US vs Russian Nuclear Ballistic Missile Capabilities

[Buzzrock 14901]

Speak of mutually assured destruction. Nice story, tell it to Reader’s Digest!

[dimyh 1874]

So any credible theories on how the current launch procedures work? How long is the chain of command? Dead hand automation? Any potential communication issues with sub launches?

Its clear that there enough nukes to blow us to hell, just trying to figure out possible interruption points if we do get into a hot war or if Putin continues to double down. 

[immamac 42833]

14 minutes ago, dimyh said:

So any credible theories on how the current launch procedures work? How long is the chain of command? Dead hand automation? Any potential communication issues with sub launches?

Its clear that there enough nukes to blow us to hell, just trying to figure out possible interruption points if we do get into a hot war or if Putin continues to double down. 

There are thousands of launchable warheads from hundreds of launch points. If someone wants to push the button it's happening. There is no way to pre-emptively disable or strike the launches. 

The only skepticism is that you don't launch enough nukes to fuck the entire globe over including yourself later on at first. I believe if there is real strategic nuclear weapons used it will be 10-20 warheads between 2-4 countries before everyone calls it quits and people realize how bad of an idea it is. That will kill at least 20 million and up to 100 million in HOURS. I don't think anyone actually wants to deal with fallout and nuclear winter on the global scale because that turns into 5-6B dead within 24 months pretty fucking quick and doesn't make much sense strategically. 

[dimyh 1874]

Question is how many different people are involved in the launch process? If Putin gives the order is there a chance that the subordinates refuse? 

[Ag with kids 581]

1 hour ago, dimyh said:

Question is how many different people are involved in the launch process? If Putin gives the order is there a chance that the subordinates refuse? 

Yes.

It's happened before.

And we also don't have "one red button" that any POTUS can push.

It's a process...

[FartingMonk 3606]

Putin is already at missile command.  So that usual layer of protection is gone.  So he might have one more layer after that.  There are stories that command can over ride local controls.  So who knows.  

[XYZ 2154]

And speaking of nukes, Dyess AFB (along with other AFBs) used to have many decades ago, I wanna say 12 missile silos around it, like in a circumference with a radius of several miles. Those silos had the Atlas missiles that were propelled by kerosene and carried a nuclear bomb. At some point, when the Atlas missiles were replaced by whatever came after, the Air Force decommissioned the silos, took anything valuable or useful out, and sold the properties. The one in Lawn has been turned into a museum of sorts and you can visit it. The silo is filled with water halfway up. The gentleman that owns the place, if you contact him and tell him that you’d like a tour, is kind enough to meet you there and give you a very interesting talk about how it all used to work. If anybody is interested, let me know and I’ll dig up his email address.

[Elvis 3370]

5 hours ago, XYZ said:

And speaking of nukes, Dyess AFB (along with other AFBs) used to have many decades ago, I wanna say 12 missile silos around it, like in a circumference with a radius of several miles. Those silos had the Atlas missiles that were propelled by kerosene and carried a nuclear bomb. At some point, when the Atlas missiles were replaced by whatever came after, the Air Force decommissioned the silos, took anything valuable or useful out, and sold the properties. The one in Lawn has been turned into a museum of sorts and you can visit it. The silo is filled with water halfway up. The gentleman that owns the place, if you contact him and tell him that you’d like a tour, is kind enough to meet you there and give you a very interesting talk about how it all used to work. If anybody is interested, let me know and I’ll dig up his email address.

Yep.   Abilene was a top 10 strike zone when I was growing up there.  We had no plan for surviving a nuclear strike at ground zero.  My father in law was a B1B pilot and trained for missions to fly across the Atlantic and then drop down to 500 ft altitude and mach 1.1 heaeding into Russia.  Then drop his nuclear payload (be sure to close the wind shield shade so you don't go blind) and climb out of there.  There would likely be nohwere to land and his family toast.  He told me that he went on a misson that he thought was real, but they recalled them home about halfway and revealed it was a training mission.  

 

Also, tresspassing into the silos for fun is a thing.