4 ms·

The moment you see icbms leave the silos it’s over. They are not scalpels for a tactical strike on a small area to prevent xyz, for that you would a submarine m

The moment you see icbms leave the silos it’s over. They are not scalpels for a tactical strike on a small area to prevent xyz, for that you would a submarine much closer or bombers or even a cruise missile. They are the hammer and lots of them. If they fly, you can be sure it’s the big game. You are right, in about 30 minutes (probably less, when you take into account that the USA would only react with icbms) or closer to 10-15 minutes it’s Armageddon. The first bombs would explode in the higher atmosphere and blind the electromagnetic spectrum aka radar detection fails and your only option is to fight back and hit hard in retaliation. I don’t know if it’s (still) in service, but the USA had a rocket that would fly over the rocket fields and send the launch codes and fire the icbms. The fear was, that the soldiers were incapacitated and could not fire them itself. The backup. Absolutely insane how in minutes everything would go to hell.

standing_user 2y ago
the dead mean switch
siquick 2y ago
> I don’t know if it’s (still) in service, but the USA had a rocket that would fly over the rocket fields and send the launch codes and fire the icbms. The fear was, that the soldiers were incapacitated and could not fire them itself. The backup. Truly terrifying as a citizen of a non-nuclear country that this is (or was) in place, and that a handful of countries (presuming they all have this capability) is willing to obliterate everyone else because they took it too far.
- defrost 2y ago
  > Truly terrifying as a citizen of a non-nuclear country I flicked back a page of your comments and saw " .. here in Sydney." I'm in Australia like, I presume, yourself. The same country that has (along with multiple other installations) the Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Communication_Station_Harold_E._Holt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Communication_Station_Ha... which has always been a prime target in any first strike scenario .. given its primary function is communications with roving nuclear ballistic missile launch submarines. Like it or not Australia's been part of the game since an Australian scientist first explained to the Americans how to build an atomic weapon and further convinced them that it was both feasible and essential.
  - fragmede 2y ago
    TIL about Sir Mark Oliphant!
CapitalistCartr 2y ago
" . . . rocket that would fly over the rocket fields . . . " A series of airplanes, called Looking Glass, was the first backup.
ano-ther 2y ago
The communication rocket(s) seem to have been shut down in 1991. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/DRC-8_Emergency_Rocket_Communications_System https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/DRC-8_Emergency_Rocket_Co...
bluescrn 2y ago
> I don’t know if it’s (still) in service, but the USA had a rocket that would fly over the rocket fields and send the launch codes and fire the icbms. The fear was, that the soldiers were incapacitated and could not fire them itself. The backup. They can't actually be sat there just waiting for a radio signal, can they? Just waiting for some kid with a Flipper Zero to end the world?
- swores 2y ago
  Could involve a dead man's switch (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_man's_switch https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_man's_switch ) such that the signal can only work if everyone in the control centre is already incapacitated, that combined with requiring the signal to be highly encrypted sounds fairly safe I think?
  - spacemanspiff01 2y ago
    The explanation previous seems misleading, the rockets sent up to give codes for launch, humans still launched them. Presumably before satellites, redundant fiber networks, and robust national communications they wanted a fallback in case communications get disrupted. So not a dead man's switch, just backup one way comms system.
    - swores 2y ago
      Ah, thanks for clarifying!
    - toast0 2y ago
      It's probably worth considering a return to a fallback comms system. In the 1990s, telcos were the pinacle of reliability. Sure, AT&T had local issues from time to time, and that cascading failure incident [1] in 1990, but things were on a path towards even more reliability. Now, I expect a several hour, multistate outage of 911 about every other year. Nationwide single carrier cell phone outages aren't uncommon either. I'm just going to assume a hostile first strike makes satellite comms difficult. [1] http://users.csc.calpoly.edu/~jdalbey/SWE/Papers/att_collapse http://users.csc.calpoly.edu/~jdalbey/SWE/Papers/att_collaps...

standing_user 2y ago

the dead mean switch

siquick 2y ago

> I don’t know if it’s (still) in service, but the USA had a rocket that would fly over the rocket fields and send the launch codes and fire the icbms. The fear was, that the soldiers were incapacitated and could not fire them itself. The backup. Truly terrifying as a citizen of a non-nuclear country that this is (or was) in place, and that a handful of countries (presuming they all have this capability) is willing to obliterate everyone else because they took it too far.

defrost 2y ago
> Truly terrifying as a citizen of a non-nuclear country I flicked back a page of your comments and saw " .. here in Sydney." I'm in Australia like, I presume, yourself. The same country that has (along with multiple other installations) the Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Communication_Station_Harold_E._Holt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Communication_Station_Ha... which has always been a prime target in any first strike scenario .. given its primary function is communications with roving nuclear ballistic missile launch submarines. Like it or not Australia's been part of the game since an Australian scientist first explained to the Americans how to build an atomic weapon and further convinced them that it was both feasible and essential.
- fragmede 2y ago
  TIL about Sir Mark Oliphant!

CapitalistCartr 2y ago

" . . . rocket that would fly over the rocket fields . . . " A series of airplanes, called Looking Glass, was the first backup.

ano-ther 2y ago

The communication rocket(s) seem to have been shut down in 1991. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/DRC-8_Emergency_Rocket_Communications_System https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/DRC-8_Emergency_Rocket_Co...

bluescrn 2y ago

> I don’t know if it’s (still) in service, but the USA had a rocket that would fly over the rocket fields and send the launch codes and fire the icbms. The fear was, that the soldiers were incapacitated and could not fire them itself. The backup. They can't actually be sat there just waiting for a radio signal, can they? Just waiting for some kid with a Flipper Zero to end the world?

swores 2y ago
Could involve a dead man's switch (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_man's_switch https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_man's_switch ) such that the signal can only work if everyone in the control centre is already incapacitated, that combined with requiring the signal to be highly encrypted sounds fairly safe I think?
- spacemanspiff01 2y ago
  The explanation previous seems misleading, the rockets sent up to give codes for launch, humans still launched them. Presumably before satellites, redundant fiber networks, and robust national communications they wanted a fallback in case communications get disrupted. So not a dead man's switch, just backup one way comms system.
  - swores 2y ago
    Ah, thanks for clarifying!
  - toast0 2y ago
    It's probably worth considering a return to a fallback comms system. In the 1990s, telcos were the pinacle of reliability. Sure, AT&T had local issues from time to time, and that cascading failure incident [1] in 1990, but things were on a path towards even more reliability. Now, I expect a several hour, multistate outage of 911 about every other year. Nationwide single carrier cell phone outages aren't uncommon either. I'm just going to assume a hostile first strike makes satellite comms difficult. [1] http://users.csc.calpoly.edu/~jdalbey/SWE/Papers/att_collapse http://users.csc.calpoly.edu/~jdalbey/SWE/Papers/att_collaps...