It is vital that the U.S. destroy China within the next 20 years.

[Dayton3]

BTW, where would we put 5,000 ABM’s?

Look at some old maps of proposed ABM sites. There were 17 planned launch sites across the U.S. for the Sprint & Safeguard ABMs. With at least 100 missiles at each site. That's space for 1,700 ABMs just right there. If the U.S. built that many ABMs you can be pretty sure we would be able to find launch sites for them even if we had to put a bunch of them at sea. The plans to base ABMs at sea goes all the way back to the 1960s. Look up "SABMIS" if you doubt me.

 

[Hamish Howl]

6 seconds??? More like 10-15 minutes.

This is dumb and wrong, unless you think the ABMs are going to hit the launch site.

If they are ICBMs, you know about them for 37 minutes (from China) or 28 minutes (from Kamchatka). If they are submarine based, you have 10-15 minutes.

But ICBM reentry - the point when you can target them - takes about 6-7 seconds. Chances are that submarine based missiles are cruise missiles, and you won't be able to stop them.

This concept of "survivable nuclear war" is and has always been a joke.

 

[Rich2018]

To even consider defending against a nuclear strike is insanity

The only defense is that anyone use nuclear weapons would suffer mutual destruction.

 

[Questerr]

Look at some old maps of proposed ABM sites. There were 17 planned launch sites across the U.S. for the Sprint & Safeguard ABMs. With at least 100 missiles at each site. That's space for 1,700 ABMs just right there. If the U.S. built that many ABMs you can be pretty sure we would be able to find launch sites for them even if we had to put a bunch of them at sea. The plans to base ABMs at sea goes all the way back to the 1960s. Look up "SABMIS" if you doubt me.

There were also plans for a nuclear armed moon base in the 1950’s. So clearly it would be trivially easy to build one, right?

Congress would never pay for 1,700 ABM’s, let along 5,000. Also you are aware that Sprint and Safeguard relied on nuclear warheads and had they been used would have irradiated a significant part of America, right? There’s a reason they never built them in any real numbers.

Note: the US didn’t and wouldn’t have built that many ABM’s, so no we also wouldn’t have found places to put them.

As for sea launched ABM’s, no sea launched missile has shown midcourse interception capability even in testing.

 

[Questerr]

You can tell where nuclear weapons were built after they are detonated genius. It is a pretty well established science at this point.

Who is going to be examining these warheads when the government has collapsed and the nation has fallen apart?

 

[Dayton3]

This is dumb and wrong, unless you think the ABMs are going to hit the launch site.

If they are ICBMs, you know about them for 37 minutes (from China) or 28 minutes (from Kamchatka). If they are submarine based, you have 10-15 minutes.

But ICBM reentry - the point when you can target them - takes about 6-7 seconds. Chances are that submarine based missiles are cruise missiles, and you won't be able to stop them.

This concept of "survivable nuclear war" is and has always been a joke.

Any cruise missile can be shot down by run of the mill jet fighters.

No Chinese or Russian submarine would ever be able to launch its missiles as they are tailed as soon as they leave port by U.S. attack submarines which have standing orders to destroy them if they open their missile tube hatches to launch without prior clearance (for tests). And before you say "but they can hit the U.S. from their own port" (only Russian submarines can do that anyway) I would like to point out that any nuclear missile submarine sitting in its port is

A) At maximum possible range from the U.S. which means warning times comparable to land based ICBMs
B) Hideously vulnerable to run of the mill weapons attacks from U.S. forces nearby.

There is no such thing as an "unwinnable war" and never will be.

And before you say "U.S. submarines cannot tail ballistic missile submarines" I would suggest you read up on Commander Whitey Mack and the U.S.S. Lapon.

He trailed a brand new Soviet nuclear missile submarine on one of its earliest missions throughout its entire mission. More than 40 days and this was some 50 years ago. And this was despite an official in the Nixon Admin. accidentally leaking to the press the presence of the Lapon on the trail of the Soviet boomer.

 

[Dayton3]

There were also plans for a nuclear armed moon base in the 1950’s. So clearly it would be trivially easy to build one, right?

Congress would never pay for 1,700 ABM’s, let along 5,000. Also you are aware that Sprint and Safeguard relied on nuclear warheads and had they been used would have irradiated a significant part of America, right? There’s a reason they never built them in any real numbers.

Wrong.

Safeguard would only have detonated at high altitudes so its radiation would've had little impact on the ground.

Sprint's warhead was an enhanced radiation warhead that killed incoming warheads with a neutron pulse. The radiation it produced would also have little impact on the Earth's surface. And it have special safeguards to prevent it from detonating at too low altitude if it missed.

 

[Dayton3]

To even consider defending against a nuclear strike is insanity

The only defense is that anyone use nuclear weapons would suffer mutual destruction.
[/QUOTE

"MAD" was never a reasonable "strategy".

It was (and is) a so called strategy only for nations too cheap to defend themselves.

 

[Hamish Howl]

Any cruise missile can be shot down by run of the mill jet fighters.

So could the planes that hit the WTC. If they had been on the spot. But they weren't. You are assuming an omniscient operator.

