submarines trailing Soviet boomers. Even when they started to hide under the ice-pack in the 1980's they were being tracked and hunted. Whether the boomer was Typhoon/Akula, Delta, Yankee, Hotel, or Golf, there was most likely a NATO submarine following it for much of its operational deployment. The key words are "most likely" and in the case of the Delta that collided with the Agusta, there was a undetected Victor class attack sub following our attack sub. So the first thing that might happen in a war scenario is our trailing attack sub getting a torpedo in its stern, followed by the boomer starting launch operations. There is also the Soviet inflatable submarine decoy to contend with, which came as quite a surprise to us when we first saw one blown up into its naval base's tree line by a storm- because that meant that there was one more submarine at sea, rather than in dock, than we knew about, and you won't be tracking 11 if you only think there are 10 at sea. The Soviets knew this, not being fools. They tried to create strategies to adapt (escorting boomers with attack submarines, operating under the ice, etc.) but unlike for the Americans and British, they had to face the facts that their SLBM deterrance was not truly reliable. They took steps to make it more reliable, but those could not really be considered successful enough to make the sort of guarentee's that you need in this situation. Again, all it takes is one to create doubt in an enemy's mind. and there is no way that either side thought itself fully confident to annihilate the opponent's capability to strike back via a decapitating first strike for that very reason Again, the Soviets were very worried about a decapitating first strike (witness the INF agreement, whose terms were a HUGE victory for NATO, which was motivated purely by concern over an American first strike). The Americans not so much (and even if they did worry Washington is essentially indefensible), but the Soviets did. Further evidence is the massive expenditures on the Galosh system. The one that _really_ got the massive expenditure on it was the R-113 (SA-1 "Guild") system; over 3000 of this primitive surface-to-air missile were eventually deployed at big fixed bases, and consumed around a year's worth of the Soviet Union's annual concrete production. But like the Galosh, by the time they were deployed they were already largely obsolete (increased performance of jet bombers nailed the Guild; Galosh was rendered largely ineffective by MIRV's, and the possible follow-on MARV's). You are examining this purely from an American point of view, making no allowances for the very real vulnerabilities of the Soviet side. For the US a decapitating strike was not a serious threat. For the Soviet Union it absolutely was a major threat. Say you attack the Soviet ICBM force; and you are confident that you can destroy 95% percent of the force- at the end of 1983, the Soviets had 1398 operational ICBMs; so that the 5% that escape destruction leaves you with about 70 ICBM's intact...the 1398 Soviet ICBMs carried a total of 5678 warheads between them- or in other words, averaged around 4 warheads apiece; the 5678 warheads had a total megatonage of 5481*...or around 950 kilotons per warhead average...these are clunky Soviet missiles, so let's assume that only around 3/4 of them work as they are designed to- in that case, and assuming that the Soviets don't just launch on warning, or when your warheads begin to hit (and remember, time-on-target attack won't work...it would mean that the warheads heading toward the most distant targets would show up first on radar; this would actually increase the launch opportunity time for the Soviets.) you are going to have around 50 or so missiles carrying around 200 950 kiloton warheads arriving in your country around a hour after you push the button; the vast majority of these will be ground bursts aimed at your now-empty missile silos, these will generate one hell of a lot of fallout... but probably around ten or so will be coming down on some of your major cities- with an average detonation force of around 45 times as great as the ones that hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Given that scenario, would you ever dare attack the Soviet Union? Do you think the Soviets would study the same math, and arrive at the same conclusion? And a disarming first strike (which is a very different thing from a decapitating first strike) was also a threat that the Soviets would have to deal with, lacking reliable other legs of the triad, the only leg they had to balance on was the one that was fixed in place, making it a perfect target for enemy warheads. The Soviet Union was extremely vulnerable to either type of nuclear first strike. So there is an incentive to strike first, if