US response time to a surprise attack...?

Does anyone with military knowledge have a time estimate for a U.S. response to a surprise nuclear attack? I'm talking a full-out attack, maybe with subs parked off our shores. Would we be able to respond? I guess the more important question is, how would we respond? Surely we wouldn't know who attacked us. The most likely: Russia or China. Would the U.S. simply commit to total nuclear release? I love my country, but I know most of the world doesn't (and I don't lay all the blame at Bush's feet). Does anyone think this is plausible...get us when we're least expecting it? Or, do we have capabilities that are unknown (i.e. tracking radar, secret counter-weapons)? Any thoughts are welcome.

When a nuke is launched USA, Russia, China etc will know within seconds who launched it how long it is going to take till impact and where it is heading to.

What if it's a sub launch?

a. NORAD

b. Nuclear Football.

Sub launched missiles are also detected almost immediatly and are just as caluculable. The advantage of sub launched missiles though is that it gives your enemy much less response time, so if you're lucky your first strike capabilities might cut down a significant portion of their nuclear arsenal.

Anyhow the response time is probably fast enough to launch a salvo powerful enough to turn any country into a self illuminating parking lot within the amount of time we'd have before the first missiles hit. Either way we're screwed, but you can rest assured that we'll have plenty of our own missiles in the sky before the first of the enemy's missiles hit. And even after that both sides would presumabley have a few hidden away ready for a second go if anybody survives.

I believe the SIOP has this contingency covered.

They'd never admit it, but if Washington DC and the major command authorities
were knocked out, I think SSBN commanding officers already have target packages and
sealed instructions to carry out in the event the US is obliterated with nukes.

The whole idea of a massive first strike against the US is a losing proposition. Even if it's surprised, the US will take every major Russian/Sino population center >1 million people with it. Even a submarine launched weapon would be immediately counter detected. I don't think there is any forseeable way an adversary could nuke the US and not get hit back with extreme prejudice.

Is it possible for Navy SEALs to dive deep enough to touch subs without their body asploding? I don't know squat about deep waters so maybe I'm asking a dumb question. They could swim undetected and stick explosives on trespassing subs then they could turn them into scrap metal the second they see nuke tubes opened.

Originally posted by ufia
Is it possible for Navy SEALs to dive deep enough to touch subs without their body asploding? I don't know squat about deep waters so maybe I'm asking a dumb question. They could swim undetected and stick explosives on trespassing subs then they could turn them into scrap metal the second they see nuke tubes opened.

Subs operate a lot deeper than what a human can normally tolerate while diving.
Although there are specialized hard suits that can allow divers to go super deep.
But it would not be practical to use them to plant explosives on submerged hostile SSBNs.
I think the only chance would be covert insertion while the SSBN was still at the pier.

Killing SSBNs is best left to SSNs.

this is a hard question to answer. (but i'll at least give my 2 pennies since i was in the navy)
our oceans are pretty well covered with monitoring by our naval subs, ships, and intelligence.
there's a lot of variables involved. sub positioning, etc.

to me it would be hard for someone to breach our waters without our naval or air force noticing.
pearl harbour was caught off-gaurd because the person running the particular radar thought it was a malfunction. i don't think this would happen in modern day due to so much satellite, naval, and intelligence information.

so it's a hard question to answer.

parts of me thinks IF an enemy can breach our states with an atomic weapon (that we don't catch first in flight) then we have the possibility of failed and destroyed systems. -- if we do catch it and can knock it out of air, then who's to say; an hour or so?

some atomic missiles have up to 100 war heads inside each one, and they can each have their own target. another hazard is oxygen depleting enzyme missiles that burrow into the ground and start a break-down of the food chain killing all plant life. it's brutal.

also 18 years ago when i was in the service, they said the next big thing was going to be terrrorism, and we used to have ops all the time to try to handle these smaller attacks.
i think the true scare is small nuclear devices carried out by remote cells, and not an inter-continental attack.

note: one nuclear sub can wipe out an entire nation. (this was something we learned early on)



good question.
-b

Originally posted by zooplancton
some atomic missiles have up to 100 war heads inside each one, and they can each have their own target. another hazard is oxygen depleting enzyme missiles that burrow into the ground and start a break-down of the food chain killing all plant life. it's brutal.

Umm... what? The most MIRV's any modern ICBM can carry is 12, no missile can carry anywhere near one hundred. And I've never heard of an "oxygen depleting enzyme missiles", to be honest it sounds like you just made that up.

