Concept of deterrence

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Concept of deterrence — American map from the Cold War (1961) illustrating the U.S. response in a hypothetical nuclear war. The map was published in The Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper and designed by Andrew Shallo.




Pre-Strangelove insanity that they would nuke Mongolia too just for being involuntarily along for the ride. I grew up on a SAC AF base and remember waving to the B-52 pilots almost everyday. My parents had straps on the cupboard doors to keep the glasses from falling out.

Cold War Image of the US Strategic Air Command's Reach Into Soviet Russia and China Published 1 Week Before the Berlin Wall

Cold war era propaganda map, illustrating the US Strategic Air Command's preparedness for "a decisive counterattack should an aggressor dare strike," and explaining that "the retaliatory power of the Strategic Air Command rests on three foundations. . ."

Published less than 4 months after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and 14 months before the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The map illustrates the various point from which the US can strike Russia and China, with illustrations of a B2 Bomber, Snark Intercontinental Missile (5000 mile range) and a B47 Stratojet Medium Range Bomber.

The map illustrates the capacity of the US for Aerial Refueling, and the paths of the weaponry noted above.

The map was undoubtedly a means of calming American anxieties (or fomenting the feelings of long term risk) during a particularly sensitive time of the cold war.

Concept of deterrence (Huge map zoom)

[NightskyeB4Dawn]

The map was undoubtedly a means of calming American anxieties (or fomenting the feelings of long term risk) during a particularly sensitive time of the cold war.

Concept of deterrence (Huge map zoom)

Shows you just how weird I am, I guess.

I don't find the map calming at all. It makes me want to immediately look at the maps that show all the various points where we can be struck by our enemies. I don't think for one second they are just going to sit there and allow themselves to be attacked and not fight back.

[Ninurta]

In the event of a nuclear exchange, I would guess the US is oh so screwed now that it ain't even worth crying over. Bush and Clinton "negotiated" us right out of the MAD deterrent, and there really isn't much to keep Russia from lighting us up right now.

They have around 3 times more warheads than we do, thanks to those dumbassed "negotiations". Granted, they claim that most of their warheads are "tacctical nukes", but that really isn't all that comforting. tactical nukes have a smaller destructive range of around 500m to 1 km. They're like super-mortars, but the ICBM advantage is really where the meat of the matter is.

They still have underground fallout shelters to protect their citizenry, and we don't any more. Used to be, every public school and government building had a stocked fallout shelter in the basement. I've not seen one in years now that does. Granted, the stock in the shelters were almost all out of date, but it was something. Russia, in contrast, has miles of underground tunnels stocked with supplies in the event of a dustup.

The US relies on us to figure it out for ourselves. I reckon that's ok, because most folks can't be assed to figure it out, so they would die and leave more for the rest.

They only have around half the population to protect, and a damn sight more facilities to protect them, and as much or more area to distribute them to after the fact, to avoid the fallout concentrations.

Nah, if it comes to that, we're done for.

.

[Ninurta]

The map was undoubtedly a means of calming American anxieties (or fomenting the feelings of long term risk) during a particularly sensitive time of the cold war.

Concept of deterrence (Huge map zoom)

Shows you just how weird I am, I guess.

I don't find the map calming at all. It makes me want to immediately look at the maps that show all the various points where we can be struck by our enemies. I don't think for one second they are just going to sit there and allow themselves to be attacked and not fight back.

Right now, Russia can strike anywhere in the US. Korea is limited to the Left Coast, Hawaii, and Alaska, but Russia can tag us anywhere they want to. I'm not sure of the Chinese capability.

I would expect Washington DC to be radioactive dust suspended in the atmosphere and drifting eastward on the prevailing winds somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes into the war. Russia can tag London about 5 minutes in, from launch, so I'm extrapolating from that. Missile silos like the ones in the Dakotas are hardened, but will be targeted all the same - yeah, even way out there in the hinterlands. Same for airports, both military and civilian. Remember, a Boeing 747 is just a bomber with a flashy paint job to the Russians.

