Launch warning times.
 

Assuming the missile hits on Thanksgiving Day were all from ground-based launchers within Russia's borders (unlikely; you could do the TDM strikes with a pair of Typhoon-class boats, one in the middle of the pacific and another in the middle of the Atlantic), what, roughly would be the length of time between detection and impact?

BMEWS/DEW would be suppressed at least somewhat by the EMPs used (which may have been decoy/dummy satellites with warheads detonated on pass-overs over the CONUS), but that would still put CONUS and OCONUS stations on Launch-On-Warning, would it not?

I think it's about 20-30 min if I remember my Intro to NORAD brief right

It is closer to 28 to 33 minutes for ICBM's from Russia.

The 3 phases of launch are;

Boost Phase: 3 to 5 minutes (this is the point of detection for the US side)
Midcourse Phase: about 25 minutes
Re-entry Phase: 2 minutes

The US might not have been using launch on warning protocols during the 1990's. As there are ways to reduce the effectiveness of this protocol, the US might have switched away from this protocol, read up on X-ray pin-down, it is a very interesting concept and use of SLBMs.

I seem to recall one of the modules mentioned an SLBM strike from a missile boat off the eastern seaboard, which would cut the warning time way down. That said, its right around half an hour for a land based launch as the others have said.

SLBMs can be as little as a few minutes. Barely enough time to make a phone call.

From the patrol areas south or north of Bermuda to hit the East Coast: Six minutes for a SLBM. However, there'd be a SSN following the boomer, and you can bet in the T2K situation, the ROE would be very simple-if you're not killing missile boats whenever possible: If a missile boat begins flooding tubes and moving to launch depth, that missile boat dies. Cut and dry, that is it. As soon as sonar reports multiple missile tubes being flooded, and missile doors opening, there'd be a pair of Mark-48s in the water as soon as a snapshot solution could be generated. Or, if the fast-attack is too far away for a Mark-48, Sea Lance (cancelled OTL but available in T2K) is available. The SUBROC replacement with a Mark-90 Nuclear Depth Bomb or a Mark-50 torpedo. If you're killing a boomer, the Mark-90 is the weapon of choice-since it's likely that by Nov 97, SSN skippers would have authority to use their Sea Lances with the Mark-90.

Enough time to say "Oh fu--"

That assumes the SSN found the Soviet sub in the first place. Sure some may be lost, but enough would survive to give the US a good pasting.
And the same can be said for Nato SLBM attacks against Pact.

Oh, there'd be enough SSNs around to trail any boomers headed to their East Coast or West Coast patrol stations. And kill them.

Not to mention that the USN and RN boomers were never tracked, according to both navies. The first sign of a USN or RN boomer's location is when the missile-warning radars pick up the missiles coming from mid-ocean.

Boomers were generally seen as second strike platforms...designed to survive the initial exchange so that when the silo and airborne systems are either depleted or destroyed there remained a further way to retaliate. Perhaps the Soviets would modify this if they believed the safety of their SSBNs was in doubt. If they knew they were being followed by US SSNs than their utility as second strike weapons would be extremely limited. This might prompt them to use them as first strike weapons to decrease warning times, especially if they felt that any US efforts at retaliation would be hindered by the successful destruction of US command and control.

Soviet policy was to keep its Boomers in safe havens north of the GIUK Gap as they were well aware that they would be relatively easy targets for US SSNs. This is why the Soviets put so much effort into under ice / ice breaking abilities for their boats. Thus, I can't see any of them launching from near Bermuda or the Pacific equivalent. That being said, I'm guessing the US would have had about 15-20 minutes of warning given a first strike conducted by Soviet SSBNs. But again it is almost certain that the first strike would have been by silo based ICBMs and perhaps a few aircraft (UK targets I would guess).

Conversely, US and UK boats were always seen as second strike weapons. and after the TDM they almost certainly would have been used in the counterattack.

