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Old 12-23-16, 08:03 PM   #61
Oberon
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Most of them are, to be honest, I mean I don't know if Russian SSBN doctrine has changed since the Cold War, but IIRC the old plan was a mixture of under ice ops and a bastion. That's pretty resilient, but anything coming out of the barn usually gets tagged and probably followed. Same goes for US boats. They may be quiet, but they all have to enter and exit port at some point. The key is losing the tail or preferably not getting one in the first place. I mean there's a reason that ASW vessels usually beat the waters around SSBN ports. Get the boomer out of the port and into the open sea un-molested and you've got room to play with.

Land and air based deployments are different, the US has a pretty good system with Chrome Dome, but they can be intercepted. ICBMs can be hit in the silos if you can get a missile to them before the launch order is given, or you can intercept them with ABMs, although counter-measures and counter-counter-measure systems are always being created. Does Moscow still have that excellent ring of nuclear ABMs? The Russians were very good at that back in the day.

In short, strategic surprise counts for a lot, which is why there are spy satellites all over the place and why they're generally left alone. You start taking out the enemies satellites then you reduce their early warning time, you do that and they will think that you're getting ready to strike and will strike you first.
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