Who could effectively win in a nuclear war. US or Russia.

Originally posted by Senor Freebie
I don't like those statistics. Do the math, Lets say the Russia and USA launch their few ABM's and gets a hits with every single missile. Big deal. Thats 100 or less Warheads down over Moscow and 3-4 over USA. That leaves over 15,000 warheads in the USA and 20,000 in Russia. Sure that might not cover the entire landmass of Russia but the radiation would get the survivors. If each nuke had an average radius of 20km of pure destruction that would make for 4 million square km of total destruction in Russia before radiation and 'medium level' destruction was counted. Of course I don't know enough about the true destructive power of nuclear warheads but I doubt any country could hope to have more then a small handful of survivors after 20% of its landmass (starting with big cities and working down to villages) was destroyed. As for the USA, that number would increase to 6 million square km which is the 90% of the mainland, totally and utterly destroyed not including Alaska.

You are assuming all of the warheads will be detonated. Many will be destroyed on the ground and malfunction. As I said the average radiation dose in Russia would be 150 REM, which is survivable.

www.ki4u.com...
This was the projected fallout from prevailing winds, Much of the western US would be survivable

as i see it it is a compound question it would depend on who strikes first if the us did they would use non nukes first to take out the responce capabilaties of russia seeing as how messed up they are lol but yes emp and radiation would b a bitch seeing how probably atleast 1 of russias nukes will get through our ABL's and GBL's interceptors and othor mis. gizmos the truth as in damige we would kick ass but we would be far from winning there THE TRUTH

Its when people start thinking that a nuclear conflict could be winnable that rational thinking goes out the window in terms of countries leadership.

The thing that scares me is those tiny countries the size of Rhode Island that feel like they have to have a nuclear weapon to survive. The United States dropped the bomb on Japan, and essentially ended the war. Trust me,if they did not stop it, then many more people would die. That being said, the stakes are too high to use nuclear weapons. Our countries need to always prepare for the worst case scenario that might happen, and yes, we do need to try to win. Why fight if there isn't a possibility o winning.

Originally posted by Kozzy
You are assuming all of the warheads will be detonated. Many will be destroyed on the ground and malfunction. As I said the average radiation dose in Russia would be 150 REM, which is survivable.

150 REm is an average pf population divided by the countries size. There aren't giong to be warheads hitting islolated tundra are there. All of Russia's cities will be reduced to rubble and radiation effects will be far higher than 150 REM for hundreds of km's around them.

It may be survivable for those deep in the tundra, but having a few reindeer herders left doesn't bode well for reconstruction and rehabilitaion of the country.

Originally posted by mad scientist

Originally posted by Senor Freebie
I don't like those statistics. Do the math, Lets say the Russia and USA launch their few ABM's and gets a hits with every single missile. Big deal. Thats 100 or less Warheads down over Moscow and 3-4 over USA. That leaves over 15,000 warheads in the USA and 20,000 in Russia.

Your warhead figures are completly wrong.

As of January 2006, the U.S. stockpile contains almost 10,000 nuclear warheads. This includes 5,735 active or operational warheads: 5,235 strategic and 500 nonstrategic warheads

We estimate that as of early 2005, Russia has approximately 7,200 operational nuclear warheads in its active arsenal. This includes about 3,800 strategic warheads, a decrease of some 400 from 2004 due to the withdrawal of approximately 60 ballistic missiles from operational service

www.thebulletin.org...

h nuke had an average radius of 20km of pure destruction that would make for 4 million square km of total destruction in Russia before radiation and 'medium level' destruction was counted.

A nuke with that blast radius would be in the Megatonnes, almost all modern strategic warheads have a size in the several hundred magetonnes. I think you need to redo your calculations with the right information.
Non strategic weapons have even smaller yields.

AFAIK the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated was a 50 megaton nuclear warhead. It was originally over 85 megaton but had an essential part removed. The bomb was too large to fit onto any ICBM. As for the nuclear warhead figures, they were based on a book published in the early 1990's. I guess both sides have downsized quite a bit. That said, I'd guess over 80% of both nations citizens are urbanised which means that you will still wipe out 90% of the population regardless.

As for the person claiming Russia 'might' get 1 nuke through. Very funny stuff. Haven't had a laugh that good all night.

Originally posted by Sandman11


Ok, so if you read my post above then how is 100 ABM misslie system around Moscow going to stop 400 inbound warheads?

it6s not , but its not designed to - its designed to give the politbureu time to get to the deep underground bunkers.


and for each warhead that it disabled then thats extra time.


don`t forget ta moscow have british , french and chinese warheads aimed at it - and is probably the biggest area to be destroyed , next to which will be the icbm fields in CONUS.

lets just say if a nuke gets launched ide say dam near evry country will b glowing with ULTRA high casualties.... maby aus. might survive i mean who could nuke them ah? lol

Originally posted by Kozzy


www.ki4u.com...
This was the projected fallout from prevailing winds, Much of the western US would be survivable

OK, you want to bet your life on those figures, from your sources, then go ahead! Try and take Alaska!!! Try it. See what happens!!!!!
Instead, get a clue, nuclear war has been thought out by much higher paid people "higher pay grade" , than us, and I promise, nobody will win, especially the Russians, who don't have the bucks to spend as the US does. Just because you don't hear about it doesn't mean it isn't being worked on...

[edit on 12-2-2006 by asala]

Well we may have to agree to disagree on some points here...

Well i if it turns out that were are both reasonable adults odds are we will agree on most things given that we keep giving each other source material.


[quite]The US had 10,000 SAMS in sites around it's cities from 1950s to around 1974, Nike Herculese which, like the SA-5, had a nuclear capability on most of them, and this specific missile had been tested successfully on ballistic targets.
ed-thelen.org...

I am more interested in a specific numbers of launchers as your giving me a number for the ammount of missiles produced ( wich is incidently rather more than 10 000)? Both American and Soviet Abm/Sams had nuclear capabilities and the USSR has always admitted to far higher numbers of nuclear weapons wich i have in the last few years assumed to be related to their massive ABM deployments. As far as i know the Russians were first when it came to intercepting and destroying BM's with convetional warheads.

