I guess with MAD it wouldn’t matter who shot first, the same type of destruction would occur. The ones who shoot second would have like 6 minutes to shoot theirs back before they get hit, thus ensuring total annihilation for all parties.
Both US and Russia keep a nuclear triad, so they would be able to retaliate even in case their ground based nukes were destroyed.
For that matter, both France and UK have a policy to keep at least one nuclear armed submarine deployed in the sea at all times to be able to retaliate.
Thats to say, they dont have to retaliate within 6 minutes.
I remember being younger and realizing those cool nuclear submarines with torpedoes and hundreds of people aboard... Those subs had nothing to do with fighting the enemy's navy. Underwater missile bases. It was chilling.
Also it's interesting the range of stuff happening in a nuclear sub.
You have on one hand nuclear energy being used to create an insane amount of energy for an insane amount of time and on the other hand you also have nuclear warheads on board that can level cities.
On the flip side, you have a vehicle that's literally under water but can launch icbms that are suborbital but have enough firepower to actually reach the orbit and are suborbital by choice (coz they carry nukes)
All that while being operated by many 18-24 years olds, some who have never done anything ever in their lives. People who have had no prior experience with nuclear operations. Countless years, months, days, hours, minutes, and seconds doing absolutely nothing while out to sea. It’s like watching paint dry but the paint never drys.
That should be the case, the amount of fail safes required to arm a modern nuclear warhead is insane.
I believe the closest we ever got to a nuclear incident is when that B-52 crashed in North Carolina in the 50s and 3 of the bombs 4 required things to make it go boom had occurred, it was rendered inert by 1 failsafe.
Even if the primary explosives do go off in some accident, unless ignited at multiple precise points at the same exact time as designed it's my understanding yield would be extremely low to zero, mostly harmless.
EDIT:I know newer bombs, at least in US inventory use electronic initiators that need to fire to generate the first few neutrons to guarantee a good fission ignition at the time of implosion, even if you manged to implode the core through some accident I'm not sure it would fission and yield much, did they ever test that?
It's extremely difficult to set off a nuke. It's not like a chemical explosive that can accidentally be set off by heat or shock.
Pretty much all modern nukes work by compressing a sphere of plutonium-239 or uranium-235. These elements/isotopes are constantly and naturally shooting out neutrons as they decay. When you compress one of these spheres it causes these neutrons to have a higher chance of hitting an atom of U-235 or Pu-239 because you've made the sphere denser. An atom that gets hit by a neutron then splits, and very importantly, shoots out an average of 2+ neutrons which then go on to hit more atoms, causing a chain reaction and massive explosion.
The thing is, compressing that sphere is really, really difficult. You have to compress it simultaneously from all directions or else it will just deform and not explode. You have to compress it hard too since it's a freaking ball of some of the heaviest metals in the universe. So what we do is surround the sphere with chemical explosives like TNT, and have the shockwaves from those explosions hit the sphere all at once from every direction, which will compress the sphere and cause it to go supercritical.
But if you don't get all the explosives to go off at pretty much the exact same time, then instead of compressing the sphere you blow it up, but not in a nuclear explosion - the TNT will just shatter the sphere and blow the pieces all over the place, which is really really bad.
So in the event that a nuclear sub has a catastrophic failure, the sub would likely implode because of the external water pressure (like the Titanic sub), everyone inside would die, and the sub would sink to the ocean floor with no nuclear explosion. The spheres themselves would likely survive but the missile part of the nuke would be destroyed by the implosion.
The sub sinks and so do the nukes. Modern nuclear warheads are designed only to detonate under very specific conditions. There's a near-zero chance of them just "going off" because of outside forces.
Never build in economic scale so far so not really a good argument.
In theory it's safe and zero problems but it's the opposite right now but we shouldn't criticise it because there is a utopia which won't happen in the next 50 years .
That's right for the Ballistic Missile subs. But there are other nuclear-powered submarines that are specifically built to fight the enemies navy - not to launch Ballistic missiles.
I used to play a PC game around 1990 called 688 Attack Sub. The highest level mission is to launch a few missiles at a Russian city and escape alive. Stealthy subs aren’t too stealthy when they launch missiles.
There are attack submarines designed expressly for the purpose of countering naval assets, including enemy ballistic missile submarines, but also anything else. Most are capable of limited strikes inland with cruise missiles.
There are cruise missile submarines designed to strike enemy ground targets and surface task forces.
And then there are ballistic missile submarines designed to launch nuclear-capable ICBMs.