While it possible that some of these doctrines would have been modified during the course of the conflict, I think the general rules pertaining to strategic nuclear warfare would have held true. The real question is...would either side risked going after these nuclear assets during the conventional phase of the fighting. I willing to bet that as attrition rates grew during the air war both sides would have been tempted to make use of aircraft original slated for strategic strike. Also, it seems highly unlikely that an SSN captain would pass up sinking an enemy boomer if given the chance. Thus by late 1997 it may be very likely that the Soviets find themselves with limited strategic nuclear strike capability beyond their silo based weapons. And once the Soviet first strike hits the US will find itself relying on its SSBNs to return the favor.

Benjamin

I hate to say it, but that sounds like US arrogance and solid belief in their own invincibility. Overconfidence, as has been proven over and over again in history, can get people killed, loose battles and entire wars.
While that may have been the case during the Cold War up until the end of the 1980's, the situation we're presented with in T2K is a bit different. We already know that there's no significant fleets left in the world and that this massive destruction occurred not just on the surface, but to subs as well. Nato subs of all types weren't excluded from that devastation.

Given that, and the number of warheads just one Soviet sub carries, the US isn't going to escape a sudden strike from the sea, no matter how great they may think their attack subs are.

The Soviet boomers off the East and West Coasts were assumed to have a first-strike role, as they were well within range of SAC bases from the coast to the Mississippi for the East Coast, and to the Rocky Mountains for the West Coast. In the book Hostile Waters, the K-219's skipper mentioned having King's Bay, Groton, Norfolk, Charleston, and Washington, D.C. as his targets. (three missiles per target) Other boats probably had the SAC bases (Loring, Pease, Plattsburgh, Griffiss, Warner Robins, Grisssom, among others) in the cross-hairs.

SOSUS is that good. And they practiced vectoring SSNs onto contacts. There was a covenant of death beneath the waves between SSNs and boomers. The boomer crews knew their job was to launch if so directed. The attack boats' job was to prevent that. And those on the Yankees knew that in a real war, their lives would be very short. Just long enough maybe to get one or two missiles off, before that Mark-48 or SUBROC arrived....Now, boomers in the Barents or White Seas, now, those were probably the missile subs mentioned as participating in TDM. For those boats, it's a fifteen to twenty minute time frame from turning the launch-enable key to impact. And once the missiles are detected, there's going to be one or two SSNs headed that way to kill them and prevent more launches.

It's not hubris: it's fact. Thanks to SOSUS and other means, we knew not just the class of boat, but the individual hull numbers, where they were headed, and where they patrolled. Even in T2K prior to Nov 1997, the ASW forces would still be on the job, looking for boomers-and killing them. And the USN and RN boomers would be out, waiting for their own launch orders, with no communications going out, and staying out probably longer than their usual patrols (70 days). They can stretch it out to 120 if needed.

I think the point is being missed here.

T2K is NOT reality. It's a game with the situation very, very different to what reality actually was.

Therefore, it's very possible, even probable given what information is supplied in the books, that the US and allied defences were nowhere near as comprehensive and effective as history has us believe.

We also know that history is written by the victors. In reality, the west won the Cold War.

So what happens if one of the first strikes was against the SOSUS detection stations? Or like in Red Storm Rising... Iceland was invaded by airborne and sea assault.

Leg-
I've read this post repeatedly and tried really hard not to comment. I suppose the best way that I could put this is that I think you could have worded your argument well enough to not make this particular post seem like a personal attack on those who weer/are members or supporters of of the UK and USN SSN forces.

I have a hard time not looking your words as written and thinking it wasn't.

I believe that some evidence appears in canon material that SSBN strikes did appear on US targets from USSR SLBM's but it would seem that the US/UK ASW forces were more effective than you seem to give credit for.

I myself would chalk up leadership targets in the DC area to a SLBM that managed to get a few missiles off before she was sunk or had to flee for her life.

-Dave

From Howling Wilderness....

Personally, I always felt that the handling of the naval situation in T2K was a complete cop out. It just felt like they didn't want to deal with the post war naval situation so they made up a half-ass scenario that justified their decision to focus only on the ground combat.