The follow on missile, Nike Zeus, was the ABM system the SU copied by many accounts, and put around moscowl

"V-1000:First Soviet anti-ballistic missile system. Development began in 1956 and the system was tested at Sary Shagan 1960 to 1961. It was clear that enormous development work was needed to achieve an operational anti-ballistic missile system. Therefore work began on the successor A-35 system, although the Americans were led to believe that an operational system was deployed around Moscow. The System A anti-ballistic missile equipped with the V-1000 rocket made the first intercept and destruction in the world using a conventional warhead of an intermediate range ballistic missile warhead coming in at 3 km/s on 4 May 1961. The US did not demonstrate an equivalent capability until 1984."

www.astronautix.com...

So i am not sure that your description of a copied system is accurate if the capabilities are so different. That being said it might just be the Russians stealing basics and then somehow improving on it. One spy can be worth a few thousand engineers after all.

The US in the 1960s, 1970s, and on were at cutting edge technology and every bit as good if not better at ABM engineering. The US just didn't see the cost of keeping it's "Safeguard" base operational, or to cheat on the ABM treaty...
www.paineless.id.au...

Well once again i have no doubt that the US could have ( or mabye even was) been on the cutting edge but i have to ask why it did not see the point of trying to defend it's civilians as best it could? That either means the system was not as effective as the Russian one or that saving a couple million lives ( wich the generals said could be saved by concentrated defenses on the eastern seaboard by the known systems.

There was also a significant Civil Defense program in the 1950s and 1960s, (I am old enough to remember the nuke drills in grade school) but like the SAM system, it atrophied.

By 1976 neither system was worth calling a system and not even comparable to actions taken in the USSR.

The theory was that to try to defend against a massive nuclear attack would be significantly harder than to spend valuable reasources on the ability to attack, and on a cost benefit analysis, it would be cheaper and easier to "deter" an attack than to try to defend against one.

The Russian strategy was clearly a counterforce strategy and everything they did was aimed at limitating damage on the USSR by elimination offensive American power. Detering an attack is assuming certain standards for your enemy and who decided that the Soviet Union were going to play along? This is a weak argument in my opinion and it was a POLITICAL choice wich wich the generals were NOT happy. The Soviet union built up a far deadlier strategic nuclear force AND did massive spending on ABM defense and civil defense works. Why could the USA with it's far larger resources not do both? Was it political or did the money go into aircraft carriers and other offensive systems? By not doing everything in one's power to layer your defense ( ABM and civil defense) you encourge an attack by placing all your eggs in a location easily radiated.

For example it is cheaper and easier to just send a few more missiles against a defended target assuring it's destruction and using that overkill to deter an attack than to attempt to actually defend against an attack, which is the course of action the SU stuck with.

The Soviet Union deployed ICMB's with far more mirv's than the US did and their forces were clearly designed to destroy American Silo's while they did their best to harden their own far better than American silo's. The USSR deployed many more BM submarines with bigger and longer ranging missiles aswell giving them a capacity to strike harder and faster at American silo complexes and command structures.

No matter what kind of defensive missile system you think Russia had (and they did cheat on the ABM treaty), it would not be able to stop a coordinated attack.

Well they had a layered defense that mainly depended on trying to get in a first strike that could disable many American Icbm's. If that failed they had well dispersed mobile ICBM and reloaded hardened Silo complex for repeated counter blows. The ABM/SAM's were apparently mainly to stop Bomber strikes and SLBM's with possible employment against ICBM's. Stopping a coordinated attack is not the point as much as surving a nuclear war with a stronger resource base and skilled work force to operate it. Since the USA never knew ( or did?) what the Soviets could really do i think it was a rather odd gamble to try deterence instead of defense in depth.

During the peak of the cold war, the US had around 12,000 strategic warheads, to 10,000 for the SU, and about 400 were going to Moscow alone.
Do you actually think Moscow would survive not being hit many if not hundreds of times because of an unproven, and many accounts a not very successful ABM system and "dual use" SAM system?

It really does not matter what I think and i only have to look at what learned people in their fields have to say to understand that this is exactly the scenario the Russians prepared to defend against. I have no idea wether the Russian plans would have worked but they only had to believe that it could for them to paly their strategic cards.

I think not. Nuclear war the SU would not have survived, Russia will not survive, and it is nieve and dangerous to adhere to the notion that it could.

The US had far less capacity to survive a nuclear war than the USSR had so the point is kind of moot. It all depends on what the Russians saw as acceptable losses. So now this is "dangerous" talk? Naive? Stick around for the show has barely started!

Most accounts give a "counter value" against Russia in the hundreds of millions, and only the most extreme cases think otherwise.
www.nrdc.org...

Counter value does not win wars even if you have a high body count. Aiming for the soft spots looks nice on paper but does not mean much strategically. The Russian government kept going after taking 20 million dead in a conventional war after all. I have heard of a Boeing report that claimed only about 5- 10 million dead in Russia( nuclear exchange mid 70's) but i am still trying to find it.

One thing not really talked about are the countermeasures that can effectively be use agaist ABMs, just as the Russians are soo proud of their new Topol missile, with a maneuvering capability, this is not much different than MARVs, which also maneuver, only not in the higher athmosphere using hypersonic propulson, or other countermeasures like decoys and jamming, along with MIRVS which compound the ballistic defense to impossibility.

You must not have heard of HAARP, right? Now these things can be used to Heat ( and thus probably incinerate missiles in flight) according to US plans and according to them the Soviet Union have been operating far higher energy systems for very long. The Russians have a multi layered defense and we should assume they have aces up their sleaves as these secretive societies tends to manage. They managed to hide a couple hundred ICBM's from US intelligence wich were only discovered after the cold war ended. That is a hidden 20% extra capacity that were just hidden. Now who knows what they could do with all those secret weapons they kept talking about.

Directed energy weapons may change this some day, but not in what we are talking of here, and Directed energy weapons are something the US is quite advanced in, although I am sure you are now going to tell me Russia is ahead in that as well...

The USSR have been operating ground based lasers that could ( not my words) "interfere" with US sat's in times of war. They had a anti sat capacity that far exceeded anything operated in the west. They managed a hundred space launches ( those known about at least) a year for decades and were practicing interception by killer sat's in the late 60's.

Please assume i have articles from good source sites to back up all the claims made here. Just ask if my word is not good enough for you.

Stellar

OK, I grant you that Russia/USSR has cheated on the ABM treaty, the bio-weapons treaty, and probaly the SALT 1, SALT 2, and the START1/2 treaties. So why should the US ever again trust the Russians enough to ever sign another treaty? Why should you blame the US for dropping out of the ABM treaty?

