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Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

reuters.com

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Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#591

Post by bb88 »

kidme5 wrote: post #573
trashtester wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia has a bit more than a couple of nukes, as does the US. I believe I've seen the numbers indicate that the present arsenals that are currently in service are too small to erase humanity, but they are definitely big enough to cause hundreds of millions to a few billions of deaths. If we consider the situation of just 1-2 warheads are used in a conflict, I think it really hard to gauge the effect on public percept…

One "solution" is to intercept the nuclear missiles from space. (Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative). It was restarted a couple years ago with commercial involvement. Possibly a Starlink derivative. Putin must be aware. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink#Military_capabilities

I don't think that's viable for a couple of reasons unless the tech has changed significantly.

One of the traditional decoys of an ICBM are basically launching a bunch of decoy mylar balloons with the warhead in one as well. The last round of interceptors couldn't figure out which of the balloons was the actual warhead. Then the government made the results secret.

Worse now is the hypersonic weapons which won't have constant or "ballistic" trajectory. They may be slower in space, but they have maneuverability -- which will allow them to avoid being targeted by the systems the US has.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#592

Post by nojokes »

dudeinhawaii wrote: post #428

I'm genuinely curious at what point a bully threatening you with MAD can be stopped if you value the existence of your own civilization? Say Russian conquers all of Ukraine and moves troops to the Polish border and parks some tanks a bit inside. What then? Strongly worded essays? If Russia isn't raining hell on Poland, then NATO is forced to .. apply sanctions, make threats, but take no action since the escalation an…

If you value the existence of your own civilization then the only winning strategy to answer to a nuclear threat is counter threat with MAD. You have to be willing to go to the end with this. You really have to be willing to destroy yourself to destroy the one that is threatening you. There is no way around this or you loose everything.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#593

Post by dragonwriter »

irthomasthomas wrote: post #478
jskrablin wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MAD works both ways. And some European countries (like the above mentioned France) have nuclear weapons. So I don't think Putin would make it to the French coastline easily. Ukraine should have made use of the material from the Chernobyl power plant while it had the chance. A threat of dirty bomb being delivered to Moscow would have stopped Putin. I guess their politicians are too naive and didn't consider this an op…

MAD was only really feasible when just three countries had nukes. It was abandoned a while back. Russia chose to pursue nuclear supremacy over conventional defense. They have the biggest arsenal, as well as super-nuclear and super-sonic ICBMs to deliver them. Russia is the only country I know that thinks it might actually be able to win a nuclear war.

> Russia chose to pursue nuclear supremacy over conventional defense

No, it didn't; their numerical advantage in main battle tanks over the #2 is, by ratio, much greater than their advantage in nuclear warheads.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#594

Post by bb88 »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #533
kodah wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I think we are well past the point of nuclear armaments. I think, if there is war, it'll be a ground and air war that's like a sophisticated yet familiar chess game and a side war that is mostly anti-war propaganda, pro-Russia propaganda, misinformation, and attacks on IOT and public infrastructure that exhaust the citizenry out of watching the fighting.

Many people believed this kind of thing in July of 1914.

Exactly. When it comes to unloading your nuclear arsenal, it's not the war that's the problem -- it's the escalation.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#595

Post by thelittleone »

davorb wrote: post #515
chewz wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every Russian general is born with the ambition of driving his tanks to the Atlantic Ocean. And that won't be much different from what Tsar Alexander did in 1812/1813 with similiar meager resources. So yes, Putin probably is considering this scenario at least in his wet dreams... And it seems like largest country in Europe (by area), with 200 thousand strong army, tons od most sophisticated NATO weapons and 8 years o…

Ukraine has 200k soldiers. But most of them are grunts with rifles. Russia has all kinds of equipment and combined arms. You can't really compare the two.

certainly no comparison in a conventional war. Ukraine could be as costly to Putin as Afghanistan was to the US.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#596

Post by riku_iki »

thelittleone wrote: post #590
riku_iki wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “liquidated” a couple of Russian fighter jets It was one jet, and it wasn't fighter jet, but assault jet, it didn't carry any AA missiles and couldn't defend himself.