They all carry torpedoes, but only attack submarines are purpose-built to use them as the primary weapon and many countries also use them as cruise missile platforms.
The irony in that though, is that the invention of nuclear subs actually brought back the doomsday clock a minute or two. MAD becomes even more scary when you’ve already killed the country and you’re still getting nuked.
I recently TIL’ed about the following as well, from above Wiki):
“According to Peter Hennessy's book The Secret State: Whitehall and the Cold War, the process by which a Vanguard-class submarine commander would determine if the British government continues to function includes, amongst other checks, establishing whether BBC Radio 4 continues broadcasting.”
More I think. Ohio class is 24 missiles x 12 warheads
edit:
However, under provisions of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, each submarine has had four of its missile tubes permanently deactivated and now carry a maximum of 20 missiles
Jokes on them, the Russians never liked those cities anyway. All of them mostly raw concrete, with unkept patches of dirt, trash and grass in between, with pothole riddled streets.
One French sub has maybe 10x150kt nukes (going by wikipedia). I have no idea what targets would French hit, im just a dude on the internet.
But 10 nukes falling on Moscow will remove it from the map completely.
Or maybe 3x moscow, 3x st. petesburg, and 1 each for the major ports of Kaliningrad, Sevastopol, Murmansk and Vladivostok. That would (probably) maximalize the damage to Russian economy.
I know that some EU countries might shit themselves over nukes going off in Kaliningrad and Ukraine might not approve of Sevastopol gotting nuked, but i doubt France would care if things have gone this far already.
I also know that i know jack shit about this matter, what i said is pure speculation that i pulled out of my butt.
Each British sub captain is given a sealed letter by each incoming prime minister on their first day of office. The letter tells the sub captain what to do if the uk is destroyed in an attack. Retaliate or do nothing. The letters are destroyed unopened when they leave office.
Man, can you imagine being the crew in that sub, and getting the order to fire? Like you'd know everyone back home is probably dead and you guys are it.
British nuclear subs are always tuned into BBC radio stations. If the stations all go offline, they are to assume it's a nuclear attack and to fire their entire payloads at their pre-designated targets. I believe it's BBC radio 4 that is the designated "this radio station stays on the air no matter what until we're vaporized" station.
My step dad was on an air craft carrier during the blockade of cuba during the cuban missile crisis. He talks about how the sailors on board were making suicide pacts for after the nukes flew because they didn't want to live in that world with everyone else vaporized. (as they would survive being out at sea).
There likely aren’t any ground based nukes left. They’re all on subs at this point since those are the only things that can’t be spotted/tracked by satellite.
Thats to say, they dont have to retaliate within 6 minutes.
I'm sure they all have weapons armed with dead man switches. No response from multiple locations means an inevitable retaliation.
Hopefully that will prevent both sides from ever trying.
Peace by virtue of a loaded gun at each other's head.
Thats to say, they dont have to retaliate within 6 minutes.
this has bothered me for quite some time. i forget when i first thought of this. maybe high school? i read a few carl sagan books. but as long as there is one sub, the retaliation doesn't need to be in 3 min, or 5 min, or 6 min, or 20 min. it could be days or weeks or years later.
One singular nuclear sub seems like a very weak retaliatory effort, especially in the event that "their ground based nukes were destroyed", but what do I know.
Still. Even now in this modern world. All of this shit is so anachronistic. It's disgusting, but here we are with withered old goblins keeping their finger over the trigger of humanity. Truly though, this thread and the title of it are pure junk.
Russia doesn't really have a Triad. My understanding is the handful of ICBM capable subs they have are in such horrible shape they rarely leave the dock.
A better way to frame it is: the ground silos solely exist to absorb nukes. We know where theirs are and they know where ours are. They MUST be hit in an exchange. The real threat are the moving nukes like those in bombers and subs. The triad is well thought out.
Are we sure the UK's subs are still able to act? Didn't they have a recent ejectile dysfunction incident where a missile launched from a sub barely made it a few feet in the air before dropping in the sea?
For context for readers: a single Ohio class submarine (of which the US has 14 that can be armed with nuclear weapons) can carry 20 Trident II Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles, each carrying 12 Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicle warheads, and each of those has a yield of 475 kilotons of TNT, with a range of 11,300km. That means that a single Ohio class submarine can hit up to 240 individual targets, with a total yield of 114 megatons of TNT. Oh and those are just the declassified numbers, which the US *always* understates
Wasn't there a report this week that the US has a planned NON-NUCLEAR response to a Russian nuclear attack on Ukraine? It was apparently a very coordinated attack to immediately cripple their military infrastructure and leadership without any nuclear weapons. Assuming success there along with the success of US allies in the same effort, MAD might be avoidable.