And if Russia has superior laser/directed energy weapons then please post a source!! I don't think you will find much on US ground based weapons other than what we have shared with Isreal on a tactical level, and on airborne weapons (which Russia has no counter) which take considerable technology to miniturize, and would be considerably smaller than other ground based systems... You won't find it. You can't prove it. Don't try, otherwise you are trying to kidd yourself, not the rest of us.

I think that the massive numbers of US weapons (overkill by most) were to counter the defensive weapons the USSR had. It doesn't really matter what the Russians had because we were not even trying to stop them...
So why did the USSR/Russians feel the need to cheat and try to gain an advantage and side whith those in the US who wanted unilateral US disarmement?

Why should we trust Russians at all?


[edit on 2-1-2006 by Sandman11]

Originally posted by Sandman11
OK, I grant you that Russia/USSR has cheated on the ABM treaty, the bio-weapons treaty, and probaly the SALT 1, SALT 2, and the START1/2 treaties. So why should the US ever again trust the Russians enough to ever sign another treaty? Why should you blame the US for dropping out of the ABM treaty?

And if Russia has superior laser/directed energy weapons then please post a source!! I don't think you will find much on US ground based weapons other than what we have shared with Isreal on a tactical level, and on airborne weapons (which Russia has no counter) which take considerable technology to miniturize, and would be considerably smaller than other ground based systems... You won't find it. You can't prove it. Don't try, otherwise you are trying to kidd yourself, not the rest of us.

I think that the massive numbers of US weapons (overkill by most) were to counter the defensive weapons the USSR had. It doesn't really matter what the Russians had because we were not even trying to stop them...
So why did the USSR/Russians feel the need to cheat and try to gain an advantage and side whith those in the US who wanted unilateral US disarmement?

Why should we trust Russians at all?
Strategic nuclear weapons were not "far more deadly" on the USSRs side either, in fact they were outnumbered by US strategic warhead totals, not that it would matter, only a couple thousand on enemy territory would end any resembelence to an organized productive industrial and militarily capable country. This would have happened many times over, regardless of the defensive systems the USSR had, and it would have been delivered by stealth, low level, cruise missiles, SRAMS, and gravity bombs as well as Ballistic missiles.
A preemptive strike by the SU would have led to a launch before the first impacts, (Launch on warning, which was controversial in the US because it put the US on a hair trigger to an attack, but was required because of SU layered defenses and the requirement to overwhelm them) which is why the US didn't bother to harden its silo's as the SU did. A coordinated counterforce response would have ended the SU as a major military power. A coordinated countevalue responding attack would end the Soviet Union, and most of it's inhabitents. Same with the US. End of story.

Safeguard was deployed to protect the minuteman fields - nothing more.


It was decided that a emp pulse would knock out the tracking radar so the whole thing would be useless ; thats the official reason it was scrapped 9 months after it went operational.

Originally posted by StellarX
The Russian strategy was clearly a counterforce strategy and everything they did was aimed at limitating damage on the USSR by elimination offensive American power.

Far from it. The USSR had massive warheads which were basically only good for city busting. The US were the ones which originally designed their strategic forces to be able to pursue a counter-force strategy. They had a few reasonably accurate ICBM's which could attack buried targets, however their SLBM force was woefully inaccurate, which as we know are good for only one thing - city busting.

The Soviet union built up a far deadlier strategic nuclear force AND did massive spending on ABM defense and civil defense works. Why could the USA with it's far larger resources not do both?

Far deadlier in what way ? The average yield of Soviet warheads ? Soviet warheads were large simply because they were not that accurate - look up the CEP's of both sides missiles.
The US has always had more accurate missiles and were thus able to build smaller warheads and lighter missiles. Not to mention the US pioneered the use of solid propellants whereas the Soviet Union took years to move away from their liquid fuels and some of their ICBM's still use them ( SS-18 ).

In a major nuclear exchange and ABM defences would have been moot, the sheer weight of an attack would have devastated both countries and countries where the 2 protagonists have military bases. I know Australia was targeted with no less than 100 Soviet strategic warheads during the Cold War.

Was it political or did the money go into aircraft carriers and other offensive systems? By not doing everything in one's power to layer your defense ( ABM and civil defense) you encourge an attack by placing all your eggs in a location easily radiated.

The US ballistic missile subs ensured that the Soviet Union would still be held at risk even if the land based weapons were knocked out, which wouldn't have happened anyway. For a sizable part of the Cold War the US implemented Operation Roundhammer. This operation involved 1/3 of SAC bombers loaded with nuclear weapons constantly airborne waiting for a control order which would send them over the pole.
So basically, the Soviets could never wipe out even half of the US nuclear arsenal in a surprise attack and that half was over 10 000 warheads.

The USSR deployed many more BM submarines with bigger and longer ranging missiles aswell giving them a capacity to strike harder and faster at American silo complexes and command structures.

The Soviets deployed more subs because they knew they were noisy and easily tracked by the Americans. Every time a Soviet sub entered the Atlantic or Pacific it was tracked by SOSUS. In the event of war, many would have been sunk before they could launch. As for the missiles being bigger, this was due to the fact that they used liquid fuel whereas the Americans had perfected solid fuel.
BTW, Soviet SLBM's didn't out range US missiles - and US missiles were far far more accurate. As a matter of fact the deployment of the Trident II D-5 missile allowed the US navy for the first time to have the ability to hold counter-force targets at risk.

Well they had a layered defense that mainly depended on trying to get in a first strike that could disable many American Icbm's. If that failed they had well dispersed mobile ICBM and reloaded hardened Silo complex for repeated counter blows. The ABM/SAM's were apparently mainly to stop Bomber strikes and SLBM's with possible employment against ICBM's.

How would a layered defense help them with a preemptive strike ? I don't understand the logic.
As for reloading silo's, that was more a pipe dream than reality. Many silos wouldn't be there and the storage bunkers for any reloads would be taken out. Also it would take time to denominate an areas devastated by large yield weapons.

Stopping a coordinated attack is not the point as much as surving a nuclear war with a stronger resource base and skilled work force to operate it. Since the USA never knew ( or did?) what the Soviets could really do i think it was a rather odd gamble to try deterence instead of defense in depth.

Quite simply, there were enough warheads to destroy the USSR several times over, there was no defence against it. Thinking otherwise is shear folly and completely unrealistic. After the Cold War it was leaked that in large tracks of the Eastern USSR a nuclear warhead couldn't be tracked, there were huge holes in their early warning system.