you are the Americans. And that gives the Soviets an incentive to strike first, to avoid that situation. And both sides realize that a first strike on there part isn't going to get everything; and the small proportion that's left is going to largely destroy their country...so they do nothing. and even if they do manage to completely destroy the enemy's offensive force, the radioactive fallout of their own strike is going to be arriving over their country in a matter of days after the attack. I live at around 47 degrees North Latitude; due the the number of military targets in both the U.S. and Soviet Union near that latitude, a full-scale nuclear exchange would have meant a band of fallout around the world at my latitude that would take between six months and a year to decay to the point where it would be safe to leave a fallout shelter.** Moscow sits at around 56 degrees North Latitude; New York city at around 41 degrees; they also would to be spending several months in a shelter. ...when you have 1000 Minutemen in their silos, and all it takes is for 10-20 of them to get through to their targets to kill tens of millions of your citizens, you think long and hard before you try a first strike. The Soviet Union lost around 30 million people in World War Two alone. It would take a lot of warheads to kill 30 million people (at least from first order effects). Well, let's see, Moscow has a population of 13 million; St. Petersburg 4.2 million; Kiev (this was back when they were still part of the Soviet Union) 2.5 million; Odessa 1.5 million. I've got only 4 cities here to nuke with my 10-20 missiles; assuming that I hit em all with around 16 Tridents 1's total, I can bring down around 30 100 kiloton warheads on each one of them; I go with the old 3/4s success rate again (although that is insulting the Navy) and so each cities gets a grand total of around 22 warheads dumped on it, or around 2.2 megatons total... or, to put it another way, almost exactly 100 times the amount of energy in the attack on Hiroshima or Nagasaki...and nicely spread out for maximum lethality over the whole city as opposed to being in one spot, and since SLBM's tended to be targeted on cities due to their lower inherent accuracy than ICBMs, this might not be that far-fetched of a scenario- so I should be able to get you over 20 million dead inside of a half hour from the word go. Rather more then 10-20 missiles. Everyone always said 'one boomer can do it' but in a cold war nuclear exchange that's not really true. Citizens are willing to take losses if they think that the rewards are enough, and the destruction of their evil opponent and the triumph of their country is worth it- again, see WW2. Countries (other then the US and Britain) survived almost unimaginable losses and moved on. A handful of missiles would be enough to damage the other side severely, yes. Enough to wipe out their civilization, no. As Zhou En-lai told Kissinger in China, "If you kill 300 million Chinese, there will still be 300 million Chinese". Mao Tse-tung (or Zedong; or whatever the hell they are calling him this week) told Khrushchev That since the Soviet Union had a ICBM, he expected them to attack the United States immediately; Mr. K told Mao that such an attack would result in tens of millions of deaths in both the U.S.S.R. and China; Mao told Mr. K "So?". Mr. K told all the Soviet technicians working in China to destroy all technical documents in their possession regarding rockets or atomic weapons ASAP, and head back to Holy Mother Russia via the first train, plane, or rickshaw that they saw. MAD worked like a charm. Disagree. Note that MAD was NEVER the Soviet official nuclear doctrine. Indeed, their official nuclear doctrine (that a nuclear war would be the final confrontation between Capitalism and Communism, and that in accordance with Marxist-Lennist Scientific Socialism the Soviets would win) is completely anthetical to MAD, which is based on the idea that no one can win a nuclear war. And their nuclear targeting plans seem to follow that; they were not really a countervalue strategy (nor were they strictly counterforce either; their nuclear war plans department wasn't overrun with game theorists and buzzword spewing Beltway Bandits advocating one type or the other). Let me get this straight- you are actually trusting that The Officially Stated Soviet Doctrine, and what the Soviet's actually intended to do, would bear the slightest relationship to each other? If a Soviet official told you "The sky is blue", you had better think really long and hard about what the color blue is, what he means by "The sky"....and whether it's day or night outside. It was also the Officially Stated Soviet Policy that they didn't have a manned Moon program... A politician is someone who will tell a lie, even when he doesn't have to. And that's the same, East or West. Pat * Figures from "Nuclear Weapons Fact Book" Christopher Campbell, Presidio Press, 1984, ISBN 0-89141-208-5 pg.114 ** Ibid, pgs.12-13
