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A single Russian nuclear submarine can carry 800 nuclear warheads [edit: Misread a number; 96 is apparently the max. Still, enough.]. The chances of Russia getting down to twelve nukes after a first strike - even if they don't get off a response while they're in flight - is slim.

The nuclear-powered cruise missiles and Poseidon bomb are just Russia's versions of the V weapons in WWII; flashy, but not actually useful, and taking resources from the more staid and boring aspects like "keep your logistics vehicles' tires from exploding".

> A single Russian nuclear submarine can carry 800 nuclear warheads.

A Borei class submarine can carry 16 missiles with up to 6 warheads each, for 96 total. The older Delta class can carry 16 missiles with 4 warheads each for 64 total. The 800 warheads is the total capacity of Russia's entire fleet, not all of which are active at any given time.

Apologies, I misread; still enough to overwhelm current ABM systems with a single sub, even if you discount the rest, the bomber fleet, and any mobile or hardened ICBMs that survive the first wave.

Russia has little to fear from ABM. North Korea is probably a bit grumpy about it.

Submarines? As I understand it, the de-stealthing of nuke carrying submarines is also said to be destabilizing.

Evidently it's possible, and perhaps happening. Ironic that MAD as an acronym is used.

https://engineeringrecruiting.org/blog/engineering/will-ai-s...

There’s a narrative in some Western spaces of “we can probably survive a nuclear war against Russia quite intact”, a narrative which I find batshit insane crazy.

I see this in GP’s comment, he/she talks at length about how a nuclear war might look like without mentioning the subs even once, because if he/she had done so the whole argument would have fallen flat on its face.

That assumes that submarines are not detectable. This is a big if with all improvements in in sensors.

Assuming for a moment NATO can perfectly track each and every Russian submarine and take them all out at once, you've still got the Strategic Rocket Forces to contend with, especially their mobile launchers.

There's no feasible way the US can hit Russia with a first strike and not receive a nuclear strike in return. MAD remains in place, even if the US can knock down a few dozen missiles with ABMs.

Again, this assumes that mobile launchers on trucks and trains cannot be tracked. It can be true now, but not necessary in 10-20 years.

"Tracked" and "simultaneously hit, not missing a single launcher, deep within Russia, without any warning" are not the same thing.

What we have recently seen from China is actually just a missile sponge of large silo fields of ICBMs being built so that even if America does strike first, China still has a nuclear deterrent in the form of the missiles not wiped out.

It's hard to take out a lot of targets even if they are relatively soft.

https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1212970/a-second-sil...

Regan proposed this in the 80s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dense_Pack

Wasn't "dense pack" the scaled version? The previous concept was to just build huge fields of silos that were mostly empty I thought.

There are a variety of different approaches to counter the ABM and ragged second strike scenario, China is investing in several.

* Just build more nukes. Adding more warheads, especially ground-launched ones, is cheaper than adding more interceptors to the ABM shield, so it's always a losing game. Thankfully, no one seems to be pursuing this route, since that is massively destabilizing.

* Make it harder to take out all of your missiles in a first strike. Your link is an excellent example of this. Building additional silos is even cheaper than building additional missiles, and then you can play a shell game where you don't know which silo houses a missile and which does not so you have to strike at them all. There are other basing options available, like road-mobile launchers, which China and Russia have both invested in, though this is easier with shorter range ballistic missiles. And of course there are ballistic missile submarines, which give most survivable second-strike capability, but are much more expensive to operate.

* Use a delivery system that is harder to intercept, which I mentioned before. China has tested using both hypersonic glide vehicles and fractional orbital bombardment, in fact both at the same time (https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1213655/a-fractional... ).

> Adding more warheads, especially ground-launched ones, is cheaper than adding more interceptors to the ABM shield

Assumes facts not in evidence. An accidental ICBM launch is catastrophic. An accidental ABM launch is merely expensive. This drives anything associated with ICBMs to a much higher cost, just to assure that it will launch when commanded, and won't launch when not commanded. Interceptors are generally smaller (due to the smaller kill vehicle), which also helps with the cost. GBI, last I looked, was about $90M per missile. GBSD is currently looking at about $660M per missile ($264B for 400 missiles). This doesn't actually compare how much a Russian ICBM would cost, but that's irrelevant, in a sense, since they wouldn't be paying the same for an ABM interceptor either.

> hypersonic glide vehicles and fractional orbital bombardment

These both have severe penalties to the actual number of warheads launched on a given missile. Now instead of having 6 missiles, for example, to hit a given set of targets, you might need 18 missiles. Which drives up the cost of ICBM system. Both of them can also be defended against (GBI can't manage against FOB with the current single defense site, but a potential expansion could bring the radars and launchers required to be able to defend against a southern approach). Hypersonics are very fast in the atmosphere, which helps limit their radar visibility, but the same thing makes it impossible to deploy effective decoys, and makes them extremely bright in IR, which is something we already look at from space. I don't think we have anything that can currently do it, but it's definitely on the list of things we're looking at.

