Submarine Fire Power

I caught the tail end of a T.V. show about a US submarine. A sailor said the sub he was on would rank as the worlds third most powerful nation based on its firepower. Something like 14 nukes each one more powerful than all of the bombs dropped in WWII, including the two big ones. Do these subs really have that much juice?
Anyone have a link to more info on sub firepower? This just caught my interest.

Originally posted by Trazom
I caught the tail end of a T.V. show about a US submarine. A sailor said the sub he was on would rank as the worlds third most powerful nation based on its firepower. Something like 14 nukes each one more powerful than all of the bombs dropped in WWII, including the two big ones. Do these subs really have that much juice?
Anyone have a link to more info on sub firepower? This just caught my interest.

Actually an Ohio class sub has 24 Trident missiles, each with up to 12 warheads (I think) - for a total of 288 warheads. Each warhead has a yeild in the area of 300,0000 tons of TNT (equivalant), the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15,000 and 20,000 respectively.

Acutally a (full) squadron of Peacekeeper ICBM's would be more powerfull - with up to 500 warheads (making it the 3rd largest nuclear power after the rest of Russia and the US) - but they are being deactivated as we speak. A squadron of Minuteman missiles would only have 150 max, but most are de-mirved - so only 50 warheads per squadron.

They truly carry a awesome amount of power. 288 warheads imagine wiping out the top 288 cities in the United States or any country and thats what one of them can do.

They are a major factor in MAD and still are. If anyone wiped out most of the United States they would still have these bad boys out in the oceans just waiting to strike back.

Originally posted by ShadowXIX
They are a major factor in MAD and still are. If anyone wiped out most of the United States they would still have these bad boys out in the oceans just waiting to strike back.

The movies have overblown this, but in times of global tension and America is on like DEFCON 1 or 2 and the subs are not able to contact COMSUBLANT or its PACIFIC equal, then they were suppoed to try a few more times then launch at thier targets.