MAD no longer feasible: America's got Hypersonic Missiles

And if you're America or Russia, is it completely necessary to actually launch the missiles? If one of those countries came under nuclear attack, couldn't they just detonate all their warheads without ever launching them and let the resulting environmental catastrophe do the rest?

You won't really be reelected if your war policy is "We're going to blow ourselves SO HARD that the other guy will die too in a dozen years, tops!" And don't forget at least half of your nukes are in Boomers, so they would just burn some fishies.

edited 18th Nov '11 1:00:02 AM by RufusShinra

FUCK THE FISHIES! BURN, FISHIES, BUUUUURN!

That's why missile defense is staggered in level. If you don't have time to fire off the SM-3 to intercept at standoff ranges, you fall back to the more general-purpose SM-2 to do the same job (over land this is where the MIM-104 Patriot comes in).

Also, they can. SLBM's do not have the launch window to be exceptionally fast. (Nor are they agile like cruise missiles.) Their main advantage is being able to be fired from a stealthy platform that can get close enough to render the interception window as very small. It's not impossible to intercept such a platform, just difficult to do so.

Well, the hypothetical scenario did include the US shooting down half the missiles, so it's not as if the window of opportunity for the missile defence was left out.

edited 18th Nov '11 4:38:55 AM by BestOf

Missile defenses and space warfare will render MAD obsolete, not just some fast missile tech.

We're not back in the frying pan yet...

I don't think MAD will be rendered obsolete until all nuclear weapons are disarmed, which might not occur in my lifetime.

If you outlaw nukes only outlaws will have—yeah, however that old saw goes.

The thing is, in an actual shooting war, for an SSN to try to find a CVBG is a massive challenge. For one, the carrier and her escorts will be operating in total EMCON. Satellite routes are predictable, and the Russians no longer have their RORSAT birds. Hence, the carrier and her escorts simply disappear from opfor sensor grids.

The thing about a submarine is that its footprint of action is relatively small compared to other platforms. For instance, let's go back to the Red Storm Rising scenario of the Backfire raids: something or somebody finds the carrier, radios it in to Fleet HQ, Naval Aviation Backfires take off with missiles under the wings and arrives on-point within four hours. In those four hours the Backfires could range thousands of miles while the carrier can move 120 miles, but the Backfires have powerful radar systems broadcasting at 12000m ASL, so the Backfires are certain to find the CVBG. The question is if they could close quickly enough to launch their missiles without getting annihilated by the carrier's own interceptors. Okay.

Now let's say you're using a submarine instead of massed aviation regiments. For one, your sub isn't networked into all the other sensors you have. You have to send a ELF message to tell it to surface, and then send a regular radio message telling it where its target is. Communications is strictly one-way. Then, there's the matter of how much ocean it can cover. At 30 knots it might be able to reach a stationary target within a mere 120 miles. But no submarine likes to travel at 30 knots, since that's noisy as hell. Also, within those four hours the carrier will also have moved, and a CVBG can sprint at 30 knots with no problems. If it made a turn in some other direction north or south—as per SOP—there's an excellent chance the submarine will not find the carrier at all.

Even assuming you find the carrier there's the question of penetrating the screen. This is a truly hellish exercise. You have to move slow not to be heard, but if you do so the carrier will get away. Going deep will not help you: the deep sea sound channel propagates noise extremely well, and a modern antisubmarine torpedo can dive just as deeply as you can. Also, the screen consists of frigates, cruisers, and destroyers; if you're talking about an American carrier force all of those are good at the ASW role. They will be employing sprint-and-drift, their towed arrays are excellent submarine hunters, and they are all carrying helicopters. Helicopters and fixed-wing ASW craft, employing sonobuoys and dipping sonar, will make it mind-breakingly hard to sneak up on the screen, let alone the carrier. Keep in mind, this is if you find the bastard. Remember, they don't have to kill you to score a kill. They just have to keep you away long enough so that you have no chance to intercept them again.

^ Indeed. Tracking carriers by submarine was ridiculously difficult to do so. Historically it was more often fluke than actual tracking. For example, it was more or less entirely by coincidence that I-168 of the Imperial Japanese Navy found the listing USS Yorktown (CV-6) following the Battle of Midway and sank her and USS Hammann (DD-412) in a single torpedo spread. Most submarine interceptions of capital ships US or Japanese (or between anyone else) were almost entirely by accident. There were few instances of a sub actually stalking a carrier/battleship/cruiser and not being noticed.

In the height of the Cold War or even into the present day, it's no easier.

@TOM

Lol anti ballistic systems and missile shields are really unnefective. Do I am not up to date... from what I had heard up to 2007 the program had been a failure.

Only the media thinks it's a failure because of highly publicized tests being less than stellar.