Your math is a little off on the prices. Recall that the GBSD will release 10-12 MIRVs, which means the ABM shield has to intercept 10-12 targets, not one, for every ICBM. And standard operating procedure is to fire 4 interceptors at each target to ensure a hit. That means for each GBSD we need 40 interceptors, making it over 5 times more expensive to intercept a GBSD than the GBSD itself. Of course, just comparing missile costs isn't the best, they do not operate on their own. Each interceptor needs a silo, ground crew, intercept radars, etc. ICBMs need silos and ground crews also. The cost to operate an ICBM or ABM shield over its lifetime will dominate the total costs compared to the initial missile price.

GBSD is currently programmed to be a single warhead missile [0]. The fire plan for GBI is "shoot-shoot-look-shoot-shoot". There's no requirement for the second "shoot-shoot" to actually occur, and in case of a mass launch, wouldn't occur because we'd run out of GBIs first.

GBIs and GBSD do both need silos and ground crews, but the state of them is to a different degree. GBI needs a silo to protect it from weather, but it doesn't necessarily need to be a nuclear hardened silo, because if it comes to that, the silo should already be empty. The ICBM silo does need to be hardened against nuclear weapons. Similarly, the ground crew for the entire ABM field can be centralized, because you don't need them to be multiply survivable to launch after the end of the world, but you do need for an ICBM launch control center to be redundant and nuclear hardened. Each interceptor shares radars, however, so you don't need more with more interceptors. It's a fixed cost for the entire system, given the region you're looking at.

This is semi-irrelevant, as our opposition doesn't pay US prices, and their ability to afford more ICBMs is not related to US prices. The only countries which do pay US prices are the US and UK.

Also, this assumes the ABM shield needs perfection. If you're trying merely to save as many lives as possible, then the existence of the ABM system requires the opponent to prioritize which targets they want to hit. The high priority targets will need to have many warheads targeted on them, while the lower priority targets won't have any, because they don't have the budget for that. And the more warheads we can intercept, the more warheads they have to drop on their high priority targets, because they don't know which ones will actually get intercepted. If we can intercept on average 15 warheads (75% effectiveness with "shoot-shoot"), then they have to drop 16 warheads on each high priority target. If we double the number of warheads we can intercept, then they need to double the warheads they drop on their high priority target. This is why the UK strategic deterrent is roughly targeted only on Moscow, according to open-source knowledge, instead of the early 60s version that hit most of Russia.

[0]: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11681 > The Air Force plans to deploy the GBSD (Sentinel) with one warhead per missile

Thanks for the info on the GBSD, I wasn't aware of that. I'm actually surprised, I thought the general trend was towards MIRVs.

Yeah, I'm willing to concede the math is a lot more complicated than just "ABM is more expensive than nukes" and I could well be wrong on that point. I suppose if we really wanted to get to the bottom of it we would have to compare the ABM against the current Russian/Chinese arsenal, think about the relative costs of road-based/silo-based/sub-based missiles and their risks, compare rubles and dollars using something other than naive conversions to account for relative purchasing power, consider what impact decoy re-entry vehicles have on the equation, and a bunch of other factors.

I think my original argument that ABM is inherently destabilizing stands though.

New START has warhead limits, as well as missile limits, and the US has decided it'd rather allocate the warheads to bombers and SLBMs instead of ICBMs. The ICBM force is in a sense, a strategic decoy: they're hardened to make you have to expend warheads on them, but the relative lack of warheads means that if you allocate more than one to take each out, you're probably not coming out ahead. But you have to honor the threat, so you can't just not hit them. So, they take 450 or more warheads from what you would otherwise want to hit.

The problem with nukes is that one cannot make them small while there no corresponding limits on downsizing of sensors to detect them.

While we are still some way of mosquito-size device to detect presence of a nuclear warhead, the path is there. So ultimately one must assumes that all warhead decoys or empty silos will be detected and real warheads will be tracked. Which unfortunately leaves production of massive number of warheads the only sure path of deterrence.

In PRC's case, it's also just a generic nuclear build up because the hereto alleged ~300 nukes was minimal (really poverty) deterrance posture that became no longer tenable now that war with US is possible. Other parts of triad is being worked on as well.

Apart from geopolitics, what drove PRC nuke buildup was US modernizing warheads for better detonation timing so less missiles needed for hardened targets = same controlled stockpile can strike 2-3x more targets. It wasn't better missile defense, but better missile offense.

I'd argue better missile defense drive adversaries to develop better missiles tech which are dual use and will enhance their conventional capabilities and perhaps create more vunerabilities overall.

