As I understand it, the Soviets had mobile contingency plans, but they were also afraid of delegating launch capability to the field -- for the very pragmatic r

As I understand it, the Soviets had mobile contingency plans, but they were also afraid of delegating launch capability to the field -- for the very pragmatic reason that a rival power center (e.g., a portion of the military) could rebel and exploit it. This put a lot of pressure on central leadership to respond to possible missile warnings rapidly, since a decapitation strike could actually succeed. Allegedly the answer was Perimeter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand), which allowed delegation with a bunch of technical safeguards added.