Was it a frogfoot?

Fencer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Russian_Sukhoi_Su-24_shoo...

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#597

Post by btilly »

baybal2 wrote: post #568
trashtester wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia has a bit more than a couple of nukes, as does the US. I believe I've seen the numbers indicate that the present arsenals that are currently in service are too small to erase humanity, but they are definitely big enough to cause hundreds of millions to a few billions of deaths. If we consider the situation of just 1-2 warheads are used in a conflict, I think it really hard to gauge the effect on public percept…

The cold war high side estimate was 50M if the West lets USSR to expend the whole of its arsenal on USA standing, doing nothing. Recent figures I read were 20M-40M for worst case scenarios. Realistically, a coordinated all in launch is ~1000 warheads, with 400 of them megaton scale in R36 MIRVs from West Siberia. First strike is only possible with computerised launch infrastructure operational. Beheading the command…

According to Congressional testimony from a committee they created to study the problem, a SINGLE nuclear bomb set off to maximize the EMP effect would likely kill about 2/3 of the population of the Continental USA, with possible higher estimates up to 90%. Mostly through slow painful deaths like mass starvation.

Why?

Because it would knock out most of our cars, electronics, payment systems, farm machinery, and everything else that we depend on to keep the supply chains our grocery stores depend on for food distribution.

See https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/millions-americans-co... for verification.

I have no idea where your "worst case scenarios" come from. But they don't exactly seem "worst case" to me!

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#598

Post by kidme5 »

bb88 wrote: post #591
kidme5 wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One "solution" is to intercept the nuclear missiles from space. (Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative). It was restarted a couple years ago with commercial involvement. Possibly a Starlink derivative. Putin must be aware. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink#Military_capabilities

I don't think that's viable for a couple of reasons unless the tech has changed significantly. One of the traditional decoys of an ICBM are basically launching a bunch of decoy mylar balloons with the warhead in one as well. The last round of interceptors couldn't figure out which of the balloons was the actual warhead. Then the government made the results secret. Worse now is the hypersonic weapons which won't have…

Actually interception happens at the boost phase (upon launch) with these systems, so decoys are not possible unless you literally launch multiple rockets.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#599

Post by nradov »

kidme5 wrote: post #573
trashtester wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia has a bit more than a couple of nukes, as does the US. I believe I've seen the numbers indicate that the present arsenals that are currently in service are too small to erase humanity, but they are definitely big enough to cause hundreds of millions to a few billions of deaths. If we consider the situation of just 1-2 warheads are used in a conflict, I think it really hard to gauge the effect on public percept…

One "solution" is to intercept the nuclear missiles from space. (Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative). It was restarted a couple years ago with commercial involvement. Possibly a Starlink derivative. Putin must be aware. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink#Military_capabilities

Ballistic missile defense capabilities will remain very limited for at least the next few years. But Russia has also hedged against this risk by developing the Poseidon strategic nuclear torpedo. We have no effective defense.

http://www.hisutton.com/Belgorod-Class-Submarine.html

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#600

Post by solotronics »

aksss wrote: post #557
DubiousPusher wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is absolutely no precedent in human history for two fairly equal powers engaging in a conflict and one side refusing in totality to use almost any weapon at its disposal and certainly not one that an enemy has already used. Japan did not nuke America back in 1945 because it did not have a nuke and had lost all air superiority.

I may get downvoted into oblivion for saying this, but -- I think it's wishful thinking to imagine soldiers will make the 'right' decision when the call comes. During the Tiananmen Square debacle/massacre, interviews with people there indicate that many/most never imagined the "people's" army would act against them - they were considered on the same side. Yet act against them they did. Similarly, I think you see some…

Thank God there are multiple real world examples of officers getting the order to fire a nuke and disobeying it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Arkhipov

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