(Peter Stickney) wrote in message ...
In article ,
(Tom Adams) writes:
(Tom Adams) wrote in message . com...
"james_anatidae" wrote in message ...
I was wondering at about what point that the United States going to war with
the Soviet Union become an almost certain act of mutual destruction. I'm
assuming it sometime in 1960's or 70's, since what I've seen of the Soviet
nuclear capability before that point doesn't seem to be all that
threatening. It looks like they would have been really bad for us
Americans, but not unsurvivable.

I think October 23, 1961 is a watershed date. That is the day that
the Soviet Union exploded the Tsar Bomba, the largest bomb ever
exploded.

Note that the yield of this bomb did not represent the technical limit
on the yield of a hydrogen bomb. It is my understanding that there is
no known limit. Instead, the Tsar Bomba represents a kind of
political limit in a historical context. After the Tsar Bomba, the
politicians on both side put on the brakes.

It was possible to create a threat to kill everyone in the US or the
USSR almost instantly (on a clear day, anyway) between 1962 and 1965,
by deploying space-based high-yield orbiting hydrogen bombs.

But no such threat was ever developed. I am not sure what
considerations prevented the development of such a threat.

Size and Weight. Nobody was capable of putting a 30-40 ton warhead of
that size at those heights. Well, that, and atmospheric attenuation -
all the prompt stuff, and the heat, gets absobed pretty quickly by the
Atmosphere, and there'd be no fallout. There would, if you chose the
right height, be pretty severe EMP effects, but you don't need a
whopping huge bomb for that.

In a rough translation from LEO weight to ICBM throw weight I can see
the SL-12 Proton and variants delivering something in the 30 T range
as an ICBM. IIRC that was what its justification was for Khurshchev.
Comparison, SS-9 6 T ICBM warhead,, 4 T to LEO as SL-11 (and
variants), SL-12 (Proton) 42T to LEO.

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/icbm/r-36.htm SS-9
http://www.braeunig.us/space/specs/proton.htm SL-12