In a limited nuclear exchange scenario, why did the emphasis shift from mass destruction to removing the enemy's capability to strike? Over and over, I hear about how important it became to accurately guide nuclear ICBM's towards their Russian counterparts, in order to reduce the Russian capabilities. But why not just strap a kinetic warhead on that thing and basically turn the missile into a bunker buster? Why would they need to expend nuclear weapons just to destroy what are basically just hardened bunkers?
>>29839510
If you're using an entire ICBM delivery system you might as well put a nuclear warhead on it to further insure the destruction of the target.
Also, equipping an ICBM with MIRVs gives it versatility.
Another question, how do you know if an ICBM is a bunker buster aimed at your silo or a MIRV capable one targeting your cities?
You don't.
Because a fission explosion will melt whatever is near it including a hardened bunker, negating the need to penetrate earth before explosion.
Because if you are launching nukes and already have a shitload of them, it is cheaper and more effective than developing bunker busters.
Only reason bunker busters are a thing is because nuking places is only acceptable sometimes not all the time.
>>29839541
Well i'm thinking within the scope of how dangerous a "limited" or "theater" exchange of nuclear weapons is. If your objective is to remove the enemy's capability to strike, or at least deter it, why would you shoehorn such a comically overpowered weapon into the role of a glorified bunker buster, especially when the use of such a weapon is basically a warrant for all out war, nuclear or otherwise?
>how do you know if an ICBM is a bunker buster aimed at your silo or a MIRV capable one targeting your cities?
You don't...
>>29839596
Well, if such a weapon is being used you can assume that the conflict has/is escalating to a point that an all-out war seems unavoidable, or rather the only way to avoid it escalating further is to decisively strike first.
>I summon you, Oppenheimer!
Because you want the exchange to be limited, you have to prevent retribution. The strike has to be against launch vehicles because nukes don't teleport to their targets. It takes a significant amount of time to reach a target. If a nuke is incoming, then it's an even bigger issue--you have to launch ASAP otherwise you lose your ability to (and hand victory to your enemy, when your own nukes are either destroyed or sealed in their silos).
Nowadays, a limited nuclear exchange would probably be one or two American submarines taking out North Korea in response to Kim Jong Un nuking Seoul. Russia and China would hopefully stay their nukes, unless they thought they were threatened. That'd preserve the major powers and their nuclear arsenals. (The USA be on DEFCON 3, maybe even stepping up to DEFCON 2 to announce that retaliation would simply be MAD.)
>>29839596
>using nukes
>avoiding all out war
No
>>29840004
It is possible to have a limited nuclear war.
Just depends how you define limited.
>>29840004
Did you read what I said? I said why use nukes at all for strategic targets if you can use other ordinance that can do the job just as well. If you have to destroy an ICBM silo, why use a nuke, if that just means that the conflict is automatically escalated?
I guess I"m just confused because so many top brass people act like when push comes to shove, they HAVE To use nuclear weapons to defend the fulda gap, or they'll HAVE To deploy swarms of ICBM's to hit the Russian silos, when, in fact, they don't. The reasoning behind "limited theater exchange" just doesn't make sense.
>>29839510
Because the accuracy required to kill a silo with pure KE is probably something like a CEP of <5m, while the CEP to kill a silo with a few hundred kt of nuclear firepower is ~100m.
>>29840074
you don't have the ability to think to much in depth. Thats why.
>>29839583
>Fission Explosion
>Melts
please, its fusion, and its vaporized.
>>29840074
Directly attacking another country's nuclear forces with conventional weaponry can be met with a nuclear counterattack. Why bother?
>In 1993, Russia dropped a pledge given by the former Soviet Union not to use nuclear weapons first.
>In 2000, a Russian military doctrine stated that Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons "in response to a large-scale conventional aggression".
>The United States has refused to adopt a no-first-use policy, saying that it "reserves the right to use" nuclear weapons first in the case of conflict.
>Pakistan refuses to adopt a "no-first-use" doctrine, indicating that it would strike India with nuclear weapons even if India did not use such weapons first.
>At a NATO summit in April 1999, Germany proposed that NATO adopt a no-first-use policy, but the proposal was rejected.
