Originally posted by know you
If you want to go by military prowess then the US is ahead, both in conventional and nuclear capabilities, but when you talk about the nuclear capabilities its talking in terms of how many times over you can destroy the earth, and in that regards the Soviets win
You just contradicted yourself within two sentences.
quote:
Originally posted by know you It was never, ever a question of range.
It was always about range. Why do you think the Cuban Missile Crisis was such a big issue? Up until then, the USSR didn't have anything within practical striking distance of the US.
Krypton
quote:
Originally posted by Beat Blog
It was always about range. Why do you think the Cuban Missile Crisis was such a big issue? Up until then, the USSR didn't have anything within practical striking distance of the US.
They had inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBM).
denys envy
quote:
Originally posted by Krypton
is that hair on her chest?
beach* volleyball
*beach made of sand.
know you
quote:
Originally posted by Beat Blog
You just contradicted yourself within two sentences.
It was always about range. Why do you think the Cuban Missile Crisis was such a big issue? Up until then, the USSR didn't have anything within practical striking distance of the US.
You are looking at nuclear warfare in very blunt terms my friend.
The US has better accuracy, which enables a better first strike capability. The Trident D5 (Trident II) has a circular error probability (where a warhead will fall 50% of the time) of 200-300 feet. Each one of these missiles can carry up to 12 individually targeted warheads of up to 475 Kilotons (that's thousands of tons of TNT) in yield. For comparisons in yield, Hiroshima was only 13 Kilotons and it destroyed the whole city.
Alright, now lets talk about range, range is not an issue in how you are thinking of it. All these countries can hit each other, that has not been an issue. Range in nuclear warfare is all about TIME. The shorter amount of time it takes your missiles to reach the other guys the better.
Nuclear war will be fought in three stages.
The first stage is the most critical. In this stage you target the enemies missiles and bombers (hopefully while still on the ground). Here time to target and accuracy take the cake. The faster your missiles get there and the more accurate they are the more likely you are able to get their birds on the ground. The other half of this part is decapitation strikes on the enemy nations capital. Very depressed trajectory sub launched ballistic missiles will be used to take out the nations capitals, hopefully slowing the nations response time.
This is where the Trident D5 comes into play, its very accurate, very survivable (its in submarines), and has short flight times... With each missile boat carrying 24 of these you can hit a whole of targets very very fast.
I won't go into much detail about the second and third stages, but basically the second stage is to hit industrial and military complex targets, such as power plants, airports, naval and army bases, etc. The third stage is to target population centers.
The Cuban missile crisis was not about the range, the Soviets had missiles that could hit the US from Russia at that time, granted not many, and they were fairly unreliable, but they could. Cuba presented a shorter flight time. 10 minutes across the Eastern Seaboard. Not nearly enough time for the US to mobilize its nuclear forces.
Even at this time the US had missile systems in Turkey that could hit Moscow in about the same amount of time, but the US still maintained a fleet of Atlas and Titan/Titan II ICBM's in the US as well as a large heavy bomber force.
This was the same all the way up till the end of the Cold War, granted beyond SLBM forces the Soviets never placed ground launched missiles within short striking distance of the United States, but they did have MIRV tipped SS-20's on their western border within 2-3 minutes striking times of most of the western European capitals. The US had GLCM systems and the Pershing II systems in the UK and West Germany as well, all providing short flight times to Moscow. At this same time both sides maintained a massive set of ICBMs (SS-18 Satans among others in the Soviet Union, and Minuteman II/III and Peacekeeper systems in the US).
So I did not contradict myself, the US has more accurate/faster systems, but the Soviets/Russians have more systems, but that is all moot anyways because both sides have enough power to destroy the world many many times over.
I'm sort of a nuclear war buff... so I'm pretty sure I'm spot on with most of this information... :p
Beat Blog
quote:
Originally posted by Domesticated
It was always about range. Why do you think the Cuban Missile Crisis was such a big issue? Up until then, the USSR didn't have anything within practical striking distance of the US.
Practical striking distance; i.e time.
quote:
Originally posted by know you
You are looking at nuclear warfare in very blunt terms my friend.
The US has better accuracy, which enables a better first strike capability. The Trident D5 (Trident II) has a circular error probability (where a warhead will fall 50% of the time) of 200-300 feet. Each one of these missiles can carry up to 12 individually targeted warheads of up to 475 Kilotons (that's thousands of tons of TNT) in yield. For comparisons in yield, Hiroshima was only 13 Kilotons and it destroyed the whole city.
:haha:
300 feet makes a difference with a nuclear warhead?
Meh, you clearly know what you're talking about far more than I do, so I'm going to give up right here, especially since you went to all the trouble of typing that huge essay.
know you
quote:
Originally posted by Beat Blog
Practical striking distance; i.e time.
Your statement was that the Soviets lost the Cold War because of the range of their missiles. Even if you can justify your statement about the Cuban Missile Crisis it doesn't negate the fact that even if they did have missiles there they could still have waged a terrible nuclear holocaust from their own soil.
pkcRAISTLIN
lol. know you obviously = nou.
know you
quote:
Originally posted by Beat Blog
Practical striking distance; i.e time.
:haha:
300 feet makes a difference with a nuclear warhead?
Meh, you clearly know what you're talking about far more than I do, so I'm going to give up right here, especially since you went to all the trouble of typing that huge essay.
Just to clarify, actually it does matter. Missile silos are very very very tough structures.
This is true to the extent that not only does the US have accurate missiles to target these structures, they usually devote 2 warheads per silo.
Basically what I am trying to say is a confrontation with the US and Russia would most likely end the world as we know it. :eyespop:
know you
quote:
Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
lol. know you obviously = nou.
man if you are the first person to figure that out... :nervous:
pkcRAISTLIN
quote:
Originally posted by know you
man if you are the first person to figure that out... :nervous:
well i wouldnt have known except for the instant hardon youve shown for nuclear war ;)
know you
quote:
Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
well i wouldnt have known except for the instant hardon youve shown for nuclear war ;)
haha... well it is my greatest fear and my greatest love... :wtf:
SuspicionVandit
oh please.
October 16, 1962. President Kennedy received word that the Soviets were in the process of deploying intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Cuba. The president demanded that the Soviets dismantle and remove the missiles. At the same time, he announced a naval blockade to prevent further missile shipments from reaching Cuba. But the Soviets didn't back down, instead placing their armed forces on secondary alert. Soviet transport ships carrying missiles continued on course toward Cuba. US and Soviet forces went on alert for an all-out nuclear war. Frantic negotiations were conducted through the UN's Emergency Security Council and unofficial channels to end the hair-trigger standoff. Finally, on October 28, the Soviet Union agreed to remove its missiles from Cuba. And so the world avoided a nuclear holocaust. But in order to get the Soviets to pull their missiles out, we had to make a deal.
The Jupiter IRBMs deployed in Turkey were obsolete and we were going to get rid of them anyway. They had no strategic value whatsoever to either the US or the Russians. The Turkey deal was a ruse - a cover story that was fed to the other intelligence agencies around the world.
They wanted us to return Sokolov. That famous rocket scientist. Nikolai Stepanovich Sokolov. He's head of the OKB-754 Design Bureau, one of the Soviet's top-secret weapon research facilities, and the East's foremost expert on weapons development. It was either give up Sokolov or risk full-scale nuclear war. In the end, we had no choice.