No Chinese or Russian submarine would ever be able to launch its missiles as they are tailed as soon as they leave port by U.S. attack submarines which have standing orders to destroy them if they open their missile tube hatches to launch without prior clearance (for tests). And before you say "but they can hit the U.S. from their own port" (only Russian submarines can do that anyway) I would like to point out that any nuclear missile submarine sitting in its port is

So they surface and open them. If they're prepped, that gives them 3-4 minutes before even a sea lance can get to them.

A) At maximum possible range from the U.S. which means warning times comparable to land based ICBMs
B) Hideously vulnerable to run of the mill weapons attacks from U.S. forces nearby.

You keep adding stipulations that require the enemy to do what you expect them to do, and have our people magically be able to shoot down MIRV dumps.

There is no such thing as an "unwinnable war" and never will be.

I can believe YOU or I can believe generals going all the way back to Sun Tzu.

And before you say "U.S. submarines cannot tail ballistic missile submarines" I would suggest you read up on Commander Whitey Mack and the U.S.S. Lapon.

I made no such claim. What I'm saying is that it wouldn't help.

 

[Dayton3]

Who is going to be examining these warheads when the government has collapsed and the nation has fallen apart?

satellites for one.

 

[Hamish Howl]

Safeguard would only have detonated at high altitudes so its radiation would've had little impact on the ground.

But we already know that's false.

 

[Hamish Howl]

satellites for one.

Satellites are going to observe shipping containers with nukes in them?

 

[Questerr]

Wrong.

Safeguard would only have detonated at high altitudes so its radiation would've had little impact on the ground.

Sprint's warhead was an enhanced radiation warhead that killed incoming warheads with a neutron pulse. The radiation it produced would also have little impact on the Earth's surface. And it have special safeguards to prevent it from detonating at too low altitude if it missed.

“Little impact” is a relative term. You detonate a Sprint warhead over a city, you EMP the city’s infrastructure and any consumer goods with electronic components (for instance, cars) and release enough radiation to massively increase cancer rates.

 

[Hamish Howl]

“Little impact” is a relative term. You detonate a Sprint warhead over a city, you EMP the city’s infrastructure and any consumer goods with electronic components (for instance, cars) and release enough radiation to massively increase cancer rates.

I was getting to that, but you got there first.

 

[Dayton3]

So could the planes that hit the WTC. If they had been on the spot. But they weren't. You are assuming an omniscient operator.

And you and that other guy in this thread assume all powerful Chinese and Russians able to perfectly launch thousands of perfectly functioning nuclear weapons that currently do not even exist.

 

[Questerr]

satellites for one.

Satellites are going to read the signatures of radioactive particles that don’t extend beyond the atmosphere? Do you have any idea how stupid that claim is?

 

[Hamish Howl]

And you and that other guy in this thread assume all powerful Chinese and Russians able to perfectly launch thousands of perfectly functioning nuclear weapons that currently do not even exist.

China has 260 warheads and a crap ton of decoys.

 

[Dayton3]

“Little impact” is a relative term. You detonate a Sprint warhead over a city, you EMP the city’s infrastructure and any consumer goods with electronic components (for instance, cars) and release enough radiation to massively increase cancer rates.

Thousands dying from cancer in 20 years is a far, far, far lesser danger than deaths from a nuclear warhead actually striking an urban area. Wouldn't you agree?

 

[Questerr]

And you and that other guy in this thread assume all powerful Chinese and Russians able to perfectly launch thousands of perfectly functioning nuclear weapons that currently do not even exist.

You assume Congress is going to fund 5,000 ABM’s when they barely wanted to pay for 44 of them.

 

[Dayton3]

China has 260 warheads and a crap ton of decoys.

We don't have to target the decoys. All the way back in the 1980s, U.S. scientists knew how to tell decoys from actual warheads by their different interactions as they entered the upper atmosphere.

and do you have actual proof the Chinese have a "crap ton of decoys" anyway?

 

[Questerr]

Thousands dying from cancer in 20 years is a far, far, far lesser danger than deaths from a nuclear warhead actually striking an urban area. Wouldn't you agree?

EMPing a city will immediately kill lots of those people, so cancer in 20 years isn’t going to matter.

 

[Dayton3]

You assume Congress is going to fund 5,000 ABM’s when they barely wanted to pay for 44 of them.

That's a political question. A case can be made for it. Especially if you are able to distribute the contracts for building the ABMs to the right congressional districts.

 

[Dayton3]

EMPing a city will immediately kill lots of those people, so cancer in 20 years isn’t going to matter.

EMP hardening is not rocket science.

 

[Questerr]

We don't have to target the decoys. All the way back in the 1980s, U.S. scientists knew how to tell decoys from actual warheads by their different interactions as they entered the upper atmosphere.

and do you have actual proof the Chinese have a "crap ton of decoys" anyway?

The sensors on ABM kill vehicles just see heat, so all a decoy has to do is mimic a true warhead’s heat signature.

 

[Questerr]

That's a political question. A case can be made for it. Especially if you are able to distribute the contracts for building the ABMs to the right congressional districts.

So you make your plan public and give your opponents a total telegraph of your intentions to nuke them with impunity in a few years? What stops your opponents from counteracting you now or just nuking you before the system is built?