Having spoken to numerous people who once held posts in the US Navy, NATO staff and even Soviet military...I would bet the situation would end up far more similar to that shown in Red Storm Rising and The War that Never Was. The Soviets would get in a few licks and surprises before NATO asserted naval dominance and plastered what was left of Warsaw Pact naval assets. Of course once the war went nuclear most ports would be targeted and many ships in ports or near coastal waters would be destroyed. But large portions of the US navy would survive. As the Bikini tests showed, destroying a naval task force with a nuclear weapon isn't all that easy. If the radiation can be dealt with then a well dispersed naval force would take minimal losses.

With that in mind, I never used a straight canon interpretation of events. This is especially true since canon sources often contradict each other. By way of an important example...the V.1 timeline clearly states that the Soviets were the first to use tac-nukes as German forces crossed into Soviet territory, but the Guide to the UK says that the British were the first to use nukes. As some of the source books were written as if from the view point of post-war researchers, I interpreted this to mean that some of the information was wrong.

I find canon fanatics to be a tad annoying so really I say modify it to fit your need. If you want little time for US leaders to react then have the first strike sub launched from near by, if you want to give them half an hour of pants crapping anxiety then have the missiles come from silos halfway around the world.

Benjamin

Oh they certainly sunk a few, maybe even most of the Soviet subs, but definitely not all as Matt seemed to be implying.

I'm not attacking the abilities of the Nato crews IRL or in T2K, just the belief that the Nato, and specifically US subs and crews are invincible and NOTHING could get past them.

Likewise, in T2K, the Soviet attack subs could well be expected to perform far better than history has shown us they managed IRL.

Obviously in T2K both sides had plenty of successes and failures. How else can anyone explain why there's only two nuclear powered subs known to still exist world wide.

I don't go by canon when it comes to the war at sea: there'd be a lot more surviving ships and subs than what GDW's writers said. Only one SSN left in the U.S. Navy? Hardly.

Don't forget the SURTASS ships with their towed arrays: their job was to back up SOSUS and provide some capability in case SOSUS was lost. More than enough to give sub warnings and enable ASW forces to be directed onto contacts.

Taking out D.C. was either a boomer that was sunk before she could fire her full load, or a SSN-like an Akula, with a SS-N-21 fired at the same time as the first SLBMs were launched.

And in a situation where both sides are using tactical nukes, naval commanders are actually going to have free reign as to where and how they use their tactical weapons (Sea Lance, B-57 NDBs, gravity bombs from carrier aircraft, nuclear SAMs, etc.) If a sub skipper finds a Delta or Typhoon, and can't penetrate the Soviet ASW screen, guess what? He fires a Sea Lance standoff weapon with a 20 KT warhead and drops that B-90 depth bomb right on top of that boomer or in between the boomer and her escort SSN, and that's that. Navy nukes didn't have PALs, after all. Once tac nukes are released to the Navy, the battle group commander-or the sub skipper-would have discretion as to when, where, and how many to fire. TLAM-Ns excepted, as those were considered "strategic" rather than tactical.

I would chalk the DC-area SLBM strikes to 3 or 4 missiles from a Typhoon with at least one top level(Akula or Alfa) escort and probably the last 2 or 3 Victor III boats in use in the Atlantic. My guess is that one or two of the Victors survived while the others died, including the "688" or two that was prosecuting them.

Upon what are these claims of NATO omnicience based? How could NATO track nearly all the Soviet boomers all of the time, even with SOSUS? I don't want to come across as confrontational- I just want to know what sources back this position.

I mean, even after '91, there have been collisions between submarines. During a naval excercise in the early 2000s, a Chilean diesel attack sub "sank" a USN carrier. These are just a couple of examples of the failure of USN ASW assets.

If NATO ASW assets were as good as some of you are claiming, these things simply couldn't happen.

