4 ms·
Maybe, but another important reason for overkill is that you couldn't be sure that all payloads would actually reach their destination. In the nuclear-bomber er
by fennecfoxen 12y ago
Maybe, but another important reason for overkill is that you couldn't be sure that all payloads would actually reach their destination. In the nuclear-bomber era this was especially the case - IIRC the last book I read on LeMay suggested that planners assumed around 90% of the planes would be shot down far away from their intended targets. The missile era obliterated that particular dynamic, but replaced it with a threat against second-strike capability from your enemy's ICBMs.
- arethuza 12y agoMost of the politics at that time wildly overestimated the capabilities of the Soviets in public (hence the infamous bomber and missile gaps) while internally having pretty accurate and poor estimates of their capabilities - LeMay at one point expected that the SIOP could be implemented with pretty low levels of casualties. Air defence systems back them were really pretty poor - e.g. the infamous case where the entire US air defence system couldn't stop UK strategic bombers taking out major us cities in an exercise (which was kept quiet for decades due to the embarrassment it caused).