Putin says Russia beefing up nuclear arsenal

[barbos]

That doesn't exactly eliminate a first-strike threat. It just changes the risk factors and the chance of retaliation.
But not much. The idea of the nukes on the trucks where they could be parked just anywhere was a good idea, but in practice the things turned out to need a pretty substantial prepared location to launch from. All these are well mapped out, so one or another asset is pointed at them.

You are suggesting hitting whole bunch of empty parking lots ... with expensive nukes, while russian nukes are safely on the road somewhere in the center of Russia.
And I am reasonably sure these things can be launched from any place, especially the ones on rails.

I wonder how much money US had spent on R/D to get their warheads into meters precision range before they realized that was a wasted of effort.

Ideally, the entire strategic trident is a wasted effort. But if you're going to play the game, put your best pieces in play. If we're targeting hardened military sites, rather than civilian populations, precision is always desirable.

Yes, but the only really worthy millitary target for ICBM is another nuke, and once it is made mobile the whole precision thing becomes mute.

 

[Keith&Co.]

You are suggesting hitting whole bunch of empty parking lots ...
with expensive nukes, while russian nukes are safely on the road somewhere in the center of Russia.

No, i'm more suggesting that we track them by satellite to the parking spaces they're currently occupying and only shoot at those.

And I am reasonably sure these things can be launched from any place, especially the ones on rails.

As I said, that was the design. And it was a good idea.
That's not how they turned out, though.
I don't know about the ones on the rails. I guess the air force was assigned to take on those assets.

Yes, but the only really worthy millitary target for ICBM is another nuke, and once it is made mobile the whole precision thing becomes mute.

1) Moot, not mute.
2) And it's only moot if you're mobile ENOUGH to be a further deterrent.
3) And counter to your claim here, you're maintaining that the Russians don't target other ICBMs, they target cities with their ICBMs, pretending that technical inferiority is a moral superiority. You have to pick one or the other.

 

[barbos]

No, i'm more suggesting that we track them by satellite to the parking spaces they're currently occupying and only shoot at those.

They don't occupy any parking spaces. They move on the railroad, and you can't really track them from space, they are pretty ordinary looking trains.

And I am reasonably sure these things can be launched from any place, especially the ones on rails.

As I said, that was the design. And it was a good idea.
That's not how they turned out, though.
I don't know about the ones on the rails. I guess the air force was assigned to take on those assets.

LOL, US air force in the center of Russia? in 10 minutes? Really?

Yes, but the only really worthy millitary target for ICBM is another nuke, and once it is made mobile the whole precision thing becomes mute.

1) Moot, not mute.
2) And it's only moot if you're mobile ENOUGH to be a further deterrent.

Precision is moot

3) And counter to your claim here, you're maintaining that the Russians don't target other ICBMs, they target cities with their ICBMs, pretending that technical inferiority is a moral superiority. You have to pick one or the other.

Well, we will never know, what would they have done if roles were reversed, but facts are what they are. Russian were reacting to military threats, while americans were (constantly) creating these threats. I was actually surprised to learn that US went through to develop first nuclear strike capabilities during cold war.

 

[Keith&Co.]

They don't occupy any parking spaces. They move on the railroad, and you can't really track them from space, they are pretty ordinary looking trains.

I was talking about the trucks. They're pretty identifiable.
The trains that Russia currently has are heavily reinforced and also identifiable.
The future ones that are going to be deployed in 2018 are going to be harder to identify, even from the ground. Or that's the plan at the moment, anyway.

Yes, but the only really worthy millitary target for ICBM is another nuke, and once it is made mobile the whole precision thing becomes mute.

1) Moot, not mute.
2) And it's only moot if you're mobile ENOUGH to be a further deterrent.

Precision is moot

And if we're going to just blanket the known parking lot spread with a pattern of nukes, rather than individual strikes, then precision isn't even part of the consideration.



When the planners are deciding whether or not we have confidence in a first-strike to take out enough Russian assets to make their response survivable, the precision of the assets aimed at the trucks isn't the make-or-break issue.

Heh. You think you can park a train, erect a missile and spin it up and launch it inside of ten minutes? That's funny.

And apparently, you aren't aware that the bombers aren't the only AF nuclear assets.

Well, we will never know, what would they have done if roles were reversed, but facts are what they are.

Yes, they are. I just have to question exactly where you get your facts...

 

[Loren Pechtel]

How so?

