4 ms·

What you are thinking of is (or used to be, called a MIRV, a mulitiple independently-targeted re-entry vehicle). There's still only one atom bomb per warhead,

by BMc2020 2y ago

What you are thinking of is (or used to be, called a MIRV, a mulitiple independently-targeted re-entry vehicle). There's still only one atom bomb per warhead, but 6 warheads per mirv. Think of the MIRV like a cylinder on a revolver with 6 warheads per MIRV like the bullets in it. The warhead has the minimum amount of hardware necessary to make it blow up, while the MIRV has the computers and rocket engines on it. So the MIRV zips forward, backward, up down, then releases a warhead at the right moment for the warhead to fall to the ground. (which has no movement capability at all, not even fins). Then the MIRV zips around and releases another warhead and so on until all 6 are gone. That being said, there are LOTS of ways to deliver warheads. The one that scares me the most is that the Russians have hidden ones pre-positioned in our 40 biggest cities or so. Fun Fact: The russians don't even have to fire their missiles to wipe us all out. They could set them all off in their silos and create a nuclear winter that would accomplish the same thing. edit: Sorry to pile on, you went from 0 to 3 replies in the time it took me to write this.

johnohara 2y ago
What I was thinking was that whenever the U.S. enters into any form of weapons reduction agreement there has to be an enormous amount of internal reluctance to actually make those reductions. Reagan's so-called "trust, but verify" policy. I find it difficult to accept that any party to those agreements would actually reduce anything without having equivalent plans B, C, and D. I am not a weapons expert so thank you for your insight.
- holowoodman 2y ago
  All those arms-reduction treaties are accompanied by some regime of mutual inspections and checks. Each party visits the other's facilities and counts stuff, assesses production and storage capabilities, paperwork, etc. And compares those results to their otherwise-obtained (read: by spies) data about the other party's weapons counts. Of course it isn't foolproof, and each party can and will maybe try to sneak a few more warheads somewhere. But those inspections at least provide some rough limit on the sneakiness, because if they had more than X% more, we would have noticed or so...
- hollerith 2y ago
  Till 2022 Washington and Moscow were regularly inspecting each other's nuclear installations to verify compliance with the treaty.
literallycancer 2y ago
The nuclear winter thing is based on the paper where they assume that there's zero days of stockpiled grain isn't it? When in reality we could go for years with just the grain farmers keep to balance out market volatility.
- BMc2020 2y ago
  I'd like to see a cite for that.
jcranmer 2y ago
> Fun Fact: The russians don't even have to fire their missiles to wipe us all out. They could set them all off in their silos and create a nuclear winter that would accomplish the same thing. There's a lot about nuclear winter that is controversial, but having nuclear weapons go off in their silos is one thing that almost everybody can agree can't cause a nuclear winter. The basic premise of nuclear winter is a) nuclear explosions on cities cause massive uncontrollable firestorms b) that pump soot into the stratosphere c) which causes massive global cooling. If any one of those links in the chain fails to hold, then nuclear winter just can't occur. A nuclear weapon going off in its silo will be more of a massive earthworks project than a firestorm, especially if the silo isn't located in the heart of a city with lots of juicy combustible material to cook off all at once.
liamwire 2y ago
> The one that scares me the most is that the Russians have hidden ones pre-positioned in our 40 biggest cities or so. I find it hard to believe you seriously consider this, even in the absurd world of MAD-driven decisions. Simply put, for it to be even remotely likely would require that none of these devices had as of yet been discovered, nor the intelligence nor logistics surrounding them been compromised or otherwise intercepted. Consider that if such a situation were to be true, and uncovered, that the only possible responses would be either immediate action to have them removed, immediate retaliation, or allowing them to exist. In the first two scenarios, the weapons are no longer relevant, whether because they’re removed or war has started. In the final scenario, we’re functionally at the same place as we are with the traditional nuclear triad, albeit far closer to the precipice due to reasons made clear in the Cuban Missile Crisis. All of this to say, the challenges, costs, and risks of enacting such a situation, as utterly ridicule-worthy in their totality as they are, can perhaps be hand-waved away by pointing to other Cold War era events. However, to argue this has actually been done, despite the entire lack of any strategic benefit, and the immeasurable net loss of position and risk to the Russians that results? Come on.
- wasteduniverse 2y ago
  [dead]

johnohara 2y ago

What I was thinking was that whenever the U.S. enters into any form of weapons reduction agreement there has to be an enormous amount of internal reluctance to actually make those reductions. Reagan's so-called "trust, but verify" policy. I find it difficult to accept that any party to those agreements would actually reduce anything without having equivalent plans B, C, and D. I am not a weapons expert so thank you for your insight.

holowoodman 2y ago
All those arms-reduction treaties are accompanied by some regime of mutual inspections and checks. Each party visits the other's facilities and counts stuff, assesses production and storage capabilities, paperwork, etc. And compares those results to their otherwise-obtained (read: by spies) data about the other party's weapons counts. Of course it isn't foolproof, and each party can and will maybe try to sneak a few more warheads somewhere. But those inspections at least provide some rough limit on the sneakiness, because if they had more than X% more, we would have noticed or so...
hollerith 2y ago
Till 2022 Washington and Moscow were regularly inspecting each other's nuclear installations to verify compliance with the treaty.

literallycancer 2y ago

The nuclear winter thing is based on the paper where they assume that there's zero days of stockpiled grain isn't it? When in reality we could go for years with just the grain farmers keep to balance out market volatility.

BMc2020 2y ago
I'd like to see a cite for that.

jcranmer 2y ago

> Fun Fact: The russians don't even have to fire their missiles to wipe us all out. They could set them all off in their silos and create a nuclear winter that would accomplish the same thing. There's a lot about nuclear winter that is controversial, but having nuclear weapons go off in their silos is one thing that almost everybody can agree can't cause a nuclear winter. The basic premise of nuclear winter is a) nuclear explosions on cities cause massive uncontrollable firestorms b) that pump soot into the stratosphere c) which causes massive global cooling. If any one of those links in the chain fails to hold, then nuclear winter just can't occur. A nuclear weapon going off in its silo will be more of a massive earthworks project than a firestorm, especially if the silo isn't located in the heart of a city with lots of juicy combustible material to cook off all at once.

liamwire 2y ago

> The one that scares me the most is that the Russians have hidden ones pre-positioned in our 40 biggest cities or so. I find it hard to believe you seriously consider this, even in the absurd world of MAD-driven decisions. Simply put, for it to be even remotely likely would require that none of these devices had as of yet been discovered, nor the intelligence nor logistics surrounding them been compromised or otherwise intercepted. Consider that if such a situation were to be true, and uncovered, that the only possible responses would be either immediate action to have them removed, immediate retaliation, or allowing them to exist. In the first two scenarios, the weapons are no longer relevant, whether because they’re removed or war has started. In the final scenario, we’re functionally at the same place as we are with the traditional nuclear triad, albeit far closer to the precipice due to reasons made clear in the Cuban Missile Crisis. All of this to say, the challenges, costs, and risks of enacting such a situation, as utterly ridicule-worthy in their totality as they are, can perhaps be hand-waved away by pointing to other Cold War era events. However, to argue this has actually been done, despite the entire lack of any strategic benefit, and the immeasurable net loss of position and risk to the Russians that results? Come on.

wasteduniverse 2y ago
[dead]