I agree. I was pretty shocked to see this:

>The difficulty of shooting down an incoming missile is broadly overstated

I figured it would back this controversial claim by explaining how some clever new tech is able to shoot down Russia's current state of the art - its hypersonic missiles.

Nope. Zero mention of hypersonic missiles. Why? Is this just a military contractor putting its cap out and asking for $$$?

Hypersonic missiles are still in the prototype/research stage, the short/medium-term nuclear threat remains non-hypersonic. Regardless, right now there are zero systems that can hope to stop a hypersonic missile, reaction time limitations alone are a huge hurdle there.

That said, effective missile defense is theoretically possible even given current tech, it's just extremely hard. In that sense it's not different than the various AI initiatives. Lots of wasted money on goose chases, but also lots of advantage for those who get it right, and some legitimately useful innovations along the way.

According to a late August Reuters article, Russia has deployed hypersonic missiles at least 3 times in Ukraine:

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-it-has-depl...

Still counts as "research", just this time in actual war conditions.

Research includes live fire tests. Russia has the advantage of an actual warzone with actual air defenses to test in.

That or they're running out of missiles and down to pushing research prototypes into service (which given their use or Iranian drones and other supply woes would not surprise me).

Strongly suspect that Kinzhal is just a relatively bog-standard air launched ballistic missile running in a depressed trajectory, and much of the talk is just bloviating. There's no US equivalent, because we decided to cancel it (See AGM-48 Skybolt, and later AGM-69 SRAM and AGM-131 SRAM II).

Reading through this thread really exposes how little defense industry knowledge there is on this forum. Like are we really just speculating that the entirety of the US strategic missile defense apparatus forgot about hypersonic missiles?

The US invented hypersonic: the first in-atmosphere, manned hypersonic vehicle (X-15) in the 1960s, as well as the first hypersonic ABM system (Sprint) in the 1970s, which was designed to intercept warheads that were incoming at Mach 24 just seconds before they reached their targets. Sprint was a high-hypersonic countermeasure (Mach 10+) and that was something the US mass-produced 50 years ago.

But to answer your rhetorical question, the answer is that US has indeed published some of its anti-hypersonic countermeasures to the public: https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2022-04-15

>are we really just speculating that the entirety of the US strategic missile defense apparatus forgot about hypersonic missiles?

Nope. I think it was pretty self evident that we were just talking about this guy's opinion piece.

>the answer is that US has indeed published some of its anti-hypersonic countermeasures to the public: https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2022-04-15

Ummm thats more like preliminary research. It would certainly make for a more interesting article although perhaps a less convincing opinion piece.

Yes. it is destabilizing. Trump pulled out of the Open Skies treaty in 2021, Obama opened the Aegis mentioned in the article in Romania in 2016. It's the restart of a nuclear arms race, which will mean a lot of money for military contractors. Apparently it hasn't gone far enough for this person, who wants more of the money I make working be taxed and sent to military contractors so they can heat up a nuclear arms race that had quieted down by the 1990s.

Open Skies was a net loser for the US. The Russians were abusing the system and everyone who "counts" either has recce satellites of their own or access to reporting from friendly nations.

Aegis GMD has zero effectiveness against a missile field filled with SS-19s, or mobile SS-27s, or anything else that poses an existential threat to the United States. Russia knows this. "Destabilizing" would be an order of magnitude increase in the GMD interceptors at Greely and Vandenberg and the proliferation of battle management radars, and we aren't doing that.

And if you weren't paying attention, there's no "restart" of the arms race. While the US was involved in the -stans, Russia was moving forward with a variety of delivery systems. The race never stopped.

> Aegis GMD has zero effectiveness against a missile field filled with SS-19s, or mobile SS-27s, or anything else that poses an existential threat

so... why is it there then? just curious. I think the official publicly touted reason at the time was to protect Romania from Iran, is that it?

early warning system for US defense?

Iran.

so it's "useless" for ss27s but then "Iran"? how does that make sense? This is Romania not Israel, so this is not tactical.

It's useful for the MRBMs/IRBMs out of Iran targeting Europe. It's useless for the ICBMs out of Russia targeting the United States. It's not destabilizing in any way, especially since the magazine size of the Aegis sites is easily verifiable via any number of means, and the easiest countermeasure is N+! (which the Russians have in spades).

> It's not destabilizing in any way

At the beginning of this year, the CFR's Foreign Policy magazine said it might be destabilizing. Russia invaded the Ukraine a few months later.

So you say the US putting these military systems around eastern Europe was not a destabilizing move, but I think the past months has shown otherwise.

It's 0 effectiveness for the US. It's got some effectiveness for Europe. It's not just the site in Romania, but also a site in Poland: https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2022/03/09/construction...