Remember USA 193? The satellite Bush ordered shot down? Live fire missile defense technology. (Which wasn't even purpose built for ASAT duty!)

Shooting a satellite with a predeterminated orbit its easier.

After all you need the same technology to hit them that the one you need to put them up, plus good timing. Like... replace the Space shuttle with a missile and you have 100s of certain hits on the international space station. So we could have done the same for shit and giggles in the 60s had we wanted. Even the most rudimentary space faring nation, or private enterprise would be able to shoot down said satellite.

Besides, while I do agree that MAD proponents overstimate the accuracy of Russian Nukes, even if they fail target there are enough to cause a cataclysm. Added the impact of the american nukes some sort of Nuclear Winter would ensue and that would not be pretty.

Furthermore as stated by Wikipedia: "The NMD program is limited in scope and designed to counter a relatively small ICBM attack from a less sophisticated adversary. Unlike the earlier Strategic Defense Initiative program, it is not designed to be a robust shield against a large attack from a technically sophisticated adversary."

As a General himself said... missle defense is traying to hit a bullet with another bullet. Should the missle be fast enough it would be farely hard to hit, add to that the range from wich the ordinance is fire... Mayor Tom you should be the first one to point this things out...

edited 18th Nov '11 3:54:48 PM by Baff

Right. That downing was a unqualified success, and the SM-3 has only had time to get better since then.

Naturally. Given MIRVs and decoys, which actual ICBMs use, the current ABM program won't stand much chance against a concerted ICBM attack. It's not supposed to; it's not designed to. But against a small-scale attack it works.

However, need I remind you that most ABM initiatives of the 1960s were nuclear in nature. Knocking out the satellite via nuke in 1968 or so would have technologically feasible, but a really really bad idea.

edited 18th Nov '11 3:54:26 PM by SabresEdge

Not compared to a ballistic missile which literally has only one real trajectory. (Ballistic) And it's much slower than a satellite to boot!

Are you talking about the F-15-launched KKV or something different...?

But think about the range Tom. The satellite will keep falling and thus will go no where. Ergo you have all the time of the world to hit it, in any angle, at any point. Missile defense will have to shoot the ballistic misslie very precisely, trought a very narrow window of possibility, if it the ordinance intends to hit it.

I.E the satellite is almost always in range. The ballistic missile is not.

edited 18th Nov '11 4:47:58 PM by Baff

Actually, the ABMs in question would have been the A-35 and A-135 for the Soviets, and Sprint and Spartan for the Americans. Nuclear-tipped anti-ballistic missiles.

No. The satellite will be overhead for only a few minutes—there's the radar horizon to worry about. And the ICBM would have to have been tracked by different systems as it approached the launch window. In both cases the launch window is fairly small.

edited 18th Nov '11 4:49:51 PM by SabresEdge

@Sabre's Edge Your Walls of Text are hurting my eyes when I try to read them.

Also

AMERICA!

@Sabre

While I agree that finding the CVBG may be hard, once you found it, penetrating the anti-sub screen isn't, as proven by many subs: Chinese, German, US-American...

This isn't only my oppinion, at least one admiral of the US navy agrees (though I can't seem to find the exact quote anymore). Heck, even your own quote admits that once detected by a sub by accident, the carrier is basically lost.

I fully believe we've had this for years and we're just now being told about it. Our military has all kinds of stuff that we aren't told about because doing so would destroy the element of surprise. The only reason they are even telling us about this now is either it was too open of a secret to bother hiding and/or we've already got something better. Both my parents were in the Navy and my dad still calibrates all kinds of equipment for the military based here in San Diego (he's a calibrator/metrologist), they have all kinds of stories weird stuff. And there are bunkers and such out here working on all kinds of secret crap, my dad calibrates their testing equipment at some of these places. I know the military is often secretive just for the sake of being secretive, but I would expect my dad to know the difference.

Personally I like the idea that we could hold our own against just about anybody on the planet, without having to rely on any other countries for aid in protection. Mostly I think it's worth the money, because all the scientific research that goes into making these weapons often ends up being helpful in the civilian realm too. But considering how expensive it is I can understand why people would be skeptical about it. I know we are relatively friendly with Russia these days (well, compared to cold war times), but I think the best way to really keep a lasting piece would be fore all the 'superpowers', including Russia and China and India to continue to increase cooperation and understanding between out countries. I'm' not too worried about the future because when it comes down to it, globalization, inter-reliance and technology is really making peace and cooperation more lucrative than war, and once there isn't much of a motivation to have war, most of it will stop. We'll probably never have a war-free society because there are crazies out there, but I think even now countries are much less likely to want to start wars with others than they were, even fifty years ago. Helping developing countries would go even further to stop war that already exists.

edited 28th Nov '11 3:20:09 PM by NoirGrimoir