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Nukemap

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Re: Nukemap

#91

Post by JohnBooty »

nostrademons wrote: post #54
tablespoon wrote: post #3

I was looking at this the other day, and was wondering how nuclear weapons would actually be targeted against the US. Would they be aimed at city centers or nearby infrastructure? Would each city be targeted with one warhead, or blanketed with several over a large area? Because if there's a full-scale nuclear war, if the Russians only target the center of my city, I probably have a chance of surviving. However if the…

The vast majority of nukes are "counterforce" - they're targeted against military targets, primarily the enemy's own nuclear arsenal. Strategic reasoning for this is pretty simple: only by destroying the enemy's weapons can you prevent the destruction of your own citizens, and destroying the enemy's citizens is pretty cold comfort if all of yours are dead. I've heard that each Minuteman 3 silo in the U.S. has multipl…

Do you have a source for this? It seems (coldly and terrifyingly) sound from logical perspective, at least to the extent that "logical" is a word that can be applied to something that threatens the entire human race.

But I'm curious how much if any official doctrine has become public.

    If you live in a suburban bedroom community, there 
    is a very high chance of you surviving an initial 
    attack unscathed.
One might imagine a regime that was sufficiently evil and/or endangered enough to launch wide-scale nuclear attacks might also spare a few warheads for such bedroom communities as well, especially if resistance continued after an initial exchange. Would be a terrifyingly effective way to cow a populace - to make them feel nowhere was safe.

Re: Nukemap

#92

Post by yellowapple »

javajosh wrote: post #17
excalibur wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guessing there would be several aimed at each city of any size, and the targeted locations would be spread out a bit to maximize impact. If you're conducting an all-out nuclear assault you're probably not pulling any punches.

I was going to say there aren't enough warheads to target every city because: >[The] United States and Russia have the vast majority of nuclear weaps, with 4,804 and 4,480 warheads stockpiled respectively. There are approximately 1,861 nukes spread over the rest of the world, between China, Israel, the U.K, Pakistan, and India. France has the largest number of nukes after the U.S. and Russia. [0] However, there are o…

> However, there are only 326 cities with over 100k population in the US.

Probably more than that across NATO, though. Not to mention that the US is in alliances other than NATO.

Re: Nukemap

#93

Post by ZoomerCretin »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #80
ZoomerCretin wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD1124730.pdf The US defense establishment believes the literal nuclear bombing of cities is an unlikely strategy. Russian first-strike strategy involves the usage of nuclear weapons for their Electromagnetic Pulse generating effects. The ability to destroy electricity delivery, generation, and electronic devices is just as likely to destroy or render ineffective an adversary's ability…

I am... dubious of the actual danger EMP poses to submarines. If they were surfaced, especially if they were attempting to recieve radio communications, sure. But a submerged submarine would be extremely well shielded. The real question would be whether a submarine captain would be willing to press the button based on radio silence alone.

From the report linked, on the threat to communications between submarines and command, and the direct threat to submarines:

>> HEMP Threat To U.S. Submarines?

> HEMP attack could achieve for Russia a key objective the USSR could not achieve during the Cold War—neutralizing U.S. ballistic missile submarines at sea.

> Russian Super-EMP weapons could destroy or degrade U.S. bombers, ICBMs, SSBNs in port and their strategic C3I—including land-based VLF communications systems, TACAMO aircraft, and other redundant means of strategic command and control used to convey Emergency Action Messages (EAMs) to submarines hiding at sea. Severing their communications links to the National Command Authority would neutralize U.S. submarines, rendering them useless.

> HEMP could also be used to attack submarines on patrol at sea directly.

> A high-yield warhead (1 megaton or more) detonated for HEMP over the ocean would cover an area 2,200 kilometers in radius, a zone nearly as large as North America, with powerful E3 HEMP that would penetrate the ocean depths and possibly damage or destroy the electronics of submarines on patrol. Submarines would be especially vulnerable when deploying their very long antennae—which they need to do precisely when trying to receive EAMS.