>>29840074
>If you have to destroy an ICBM silo, why use a nuke, if that just means that the conflict is automatically escalated?
destroying an icbm silo automatically escalates the conflict, period.
you really think that the us or russia or china is going to sit back and let some nigger blow up their icbm silos and not escalate?
'hey guys, despite the fact that they're destroying our nuclear deterrent and leaving us strategically fucked in this blatant go-for-the-throat attack on our most important strategic assets we're not going to use nukes because they're only using conventional weapons'
not just no but fuck no. what do you think nukes are for anyway?
>>29840858
No it is fission.
>>29841895
there aren't a lot of fission devices around anymore in the arsenal of major powers. most warheads these days are fusion, usually called thermonuclear, sometimes known as 'h-bombs'.
regardless, both weapons generate the same effects in basically the same way; 99% of the energy in the nuclear event is released as ultra-high intensity photons that superheat the surrounding atmosphere and create a blast wave. depending on distance from the blast epicenter those photons and the heat from the overpressure will have varying effects on you, and those effects will depend on what you are made out of. melting is a state change from solid to liquid. and not everything can actually make that state change. sand will melt (and be spread around by the blastwave) but concrete structures are not going to 'melt', they're going to be superheated and distributed by the heat and over-pressure.
vaporization is when a something is turned into a vapor, that is reduced to small particles and made airborne. that's going to happen to most things close to the epicentre.
>>29842042
So you're trying to say it is easier to kill an ICBM silo with a nuke rather than a bunker buster?
>>29842133
that is really up for debate is it?
>>29840858
Fission can't melt steel beams
I'm pretty sure they use a fission reaction to trigger the fusion reaction anyway, according to my grandads old books.
>>29842133
>So you're trying to say it is easier to kill an ICBM silo with a nuke rather than a bunker buster?
No fucking duh. See >>29840322
If you miss with a nuke, you don't miss. If something goes awry and you miss with the conventional strike, you miss AND they shoot their nukes at you.
>>29842737
I don't subscribe to the theory, but the mini-nuke idea is somewhat interesting, at least in a sci-fi sense.
>>29841817
That guy from some magic ponies land, perhaps
>>29843008
>If you miss with a nuke, you don't miss
Eh, but you do? You need to be within a certain distance of a silo to reliably destroy it with a warhead of given yield.
>>29840052
Name a time in history where both sides fired nukes and it was limited
Not to mention the fact that Russia can't tell what's strapped to your ICBM when it leaves the silo until it contacts its target. If you see an ICBM inbound, you'd best treat it as a nuclear strike until proven otherwise.
>>29839510
>Why would they need to expend nuclear weapons just to destroy what are basically just hardened bunkers?
CEP of ICBM is not good enough to hit missile silo directly. Warhead needs terminal guidance for that. Such things are in the development stage.
>>29844239
Are you trying to be facetious?
>>29842133
This is correct.
Conventional weapons do not provide a high enough Pk to meet the goals in almost any MAO.
>>29840074
>why use nukes at all for strategic targets if you can use other ordinance that can do the job just as well.
Because they don't do the job just as well.
>>29844858
>Conventional weapons do not provide a high enough Pk to meet the goals in almost any MAO.
Which is precisely why Prompt Global Strike is a thing, now. And strictly speaking it shouldn't be that hard to do; basically, the ability to put a modern PGM into the air pretty much anywhere you want.
This will also have the side effect of reducing the fallout from a counterforce attack. Ground bursts produce the most fallout; airbursts produce almost no fallout. But to penetrate a hardened target, you need a ground-burst. Just from targeting the Russian ICBM fields, it generates enough fallout to basically kill everyone in Moscow (which is why force-on-force attacks kill almost as many people as countervalue ones.) Prompt Global Strike/PGM delivery via ICBM could make it possible to launch a counter-force attack without the guaranteed nuclear holocaust of civilians.
Not that it'll help much, unless we can shoot down all their road-mobile ICBMs.
>>29844959
>I have heard knowledgeable people say that up to 30 percent of the target base [for ICBMs] potentially could be covered with PGS weapons.
https://fas.org/blogs/security/2012/08/talks/
So PGS weapons can only cover 30% of what nuclear ICBMs can do.
>>29845117
>So PGS weapons can only cover 30% of what nuclear ICBMs can do.
