The Mess

[Smitty-48]

The trajectory of the DSP is well known by the Russians, they've been tracking the DSP for decades, they're not manuevering, and they're in geosyncronous orbit, the Russians know exactly where they are, and hitting them is not a problem, when you're promiity detonating a nuke.

[Smitty-48]

You do not understand how satellites work.

Actually, it's clearly you who do not, you surmise that there are many sattelites watching the CONUS, when that is not the case, and you surmise that the one sattalite watching the CONUS for a first strike, is somehow invulnerable to anti-sattelite weapons, which it is not, merely a question of a two stage ASAT, stage one to low orbit, second stage on command to the DSP eye in the sky. First response of the United States to the DSP going down, will not be launch on warning, but rather diagnostic check for fault, the window to the Great Plains opens therein, by the time confidence is high that the sattelite is down by counterforce, the counterforce has already been executed.

There's no reason to be concerned with watching CONUS - where did that come from?? The subject was "underwater tac nukes". Presumably, you weren't talking about firing them off in Lake Erie.

The American SSBN's do not actually roam the worlds oceans, that's a myth for public consumption, for survivable second strike, they are patrolling in bastions close to home, just off the CONUS in the Sargasso Sea around Bermuda, and in the Aluetian Basin off of Alaska, the Russians know where they are in a general sense, and since the Soviets acquired the towed array sonar by KGB espionage, have been able to locate them from a distance therein, from there it's just a question of dropping a nuclear depth charge on them, which, the DSP watching the CONUS would detect, if the Russians hadn't just nuked that eye in the sky, just prior to H-Hour.

The NCA is going to figure out what is going on, but again, not in time to do anything about it, in the face of an agressive counterforce executed with resolve to prevail.

During the Cold War, the American Cold Warriors were fully aware that launch on warning was not at all invulnaerable to counterforce, so in repsonse they built massive redundancy into the TRIAD, but since the end of the Cold War, the Cold Warriors have not been running things, and so that massive redundancy insurance policy against counterforce, has now gone away.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Actually, it's clearly you who do not, you surmise that there are many sattelites watching the CONUS, when that is not the case, and you surmise that the one sattalite watching the CONUS for a first strike, is somehow invulnerable to anti-sattelite weapons, which it is not, merely a question of a two stage ASAT, stage one to low orbit, second stage on command to the DSP eye in the sky. First response of the United States to the DSP going down, will not be launch on warning, but rather diagnostic check for fault, the window to the Great Plains opens therein, by the time confidence is high that the sattelite is down by counterforce, the counterforce has already been executed.

There's no reason to be concerned with watching CONUS - where did that come from?? The subject was "underwater tac nukes". Presumably, you weren't talking about firing them off in Lake Erie.

The American SSBN's do not actually roam the worlds oceans, that's a myth for public consumption, for survivable second strike, they are patrolling in bastions close to home, just off the CONUS in the Sargasso Sea around Bermuda, and in the Aluetian Basin off of Alaska, the Russians know where they are in a general sense, and since the Soviets acquired the towed array sonar by KGB espionage, have been able to locate them from a distance therein, from there it's just a question of dropping a nuclear depth charge on them, which, the DSP watching the CONUS would detect, if the Russians hadn't just nuked that eye in the sky, just prior to H-Hour.

The NCA is going to figure out what is going on, but again, not in time to do anything about it, in the face of an agressive counterforce executed with resolve to prevail.

Riiiiight... So our entire network of weather satellites just fail to detect a high of around 60,000,000F on a tuesday afternoon, or the tsunami washing over Florida, while nuclear weapons are hurtling towards us, and we are completely unaware.

You are stretching beyond the limits of fevered neocon imagination, in order to keep your premise.

[Smitty-48]

Riiiiight... So our entire network of weather satellites just fail to detect a high of around 60,000,000F on a tuesday afternoon, or the tsunami washing over Florida, while nuclear weapons are hurtling towards us, and we are completely unaware.

You are stretching beyond the limits of fevered neocon imagination, in order to keep your premise.

Weather sattalites do not detect SLBM launches, there is only one type of sattelite which can detect an SLBM launch, wide area infrared staring array from geosyncronous orbit, the DSP early warning constellation, that's the only eye in the sky which will detect nuclear depth charges going off, and SLBM launches right after, and there's only five of them, only 3 active, and only one watching the CONUS and asociated SSBN survivable second strike bastions, poke that eye out, and America is blind for a first strike window therein, which only shooting from the hip and firing blind on a hair trigger could overcome, which, the NCA is not really going to do.

[TheReal_ND]

Even if that were the case there is no chain of command that I am aware of regarding commercial satellites. The man responsible for Dish Network or whatever the equivalent was back in the day spent about 200 million two times failing to launch a satellite into orbit. It was the third time when his eager Christian component convinced him to attach a mini Bible to the craft that he finally started his satellite TV empire.

[Smitty-48]

What the Russians know, is that the American TRIAD is not really fired by a Dead Hand, and the NCA is not really going to fire blind from the hip on a split second hair trigger without knowing what is actually happening, the Americans are not keen to start a nuclear war by launch on false warning, and since that almost happened in 1979, are much more circumspect about it, all sorts of checks have been built into the system, to make sure the real deal is in effect, before the CIP Keys and Gold Codes are released, and within that prudent circumspection, the window for counterforce exists.

There was a time when the TRIAD was so massively redundant and dispersed, that it wouldn't have mattered if the Russians got the jump, but that is no longer in effect, come the "peace dividend".

The Russians however, never got the memo on that, and have retained their inherent counterforce capability regardless, and have in fact been refining it as they go.

[TheReal_ND]

It really doesn't take as much as some people seem to intimate. Wipe the eastern board an cut the cables for good effect. What now? Launch a few nukes at Moscow? They already evacuated to bomb shelters so what? The irony is that the liberal media will be reporting imminent nuclear exchange long before anybody in America achieves unlocked silos.

[Smitty-48]

You wouldn't launch a retaliation in the wake of a counterforce, because all the Russians would have struck, is a handful of remote military bases, some submarines and a couple sattelites in high orbit, there's no such thing as a countervalue first strike, all of America's cities would be intact, the vast majority of the country would be untouched by the counterforce, all they would haved nuked, is your strategic nukes, the sun comes up the next day, and America itself, is entirely intact, other than being disarmed of its strategic countervalue assets.

Are Americans really going to demand that the NCA retaliate against Moscow with the limited ad hoc tactical assets remaining, for the loss of F.E. Warren AFB and Co, when that would incite the Russians to launch a massive countervalue retalaition against all of America's population centres? I think not.

[TheReal_ND]

the vast majority of the country would be untouched by the counterforce

Fuck you. Can't even leave in the best parts.

[Smitty-48]

But the cities is where the liberals live, the cities must be kept intact, because that is who is going to capitulate to the Russians.

Fly Over Country might invoke Deo Vindice and relaliate in the name of the Lord, confident in the afterlife to come, can't nuke the cities, because that would leave the God Fearing Red Blooded Hot Headed Rednecks in charge, and they probably would fight on, usque ad finem.

The Russians would be seeking capitulation by nuclear blackmail against the urban population centres, and to get that, they would need to keep the bourgeois panty waists alive and in charge.