Ditto military installations, government centers, and manufacturing centers.

I remember all the "snow route" signs in Northern VA. Those were not snow routes, they were marked trails from DC into underground shelters in WV for government officials. They had coded directions on the back of each sign. It so happens that I know some folks who are unhappy enough to drop bridges and crater roadways in the event that the balloon goes up, to prevent those government lackeys from getting to their cushy shelters. The theory is, "you started this shit, you don't get to run away and hide in a cushy space - you're gonna scrap to survive it the same as your citizenry".

Helicopter rides in instead of roadways? Do you know what can be done to a chopper with a concrete filled coffee can and about 10 feet of aircraft cable attached to it when you launch it up into the rotors? Nope, that ain't a solution, either.

I'd hate to be one of the "Keepers" that man those shelters when they think it's safe to come back out. It ain't gonna be. I don't care how many guns they have in there - it ain't gonna be enough for all the pissed off citizens waiting for them to pop the hatch. The Russians and their UN troops coming in to "help" ain't going to be all they need to worry over.

The sad facts of life are that there are just folks out there who give no shits about "continuity of government" when that government is doing it's level damndest to destroy a nation and it's citizens. The folks doing that ain't gonna have the special privileges in place that they thought they did.

Some times, life sucks like that when you're trying to destroy a world.

.

[727Sky]

The map was undoubtedly a means of calming American anxieties (or fomenting the feelings of long term risk) during a particularly sensitive time of the cold war.

Concept of deterrence (Huge map zoom)

Shows you just how weird I am, I guess.

I don't find the map calming at all. It makes me want to immediately look at the maps that show all the various points where we can be struck by our enemies. I don't think for one second they are just going to sit there and allow themselves to be attacked and not fight back.

Right now, Russia can strike anywhere in the US. Korea is limited to the Left Coast, Hawaii, and Alaska, but Russia can tag us anywhere they want to. I'm not sure of the Chinese capability.

I would expect Washington DC to be radioactive dust suspended in the atmosphere and drifting eastward on the prevailing winds somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes into the war. Russia can tag London about 5 minutes in, from launch, so I'm extrapolating from that. Missile silos like the ones in the Dakotas are hardened, but will be targeted all the same - yeah, even way out there in the hinterlands. Same for airports, both military and civilian. Remember, a Boeing 747 is just a bomber with a flashy paint job to the Russians.

Ditto military installations, government centers, and manufacturing centers.

I remember all the "snow route" signs in Northern VA. Those were not snow routes, they were marked trails from DC into underground shelters in WV for government officials. They had coded directions on the back of each sign. It so happens that I know some folks who are unhappy enough to drop bridges and crater roadways in the event that the balloon goes up, to prevent those government lackeys from getting to their cushy shelters. The theory is, "you started this shit, you don't get to run away and hide in a cushy space - you're gonna scrap to survive it the same as your citizenry".

Helicopter rides in instead of roadways? Do you know what can be done to a chopper with a concrete filled coffee can and about 10 feet of aircraft cable attached to it when you launch it up into the rotors? Nope, that ain't a solution, either.

I'd hate to be one of the "Keepers" that man those shelters when they think it's safe to come back out. It ain't gonna be. I don't care how many guns they have in there - it ain't gonna be enough for all the pissed off citizens waiting for them to pop the hatch. The Russians and their UN troops coming in to "help" ain't going to be all they need to worry over.

The sad facts of life are that there are just folks out there who give no shits about "continuity of government" when that government is doing it's level damndest to destroy a nation and it's citizens. The folks doing that ain't gonna have the special privileges in place that they thought they did.

Some times, life sucks like that when you're trying to destroy a world.

.

Clinton sold or gave guidance hardware/software to China for their missiles.. Now they land on the moon. I read or saw how under Obama we went from Merv war heads down to one war head per ICBM ?? and most of our stuff is 30 years old with a warranty of only 10 years !!