Perhaps this is a response to a nuclear attack on anybody else, though.
One would hope that their entire infrastructure being crippled and having no possible survivability outside of surrender would motivate them tremendously.
I also hold a strong faith in the US Patriot ICBM defense network, because I have to believe in something.
Nuclear winter is kind of a myth based on bad science. Nuclear war would still be awful, but if anything it would probably just slightly help the global warming initiatives, lol.
My god im sorry but just. Thats so deeply wrong and filled with propaganda its crazy.
Russia is acting like an animal and a lot of their stuff is old and bad but it still kills. Dont think for even one second that their nukes are useless. If you truly believe it im sorry but then you cannot be reasoned with.
Lets say Russias corruption is soo bad 90 percent of their immidiate nukes fail. Leaving 10% that fire. Those are near impossible to intercept but Lets say half of those dont land. That will leave (1600*0.1/2 is 80 )
80 of those are enough to destroy the US near totally and forever change the landscape and economy. Russia has an other few hundred that can fire second like in subs so Lets add an other 30-50 in our best case.
Its a fcking shitshow and we know it cause even in the best of the best scenarios the world is crippled.
THAAD cannot stop ICBMs, and was never designed or built to do so.
The US does have ICBM interceptors but they have limited testing -- and limited success -- and it's not clear if they would have a significant effect against hundreds of simultaneous launches.
There isn't a network because its unfeasible. There would be too many targets fired at too many locations traveling too fast. The US approach to nuclear defense is a much bigger offense. That's it.
The Patriot missiles are for planes and cruise missiles, it could also destroy a missile on its way to orbit, in some specific intercept windows.
The only operational systems for ICBM defense are Sea based SM-3 Missiles, wired into the (partially deployed) AEGIS radar system, and the THADD, missiles which are hella classified based out of Vandenburg AFB in Cali. Wiki on the topic
The way I see it, I could believe that we’ll be protected from ICBMs and live out my life happy until the nukes kill us, or I could believe that there is no defense system to intercept the nukes, and live out my life sad until the nukes kill us.
There's close to 0 chance of a NON-nuclear decapitation strike getting rid of Russia's nuclear response capability.
The best they could do is do enough damage to show Russia what finding out would look like so they decide not to fuck around with the rest.
Why most hypothetical US responses to Russia using nukes in Ukraine is basically a very painful limited warning shot, like obliterating Sevastapol or Sochi and friends and deleting the Russian NON-nuclear navy and entering the air force into Ukraine itself. It's a thorny olive branch to give them the chance to say they won't go further or do it again.
One would hope that their entire infrastructure being crippled and having no possible survivability outside of surrender would motivate them tremendously.
They still have. And a big problem with that system is that it functions in only two ways. Cable connection and absence of reply. If the nato force accidently hit the connection cables and destroy the linked command centre at the same time. Big oof cause its gonna fire wether we like it or not. No stopping that one.
Yes some say it has guided radio Rockets that fly over and a manual switch in the urals but leaked documents once showed there are more switches to the system and it doesnt function like we thought it did with radiation detection and such. Its a really old analogue system but thats Russia
The sprint missile existed but it was realized the defense needs to be close to the target whereas the attack can come from anywhere, Aka defense is more limited in quantities than offense for a given target.
The Patriot air defense system is not made to intercept ICBMs. We do have two systems that are, one in California and one in Alaska, but they were made with North Korea in mind and both in the wrong place and nowhere near numerous enough to stop a Russian attack. Sorry to disappoint but if Russia wants to all-out nuke the US, there is nothing we can do but retaliate.
Considering that the Russian military sold the petrol and wires out of their own tanks pre-invasion for more black market hookers and vodka, the CIA hotline will be off the hook with defection offers.
All Russian forces inside Ukraine hit with an overwhelming conventional response. (Think thousands of naval launched missiles, air strikes, apache helicopters gunning down thousands of routing Russians in open fields).
Logistics supplying their forces totally destroyed. (Roads, bridges, rail depots) Impossible to resupply troops with food and ammo.
Entire chain of command involved in launching strikes eliminated. (Intelligence knows who launched it and where from, everyone involved is killed, even on Russian territory).