By brother is a naval intel officer and I've talked to him a couple of times about what I see as a overestimation of USN capabilities during the Cold War. He backs my assessment 100%. The USN had flaws that could have been exploited by Soviet naval assets. I agree with all of the posters that believe that the USN/NATO would have emerged on top, but I don't think the claims that 90-100% of Soviet SSBNs and cruise-missile equipped SSNs would have been neutralized prior to them being able to launch attacks against CONUS targets are credible.

I am, however, willing to change my opinion if some credible sources for these claims are provided.

A buddy of mine was a Naval Intel officer. Back in '91 or so, he mentioned that the (friendly) German diesel-electric boats gave the USN serious serious headaches during exercises when they were playing the OpFor.

Could someone kindly explain x-ray pin-down? I understand the tactical implications (thank you Google), but I can't seem to find anything on the actual science. It reminds me of dense pack launch complex architecture in complete reverse.

Soviet boats that went to sea in 1996 could have been used for attacks on CONUS. I’m willing to credit NATO ASW defenses in their depth as being excellent but not air tight. We also should bear in mind that we don’t know very much about SLBM attacks on the US, other than the involvement of more than one in the TDM. Seriously, guys, we could pilot the Enterprise through the gaps GDW left us to interpret things for ourselves. All this fussing about canon v non-canon takes place in a context of knowledge that is too scarce to paint a very complete picture about which delivery platforms were used during the surgical strategic exchange.

There's also a reference in Boomer

The Barrikada fired seventeen missiles on three separate occasions from late November 1997 to mid December 1997 (specific dates are not mentioned).

Even giving the Soviet Boomers the benefit of the doubt, once any of them began to open doors, flood tubes or even launch, their positions would be pinpointed and it would be much easier to sanction any Soviet forces in the area. Attrition would be high if used as a first strike weapon, even if they were not tracked. Transient noise can be heard for quite a distance under water.

That being said, they would have stood a decent chance of being able to clear their tubes if fully committed, while their escorts played torpedo tag with the US/UK SSN's.

On the topic of Diesel subs...there has long been a problem with tracking modern D-subs with sonar. The issue is, that unlike nuclear subs, who's nuclear reactor requires that a water pump constantly be functioning to bring cold water in to cool the reactor, the D-Subs run on a battery powered electric motor with few moving parts to drive it...so it is extremely quiet. The USN has long recognized the danger of modern D-Subs, with tactical assessments being done on subs acquired by China and North Korea during the great Soviet Naval garage sale days. (THAT'S RIGHT EVERYTHING...MUST...GO!!)

The Soviets knew about SOSUS, and would have moved to disrupt it. There is no system that is perfect.

Since it has not been mentioned, the Walker spy ring data certainly would have helped the Soviets. If you want to increase the chances of a T2k Soviet SSBN surviving compared to how they would have fared in the real world, you need only have the spy ring survive longer, or simply give the Soviets more years to implement the engineering changes that the data indicated were necessary.

Personally I still keep the majority of the Soviet SSBNs in the White Sea behind a minefield (ala Red Storm Rising)

Basically you detonate airbursts at a high altitude over launch complexes; the x-ray flux from the explosion screws the guidance systems and other systems in the missiles royally so even if they do launch, they have immediate systems failures.

When I was in ROTC, one of the instructors taught us that important cities like Washington or New York that were more easily "accessible" by Boomers would have 4-6 minutes from firing of the missile from the Boomer to detonation of the warheads on the target. Other, less easily-accessible primary targets like Houston or Dallas or NORAD would have 6-8 minutes. Here in San Antonio, with three secondary targets (at the time), we'd have roughly 20 minutes, as the missiles would have been fired from land bases in the Soviet Union.

Regardless, we're getting hit by nukes faster than one can evacuate. Just doesn't matter...

If the boomer is a Delta with SS-N-8 or -18, he'd be on. Most boomers that made the East Coast Patrols were Yankees with the SS-N-6, and from their patrol stations, could cover the East Coast and inland targets all the way to the Mississippi River. Pacific Patrols could cover the West Coast inland as far inland as the Rockies.