Maybe this is why there are not more ETs flying around... an advanced civilization manages to destroy themselves by their own tribal warcraft

[EndtheMadnessNow]

I've often wondered going back to the 50s and some of those RAND papers on building underground cities are now ready for habitat. I'm sure they've made great progress with those Elon Musk Boring machines by now. The mil/COG folks will disappear below while the rest of us melt away.



Also, I've wondered if those nukes would actually still give the big firestorm kracken booms of scortched earth. Last time anyone detonated a nuke was like 25-30 years ago and they need constant maintenance due to core decay. Well, I guess a dirty bomb is just as bad. We might just annihilate ourselves out of existence or back to the stone age and we're forced to become hunter/gatherers.

On the flip-side seeing how this world has turned into idiocracy and seemingly everything is theater, nobody (us the sheeple) is going anywhere as in below nor an off-world safe haven.

Think I'm more concerned of a potential bio-bomb going off causing a 'real' pandemic...after all evil Bill Gates did say people will take the next one alot more seriously. Like to have dropped kick that smirk right off his face when he said it.

Choose your weapon of annihilation/fear, but once they have machines scaled up to do all the work they won't need any of us and 8+ billion is just too much to manage in the evil cabal thought stream.

Remember when the USSR after 9 years finally exited in defeat out of Afghanistan in 1989.? What happened to the USSR ~2 years later?

Remember when Biden ordered the disastrous exit out of Afghanistan? What might happen to America in about 2 years?

All I know is I don't know what lies ahead. Be prepared for the big storm.


I'll reserve ya'll a spot.

[kdog]

Not really worried, I'll be sitting outside with a cold one watching the fireworks until my face melts.

[Ninurta]

Clinton sold or gave guidance hardware/software to China for their missiles.. Now they land on the moon. I read or saw how under Obama we 'swent from Merv war heads down to one war head per ICBM ?? and most of our stuff is 30 years old with a warranty of only 10 years !!

Maybe this is why there are not more ETs flying around... an advanced civilization manages to destroy themselves by their own tribal warcraft

Over and above the dumbassery of selling State Secrets to Chinese agents on portable hard drives, getting rid of MIRV in favor of one warhead per missile is the epitome of dumbassery. I'm almost shocked that the general staff allowed it, but when I consider our military state of readiness and the political nature of generalship, which ought to have a more martial nature, I can't say that it surprises me.

Here's why getting rid of MIRVs and going to one warhead per missile is as dumb as a box of rocks on a hog's ass, for the uninitiated -

"MIRV" stands for "multiple independent re-entry vehicle". A MIRV missile has up to 10 warheads per missile, rather than a single warhead. that means it can hit 10 targets instead of one. More bang for the buck.  But there is more to it than just more hits per launch.

Most MIRV warheads are around 100kt yield. That is the explosive force of 100 thousand tons of TNT. Sounds like a lot of boom, but then you hear about the once upon a time standard US nuclear missile of 1 to 3 MEGATONS yield. That is one to three MILLION tons of TNT, Now, that sounds like a really BIG boom compared to a mere 100 kt, but it's really not, either. Those were too big to pop into MIRVs, so one warhead per rocket. but a megaton at ten times the power of  100 kilotons ought to do the job, right?

Here's where physics comes into the equation and buggers up the fear factor they tried to push in the 1980's. 10 times the yield ought to give 10 times the damage in the public mind, but it ain't so. When stuff blows up, it blows up in 3 dimensions - the blast goes in all directions from the explosion. because of that, the power is distributed in a spherical volume... and the same power in the volume of a ball just doesn't go as far as if it went in a single direction in a straight line, or in only two directions in a flat plane.

