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Russia's strategic submarine fleet is not the same as the US FBM force. USN boomers are deploying constantly, to the point where they have literally two differe

Russia's strategic submarine fleet is not the same as the US FBM force. USN boomers are deploying constantly, to the point where they have literally two different crews (Blue and Gold) to minimize the time the actual hulls stay in port (allowing them to spend roughly 2/3 of their service life at sea, an incredibly high utilization rate for a warship). Russian ballistic missile submarines generally average 1-2 sorties a year. Now, the Soviet (and then Russian) solution to this was to eventually develop missiles that could reach the US from port, but guess what? That means that instead of a survivable, highly dispersed and hidden missile force, the vast majority of your missiles are massed together where a single warhead could take them out. Russian strategic bombing forces are also pretty small (36 Tu-160's built, maybe half operational, and something like 60 Tu-95MS operational), so most of their nuclear deterrent comes from land based ICBMs. Note, however, that Soviets understood this and so built the SS-25 Topol, and there are about 100 of these road-mobile ICBMs operational today. (Along with ~130 silo launched missiles.) The Bulletin kinda glosses over the road-mobile survivability. It isn't what America did, so people who are experts in American systems often don't pay sufficient attention to the advantages of such systems, in my experience.

Tuna-Fish 7y ago
> Because of the new kill capabilities of US submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), the United States would be able to target huge portions of its nuclear force against non-hardened targets, the destruction of which would be crucial to a “successful” first strike. One such mission would likely involve the destruction of road-mobile ICBMs that had left their garrisons to hide in Russia’s vast forests in anticipation of attack. The garrisons and their support facilities would probably be destroyed quickly, and some of the dispersed road-mobile launchers would also be quickly destroyed as they were in the process of dispersing. To destroy or expose the remaining launchers, United States planners would have the nuclear forces needed to undertake truly scorched-earth tactics: Just 125 US Minuteman III warheads could set fire to some 8,000 square miles of forest area where the road-mobile missiles are most likely to be deployed. This would be the equivalent of a circular area with a diameter of 100 miles. > Such an attack would be potentially aimed at destroying all road-mobile launchers either as they disperse or after they have taken up position some short distance from roads that give them access to forested areas.
- kingbirdy 7y ago
  > Just 125 US Minuteman III warheads could set fire to some 8,000 square miles of forest area where the road-mobile missiles are most likely to be deployed Russia has over 3 million square miles of forest, and is over 6 million square miles total. 8,000/3,000,000 seems like pretty poor odds to get all the ICBMs hiding in the woods.
  - yborg 7y ago
    Road mobile systems deploy onto a set of prebuilt roads connected to their bases, they don't cross-country the impassable taiga since it's ... impassable. These are ballistic missile launchers, they don't fit under bridges, etc. so they can't just drive them around the Siberian interstate.
    - mandevil 7y ago
      The MKZT-79221 that is the basis for both the Yars and Topol-M TEL is rated for driving off-road, and both TELs are even considered capable of launching off-road. About half of the Russian mobile ICBM force are based in the Volga plain, and the Siberia based half are in mixed forest-steppe zones, because the Russians know their own geography.

Tuna-Fish 7y ago

> Because of the new kill capabilities of US submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), the United States would be able to target huge portions of its nuclear force against non-hardened targets, the destruction of which would be crucial to a “successful” first strike. One such mission would likely involve the destruction of road-mobile ICBMs that had left their garrisons to hide in Russia’s vast forests in anticipation of attack. The garrisons and their support facilities would probably be destroyed quickly, and some of the dispersed road-mobile launchers would also be quickly destroyed as they were in the process of dispersing. To destroy or expose the remaining launchers, United States planners would have the nuclear forces needed to undertake truly scorched-earth tactics: Just 125 US Minuteman III warheads could set fire to some 8,000 square miles of forest area where the road-mobile missiles are most likely to be deployed. This would be the equivalent of a circular area with a diameter of 100 miles. > Such an attack would be potentially aimed at destroying all road-mobile launchers either as they disperse or after they have taken up position some short distance from roads that give them access to forested areas.

kingbirdy 7y ago
> Just 125 US Minuteman III warheads could set fire to some 8,000 square miles of forest area where the road-mobile missiles are most likely to be deployed Russia has over 3 million square miles of forest, and is over 6 million square miles total. 8,000/3,000,000 seems like pretty poor odds to get all the ICBMs hiding in the woods.
- yborg 7y ago
  Road mobile systems deploy onto a set of prebuilt roads connected to their bases, they don't cross-country the impassable taiga since it's ... impassable. These are ballistic missile launchers, they don't fit under bridges, etc. so they can't just drive them around the Siberian interstate.
  - mandevil 7y ago
    The MKZT-79221 that is the basis for both the Yars and Topol-M TEL is rated for driving off-road, and both TELs are even considered capable of launching off-road. About half of the Russian mobile ICBM force are based in the Volga plain, and the Siberia based half are in mixed forest-steppe zones, because the Russians know their own geography.