Concept of deterrence

[Ninurta]

PLUS - you can only hit 1/10 of the targets, leaving a whole lot of real estate untouched and still ready for business.

Part of the MIRV concept involved fancy geometries.  Many of those ICMBs were only for a single target ... and that target was to be annihilated ... not just hit.  I've played around with those simulators you can find on-line.  They're nothing like real DoD's estimates.

MIRVs were initially developed as a blanketing strategy - you can cover more area with 10 abutting or slightly overlapping 100 kt weapons than you can with one single 1 mt weapon, even though the total yield is the same. "More bang for the buck". There is a link to the DoD handbook I was using back  in the day to compute things like that in the post above. it has all the formulas needed, and the ones used by DoD in it.

It also had idealized fallout calculators in it, which were utterly useless in a real world scenario, because fallout distribution is never ideal due to weather dispersion. They could give you a general idea, but did not account for things like changes in wind direction after the fallout was aloft, or "hot spots" downrange caused by rainfall and snowfall carrying concentrations with it as it came down in any given area downrange. In the real world, that is just the luck of the draw, and can't be accurately predicted.

A strategic (-vs- tactical) weapon will seriously fuck some shit up based on the where and how of their detonation.  Tac nukes are for mopping up.  We'd see the smaller stuff deployed to maximum effectiveness if Putin decided he wants to acquire European real estate with no serfs left to work the land.  And, we'd likely see tac nukes after they took DC (and the surrounding area) off the map.  Hard to have a rifle behind every blade of grass ... if there's no grass left.

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SSBNs and Tac Nukes both have the advantage of surprise.  Very very hard to get things going against a threat with such a short flight time.  We developed some cool tech to strip that advantage.  It worked on the same principal we hoped would take out a ('50s - '80s) Soviet strategic launch against the US mainland.  To my (limited) knowledge, that was the only system we've ever deployed that could launch a nuclear-tipped anything within ten seconds of an order being given.

We may be referring to different things as "tactical nukes" - the ones I'm talking about were also referred to as "battlefield nukes", and were generally supercharged howitzer shells with low-yield nuclear payloads that had a damage radius measured in meters. anywhere from 500 to 1000 meters. They weren't really a danger to anyone not on the battlefield, or farther away than howitzer range. In order for Russians to hit us with those, they would have to disembark with howitzer batteries here in the US.

We talk about Putin.  But, who is more at risk of being deposed ... Putin, or our drooling idiots?  No telling what will happen if the Great Resetters look like their plans are gonna get reset.

Odd. Just this morning, I told Grace as we were driving back from her doctor's appointment that I was more scared of BidenHarris than I ever would be of Putin. Putin is half a world away and controls nothing here, but BidenHarris is in our back yard, and is alleged to be running the US. He is certainly the more clear and present danger of the two to Americans, to my way of thinking.

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