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Why would Russia or whoever waste two nukes on a silo purported to be nuke proof in the middle of nowhere?

michaelt 5y ago
There are two bits of context you need to understand this. First: Early nuclear missiles weren't very accurate - you don't have to be very accurate when your target is the size of Moscow. A missile silo is a much smaller target! So AIUI missile silos were hardened to survive a nuclear bomb landing 500m away - but they wouldn't survive a direct hit. Second: There was a theory, at one point in the cold war, that one side could launch a surprise attack that struck and disabled the other side's nuclear weapons. Or at least, disabled a large enough fraction that the counterattack was survivable. This was seen as winning. Or as close to winning as you can get, in a nuclear war. And it was seen as relatively more ethical than targeting cities. The jargon for this is "counterforce" or "disarming" strike [1] and it was part of the rationale for having a ridiculous number of bombs - if you have enough bombs to destroy the world 10 times over, you can destroy the world even if 90% of your bombs have been destroyed in a surprise attack. Later in the cold war other technologies were developed - high precision guidance, submarine launched missiles, and missiles with multiple warheads. Between them they made a disarming strike seem unlikely to work. But on the other hand there are still an awful lot of missiles around and they gotta be targeted somewhere. If you'd already sent a dozen at the pentagon and a dozen at the white house, why not send some of the remainder at a few nuclear silos? Of course, you might well say this all seems pretty unlikely. A nuclear war? In this day and age? But people who think that probably aren't in the market for a disused nuclear bunker, except as a historical curiosity. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterforce https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterforce
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
  Still better to point them at NZ, to get the capitalistic overlords hiding there :-)
- the-dude 5y ago
  Isn't HN amazing. Last week I learned about Countervalue : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countervalue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countervalue
- detritus 5y ago
  Another bit of context - some responses on the internet weren't intended to be entirely literal in their nature.
- jvanderbot 5y ago
  I always forget that we're "Apes in trousers"[1] until I read comments like this. 1. I just read this term in Lessons of History (Durrant)

There are two bits of context you need to understand this. First: Early nuclear missiles weren't very accurate - you don't have to be very accurate when your target is the size of Moscow. A missile silo is a much smaller target! So AIUI missile silos were hardened to survive a nuclear bomb landing 500m away - but they wouldn't survive a direct hit. Second: There was a theory, at one point in the cold war, that one side could launch a surprise attack that struck and disabled the other side's nuclear weapons. Or at least, disabled a large enough fraction that the counterattack was survivable. This was seen as winning. Or as close to winning as you can get, in a nuclear war. And it was seen as relatively more ethical than targeting cities. The jargon for this is "counterforce" or "disarming" strike [1] and it was part of the rationale for having a ridiculous number of bombs - if you have enough bombs to destroy the world 10 times over, you can destroy the world even if 90% of your bombs have been destroyed in a surprise attack. Later in the cold war other technologies were developed - high precision guidance, submarine launched missiles, and missiles with multiple warheads. Between them they made a disarming strike seem unlikely to work. But on the other hand there are still an awful lot of missiles around and they gotta be targeted somewhere. If you'd already sent a dozen at the pentagon and a dozen at the white house, why not send some of the remainder at a few nuclear silos? Of course, you might well say this all seems pretty unlikely. A nuclear war? In this day and age? But people who think that probably aren't in the market for a disused nuclear bunker, except as a historical curiosity. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterforce https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterforce

LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
Still better to point them at NZ, to get the capitalistic overlords hiding there :-)
the-dude 5y ago
Isn't HN amazing. Last week I learned about Countervalue : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countervalue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countervalue
detritus 5y ago
Another bit of context - some responses on the internet weren't intended to be entirely literal in their nature.
jvanderbot 5y ago
I always forget that we're "Apes in trousers"[1] until I read comments like this. 1. I just read this term in Lessons of History (Durrant)