U.S. Ramping Up Major Renewal in Nuclear Arms

[bullmoose88]

I guess only having enough nukes to destroy the world a few times isn't enough already.

This meme is old.

The reason you have to have enough nukes to destroy multiple enemies several times over is because the main target in a nuclear war is the enemy's nuclear weapons. If the enemy launches a successful first strike you need to have enough nukes and delivery systems to retain a retaliation capability. Not to mention you have to retain a second-strike capability in the even of an exchange to begin with.

So if we only have exactly enough nukes to destroy the enemy, and they launch a first-strike and knock out maybe 1/3 of them (whoever strikes first in nuclear was has a major advantage), then where does that leave us? Nuclear strategy is much more complicated then is commonly perceived in pop culture.

In my view this is correct. 

I mean, sure we're in the process of building 12 new SSBNs and 400 new or refurbished ICBMs...but we're, as far as I know, not expanding the arsenal.  The Ohios have to be retired at some point, and the new class will have 16 as opposed to 24 SLBMs on board.  Minutemen III only have one warhead each now instead of three.  The B-52 is ancient but has been kept in the air.  The russians have been developing new nuclear platforms for a while as far as I understand it, Topol and Bulova. 

[bullmoose88]

So what's a reasonable number? 1,200? 5,000+ seems just a bit much to me.

5,000?  I'm sure Dead0man can speak to this better than I can, but I think most of our "total" warheads are in some sort of reserve.  They're not on alert or patrol status (ie an Ohio, or Minuteman).  I wonder how quickly they could be deployed and given that it takes about 30 minutes for an ICBM to fly over the pole or under 10 for a sub launched missile (depending where it's launched)...I don't know how likely they are to be used (rather more likely lost in an opponent's strike).

I mean as for your number required question, it's probably a function of the number of opposition warheads (Russians...perhaps Chinese...though the two teaming up on this would be unusual) and what types of platforms you have and their survival-ability.  Bombers are too slow to be a first strike weapon right?  You used to keep them on 24 hour alert so the enemy knew you had some in the air even if you bombed every airfield and perhaps gave you some leverage to turn things off given flight times.  SLBMs used to not be super accurate, so those weren't necessarily the best weapons against hardened silos and specific targets (yeah, specific targets), that's not as true anymore, but a sub getting sunk means 16-24 missiles and the warheads are gone with one or two torpedoes.  Land silos are easy targets so you hope your early alert systems are reliable (our attempts to develop the MX early on were...interesting).

[bullmoose88]

Whether this is still true today, I don't know...but this video was part of the MX campaign:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlPEBROvR9w

[bullmoose88]

Is there a replacement for the minuteman iii in the works?