So the destruction of a 3 dimensional explosion varies as the cube root of the yield, not linearly. In our example of 100 kt vs, 1mt, the 1 mt bomb tears up about 3 times as much shit, not 10 times as much shit. So, with a MIRV with 10 re-entry warheads, you can hit 10 targets and tear up the full compliment of stuff. With  a single 1 MT warhead, you tear up about 1/3 as much stuff (only 3x of a single MIRV warhead, but you've got 10 MIRVs and only one single megatonner, so the MIRVs multiply destructive power three fold - 1/3 the damage, but times 10 warheads) , and only on a single target. Most of the stuff decimated in that single strike ain't even target, it's just collateral damage.

It's like the difference between shooting a bear with a .22 rimfire and shooting it with a 12 gauge shotgun.

So, yeah, getting rid of the MIRVs was a very fine bit of dumbassery from a strategic standpoint. Most strategists try not to weaken their position. They'd prefer to strengthen it, so that their babies grow up into adults.

ETA: I did some math. The cube root of 10 (for 10 times the yield) is 2.015 times the destructive range. Just over twice the boom for 10 times the yield. If we postulate a 27my bomb vs a 1 mt bomb for 27 times the megatonnage of 1 mt, THAT is only 3x the destructive power. My math above was off, as I was trying to do it from memory instead of with a calculator.

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

We can't hurt them nearly as bad as they can hurt us.


.

[Snarl]

I read or saw how under Obama we went from MIRV warheads down to one warhead per ICBM?? And, most of our stuff is 30 years old with a warranty of only 10 years!!

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.

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.

Much like our two-front strategies as conventional deterrents, there were multi-front capabilities for strategic nuclear response as well.  The nuclear football can trigger/respond to one or several of those based on what is whispered to the President.  Scarier still is what our SSBNs are supposed to do, because (contrary to what Hollywood told us) those can go independent (like Putin's Dead Hand).  The SLBMs they sail with are still packing multiple warheads.

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.

When word got out we could take out in-flight tac nukes too, the OPFOR adopted a cheap and effective air-blanketing strategy to counter it.  And now they've got supersonic aircraft carrying hypersonic delivery systems which are just too fast to take out of sub-orbital controlled flight and we don't have a clue where the launch will come from.  

I better stop.

To the concept of deterrence: I don't see that. The leaders of the world are a weird group of megalomaniacs.  You threaten to topple the wrong one I'd expect there to be trouble.  Can you imagine a world with Chinese and Indian populations below a hundred million ... Indonesian and Brazilian populations below 10 million and decreasing?  There won't be any innocent bystander countries who belong to the nuclear club or who have invasion-ready number populations.  Mexico's probably not safe from us anymore either, but their name wasn't on a list back in my day.

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.

[Ninurta]

Here are a couple of resources I found handy back in the day. More may come as I can find them.

"Nuclear War Survival Skills" by Cresson Kearny. The one I had was the 1979 edition, and this edition is newer and updated, but still from 1987.

The next link is to the manual on effects of nuclear weapons that Gladstone wrote for the DoD. It's where I got my formulas to compute blast effects from: "The Effects of Nuclear Weapons" 1977 edition by Gladstone. I don't know if there is a newer one or not, but the formulae are basic, and should not change.

I also had an NBC Charts an Nomographs booklet that had diagrams in it which could be used to estimate effects by laying a straight edge along the nomographs and aligning it with the expected yields for tactical nukes, but I don't know where to find that now. I got my original one from the US Army at Ft. Benning. It was for use by squad leaders and up in the event a battlefield went hot with glowing craters.

There is also a manual written for Congress that I had called "The Effects of Nuclear War", but I haven't found a link to it yet as an online resource. Other stuff I had, detailing Soviet capabilities and weapons systems is surely out of date by now - all my access to it was back in the early 80's.

;

[beez]

Not really worried, I'll be sitting outside with a cold one watching the fireworks until my face melts.

Yeah, same here.

Too damned old to go "road warrior".

[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.

...

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.

.

[Ninurta]

Not really worried, I'll be sitting outside with a cold one watching the fireworks until my face melts.