|
|
#28
October 20th 03, 05:53 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Shenzhou has landed
In article ,
Pat Flannery wrote: Note that MAD was NEVER the Soviet official nuclear doctrine. Indeed, their official nuclear doctrine (that a nuclear war would be the final confrontation between Capitalism and Communism, and that in accordance with Marxist-Lennist Scientific Socialism the Soviets would win) is completely anthetical to MAD, which is based on the idea that no one can win a nuclear war... Let me get this straight- you are actually trusting that The Officially Stated Soviet Doctrine, and what the Soviet's actually intended to do, would bear the slightest relationship to each other? I think Chris is approximately right on this one; I've seen several sources noting that US and Soviet doctrine diverged significantly on the most fundamental level, and that the lack of understanding of this in the US was potentially dangerous. If I recall correctly... The US MAD doctrine essentially originated in the "airpower" fantasies of utterly devastating a hostile country by air attack. Obviously nobody could win if both sides did that. Whereas Soviet nuclear-war doctrine came much more from artillery doctrine of counter-battery fire and the like -- shooting to win. The Soviets never really subscribed to the idea of threatening the other side's cities; they always aimed for a counterforce strike, taking out the other side's weapons and military capabilities. (Of course, with hydrogen warheads it has much the same effect, because so many targets of military importance are in or near big cities...) Their version of deterrence was not to convince the US that a nuclear war had to be avoided because it would be unthinkably horrible, but to convince the US that a nuclear war had to be avoided because the Soviets would win it. The problem of deciding how stated doctrine related to what would actually be done was not unique to the Soviets. It was stated US doctrine that in the event of war with the Soviets, control of tactical nuclear weapons would immediately be released to field commanders in Europe! Tactical and strategic nuclear weapons were completely different, so a few little nukes on Soviet forces weren't grounds for strategic retaliation, and it said in the book that the Soviets would understand this. Whereas you could bet any amount of money you wanted that in a real war, the very first order from the White House would have been "NO NUKES without explicit approval", because nobody really had that much faith in the book. It was also the Officially Stated Soviet Policy that they didn't have a manned Moon program... Only after it was canceled. While it was in progress there was no secret about it -- it wasn't publicized much, but it wasn't denied. -- MOST launched 30 June; first light, 29 July; 5arcsec | Henry Spencer pointing, 10 Sept; first science, early Oct; all well. |
|
|
#29
October 20th 03, 09:06 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Shenzhou has landed
Henry Spencer wrote: The US MAD doctrine essentially originated in the "airpower" fantasies of utterly devastating a hostile country by air attack. Obviously nobody could win if both sides did that. Whereas Soviet nuclear-war doctrine came much more from artillery doctrine of counter-battery fire and the like -- shooting to win. The Soviets never really subscribed to the idea of threatening the other side's cities; they always aimed for a counterforce strike, taking out the other side's weapons and military capabilities. This would work in relation to airfields, Naval ports and Army depots with the fairly inaccurate ICBMs they had early on, but when it came to a counter-force strike against the Minuteman silos, better CEP was needed; and the Soviet SLBMs were even more inaccurate in this regard, and therefore far more suitable for attacks on area, as opposed to small hardened targets. Counter-force strikes, at least in regards to the U.S.'s ICBM force required a degree of accuracy that didn't really emerge until the SS-18 arrived on the scene. At the end of the cold war, at least some data leaked on the former Soviet nuclear targeting doctrine; including IIRC their intention to destroy any U.S. production infrastructure with military capabilities, as well as all 50 state capitals, in an attempt to decapitate the command and control abilities of the U.S. Government. Further, the development of the 100 megaton "Czar Bomba": http://www.vniief.ru/museum/photo_08_e.html as well as the ICBM requirement that led to the development of the Proton: http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/pron8k82.htm, as well as the strange N-II GR ICBM derivative of N-1 rocket with its immense warheads and depressed trajectory approach to its target to avoid detection till the last moment: http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/n11gr.htm would seem to be arguments in favor of city attack being very much in the Soviet military mind in the early 1960's. Michael Moore went to Russia, and supposedly got a peek at the missile targeted on Flint, Michigan. Now after "Bowling for Columbine" I do not consider Mr. Moore to be an unimpeachable source of information, but he did go to the silo, and the Russians did let him see the missile which they said was bound for Flint when the balloon went up. (Of course, with hydrogen warheads it has much the same effect, because so many targets of military importance are in or near big cities...) And when you don't have accurate MIRVS, you shoot for what you can hit, with the biggest warhead possible. Their version of deterrence was not to convince the US that a nuclear war had to be avoided because it would be unthinkably horrible, but to convince the US that a nuclear war had to be avoided because the Soviets would win it. I don't know about that; the government may have said as much, but when I was over there in 1978, the people acted like WW-II had occurred last year, and they never wanted to see another one any way shape or form. Because of the amount of devastation that Russia sustained during The Great Patriotic War, the thought of war of any kind was taken far more seriously than it was over here; in fact we both scared and appalled them with our flippant approach to war, which we still have to a large extent. In the U.S. you get to see Arlington Cemetery and the Vietnam Memorial...and everyone gets their name individualized; at Leningrad you get to walk between the concrete covers of the tens of thousands in their mass graves...and nobody gets named, because they had to be buried fast for health reasons. The problem of deciding how stated doctrine related to what would actually be done was not unique to the Soviets. It was stated US doctrine that in the event of war with the Soviets, control of tactical nuclear weapons would immediately be released to field commanders in Europe! Tactical and strategic nuclear weapons were completely different, so a few little nukes on Soviet forces weren't grounds for strategic retaliation, and it said in the book that the Soviets would understand this. Whereas you could bet any amount of money you wanted that in a real war, the very first order from the White House would have been "NO NUKES without explicit approval", because nobody really had that much faith in the book. I was just reading up last night on some of our "Dual Key" NATO nukes... including some Honest Johns (where the hell did they come up with a name like that from- it sounds like we are about to launch a used-car dealer at the enemy) that were still hanging out in Greece and Turkey circa 1984. It was also the Officially Stated Soviet Policy that they didn't have a manned Moon program... Only after it was canceled. While it was in progress there was no secret about it -- it wasn't publicized much, but it wasn't denied. There was the photo of the cosmonauts with the lunar globe, and the guy in the Zond trainer, but other than that it was fairly stealth- and after the Apollo 11 landing they went into full program denial, even though the N-1 was still being tested. It wasn't well known enough over here that James Webb couldn't get derisively sneered at for suggesting they had a Saturn V sized rocket. Pat
|
|
#30
October 20th 03, 09:55 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Shenzhou has landed
In article ,
Pat Flannery wrote: I was just reading up last night on some of our "Dual Key" NATO nukes... including some Honest Johns (where the hell did they come up with a name like that from- it sounds like we are about to launch a used-car dealer at the enemy) . . . We did 'em even better than used cars - we gave 'em McDonalds, cheap blue jeans and MTV. In return, they gave us the fall of the Berlin Wall, part of the ISS and lots of cheap, bad porn. Capitalism triumphs over Godless Communism(TM). :-p -- Herb Schaltegger, B.S., J.D. Reformed Aerospace Engineer "Heisenberg might have been here." ~ Anonymous
|
| Thread Tools | |
| Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads
|
||||
| Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
| FWD: China Launches Shenzhou V | G.Beat | History | 3 | October 16th 03 12:55 AM |
| Shenzhou Seen in Europe; Pre-dawn North American Passes Mapped | James Oberg | Policy | 1 | October 15th 03 09:10 AM |
| China's future Shenzhou Plans ? | Jason S | History | 7 | September 25th 03 07:49 PM |
Linear Mode