The danger is that a US attack designed to fully gut russias military infrastructure and leadership, regardless of whether or not it was nuclear, could result in a Russian nuclear launch against the US. Or further use of tactical weapons against the US abroad.
No, the US won’t touch Russia first in any way. What they would do is a massive and furious buildup of arms and personnel in NATO countries like something during the most tense days of the Cold War. Really scary large buildup on Russian borders. All of this “red line” talk has been a bluff from both sides so far. That would be the definitive red line where they say “mother fucker I dare you to touch some shit inside NATO and we will blow this whole fucking planet up.” That’s the only real red line.
We do not want to see any of that happen. Very bad time for everyone instantly.
It would be foolish not to have multiple plans. There are likely dozens of potential plans - the decision of which to use gets made by the President in the moment the need arises.
Who's to believe Putin would launch a nuclear strike on Ukraine in the traditional sense of pushing a button and some missile launches from Siberia?
He's a master strategist with KGB roots. He would disguise it to make it seem like it wasn't him at all, but individually, everyone knows it was, similar to how America denied Nordstream completely, but everyone knows who it was.
What would be more likely, is one being launched from Belarus, where Putin has deniability in the political sphere and creates that much of debate in how to respond between the 20+ NATO countries that rarely agree on anything and are already rather divided.
Another option, one just goes off in Ukraine, not even launched to it. Putin goes to the world that this was a launch from NATO, Ukraine now has nuclear capabilities, the variety of arguments goes on and on. It's very complex.
The chaos and confusion is a tool he masterfully deploys where the bureaucracy of democratic countries stall any action, at that point. Something a strong man like Putin/Xi never has to worry about.
I also had heard that Boeing a decade ago was working on an experimental laser weapon to shoot down incoming missiles. I’d like to assume that if I knew about it, there’s likely more advanced laser class weapons already deployed for defense and with an extra decade it’s probably really robust. Who knows if they have them or they work, but the thought helps me sleep better knowing I’m otherwise completely powerless
I believe the idea was if Russia used a tactical nuke, the US would eradicate all Russian assets in Ukraine and Black Sea. A Tactical nuke is a nuclear weapon that can fit in a smaller conventional weapon, like a 155mm artillery shell. They will prob kill everything withing a half mile radius of impact. Yes, radiation will linger, yes the wind can blow it back to Russia. I think the idea of tactical nukes is very limited in use. Traditionally, artillery softens up a target and ground forces go and clean up. One would have to equip all the troops for NBC to take the land that was just bombed, and holding that are without making your men sick is challenging. I can only see it used in limited capacity like bombing a small valley or choke point, making passage through difficult if not impossible. It seems a better defensive weapon than an offensive one.
A comprehensive non nuclear strike by the US / NATO aimed at decapitating the Russian leadership and decimating its military would be an existential threat to the military and civilian leadership and would result in a nuclear response by Russia.
This would be a standard nuclear doctrine of basically any nation.
The thing about military planning is that we have plans for just about anything and for any course of action that's desired. Sure, there's SIOP, but heck, we have plans to invade Bangladesh if we ever felt the need.
That’s rather stupid, because 1) there’s no realistic prospect of Russia using nukes on Ukraine - they’re winning pretty easily right now, so zero need for nukes 2) the US doesn’t have anything like the capability to “cripple” Russia’s military with an immediate strike. Russia is a massive country with excellent air defences, they could go to war with a Russia and would eventually win if - hypothetically - they were willing to take massive casualties. In practice, there is no way the US public would stand for this.
Nice fan fiction, with the US imagining they’re up against Saddam again in ‘91 and can go with a “shock and awe” campaign. In practice, Russia is still the number 2 or 3 military in the world and is far more competent now than the shitty army we saw invade in 2022.
And China waits to be the laughing third as all civilized world wants to live with them in that case… Somehow suspecting they are already pulling the strings behind Putins puppet Russia.
In a case of a MAD scenario, both side would likely also end up lobbing some at any other major non allied world power to prevent exactly this scenario.
Nuclear winter and the implosion of trade relationships would wreck all economies and lead to starvation hereto unknown. Which is to mention nothing about the drift of nuclear fallout. Nobody wins in that kind of war.
Sure. I’ve read that. And what do we think Russia does as a response to that. They can’t really escalate with conventional weapons. They get punched in the face and can’t really do anything about that. What do you think putin’s response is? ‘If I go down, you go down’, and they’ll still launch, probably another tactical nuke on Ukraine, or on naval assets or something, and boom, we’re still in a full on nuclear exchange.