By placing ICMBs on trains and ordinary wheels I believe
I wonder how much money US had spent on R/D to get their warheads into meters precision range before they realized that was a wasted of effort.

There are big problems with train-launched missiles. ICBMs don't like the sort of handing they would get in an ordinary train. Missile trains have to go quite slowly, trying to mix them with other trains would mess up the whole rail system. Either they have their own tracks or they rarely move--and in either case that lets us locate them. Meanwhile they have given up the armor of the silo, they're much easier to kill. Train cars can stand about as much as houses before being flipped--and less energy than that will mess with the missile.

 

[barbos]

I was talking about the trucks. They're pretty identifiable.

Identification!= tracking. Even if you somehow know what to hit, russian would still have I don't know 10 minutes mayby to change positions, plenty of time to get the hell out once attack was detected.

The trains that Russia currently has are heavily reinforced and also identifiable.

And how do you know that? Maybe russians want you tho think that? when in reality they may very well be not identifiable at all.
You have no way to be certain that your identification is not bullshit.

The future ones that are going to be deployed in 2018 are going to be harder to identify, even from the ground. Or that's the plan at the moment, anyway.

Yes, but the only really worthy millitary target for ICBM is another nuke, and once it is made mobile the whole precision thing becomes mute.

1) Moot, not mute.
2) And it's only moot if you're mobile ENOUGH to be a further deterrent.

Precision is moot

And if we're going to just blanket the known parking lot spread with a pattern of nukes, rather than individual strikes, then precision isn't even part of the consideration.

I am afraid you don't have enough money and nukes to get even 1% hit ratio with such approach.

When the planners are deciding whether or not we have confidence in a first-strike to take out enough Russian assets to make their response survivable, the precision of the assets aimed at the trucks isn't the make-or-break issue.

Heh. You think you can park a train, erect a missile and spin it up and launch it inside of ten minutes? That's funny.

Who said anything about retaliation 10 minutes? It seems you don't really get the idea.
They can wait a day, a week or even month. All they need is to survive that time. And they can easily survive for an hour or two.

And apparently, you aren't aware that the bombers aren't the only AF nuclear assets.

Short of placing weapons in space there could not be any assets faster than ICBMs.
That's physically impossible. And I am reasonably sure there are nothing currently in space.

Well, we will never know, what would they have done if roles were reversed, but facts are what they are.

Yes, they are. I just have to question exactly where you get your facts...

I read it somewhere long time ago.

 

[barbos]

By placing ICMBs on trains and ordinary wheels I believe
I wonder how much money US had spent on R/D to get their warheads into meters precision range before they realized that was a wasted of effort.

There are big problems with train-launched missiles. ICBMs don't like the sort of handing they would get in an ordinary train. Missile trains have to go quite slowly, trying to mix them with other trains would mess up the whole rail system. Either they have their own tracks or they rarely move--and in either case that lets us locate them. Meanwhile they have given up the armor of the silo, they're much easier to kill. Train cars can stand about as much as houses before being flipped--and less energy than that will mess with the missile.

In case of mobile target Identification does not mean a shit when it is half an hour old.
So no, US does not currently have first strike capability.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Really starting to remind me of Self-Mutation....

 

[barbos]

Really starting to remind me of Self-Mutation....

It's Self-Mutilation

Yes, I wish they had spent more money on cure for cancer, instead of nukes during cold war.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

There are big problems with train-launched missiles. ICBMs don't like the sort of handing they would get in an ordinary train. Missile trains have to go quite slowly, trying to mix them with other trains would mess up the whole rail system. Either they have their own tracks or they rarely move--and in either case that lets us locate them. Meanwhile they have given up the armor of the silo, they're much easier to kill. Train cars can stand about as much as houses before being flipped--and less energy than that will mess with the missile.

In case of mobile target Identification does not mean a shit when it is half an hour old.
So no, US does not currently have first strike capability.

And you're so sure the missile can't be steered in flight? Up until warhead separation it's got the ability to do so--adding the ability to accept retargeting in flight is certainly possible.

 

[barbos]

In case of mobile target Identification does not mean a shit when it is half an hour old.
So no, US does not currently have first strike capability.

And you're so sure the missile can't be steered in flight? Up until warhead separation it's got the ability to do so--adding the ability to accept retargeting in flight is certainly possible.

