On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 09:20:19 -0500, (Peter
Stickney) wrote:

Nothing is stopping them from putting 8 warheads in each of the 16
missiles the Vanguard carries. They could launch 192 warheads from
one boat. General practice is to put 3 in each missile but nothing is
stopping them from changing it, or just surging all 4 boats.

Of course, they've only got 192 or so warheads anyway. If _I_ were
going to attempt this little bit of foolishness, I wouldn't be too
happy about putting all of my warheads on one platform.

The old saying "If you're on thin ice, you may as well dance." comes
to mind. Anyone foolish enough to fire nearly 200 nukes at 7,000+ US
troops isn't going to be real worried about the chance that we'll find
their boomer and hit it first.

It'll work as an estimate. As with anything else regarding this stuff
- Those that Post don't Know. Those that Know don't Post. See the
Security Clearance threads for more (or less, depending on Need to
Knoe) info.

Crossroads Able gave some good data, I liked the pictures of the
Nevada, still floating despite having a 23kt nuke landing 1500-2000
feet away from it. The Independance (CV-22) damage report is telling
as well (all 280 pages of it); the commander estimated that if they
were ready for the blast 75% of the crew would have survived.

4 days after the blast and the damage assessment team noted how
little structural damage there was; of course all above deck aircraft
would have been blown over and any hangared planes below that weren't
secured against the 40 degree roll the ship endured would have been
wrecked but the ship was still salvagable. All the radars and
directors were gone but 1/2 of the 40mm mounts were judged to still be
in operable condition. The steering controls still worked and the
props and shafts were tested and showed that at least partial mobility
was retained.

The biggest damage the ship suffered was an untended fire which
burned out some spaces when some torpedoes and a mine were
incinerated; had there been damage control parties aboard this would
have been prevented.

Not bad for a ship that was only 3,000 feet away from a 23 kt
airburst.

area. So, in order to cover that 490 sq NM with the density required,
to ensure major damage, and not outright sinking, you'd need 70
warheads. That's 23 UK Trident's worth.

There is a slight overlap problem to deal with as the explosions
aren't exactly square, but that's a trivial matter for the purposes of
the example.

It's a Round, Round, World. But the lack of coverage by a single
warhead vs. the area that the target could be hiding in means that
Nuclear Buckshot needs some rethinking.

Either the attack time has to be considerably accellerated, the
targeting needs to be greatly improved or much larger warheads need to
be employee. Allowing course corrections at midflight apogee would
cut the escape time in half and the area to be covered by 1/4.

Combine that with a larger warhead, say the newer 475kt warheads
that can fit on a trident and rather than 200 nukes, we're down to
about 8 warheads to cover the target area and ensure at
least major damage to the carrier. Hitting it a minute later with 8
more would pretty much ensure destruction of the entire group.

One side effect of this example is why the ballistic submarine
component of the triad was so important, even if we waited for all the
nukes to land, it would be impossible for Russia to get all of our
ballistic missile subs even if they fired their entire arsenal into
the ocean.

Well, it's why the triad itself was so important. Anybody
contemplating a nuclear strike against the U.S. wouldn't have to deal
with just one type of platform, but 3. And what worked against 1 type
wouldn't work against another.

The only real protection against the sub portion of the triad would
be to find and sink the subs themselves; not exactly an easy
proposition with Cold War technology. Even the governments involved
didn't know exactly where they were hiding, other than the boundaries
of the patrol zones and it's a big ocean.

--
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability
of the human mind to correlate all its contents." - H.P. Lovecraft