It really does not matter what I think and i only have to look at what learned people in their fields have to say to understand that this is exactly the scenario the Russians prepared to defend against. I have no idea wether the Russian plans would have worked but they only had to believe that it could for them to paly their strategic cards.

Would it have worked, no way. SLBM's fired from the North Atlantic or even the Barents Sea on depressed trajectories wouldn't have given no more than a few minutes warning time. Not enough time to react. The Soviets knew this which is exactly why they never tried anything.

The US had far less capacity to survive a nuclear war than the USSR had so the point is kind of moot. It all depends on what the Russians saw as acceptable losses. So now this is "dangerous" talk? Naive? Stick around for the show has barely started!

Far less capacity doesn't mean squat when, each side has enough overkill to wipe out everything 10 times. Besides with the disintegration of the USSR after an attack would allow the Chinese to move north, probably with US acquiescence.

Counter value does not win wars even if you have a high body count. Aiming for the soft spots looks nice on paper but does not mean much strategically. The Russian government kept going after taking 20 million dead in a conventional war after all.

Are you seriously trying to make a comparison here. Counter-value would destroy the Soviet Union as country. Let's see every city wiped out, almost all industry destroyed - that means a hell of a lot strategically - you're blind if you can't see it.
20 million dead is acceptable when you still have a massive industrial capacity and most of your population shielded deep inside the USSR. There are o safe havens from US nuclear warheads. There is no strategic retreat - there also isn't massive aid from allied countries

you seem to forget that the entire usa would be wiped out from one side to another , and that russia also still has weapons aimed at china.


where teh usa has the subs - russia has mobile launchers - which are incredably tough to track from anywhere - that was russia`s `ace in teh hole` - with the usa its teh boomer fleet - with russia its there mobile launchers; and great they are only good enough for hitting cities , but at that point you don`t care , you only want your missiles in the air and on time and on target (sort of)

Originally posted by Sandman11
OK, I grant you that Russia/USSR has cheated on the ABM treaty, the bio-weapons treaty, and probaly the SALT 1, SALT 2, and the START1/2 treaties.

What do you mean you grant me that? This is not about me inventing information so why not just admit it's so based on reading the material we both know you must have?

So why should the US ever again trust the Russians enough to ever sign another treaty? Why should you blame the US for dropping out of the ABM treaty?

Why did the US trust them in the first place? I think the US should have never signed a treaty and simply did it so that it could allocate the savings made to more aircraft carriers and a few dozen more bases all over the world. My point has been that it does not look like American governments have had the survival of their civilians very high on their lists.

And if Russia has superior laser/directed energy weapons then please post a source!!

As i said all you needed to do was ask.

www.fas.org...

"Advanced Strategic Defense Technologies" section.

And i think the 1984 paper said the same about Russian ground based lasers that could possibly be employed against Satellites .

catless.ncl.ac.uk...

www.strategypage.com...

I don't think you will find much on US ground based weapons other than what we have shared with Isreal on a tactical level, and on airborne weapons (which Russia has no counter) which take considerable technology to miniturize, and would be considerably smaller than other ground based systems...

I think i read in those same DIA reports that the USSR had airborn lasers by the mid 80's and possibly even used mobile lasers exprimentally in Afghanistan. The airborn laser i am pretty sure of but i have not done much to read where the DIA claims for mobile ground support lasers in afghanistan came from...

You won't find it. You can't prove it. Don't try, otherwise you are trying to kidd yourself, not the rest of us.

Why so hostile?

I think that the massive numbers of US weapons (overkill by most) were to counter the defensive weapons the USSR had.

Well that "overkill" clearly did not discourage the USSR from spending massive ammount of money trying passive defensive measures. I guess it can be argued it was all useless but as i said before the decision to stop similar measures in America was NO a military decision but a political one as the generals well understood how many lives could be saved with passive defensive measures.

It doesn't really matter what the Russians had because we were not even trying to stop them...

Well it does matter what they have as what they have shows their strategic aims wich were quite clearly to attack American silo's and make any reloading and strategic silo reserve impossible. Their weapons were designed to kill silo's and thus win the weeks or months long nuclear exchange that they strategically planned to fight.This was not according to the Soviets a day long exchange of nuclear missiles as is show by their capacity to reload their silo's and even strategic submarines.

So why did the USSR/Russians feel the need to cheat and try to gain an advantage and side whith those in the US who wanted unilateral US disarmement?

Because that is the point of surviving when the US and allies chose to encircle Russia on all sides. In the case of American it was clearly planning for a strategic assault while the USSR always seemed to plan for strategic defense ( even if they had to strike first) and survival before their plans for world domination. America was doing the domination and calling the USSR the agressive party is not based in reality.

Why should we trust Russians at all?

Well America has shown that it is not trustworthy so the question should be why the Russian should not cheat and do whatever they can to get ahead.

Strategic nuclear weapons were not "far more deadly" on the USSRs side either,

I would say they were as they were on average giving bigger yields and were no less accurate by the 80's than American ICBM's. They normally had more MIRV's ( wich were also of bigger yield) than American ICBM's and their Submarine launched Missiles could in many cases reach any targer in the USA from Russian coasterl waters.

in fact they were outnumbered by US strategic warhead totals, not that it would matter,

The USSR had more warheads on ICMB's and Submarine launched missiles that could reach the USA than the USA had AImed at the USSR. The outnumbering might happen when you count air delivered ( strategic bombers) but i am not sure you are in fact correct in stating that the USA ever had more strategic warheads than than the USSR.

only a couple thousand on enemy territory would end any resembelence to an organized productive industrial and militarily capable country.

That is exactly what the USSR planned for but a few thousand is probably the most that could have reached either country anyways so the point is kinda moot.

This would have happened many times over, regardless of the defensive systems the USSR had, and it would have been delivered by stealth, low level, cruise missiles, SRAMS, and gravity bombs as well as Ballistic missiles.

As if the massive ( Just quoting the DIA) soviet air defense system did not exsist and would simply not work at all. You are just assuming what you want now.

A preemptive strike by the SU would have led to a launch before the first impacts, (Launch on warning, which was controversial in the US because it put the US on a hair trigger to an attack, but was required because of SU layered defenses and the requirement to overwhelm them) which is why the US didn't bother to harden its silo's as the SU did.