Re: Nukemap

#94

Post by nradov »

k__ wrote: post #32

I don't know how much of what I saw online was Ukraine propaganda. But the Russian military seems to be in bad shape. Almost nothing of the new stuff they paraded all these years is used in Ukraine. Some people argued that it's a smart ploy, others say they simply don't have the technology in amounts that are enough for a war. It makes me think, how many nukes does Russia actually have? How many are usable? How many…

Most of the Russian nukes are likely to be usable, especially the SLBMs. Even when the Russian economy collapsed and their conventional forces fell apart they still managed to scrape together enough funding for their nuclear forces.

Our current ability to intercept Russian ballistic missiles is extremely limited. We might get a few at most. There just aren't many interceptors deployed.

Re: Nukemap

#95

Post by lostmsu »

omdv wrote: post #44
holtkam2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well Russia has about 6000 nukes so they could definitely afford to hit every major metro area in the west potentially dozens of times. Unless you live hundreds of miles from the nearest town I’d think it’s safe to assume you’d be dead, if not from a detonation from the onset radiation and / or climate catastrophe following the nuclear fallout

As Ukrainian, who was very (pleasantly) surprised at ineptitude of Russian military I changed my mind about nuclear war recently... Of course hindsight is always 20/20, but even before the war I had the arguments with some of my friends that modern Russia cannot produce anything at a modern world class level. How it can be possible if they pay 40k RUB to Senior Engineers working in military or space organizations, wh…

The problem is that once you have rocket engines and refined uranium, a nuke is a blunt weapon, that is relatively easy to wield. Probably even a specially trained monkey can do that.

Re: Nukemap

#97

Post by GoodJokes »

jarrenae wrote: post #23
tablespoon wrote: post #3

I was looking at this the other day, and was wondering how nuclear weapons would actually be targeted against the US. Would they be aimed at city centers or nearby infrastructure? Would each city be targeted with one warhead, or blanketed with several over a large area? Because if there's a full-scale nuclear war, if the Russians only target the center of my city, I probably have a chance of surviving. However if the…

I'm actually in the middle of working on a resource for that exact thing: https://ae.studio/same-day-skunkworks/risk-of-nuclear-disast... we're collecting better sources, but eventually you should be able to visualize a heatmap if you will of locations at higher risk. We're working to add variables like wind travel direction, known military bases, etc. - super speculative, but I think it's better than what currently…

No post body was provided.

Re: Nukemap

#98

Post by miki_tyler »

The Russians don't have nukes.

The only reason to keep nukes in your arsenal is for deterrence. Now, bear with me on this - you don't need to have functional nukes for deterrence, just pretend they are in working order. Now, in a corrupt kleptocratic organization like the Russian armed forces, what stops the people at the top to steal as much as possible when those weapons are not supposed to be ever used?

Re: Nukemap

#99

Post by JohnBooty »

miki_tyler wrote: post #98

The Russians don't have nukes. The only reason to keep nukes in your arsenal is for deterrence. Now, bear with me on this - you don't need to have functional nukes for deterrence, just pretend they are in working order. Now, in a corrupt kleptocratic organization like the Russian armed forces, what stops the people at the top to steal as much as possible when those weapons are not supposed to be ever used?

I agree completely, except for the part where you are 100% sure they don't have any (working) nukes.

I think it's possible, even likely that their nuclear arsenal is in shambles and much is non-functional.

A cash-strapped regime like Russia has surely made the same observation as you and realized that they can reap all of the deterrence benefits without actually spending any money to maintain nuclear readiness.

Unlike you, I do think it's likely that at least some of their arsenal is functional. Perhaps it's not the full "turn the US into a parking lot" array they'd like others to think they have, but I find it hard to believe they have none.

Re: Nukemap

#100

Post by wonderwonder »

c03 wrote: post #27
lkbm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently learned about the "nuclear sponge" strategy. The US has a bunch of ICMBs stationed in remote areas in hopes of drawing nuclear strikes to those areas, away from population centers[0]. [0] https://kottke.org/20/10/americas-nuclear-sponge

However nice that sounds, that is unlikely to happen. History shows that targeting civilians is by far the most effective to make the opposition concede.

A Nuclear exchange is not really to make the other side concede. Both sides know if they fire nukes the other side will respond in minutes with their own massive salvo. The initial strike is essentially to render as much of the enemies military ineffective especially their nukes. Surviving for a second strike is not a given. In the event of a nuclear strike I think both sides understand that there wont be very many people or leadership to concede. Hence the term Mutually Assured Destruction.
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