Yeah, same here.

Too damned old to go "road warrior".

Never too old! I have big plans to be that crazy old guy that lives in a cave, wears nothing but long white hair, a long white beard, and a dingy loincloth. You know the guy - the one that cackles a lot and spouts crazy shit that no one can figure out!


.

[beez]

Not really worried, I'll be sitting outside with a cold one watching the fireworks until my face melts.

Yeah, same here.

Too damned old to go "road warrior".

Never too old! I have big plans to be that crazy old guy that lives in a cave, wears nothing but long white hair, a long white beard, and a dingy loincloth. You know the guy - the one that cackles a lot and spouts crazy shit that no one can figure out!


.

You're describing both of us today. . . . 

[BIAD]

I think this says it all, a horrible type of weapon that doesn't benefit a winner or a loser, but an ideal
threat to not contemplate using it.

[hounddoghowlie]

There is also a manual written for Congress that I had called "The Effects of Nuclear War", but I haven't found a link to it yet as an online resource. Other stuff I had, detailing Soviet capabilities and weapons systems is surely out of date by now - all my access to it was back in the early 80's.

do you remember the publishing date, would it have been in the late seventies like 1979. If so check this one out from the library of congress.

Warning Opens a PDF.

The Effects of Nuclear War

[EndtheMadnessNow]

I think this says it all, a horrible type of weapon that doesn't benefit a winner or a loser, but an ideal
threat to not contemplate using it.

We have alot of sick psychopaths ruling over us, but I think one good reason they wouldn't use nukes is because they don't want to destroy all the infrastructure which would negate their digital plans for us. A Bio bomb is much cleaner, especially one injected into the public water supply which a Michigan professor recently proposed, on doing covertly, not to kill, but act like a morality pill of control. Like in that movie "The Giver" with the daily vaxx therapy to neutralize human emotions.

[Snarl]

Very very hard to get things going against a threat with such a short flight time.

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.

Same sheet of music, Brother.

Tac nukes/Battlefield nukes can make a mess if their blast radius sucks up dirt. Most of the planning for the use of these was against softer targets (troops in the open).  We were surely going to (try to) use them up into the '80s if the NORKs invaded South Korea. I guess they've got another way to stop that these days.

They call artillery the King of Battle for a reason.  Getting shelled by the conventional stuff will make you a believer.  Can't imagine a battery of those sending the kind that make mushroom clouds (even if they're small).

Back in the day, Release Authority rested at the O-6 level for non-conventional artillery strikes.  It was still a complicated drill putting that type of ordinance into a tube.  I never thought it could be accomplished should the balloon actually go up, but it was good times and they're all in the past now.

How does @"F2d5thCav"'s signature block read?  Fading anachronism? -chuckle- Aren't we all?

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Very very hard to get things going against a threat with such a short flight time.

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.

Same sheet of music, Brother.

Tac nukes/Battlefield nukes can make a mess if their blast radius sucks up dirt. Most of the planning for the use of these was against softer targets (troops in the open).  We were surely going to (try to) use them up into the '80s if the NORKs invaded South Korea. I guess they've got another way to stop that these days.

They call artillery the King of Battle for a reason.  Getting shelled by the conventional stuff will make you a believer.  Can't imagine a battery of those sending the kind that make mushroom clouds (even if they're small).

Back in the day, Release Authority rested at the O-6 level for non-conventional artillery strikes.  It was still a complicated drill putting that type of ordinance into a tube.  I never thought it could be accomplished should the balloon actually go up, but it was good times and they're all in the past now.

How does @"F2d5thCav"'s signature block read?  Fading anachronism? -chuckle- Aren't we all?

Atomic Cannon crowd pleaser...



Or the W-54 Davy Crocket




The Day Called X (1957) – Dramatized atomic evacuation of Portland, Oregon. (27 min)

[guohua]

If all else fails, you know who to send.