Well in theory it would have led to a quick launch but who knows what would have really happened. If the soviets managed to get a slight advantage by destroying American Sat's they might have managed to destroy a fair number of American ICBM's over the USA or in their silo's. The Soviet Silo's were hardened because they were reloadable and the Soviets planned for an extended nuclear exchange lasting weeks or months. The USA believed it would be over quickly but the SOviet Union planned in depth and prepared for worse case scenarios and extensive underground industrial capacity.

A coordinated counterforce response would have ended the SU as a major military power.

In your opinion but not in mine. You are disregarding Soviet defenses as if they would not have mattered alt all and i do not understand the reasoning behind you train of thought.

A coordinated countevalue responding attack would end the Soviet Union, and most of it's inhabitents. Same with the US. End of story.

I guess you like closing stories on the note you like but as my information might show your ignorence on Soviet laser capabilities alone should be reason enough for you to reconsider your rather text book, western media inspired ,views. I for one simply do not believe that the USA will invest in such an extensive air and civil defense system only to abandon it, over objections of military advisors, so that the USSR can do it all on far bigger scale. The choice to make America defenseless against Soviet nuclear response was a political choice and not based on defensive measures being impossible.

As always if you disagree with my statements they do not originate in my imagination and the sources are not obscure. Ask before insulting me and assuming i did not once believe exactly what you did. Why on earth you think i can come to believe all this stuff, in the vacuum of never having believed what you do, i have no idea but i do find it offensive and insulting. Try assume that you are not the final authority and that the DIA are probably a better source ( my primary source for most of the claims here) than you will ever be.

Stellar

Im not sure if i understand this right.
Are you people assuming that Russia still has the capibilities to shoot nukes?

OK, I grant you that Russia/USSR has cheated on the ABM treaty, the bio-weapons treaty, and probaly the SALT 1, SALT 2, and the START1/2 treaties.

What do you mean you grant me that? This is not about me inventing information so why not just admit it's so based on reading the material we both know you must have?

So why should the US ever again trust the Russians enough to ever sign another treaty? Why should you blame the US for dropping out of the ABM treaty?

Well to take this point by point will take even more time and space.
-Whether the USSR cheated or not does not matter as much as if it were a usable advantage. Evidently it wasn't. The Russians now have 3800 strategiv warheads, and the US about 5000. Most of the Russian's are on land based weapons, most of the US on mobile sea based or bomber weapons. Draw whatever strategic superiority conclusion you want. Russian superiority has never been realistically claimed, regardless of how ignorant you think of my opinion.

-The US government has had it's population's best interest in mind from the get go. You claim that US Generals and Admirals have been unhappy with the choices made, so please send those links. I don't see a major mass resignition from the US command structure over any inadaquacies in the choices of weapons and priorities. I am just questioning the need to ever sign another treaty or take any existing treaty with the Russians seriously...

-Evidently the Soviet Airborne laser didn't do well, did it? The US ABL is nearing operational status. (I don't think those sources you posted are the end of the issue, or even that credible in the subject regarding a clearly highly classified topic. Russian laser technology is good, but I just don't think it would compare to what the west, not just the US, has today. Germany could probably put both countries to shame if it tried.)

-And I am not hostile, I like you. In fact you sound rather intelligent. What are you doing next friday night????

-Overkill made any effort by the Russians/Soviets a waste. It is what ensures deterrence, and prevented any miscalculations. To spend all effort on the offense is to not waste reasources in what matters most, which is to convince the most intelligent top brass of your adversary that you are capable of taking them out, regardless of what you can do to them.

-Attacking US silos won't matter much if they are empty, and most likely would be spent on hitting SU silos to either take out their missiles or make them unusable to reload. I mentioned this before, but you ignored it. Launch on warning is the US counter to Russian counterforce first strike against US missile silo's.

-US SLBMs roughly equaled SU ICBM warheads. Accuracy of US SLBMs equalled SU ICBMs with the Trident, and later Trident D-2 with the W-88 warhead, maybe superior. US ICBMs roughly equaled the SU SLBMs, in numbers and vulnerability, later to be much more vulnerable to US Hunter Killer Attack subs, as US ICBMs were to a first strike if they didn't "launch on warning". If the US 'launched on warning', then that advantage doesnt exist does it??? US bombers have carried several times what Russian bombers would to target. The latest, the ACM was stealthy and long ranged. As I remember through the cold war both sides had roughly equal ballistic warheads, the US had superior bomber numbers...
www.thebulletin.org...

-Why do you think the US is going broke on carrier battle groups? It is something that the US has had for fifty years and perfected, although I am sure you think they are vulnerable.... Regardless, each carrier costs a few billion out of a budget of 400 billion a year. Their cost is worth it for their benefit they give the US to have a dozen of them.

-In general, you underestimate the US, which probably does have quite an advanced laser technology, ABM technology, a long term nuclear war fighting strategy, taking into account all Soviet/Russian defenses and countermeasures. The US has had for over a decade over three times the money spent on defense and defense reasources than the Russians, and probably has at least the laser, counterforce, and just as much countervalue when the game comes to that point. I don't think you need to tell the US how to best defend itself compared to a second rate superpower like the SU, which counted on numbers over technology.. Clearly the world is different today, where a smaller US force clearly, totally, easily and massively dominated a larger force of Iraqi tanks aircraft, armoured vehicles, artillery and any other number you can think of. Soviets thought that "quantity is a quality" but not as much of one as they thought. So stop thinking the Russians are so superior. If you can't then just answer this;

Have Russians won any war without US help within the last 100 years???

Great Britian has a superior navy. China has a superior Army, Switzerland, China and India (who buys russian equipment) have superior airforces...
Underestimate the US if you wish, I am done with this conversation. Nuclear war will end anyone who confronts the US or Russia. End of story. Again...



[edit on 12-2-2006 by asala]

is this hypothethtical war or modern?
and i tink the US has supeirrior air and navy forces

[edit on 3-1-2006 by Jakobx]

Originally posted by Sandman11
Well to take this point by point will take even more time and space.

You beter start doing it point by point before the admins remind you in their loving way.

-Whether the USSR cheated or not does not matter as much as if it were a usable advantage.

I have noticed that you seem to think that but i am not convinced and do not agree at all. How can a strategic nuclear force that is designed to destroy 65-80% of American nuclear silo's, or missiles, on the ground not an advantage? How is a absolutely massive civil evacuation and protection schem not worth doing? How is 10 000 sam/ABM luanchers not a usable advantage even if all they do is to make strategic bomber attack mostly ineffective? I do not understand what you base your assumption that defense against nuclear attack is not worth doing and not at least partly effective the way the USSR did it. Defense has always been easier and more efficient so what in your opinion changed?