I am reasonably sure that it can't be done currently. But then russians can use inflatable mobile ICBMS.
And are you sure you are not retargeting to this:

 

[Bacillus anthracis]

If the Soviets were as dippy and unprepared as Barbos says, we should have lit a flaming bag of nuclear dog poop on the door of the Kremlin, rang the doorbell, ran away, and let them blow themselves up.

According to Barbos, it sounds like a war waged by the Soviets would have been roughly equal to a Benny Hill episode.

 

[bilby]

If the Soviets were as dippy and unprepared as Barbos says, we should have lit a flaming bag of nuclear dog poop on the door of the Kremlin, rang the doorbell, ran away, and let them blow themselves up.

According to Barbos, it sounds like a war waged by the Soviets would have been roughly equal to a Benny Hill episode.

Judging by the Mathias Rust incident, it wasn't far off. The Soviet air defence network completely failed to prevent an unauthorised flight from outside the Soviet bloc from reaching central Moscow at the height of the Cold War, due in part to the restrictive chain of command - several air defence units tracked the flight, but none could obtain permission to engage before the aircraft had passed out of range and/or reached Moscow; and in part to poor operating procedures, such as designating all aircraft as 'friendly' to reduce the incidence of false alarms.

 

[barbos]

If the Soviets were as dippy and unprepared as Barbos says,.

I say that? where?

 

[bilby]

And you're so sure the missile can't be steered in flight? Up until warhead separation it's got the ability to do so--adding the ability to accept retargeting in flight is certainly possible.

I am reasonably sure that it can't be done currently. But then russians can use inflatable mobile ICBMS.
And are you sure you are not retargeting to this:

During WWII, the British made extensive use of decoys, including inflatable tanks; dummy airfields with inflatable buildings and life-sized wooden aircraft models; and even special effects that looked like burning towns when viewed from the air at night (Operation Starfish) - with the idea that the Luftwaffe would waste valuable ammunition bombing these sites, and thereby have less impact on actual tanks, airfields, factories and towns.

One of the least popular duties in the RAF was to act as spotter at such sites, hiding in a slit-trench or dugout on the edge of the decoy area, and recording how many bombs, and of what types, were wasted, so that feedback on the site's effectiveness could be obtained.

One recipient of these reports was Dr R V Jones, who was Assistant Director of Intelligence (Science) at the Air Ministry. In his autobiography, Most Secret War, Dr Jones tells of one such report; A Ju-88 dive-bomber came hurtling out of the clouds, and dropped a bomb which struck a line of fake aircraft, in what appeared to be a perfect attack run. However the bomb did not detonate, so the spotter very warily made his way out of his shelter to examine the unexploded device. He found that it was made entirely of balsa wood.

 

[barbos]

bilby, lol, nice anecdote

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And you're so sure the missile can't be steered in flight? Up until warhead separation it's got the ability to do so--adding the ability to accept retargeting in flight is certainly possible.

I am reasonably sure that it can't be done currently. But then russians can use inflatable mobile ICBMS.
And are you sure you are not retargeting to this:

Which won't go clickety-clack down the train track.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If the Soviets were as dippy and unprepared as Barbos says, we should have lit a flaming bag of nuclear dog poop on the door of the Kremlin, rang the doorbell, ran away, and let them blow themselves up.

According to Barbos, it sounds like a war waged by the Soviets would have been roughly equal to a Benny Hill episode.

Their systems weren't very good but they still could have caused a lot of damage.

Consider: The 1995 missile scare was caused by their early warning system using range-only radars to track "inbound" missiles. There was a real bird but it was heading towards the pole, not towards Russia. All their radars could see for a while was that it was getting closer. That ineptness pushed the world closer to armaggedon than than anything before or since.

(Yes, it was only one bird and they could see it was heading north--but they couldn't tell just how much north. To their myopic systems it was on a trajectory that would make sense for an EMP decapitation shot. Their myopic systems also could only see it was launched from off the coast of Norway, they couldn't see that it was launched from a rocket launch facility they have on an island there.

The basic problem is their system is geared to detect threats without enough regard for determining that something is likely not a threat. Combine that with a bureaucracy that lost the notification that they would be conducting a scientific launch from that facility on an unspecified date. (The bird was prepped but the actual launch timing awaited the right conditions in the ionosphere, they couldn't put a date on the launch notice.))

 

[barbos]

US is fairly inept too, 9-11 and following hunt for bin laden have proven that