It doesn't say what that *is,* though. As far as I know, there is no hardened bunker that cannot be busted by a proper bunker-busting bomb, but *can* be busted by a nuke. Modern bunker-busters are pretty fucking scary weapons. But nukes combine hellacious power with an insanely wide CEP, which is what you need when you're gunning for a point target from thousands of miles away with a weapon that actually exists and re-enters the atmosphere.
Things ICBMs can do that a PGM delivered via PGS can't do:
>take out entire bases (air bases, naval bases, army/troop bases) with airbursts that don't cause much fallout, but do totally fuck most important assets
>ground-bursts at more remote bases where fallout casualties are deemed acceptable or minimal, if you need to nail a bunch of hardened aircraft shelters or submarine pens all at once,
>wipe entire radar systems off the map with mid-altitude bursts for shorter-ranged, but highly-focused EMP effects
>take out hostile command/control/communications hubs, especially ones located in cities or urban centers
>city busting in general, countervalue attacks
I mean, nukes are nukes. You get a lot more bang from your buck out of a 10 megaton warhead than you do a single bunker-buster.
>>29844959
PGS does not have the same Pk as a nuclear weapon.
When you build an attack option, each target is given a number that correlates to how sure of its destruction you have to be.
In a counterforce scenario that can easily be .9 (90%).
So you take all the factors that effect the probability of a given weapon being able to meet this goal. Things like reliability, ability to penetrate defenses, and what is called the Warhead Lethality Score (WLS).
The WLS is determined by factors such as explosive power and accuracy. It is the probability of the warhead being able to destroy the target with all other factors being equal. Against most silos and other hardened targets, a coventional PGM would have about a .8. Thats why most of the time they drop more than one.
That seems high enough, but consider that a single nuclear warhead will have a WLS of 1.
Other factors may dictate that you need to use 2 or 3 nuclear warheads to reach the .9 Pk that the Attack Option requires, but the conventional PGM requires mutiple warheads before those factors are even considered.
So now instead of 3 nuclear warheads, you are using 5 or 6 conventional ones to reach the same objective.
This cuts the number of targets you can hit in a significant way.
>>29839510
>limited
>nuclear exchange
Who the fuck can limit it?
How? Russians will never be defeated without releasing every last nuke they have everywhere. That being said, who the fuck would?
Nobody.
The only reason we never went to war with russia or soviet union is because of it.
One nuke flies, every other working nuke in the world does.
And russians have some specially built to activate Yellowstone, we have some for tsunamis, earthquakes and others have for other things.
The world dies and nobody is left to say that he won.
Nobody wins, everyone with a nuke will make sure of it.
That is the only reason we never went to war directly with anyone who has a nuke, and we never will. Thats why the norks have one (doesnt even have to work properly). Thats why israel has them, iran will have them, chinese have them.
Having a nuke guarantees the survival of a nation that holds it. Thats why russians are pissing all over the west when they can (like in syria, ukraine...) and all that can be done is sanctions, fucking up prices that can be sacrificed, proxy wars that turn messy
>>29845447
>And russians have some specially built to activate Yellowstone, we have some for tsunamis, earthquakes and others have for other things.
What?
>>29845282
This is *exactly* what I meant with "more bang for your buck." It's a matter of throw weight. Dropping two bunker-busters isn't very difficult when attacking with aircraft; sorties are cheap and airframes are plentiful. But you only have so many ICBMs, and nukes are pretty light when compared to a bunker-buster, which basically smashes through concrete and earth like a gigantic masonry nail (with a heavy solid-metal nose leading the way in most designs.)
In other words, it's not *just* precision that made nukes the go-to option for counterforce attacks with ICBMs. It's also a simple matter of weight efficiency.
However... this is something I've been wondering about. Far as I know we're currently only operating Minuteman IIIs without a MIRV on board, just a unitary warhead. Now I've got no goddamn idea what the weight of the Minuteman's MIRVs were, but... well, say you've got three bunker-busters inside the unitary re-entry vehicle, plus some chaff and decoys and other fun things packed in there. The aeroshell blows itself open around 150-200,000 feet up, letting the sub-munitions (the PGMs) fly free to the target. This not only delivers (more) than one nuke's equivalent of Pk to the target, but also increases the likelihood of penetrating terminal defenses (which is the kind our likely adversaries are likely to be fielding.) This banks on their (apperent) lack of exoatmospheric intercept capability, and has the further advantage of not being a MIRV - aside from political issues, each MIRV needs its own heat shield and such, which can be fairly heavy.