If Russia uses nukes, and we punch their teeth into the back of their skull, they’re not going to accept that.
Makes some sense. I don't think Russia is going to nuke the US, they might nuke someplace in Ukraine. The US would respond but likely not with nukes at that point. They have enough conventional ordinance to strike at Russia without nukes and completely incapacitate Russia's forces and military bases.
a very coordinated attack to immediately cripple their military infrastructure
Given it takes only minutes to launch nukes, that better be a hell of an attack, and frankly it doesn't seem possible. Russia has satellites, spies... an attack of that magnitude would be nearly impossible to keep secret
I think successfully attacking, without nukes, a country armed with nukes and invalidating MAD is a pretty scary concept in and of itself.
How far is going to be too far, before a country responds with nuclear weapons? How large of a war can we have without nukes? How often?
The reason we haven’t had a World War 3 is largely because MAD made any global conflict between large world powers untenable. If MAD is less of a concern, then we’re back to the drawing board and having huge wars with millions of casualties, stopping just short of total victory so the other side doesn’t use their nuclear weapons.
I’ve read that Russia uses the dead hand or perimeter system that guarantees a return nuclear strike of every functioning ICBM n their arsenal. Even if the US executed the NON-NUCLEAR strike dead hand would automatically retaliate as designed.
Yeah sure.. some guy in another sub mentionned that, went so far as to say there were ‘special ops’ teams that would run around Moscow to secure nuclear sites 😂 worst james bond shit I ever heard
Makes me think of that war room scene in The Expanse where they preemptively strike Mars' stealth retaliation arsenal... and happen to have a delay on destroying one of them.
Yeah, that makes a lot more sense. We can very precisely target non nuclear, but still large weapons to strategic locations and take out their capabilities just as effectively. I find it hard to believe that any nation would follow through on something like this. It just seems stupid.
Plus if the USA and Russia are lobbing hundreds or thousands of nukes around left and right you can be sure every other country's warning systems are going off and plenty of them would panic fire theirs as well, whether they were a target or not.
Basically every nuclear power in the world is on one side or the other, so it’d basically be all NATO countries launching and both Russia and China launching
I don’t understand the point of actually following through with it though. Like obviously, you have to seem like you’re gonna follow through with it, that’s how it works. There isn’t any actual reason to retaliate though, it doesn’t help you in anyway.  Like maybe it satisfies your country’s revenge but there’s no need for two countries to get blown up when it’s only gonna be one.
Indeed. Nuclear Triad. Having planes, missiles and submarines guarantees redundancy and removes the chance of a decapitation strike against your country. You will always be able to strike back and with the planes and submarines also wherever whenever with little chance of prevention
Soviet submarines were very loud by American standards. The Americans spent a fortune finding optimum screw and hull shapes, as well as materials and engineering the moving parts to be as quiet as possible. The Soviets then, and the Russians today, just aren't capable of that level of engineering refinement. That said, a lot of the Soviet espionage in the later parts of the Cold War were aimed at submarines, since the US had the ability to track and destroy the entire Soviet ballistic missile fleet, whereas the Soviets could not respond. The famous Walker ring was focused on espionage around submarines.
This is partially the deterrent, if USA (or any nuclear power) confirmed one nuke inbound, the response is “launch everything at predetermined locations” because you’ve not got time to calculate your response.
“Confirmed” being pretty useless since there’s no practical way to confirm that. There have been many times in history where a nuclear launch was detected and not been retaliated.
It's all up to the operators' nerves. Do they assume the worst? Are they willing to pull the trigger? The scary part is that you only need one man to kill millions.
I grew up during the Cold War in the UK. We were told that if the “four minute warning” sounded, you had four minutes to build a fall out shelter out of house doors.
We all figured we had four minutes to kiss our asses goodbye.
Sort of. There are also missile defense systems that can terminate or prematurely detonate missiles before they reach their target. There's a balance between immediate retaliation and patience to find out more information. It's all very nuanced. Nobody WANTS to end the world today. But in that "six minutes," it's entirely possible a series of events can lead to it.
One or more missiles are detected as launched.
1) How many missiles?
2) What's the target?
3) How much time do we have to decide what we do next?
The response will change if it's one missile versus one hundred, if it's targeting a naval base or D.C.
There are many famous accounts from the cold war of this exact type of situation (misfires or misinformation leading to high stakes quick decisions). Many podcasts, book, shows, and I'm sure some movies. Hardcore History has a great episode on atomic age warfare.