Evidently it wasn't. The Russians now have 3800 strategiv warheads, and the US about 5000.

We have been talking about a 1970-1990 scenario since the start so why bring up current totals?

Most of the Russian's are on land based weapons, most of the US on mobile sea based or bomber weapons.

Back in the time frame we have been talking about till now they had more land based and more sea based missiles with more mirv's in both cases.

Draw whatever strategic superiority conclusion you want. Russian superiority has never been realistically claimed, regardless of how ignorant you think of my opinion.

You have never believed in it but as i have shown you the DIA were always pointing out their strategic planning and aims. Just because the Western media has not been telling much related to the truth( especially about the USSR) for decades does not in fact mean that the USSR could not have won a nuclear war at least in their own minds. Why not just look at the numbers and try come up with your own conclusions instead of believing what you were led to believe by the authorities who chose not to try protect you as best they could?

The US government has had it's population's best interest in mind from the get go.

Give me some information that suggest they did their best to not only discourage war but to in fact save as many American lives as they could by passive means.

You claim that US Generals and Admirals have been unhappy with the choices made, so please send those links.

www.paineless.id.au...

Well my real claim was that it was not a military decision to shut down the system but a political one.

www.defenselink.mil...

Towards the end you can read about the military chiefs being "upset" about not having their ABM defenses.Since this is a official site ( and not the one i was commenting on the first time) we should take upset to mean something far more serious in my opinion. It seems Mcnamara spent most of his time making American defenseless in the classical sense and did his bit to encourage strategic offense as the best way of getting a extra couple dozen million Americans killed.

I don't see a major mass resignition from the US command structure over any inadaquacies in the choices of weapons and priorities.

There is a big difference between objecting to policy and reisigning from your life's work as you should know.

I am just questioning the need to ever sign another treaty or take any existing treaty with the Russians seriously...

As long as the USA chooses to manipulate the world economy so blatently it should not trust all that many Asian nations.

-Evidently the Soviet Airborne laser didn't do well, did it? The US ABL is nearing operational status.

Then your just in denial as the sources i linked you to clearly suggested that they DID work.

(I don't think those sources you posted are the end of the issue, or even that credible in the subject regarding a clearly highly classified topic. Russian laser technology is good, but I just don't think it would compare to what the west, not just the US, has today. Germany could probably put both countries to shame if it tried.)

In the end you can believe what you like but should not expect to be believed when i give you official DIA documents telling you differently. Please bring your sources so we can see wether you valid reasons to disagree with what the DIA and state department sources said. I can link you more directly and quote their statements but that is apparently no longer allowed on this forum.

-And I am not hostile, I like you. In fact you sound rather intelligent. What are you doing next friday night????

Well you seem hostile but mabye i just understood wrong when you called me naive and badly informed. If you keep this up i will probably be spending friday night disagreeing with you!

-Overkill made any effort by the Russians/Soviets a waste.

But that is the type of thinking you can only indulge in when your a politician. When your in the military and your job is to defend you figure something out whatever the cost and practicalities. If they were told to do it they would have done their best and saved millions of lives as the Soviet Union did not in fact respond in expected ways as Mcnamara said they would.

It is what ensures deterrence, and prevented any miscalculations.

Deterrence is something that assumes symmetrical warfair ( and any number of other assumptions) and is no way to plan a national defense. It is a crime against your country to think in terms that would rule out known defensive measures just because the cost was too high and might upset you alies or the enemy. You first spend whatever it takes to make survival possible and then you start thinking of how to ensure the destruction of your enemy. If you are only willing to "win" by attacking your military forces are clearly not a defense force and in fact not doing their country any service.

To spend all effort on the offense is to not waste reasources in what matters most, which is to convince the most intelligent top brass of your adversary that you are capable of taking them out, regardless of what you can do to them.

That is assuming that intelligent fair minded people are making the decisions on the other side and that they have the same set of morals and ideas about winning as you have. It is in fact making decisions based on pipe dreams of your own making wich may or may not have anything to do with reality. That is why you defend first and then find ways of winning. In war, and in all other manner of competition, you first try make losing impossible and then consider how you can win. It is in fact those who risk their own survival to win that mostly ends up losing. It's in the art of war; go check.

-Attacking US silos won't matter much if they are empty

That does not matter as it would make a second silo based strike impossible for the US. It would thus have to luanch everything it has inside the first 15-20 minutes making overkill ( to ensure target destruction) a necessity thus wasting most of the warheads on destroyed targets. The Soviet union had no such problems as there was no strategic defense taking place in the US. They could thus launch half their missile force against American Silo's and keep the rest in reserve to see how the war unfolds before selecting more targets.

and most likely would be spent on hitting SU silos to either take out their missiles or make them unusable to reload.

That was why Soviet silo's were hardened and widely dispersed unlike their American counterparts. Since American strategic missiles had less MIRV capabilities they would have to spend a far larger proportion of their missiles in counterforce and would then open themselves up to retaliation by soviet strategic submarines or strategic airforces. The reload capacity itself is in case the silo does survive but it was not a requirement for winning the counterforce phase of the war.

I mentioned this before, but you ignored it. Launch on warning is the US counter to Russian counterforce first strike against US missile silo's.

I try not to ignore anything and i apologise if i missed that somehow. As i sais before the Russians were ideally looking to strike first ( if they knew American strikes were imminent) but they prepared for counterforce exchange by having more Mirv's thus having to use far less missiles in counterforce exchange.

-US SLBMs roughly equaled SU ICBM warheads.

Soviet warheads were bigger and their missiles had more mirv's in the timeframe we are working in.

Accuracy of US SLBMs equalled SU ICBMs with the Trident, and later Trident D-2 with the W-88 warhead, maybe superior.

Rather specific claim i will leave alone for now. As far as i know the missiles had comparable accuracy ( Myths of superior deploymed American rocket accuracy aside) but that Soviet missiles had bigger yields and more Mirv's.

US ICBMs roughly equaled the SU SLBMs, in numbers and vulnerability, later to be much more vulnerable to US Hunter Killer Attack subs, as US ICBMs were to a first strike if they didn't "launch on warning".