Unless its a diesel boat then the chances of a Russian/Chinese SSBN getting within close range of the US coast are very small.Im sure SSN drivers would have no doubts in sinking any SSBN/SSK etc that came within range of the US that was going through launch procedures.However the distances involved re SSKs mean its going to be a long journey to even get within firing range of the US in terms of a torpedo tube launched Cruise missile.
More chance of it being put on a merchant ship..

"And I've never heard of an "oxygen depleting enzyme missiles", to be honest it sounds like you just made that up. "

i'm sorry you haven't heard of oxygen depleting enzymes in weaponry.
this is what we were taught in a weapons class.
i'm not here to spout BS and propagate false information. just passing along what i was educated on in the military.

i might have mis-quoted 100 war heads. it had something to do with ICBM's specs...

[edit on 21/12/2012 by zooplancton]

[edit on 21/12/2012 by zooplancton]

nowt about oxygen depleteing enyzme missiles on google at all,


would there be any counter measures for a nuclear equipped icbm? or is a case for running about in circles with you hands above your head screaming in panic?

I don't think there would ever be a sneak attack that wouldn't be responded with the utmost reply. Even if you managed to get every bomber and ground based silo, which you wouldn't, you would still have our subs ready to dish out vengence. No one wins a full nuclear exchange, no one.

Just and aside are most sub missiles of the long range ballistic variety? for those you need not be close to shore at all, in fact wouldn't they almost be too close as those SLBM's go into sub orbit before coming down? My knowledge on this is limited. I can see getting close to shore for SLCM (cruise missiles) but not for the big boomers.

UD,

>>
Does anyone with military knowledge have a time estimate for a U.S. response to a surprise nuclear attack?
>>

The big question will be chain of command. Stratcomm still has independent key-turn authorized centers in Offut I believe but theoretically, you could get a >
I'm talking a full-out attack, maybe with subs parked off our shores.
>>

Very unlikely. SOSUS and other systems would detect the sortieing of however many boats the Russians have left as well as their progress across the Atlantic. There would be _very_ little 'Red October' gamesmanship here, a call would be made and if no turn-around was issued, we would park attack boats off their baffles and give them a good taste of active ping every two minutes, doors open, from the moment they arrived within a 1,000 miles of our shores.

OTOH, Osama has the fatwah 'endorsement' of a Pakistani mullah for up to a 10 million person mass casualty even and thus that kind of a threat is the most likely, using Norkian or Pak nukes on Iranian TBM rocket technology off a neutral-country hijacked container ship to avoid the 'only five yards in the whole world that are so capable' identifiable SSBN threat problem.

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Would we be able to respond?
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Yes. Without Looking Glass always airborne, the chain of command would take awhile to dekink from the deliberately 'codes off boats' level but in any event a single Sub (20 missiles, 3 warheads each = 60 aimpoints) could not fully interdict even our land based force assets and most assuredly not all of our political/economic ones.

>>
I guess the more important question is, how would we respond? Surely we wouldn't know who attacked us. The most likely: Russia or China. Would the U.S. simply commit to total nuclear release?
>>

MAD doesn't allow for much else but the problem for either (still largely totalitarian) state is that they cannot afford to take a lot of decapitation damage without being ruined completely. There are about 10 key, 'countervalue' target sites in each country, the loss of all of which would be devastating and permanent in terms of generateable income at a subsistence level.

And while we would also be forever crippled as a superpower; we would survive the resulting turmoil long enough to reestablish connectivity and launch authorization to make it happen.

>>
I love my country, but I know most of the world doesn't (and I don't lay all the blame at Bush's feet). Does anyone think this is plausible...get us when we're least expecting it? Or, do we have capabilities that are unknown (i.e. tracking radar, secret counter-weapons)? Any thoughts are welcome.
>>

The problem with a graduated response is that it creates a feeling that nuclear wars are meant to be tit-for-tat enterred into on a level of 'possible political deescalation'. Unfortunately, the only people this benefits are those who are willing to generate chaos without certain victory, particularly as undeclared assassins employing unconventional launch capabilities.

All of our simulations show that once the threshold is crossed, nuclear warfare rapidly degenerates to a _purely military solution_ (execute the warplan and see 'who's next' on an A-B-C basis of IMMEDIATE retaliation) and for this to most effectively work; we need a declared, NCA redundant, ability to command a nuclear exchange outside the political loop.

I'm not sure we have it.

Thus changes in our warfighting posture relative to the 'Crimson Tide' scenario, the retirement of Looking Glass and soon, Cheyenne Mountain, can all be seen as retrograde steps that encourage decapitation strikes on a limited level 'what's next' basis of political gambitry.

Which is not the direction you want to be taking a force which is nation specific and highly centralized through a three tier (NORAD/Football/Flights) moated code silo activation scheme.


KPl.