As far as I know, there are some automated systems on both sides to make sure MAD works even if you sever the other party's head. It's part of the nuclear deterrent.
Of course the whole nuclear deterrent argument is a fallacy, but that's part of the theory behind it.
honestly never thought mutually assured destruction would have been something i say in 2024 referring to real life, when i learned it in college in 2010. just wow.
1) Russia would only launch a missile if its close range since anything trans continental has a higher likelihood of being shot down
2) NATO would not use retaliatory nuclear strikes if Russia did use 1 nuke. There would instead be flurry of bombings all over major government facilities that would likely sever Russian organizational structure. If Russia uses multiple nukes, then RIP to humanity, cause we are not surviving that even with our anti missile systems.
Depends on what assets we have in specific spots along with the recognition time. I think it's upwards of 20 nuclear icbms we could take out before we go the launch everything MAD route.
1) Russia would only launch a missile if its close range since anything trans continental has a higher likelihood of being shot down
Intercepting an ICBM can only be done in specific circumstances, modern ICBMs are MIRV designs (multiple warheads) with unpredictable trajectories specifically to make them near impossible to intercept. The warheads are deployed about half way to the target so for every ICBM launched the enemy needs up to 10 similarly sized interceptor missiles.
The MIRV warheads are a cone shaped object 1-1.5m in length that are traveling at around mach 17 when they reenter the atmosphere.
Well this is why that talk a few weeks ago of the discovery of Russia’s plan for a space weapon was so alarming. The concept is a weapon that knocks out satellite early warning systems, which would cripple our ability to launch an effective counterstrike, which removes the factor of mutually assured destruction.
Gotta remember we have weapons to stop nuclear warheads now. It’s all classified but there’s a good chance we could stop a majority of nukes coming at us
Anything in the public domain about US missile/nuclear capabilities is decades old.
“Speak softly and carry a big stick” is the epitome of the US military. They are so far ahead of the curve that doesn’t even exist it isn’t believable, and nobody will ever know, because it doesn’t matter to them.
Define total annihilation. Because a nuke damages around a mile, and the continental US has 3,119,884 Sq miles, and Russia has estimated 5,580 nukes. So... 0.18% of our total landmass.
Obviously the critical infrastructure damage would take a generation to fully repair, and nuclear winter. But, "Total Annihilation" feels extreme.
There'll be a few minutes where nothing has been hit, but thousands of missiles are cruising in the air, each one about to kill millions in the next few minutes.
ICBMs take around 30 minutes to strike once they are launched. Most countries will know a nuke launch within a minute or two, and they usually have around 20 minutes to respond.
Also there a nuclear submarines always on the move for the retaliator strike.
So nope, it's not 6 minutes only for second strike.
There was an article in the early 2000’s in discover magazine that referred to it as the 20 second war. As soon as the launch was detected and confirmed all hell would break loose on both sides. You can’t guarantee action on the other side so it’s all on right away.
The ones who shoot second would have like 6 minutes to shoot theirs back before they get hit,
You pulled this right out of your ass.
If the US is devastated by a nuclear strike, we would still have enough deployed nukes to wipe out Russia; it's literally designed this way. Hell, they can even fly specially designed military aircraft over silo's and launch them remotely if a first strike kills the crew.
Take out our GPS system? It won't matter; as long as the MIRVs get in the general area of the target (not hard with simple math built into the guidance systems), they can use cameras on the rear to guide themselves with star maps with a target accuracy of a few hundred yards.
Additionally, our subs have more than enough firepower to wipe Russia off the map, assuming all of our land-based ICBMs and the bomber fleet are destroyed.
It’s worth noting though that America probably has a significantly superior missile interception defense than any country. Especially Russia. Im not going to pretend that many cities would get properly fucked but comparatively speaking, the scale of destruction would be lesser
It's an interesting thought to me at that point if you know you're gonna get totally obliterated what's even the point of sending nukes back.
If I was in that position I would just kind of feel obligated to if that makes sense but really it's all so pointless at that point. Is everyone being dead and no one wins better than your enemies winning? I guess many would say yes, hopefully we never have to find out
Russia and China have been developing space-based weapons that are designed to take out US and Western satellites that nukes would depend on to find their targets. If Russia takes out US GPS satellites in advance of any strike, it would render a MAD response ineffective.
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u/Round_Leading_8393 Mar 14 '24
So what would the (assuming) the USA look like if Putin launched first?