This kind of setup is a hell of a lot harder to engineer into a working weapon than I just made it sound, of course, but that's not what bugs me about the idea - it's more about how much unused payload capacity our current ICBMs have. If the withdrawal of MIRVs have left a lot of unused throw weight available, this might be a workable option. If they haven't, well, you can't engineer around physics.
>>29845282
I have a question for you Opp. Do you stay here cause you've nowhere else to go? I know I do. There's maybe 20 normal, non-retarded people on this board, and then a few like you who can actually provide useful and correct information and discussion, and that's in. The rest is just... well, look at the thread.
>>29845484
Also, what he said. This board is so full of fucking bullshit, it's always nice to see you post, because your posts are actually informative like >>29845282 Reminds me of the days of Melpat and Boof.
Please never leave. Please don't leave us alone with these fucking barbarians.
>>29839510
Because using kinetic is science fiction and an Idea from someone that never took physics.
>>29845471
A purpose built nuke can open up Yellowstone volcano like Javelins can open up an old t55 tank.
A nuke can cause a tsunami if its redesigned properly, not to mention the earthquake.
Doesnt have to be just what everyone expects
>>29845537
Do you have any proof for that statement?
>>29845476
The three PGMs will weigh more than three nuclear warheads.
>>29845484
I like talking about nuclear weapons. This is the only place where I can talk about them and not put people off. Other than work, and most of the people I work with do not agree with my opinions.
I also really like guns. I post in other threads as anon pretty often.
>>29845502
Ill try.
>>29845537
You should be a scifi writer.
>>29845537
>worried about *nukes* and yellowstone
Anon, you should read a book called "Biohazard." It's written by the former second-in-command of the Russian biological weapons program.
These psychotic fuckers:
1. Engineered strains of virus designed to target and destroy every single major staple food crop of the US,
2. A hybrid of ebola and smallpox,
3. And produced fucking endless fucktons of it a year for their stockpiles.
One of THOSE fuckers airbursting over the midwest would absolutely, positively fuck us all. No need to fuck with volcanoes.
>>29840074
>>29839510
I'm not Oppenheimer, or anything close, but I remember a few details that would help things, I believe.
First is that nuclear missile silos are hardened like you couldn't believe, and a 'regular' bunker buster would have to score a dead-on hit while nuclear weapons can afford to be a little less accurate. Which is good since ICBM's aren't exactly able to pin-point a target like smaller munitions can.
>>29845593
What's your favorite topic in the nuclear weapons field? And why don't your co-workers like discussing nukes? Nukes are awe-inspiring.
What are common misconceptions people have about nu-cu-lar weapons that you don't, like the the disappearance of Massive Retaliation policy in 70s?
>>29845593
>The three PGMs will weigh more than three nuclear warheads.
And we can assume that the three MIRVs were pretty much using up the Minuteman IIIs full effective throw weight. Which means, at best, we're back to parity (two PGMs, which is the Pk of one nuclear warhead, at best.)
Better yet, there's no actual treaty requirement in place to avoid MIRVs, so developing PGS abilities will have to weigh the other option - one effective warhead, versus *three* effective warheads. Worse, this is before one considers factors outside of simple redundancy and reliability - such as potential ABM intercept. Since you need to hit each target with at least two conventional munitions to ensure a kill, losing even one to ABM intercept risks invalidating the attack, so you're not benefiting from redundancy.
Of course, if we're going to stick with unitary warheads, the PGS option might offer some advantages, again vis a vis surviving terminal ABM intercept. To wit, I'd rather throw four bunker-busters at a target with strong ABM coverage than two large nuclear warheads; the math just works out better. One bunker-buster hitting is better than no nukes. But then you've got to carefully weigh the opportunity cost of which missiles you equip with the PGS and which get the unitary nuclear warheads. The whole point would be to enable you to engage more targets with your finite weapons; i.e. four PGMs on two missiles rather than three nukes on three missiles. But that would signal a significant strategic shift towards a counterforce strategy, and at that point you really, really have to ask why you're not just using MIRVs again.
