Plan A - A Nuclear war simulation

[Rockstar]

Originally Posted by mapuc

in case of war and nuclear war.



"You can have thousands of war plans or Doctrines who may end up being useless when the war start/begin"

Markus

A similar quote by boxing champion Mike Tyson: "Everyone has a plan 'til they get punched in the mouth"

[ET2SN]

One of the more dangerous questions I've wondered about (and Subsim seems like the perfect place to ask it) is that if you have a fleet of SSBN's in your Navy, how would you really use them?

Launch the missiles as part of your first strike, launch them as a follow-on strike, or don't launch them at all?

Think about it, a nuclear exchange will send both sides back to the stone age (or at least back to the frontier days) for several generations -assuming there are survivors. That means no more bombs or missiles for a hundred years or so.

So, would you really want your boomers to launch or would it be better to keep them at sea until the shooting stops and then bring back home so you still have some kind of a stockpile for the future?

[Skybird]

Originally SSBMs were meant to close in as much as possible to reduce flighttime of SLBM to such short ammounts that the enemy cannot react and his silos get taken out before they can unload their missiles into the air.



If you think this cna be achieved, you use SSBNs as first strike wepaons of choice, to minimise warning time.


If you think even this warning time is enough for the enemy to react nevertheless, then it depends on whether you think you still will have a command structure and a communicaiton network in 30 minutes that could order your SSBNs later to engage. If you think it will be a "limited" eschnage in the coming 30 minutes, you may want to save your SSBNs, else have them rfeceibign firing order as long as you can contact them.


As with all huge nuclear weapons, they are not really meant to be used for military purposes, their purpose is a political one: to intimidate the enemy so much that he does not start a mess because he knows that he cannot evade your retaliation. So, as a political weapon SSBNs probably are the non plus ultra. You want to save them from giving their payload or position away as long as you can.

[mapuc]

Originally Posted by ET2SN

One of the more dangerous questions I've wondered about (and Subsim seems like the perfect place to ask it) is that if you have a fleet of SSBN's in your Navy, how would you really use them?

Launch the missiles as part of your first strike, launch them as a follow-on strike, or don't launch them at all?

Think about it, a nuclear exchange will send both sides back to the stone age (or at least back to the frontier days) for several generations -assuming there are survivors. That means no more bombs or missiles for a hundred years or so.

So, would you really want your boomers to launch or would it be better to keep them at sea until the shooting stops and then bring back home so you still have some kind of a stockpile for the future?

Your comment made me remember an very old issue on a news program in the beginning of the 80's
It was in those days where Wargames was running in the theater/cinema

Well they had invited a Psychologist and talked about hesitating when an order was given.

That's the only thing I remember.

Markus

[ET2SN]

The US movies always tried to inject some drama about the launch crews debating their launch orders.
The truth is that launch crews were selected based on their will to follow lawful orders and were then trained to follow those orders.

Would they feel bad about it after they launched? Definitely.
Would they hesitate during the launch? I highly doubt it.

[mapuc]

I suddenly recall an another thing

and the reason to why I couldn't put my fingers on where it was wrong in the video of this simulation.

Many, many years back in those days when Reagan was President there was a lot of demonstration against our European politicians decision to install minutes man on European soil.

Danish, Swedish and German tv, showed lots of documentaries about nukes, nuclear war(s)

I remember some high ranked officer saying in front of the camera.

We expect that up to(I can't remember if he said 40 or 50 %) of these nukes we send away will either fail(not the correct word, which I keep on forgetting) or be shot down by the enemy and even our aircraft will suffer.

In the video you see all the nukes fly from A to B and everyone explode.

Markus

[ET2SN]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Originally SSBMs were meant to close in as much as possible to reduce flighttime of SLBM to such short ammounts that the enemy cannot react and his silos get taken out before they can unload their missiles into the air.



If you think this cna be achieved, you use SSBNs as first strike wepaons of choice, to minimise warning time.


If you think even this warning time is enough for the enemy to react nevertheless, then it depends on whether you think you still will have a command structure and a communicaiton network in 30 minutes that could order your SSBNs later to engage. If you think it will be a "limited" eschnage in the coming 30 minutes, you may want to save your SSBNs, else have them rfeceibign firing order as long as you can contact them.


As with all huge nuclear weapons, they are not really meant to be used for military purposes, their purpose is a political one: to intimidate the enemy so much that he does not start a mess because he knows that he cannot evade your retaliation. So, as a political weapon SSBNs probably are the non plus ultra. You want to save them from giving their payload or position away as long as you can.

Actually, the US doctrine with SSBN's started off with realizing that they were not as accurate as land-based missiles due to how they were launched.

The US idea was to use three different types of platforms (ICBMs, Bombers, and SSBNs) which made them impossible to neutralize or destroy in one shot.

Eventually, missiles launched from SSBNs became a lot more accurate but the US doctrine for using them didn't change that much (besides being able to aim them at military vs civilian targets).

You are right about nukes being political weapons vs military weapons.
Nukes have to be used as a form of Deterrence and deterrence has to be scary enough to keep the silo doors closed. Actually launching the damned things means you've already lost.