They designated as many submarines as strategic missile subs as they were allowed and had in fact 13 more than allowed underSALT-I Agreements (62 in 1983 timeframe) wich they then proceeded to call "theater forces" instead of strategic. Soviet SSBN's carried about one third more missiles than American one's with more MIRV's and two thirds of those could be fired from waters close to Soviet shores and thus witin the defense of the massive land based anti submarine forces that they deployed at the time. Either way the DIA calls SSBN's "highly survival" anyways so reliability knocking them out before they could fire was never something to bargain on. Since American Submarines had to get closer to fire their own missiles they needed fleet or hunter killer protection wich also made them less strategically effective ( and more costly) than Soviet SSBN's. The Soviet union had a very their own Hunter killer submarines wich could in fact operate in groups of three or four ( since they were not patrolling the world) wich would have made defense against them very hard. You can go compare the numbers of American hunter killers with soviet one's in the mid 70's and mid 80's if you wish.

If the US 'launched on warning', then that advantage doesnt exist does it???

Well the Soviet Union would have ideally wanted to launch first but that depends on their spying networks and so forth. Having a defensive capability always makes it hard for the enemy to allocate offensive forces and that was alone was enough reason, however effective, to have them in my opinion.

US bombers have carried several times what Russian bombers would to target.

And the Sa-5 had a ABM capability since it's inception as it was based on a tested ABM missile frame. Whatever American forces got close enough to launch ( after surviving soviet interceptor planes) would have had to luanch against a massive nuclear capabable SAM/ABm system according to the DIA. They also said that by the mid 80's at latest American strategic bombers would have been ineffective in terms of deliviring their nuclear bombs and missiles.

The latest, the ACM was stealthy and long ranged. As I remember through the cold war both sides had roughly equal ballistic warheads, the US had superior bomber numbers...
www.thebulletin.org...

Superior bomber numbers? Soviet forces were in fact rather newer, larger and faster. I am not sure were on your link that info comes from.

-Why do you think the US is going broke on carrier battle groups?

The carrier force is needed to police the empire? It is a massively stupid investment purely for fighting a nuclear war but it can certainly function in that capacity if it was not the primary strategic reason.

It is something that the US has had for fifty years and perfected, although I am sure you think they are vulnerable....

Well the Russian have operated nuclear-powered Radar Ocean Reconnaissance Satellites (RORSAT) and electronic Intelligence Ocean Reconnaissance Satellites (EORSAT) since 1984 wich has no equivelant in the west and was designed to track merchant and naval ships for targetting by Russian strategic or theater anti ship or nuclear forces.This is not even mentioning the hunter killers with their massive anti ship missiles. They are vulnerable in a full scale nuclear war with say Russia as they were designed for convetional fighting imo. It is just too a large investment of firepower in one hul for nuclear warfighting.

You should read those summaries by the DIA as this is all in there.

Regardless, each carrier costs a few billion out of a budget of 400 billion a year. Their cost is worth it for their benefit they give the US to have a dozen of them.

They may not be all that expensive to build ( 2 billion for hull with B2 bombers costing the same) but the operational cost of the task force is quite strikingly large. One of the reason why you can not have a strategic ABM force is when you have so much ships that are always at sea at the massive operational cost involved. Most of the operational cost may very well go into paying the salaries while the Russians do not have much problems there. They pay for the frame and their operational cost is hardly comparable.

-In general, you underestimate the US,

I am stating that the US was not as capable as you suggest and that that it was due to political interventions. I do not doubt that the USA could have had an effective ABM system or much anything else they wanted.

which probably does have quite an advanced laser technology, ABM technology,

Show you evidence as i have shown you mine. I do not doubt that the USA could do these things if they wanted but clearly the decisions to research and deploy these systems were not made when they should have been.

a long term nuclear war fighting strategy, taking into account all Soviet/Russian defenses and countermeasures.

What i have so far said is all things i can prove with little doubt in my own mind and if you really want me to start speculating on possible soviet defensive capability you will realise that what i have suggested so far is not speculation but accepted fact by those in the know at the time.

The US has had for over a decade over three times the money spent on defense and defense reasources than the Russians,

That is pure speculation as there is no real way to measure defense spending in such vastly different economies. How much were the average Russian soldier and officer paid? You can not compare estimated soviet defense spending with American spending as it's based on dozens of assumptions that no one can really prove. How can you for instance try work out what building a system would cost in dollars and then assuming that is what the Russians had spent in dollar value? That was not odd reasoning at the time and explains the massive dollar values assigned to Russian defense spending when it actually cost them but a fraction to get it done.

and probably has at least the laser, counterforce, and just as much countervalue when the game comes to that point.

I think it's high time you start supplying me with some more links..... Most of what i have said comes from DIA estimates and unless yours comes from a more reliable source there is no reason for you to question what i have said so far.

I don't think you need to tell the US how to best defend itself compared to a second rate superpower like the SU, which counted on numbers over technology..

If you really believe this you do not know as much as i thought you did. Numbers DO matter but only if they serve a strategic function. The Typhoon Submarines are massively more complex systems as is many Russian Submarines. They design according to tactical and operational needs and do not waste resources by over engineering a system for it's assigned function.

Clearly the world is different today, where a smaller US force clearly, totally, easily and massively dominated a larger force of Iraqi tanks aircraft, armoured vehicles, artillery and any other number you can think of.

Comparing these two situations is clearly designed to suit your point of view but i do not see how your going to make it relevant in our current discussion. If you think the US forces were smaller than the Iraqi forces in either war your are sadly ignorent of well documented facts. Please go back and check your numbers before i am forced to show you up.

Soviets thought that "quantity is a quality" but not as much of one as they thought. So stop thinking the Russians are so superior. If you can't then just answer this;

Qauntity has a quality of it's own is no lie depending on wether you can exmploy them as you designed them to be. I do not make up my beliefs and just base them on the evidence i see. If you wont look at it you will keep one believing what you currently do.

Have Russians won any war without US help within the last 100 years???

If this had anything to do with the topic i would answer it. If your not serious about learning what you had not known before you should stop taking part.

Great Britian has a superior navy.

Not in 1970 and certainly not today.

China has a superior Army,

Well feel free to explain how you came to that conclusion.

Switzerland, China and India (who buys russian equipment) have superior airforces...

As above feel free to explain what motives your statements.

Underestimate the US if you wish, I am done with this conversation.

So i guess i have been reduced to a US basher who can not read and find obscure DIA sources to suggest that the USSR was never weak?

Nuclear war will end anyone who confronts the US or Russia. End of story. Again...