This little chat has pretty decisively answered OPs question, I think, but I'll go ahead and state what you've implied - the reason that the chance-of-kill has to be ninety percent for attacking enemy nuclear silos is because you are playing for *all* the marbles. So you don't fuck around.
>>29845662
>And we can assume that the three MIRVs were pretty much using up the Minuteman IIIs full effective throw weight
Incorrect.
It also depends on the exact type of RV as well.
>why did the emphasis shift from mass destruction to removing the enemy's capability to strike?
Because otherwise it might not stay a limited exchange.
>But why not just strap a kinetic warhead on that thing and basically turn the missile into a bunker buster?
They weren't that accurate.
>>29845599
This is why biological and chemical warfare are far more terrifying than nukes ever could be.
>>29845719
>It also depends on the exact type of RV as well.
Quite so. I simply default to the pessimistic view, because that's probably what the actual strategy makers have to utilize, especially when considering the opportunity cost of how to equip a limited number of missiles. That, and there's all the engineering challenges, which is easy for someone untrained (i.e. me) to gloss over out of ignorance, so I try to keep my abstracting as balanced as possible. Weight savings from a unitary re-entry vehicle + two PGM bombs == three MIRV nukes? Mmmmaybe. I'm probably pushing my luck on that, but it's less likely to make an engineer break his foot off in my ass.
I'm also resisting the temptation to think of these as "literally modern PGMs just dropped into the atmosphere by a ballistic missile." Which we could certainly do - just engineer a system to deliver a JSOW-ER anywhere we want. And it would be... a JSOW-ER. With all the advantages and disadvantages that implies. Incredible freedom of maneuver/target footprint? Yeah. Ability to loiter? Double yeah. Ability to perform immediate BDA on enemy silos and select likely survivors for an immediate second-wave attack? Yep. Slow as fuck and an incredibly easy target for conventional SAMs, to say nothing of ABM capable systems? Oh yeah. At least a re-entry vehicle has the advantage of moving at incredible speeds, making for a hard target and a short interception window, if you want to use PGMs in a first-wave attack you need to preserve that same dynamic, at the very least. Slowing down the weapon enough to deploy a subsonic, conventional-style PGM would be a goddamned headache in itself; it's no longer a ballistic attack profile (it'd almost certainly have to be a semi-ballistic profile to use aerobraking, I'd think. Hence those hypersonic glide vehicles China's playing catch-up with.)
>>29845849
Even having one RV release normal-styled PGMs (with control surfaces and such) as submunitions like I was presuming earlier will take some doing - but at least that's achievable "soon" (unlike a lot of DARPA's PGS talk. They've talked about it for a while, I gather, and it's STILL talk.) Which means it's feasible to realize what the guy in >>29845117 's link mentioned; using PGS as a substitute for situations where deterrence has already failed, to lessen chances of escalation and to avoid collateral damage.
I rather suspect that PGS's dual-use nature is what's keeping its funding alive; any capability they develop for it can easily have a nuclear warhead swapped out for the payload, which raises all sorts of interesting possibilities. The loitering second attack munition comes to mind; gives you a possible way around the warhead fratricide issue, and once the first ones go off, ABM defenses below will be effectively suppressed.
>>29844128
Well, right, but your margin of error is dramatically increased.
>>29845593
>most of the people I work with do not agree with my opinions
Out of curiosity, what kind topics you have disagreements?
>>29845471
Ya know what anons talkn about.
IF it exists...blablabla
>>29845917
I can hazard a guess - a lot of people still think about nukes like they did during the Cold War, i.e. with knee-jerk hysteria and the fear that Russia will totally nuke us any time, we have to live in fear, Jesus Christ OMFG, etc. Met a guy on Slashdot like that not so long ago, commenting on an article about upgrading US freefall nuclear bombs (literally "so we're putting a JDAM kit on the B-61 because why not.") I spent some time calmly explaining to him that the international situation and strategic calculus is... different, these days. As well as the capabilities of our enemies, both real and imagined.
Ask any baby boomer about it, and you're likely to hear the same response. They formed their opinions on nuclear power balance in the 70s and they haven't bothered to update them. All these people wailing and fainting because "Trump is gonna start a nuclear war omg!?" They're still living in the 70s, where you have to tip-toe around and be Firm, But Controlled, in order to keep staring down the Russian Bear. You'd be amazed at how fucking quickly Logic flies out the window the instant nuclear bombs are brought up.