[edit on 3-1-2006 by Sandman11]

The fat lady wont sing for some time if you keep on insisting that you do not need to read and correct some of your perceptions. Define "end" in your own terms as i have no idea how that translates to Russian.

Stellar

[edit on 4-1-2006 by StellarX]

[edit on 4-1-2006 by StellarX]

I keep saying I am done responding, but keep getting drawn into more discussion. Well it is not a bad thing.
In general, I believe the decisions to or not to proceed or continue certain defensive systems in the US arsenal go much beyond our security clearances, and I have a very strong feeling that the majority of that story extends well into the "classified" arena. I don't have a source for this "feeling" but the US armed forces are not incompetent, and in fact have shown quite a prowess in the area of warfare, and increadable reasources are spent on nuclear strategy. Certainly an 'armchair admiral' like ourselves without the clearance cannot know the whole story. Indeed, many installations and types of equipment are highly classified, and like the Stealth Fightr F-117, we might not hear about it until it is or has been deployed for some time.
In any event, the goal of US strategic warfare is to prevent the war. Russia is planning on fighting the war. I was just thinking, it is in fact more stable to not have a defense, because then your intentions are clear that you don't want to fight one. Then nuclear conflict is nothing but a suicide weapon, for you and your adversary. The SU never adhered to this notion, but that doesn't mean the US was in any way inferior strategically. And it wasn't. In fact it is essential that the offense in this strategic thought be massive and total, because your offensive forces are then your only defense. I see that as clearly logical. To expend on civil defense and missile defense is in fact showing your intention to consider such a war as rational.

Strategically, numbers of "strategic" weapons have favored the US for the majority if not all the cold war and after. I don't particularly like the political agenda of this site but they do seem to have some good information, and seems to be consistent with other sources;
www.thebulletin.org...

Top brass in any military will say they want more than they have, but it is up to somebody to draw the line to keep from breaking the bank. During the Reagan administration, the Joint Chiefs were asked regularly by the administration if they could trade armed forces with the Soviet Union, and take their place, would they? The answer was allways "no". Also asked if the Soviets had any usable advantage, and the same answer. I will try to find a link but that one may be a tough one to find.

Better sit down, I don't want you to be too shocked, but I do agree with you one one issue. McNamara may have been good at running a car company, but he had no tallent for the Defense Department. I read a book about him a while back, and the controdictions about the Viet Nam war he made were astounding, although the details are not fresh in my mind. His views today were controdictory to what happened and what he even claimed back then. He also was, as your article pointed out, against an ABM system, and I wonder what went on between McNamara and the CIA, as I have posted with William T. Lee's book about that conflict within the CIA over "dual use" SAMS, here it is again so you don't have to search for it;
www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org...
Russia, I think we both also agree, cheated on the ABM treaty, as it did on the BIO WEapons treaty of 1974, and others I am sure. What just blows me away is that there are idiots who believe we can trust them with our lives like that, and if we sign a piece of paper with the Russians then we can unilaterally disarm, sing koombaya, and dance in the fields with flowers in our hair, and be safe. -Amazing, simply amazing...

DIA links huh? Well I am looking at your past posts, and there are some interesting ones I have browsed before, like FAS, Defenselink,
Encyclopedia Astronautica is something new to me, and I will enjoy looking at that site, but I don't see anything new as yet. For every link there is another source that shows an opposite opinion. For Soviet or Russian favored opinions you can try this forum and database, but I question the patriotic agenda might be a little strong. I do find it interesting and informative;
warfare.ru...
warfare.ru...
warfare.ru...
For a pro-US bias, try;
www.thebulletin.org...
"The Bulletin" is a good source, but very liberal in their perspective. They show a opinion favoring the US in nuclear prowess over Russia/SU, but for their disarmement agenda, not patriotism.

I don't think the US puts so much faith in SAMs as you do. Sams can be countered, whether by strategic weapons systems countermeasures, to the tactical. Clearly if Viet Nam was any lesson, it looks as though hundreds of SAMs were fired for each aircraft shot down. I think that 'race' to counter aircraft and then to counter the SAM, will continue for some time. The latest SAMs are increadable, but so are the counters to them. The most relevent anti-aircraft weapon IMHO is the AWACs, since it can see hundreds of miles right down to the ground, including low level aircraft and cruise missiles. Russian AWACs probably are the most relevent threat to bombers, along with the MIG-31 and their phased array AESA like radars. Otherwise for the most part it doesn't matter what range a SAM has if a B-52 no less can fly low and get within 10 miles just by being under the radar horizon, and then it isn't much of a standoff for a SRAM, cruise missile, or even "over the shoulder" lob. (maybe not the B-52 doing that maneuver though...) I probably have posted it, but here is the calculator again;
radarproblems.com...

Back to the basic premise, at the hight of the Cold War, the US had by some accounts, about 12500 strategic warheads. (by the way, you are incorrect about US having fewer MIRV warheads on SLBMs, the posidon could carry 14, and the Trident could carry 12).
With that many warheads active and part of the SIOP to be delivered to the SU, you can shood down a lot, you can evacuate your cities (to where I am not sure, and then to be exposed to the radiation in the open), attempt a first strike and hope the US doesn't launch the land based portion to keep from losing them, you can try to sink the SLBMs, shoot down the bombers if they are not launching their cruise missiles from 1500 miles away, and take every countermeasure you can possibly think of. The end result will be roughly the same though, every port, city, base, airfield, railroad junction, depot, major command bunker, major radar facility, and any other significant military or industrial target will be wasted. As I mentioned before, over 400 warheads were suppose to go to Moscow alone, and other major targets like naval facilities might have been hit by 30 or more. "Overkill" for the US was to overwhelm the defenses. "Overkill" for the SU was to 'keep up with the neighbors' in world opinion and status, because they didn't have to overwhelm any defenses. They could have done with much less, but at that level of warfare, it didn't matter. Both sides are pretty much wiped out, and whoever is left will die of disease, strontium 90, cancer, lack of food from a decimated infrastructure, contaminated food, lingering radiation, and little potable water. Not the world I would want to "survive" in.
"Dr. Strangelove" the movie involved in it's plot, a "doomsday" device, which is both technocally possible, but maybe even preferable as the ultimate deterrence force. Using Colbalt jacketed thermonuclear bombs to contaminate the athmosphere, it would wipe out all life on the plannet.
trace.ntu.ac.uk...
Maybe we should just make one of those and give everyone on the plannet a button to it?


[edit on 5-1-2006 by Sandman11]