It's a damn shame, too, because Russia's been threatening to use their remaining nuclear capability to compensate for their conventional weaknesses; i.e. threatening a policy of first-use of tactical nukes. So the common populace's ignorance of the nuclear power balance and the game theory that goes into their use is going to be problematic in the coming decade.
>>29845948
Sounds fairly familiar. I'm quite young compared to baby boomer generation and most of my knowledge about nuclear warfare come from literature and not from politics/propaganda/fear mongering. It is quite hard to find good conversation when most common response is "In nuclear war every city is going to be nuked and our whole civilizations will be wiped out!".
I honestly hope that if the Pakys ever do nuke India that they make sure their bombs airburst.
The amount garbage, waste, and the already severely contaminated Indian soil that would be spread across the world from multiple ground level explosion would be the worst environmental disaster in human history.
Picture is of a park in the slums of New Delhi
On the subject of conventional/nuclear weapon accuracy....
Oppenheimer, do you think the US should have gone for nuclear kill vehicles in the mid-point defence system instead of kinetic? How much do you think would have been saved if they could reduce the accuracy requirement by several powers? Was the system designed to be conventional purely for political reasons?
>>29839510
Because nuclear weapons, or the use of them, is a policy decision.
Policy makers are idiots.
>>29846042
>Oppenheimer, do you think the US should have gone for nuclear kill vehicles in the mid-point defence system instead of kinetic?
I have "heard" that even the Sprint system (which used nuclear warheads) was so accurate that they had to de-tune the guidance a bit, because they didn't actually want a direct hit (it might damage the nuclear warhead and prevent detonation, while not completely destroying the target in similar fashion.) And Sprint was decades ago. I don't think guidance accuracy was ever the problem, so much as how to effectively destroy the munition.
See, by the time the warhead is falling towards you and you're executing a terminal intercept, it is fully ballistic. If you wing a missile with a kinetic interceptor, you ruin its aerodynamics and render it uncontrollable - it's useless. But an RV is a different story; it's just falling right towards the target. You might nail it hard, but it won't deviate its course very much - and if the nuclear warhead survived the impact in a functional state, you have accomplished little. If its a bigger one, it'll still hit close enough to do major damage.
If you nail an RV *outside* the atmosphere, however, you've just killed it, hands-down, because there's no way a compromised RV will survive atmospheric re-entry. It'll tumble and burn up right quick.
>>29845896
>chances of escalation and to avoid collateral damage.
If deterrence has failed, collateral damage and escalation is exactly what you want. You leverage those against your opponent to regain deterrence and end the war.
>>29845917
The need of nuclear weapons at all, the spending of money to replace aging weapons.
Those are the two main ones.
>>29846042
No. Kenetic kill is fine.
>>29839510
Early nuclear weapons were couldn't target anything but a City. As missile technology became feasible and improve, the option for tactical nuclear weaponry became plausible.
>>29846440
Was the sprint missile in that video glowing from heat towards the end? If so (and regardless really) that's badass.
>>29846563
Do you know much about Aster 30 and Aster 30 MK2?
I've been hearing that it will be a major step forward for BMD in Europe.
This anon was talking about it in a recent thread: https://desustorage.org/k/thread/29824218/#29828273
>>29846713
>Was the sprint missile in that video glowing from heat towards the end? If so (and regardless really) that's badass.
Yep. It accelerated at insane fucking speeds - it reached 40,000 feet something like ten seconds after launch. It was fucking insane.
>>29846713
Yeah.
It reached Mach 10.
Before it left the silo.
>>29846747
>“The US Aegis system is similar, but Sea Viper is more advanced… as it can engage multiple targets simultaneously.”
Cheeky fucker. Dunno about *that* claim, but I wouldn't expect it to be much worse, either. A quick google search tells me that they're developing an SM-3 equivalent for the Aster family (exo-atmospheric kinetic kill ABM missile), that'll definitely be a potent expansion of their defensive ability.
>>29847396
Well it does come from Jane's and Jane's is the pinnacle of all western proofs.
>>29846563
>The need of nuclear weapons
>need
SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED
