Mikeo80 wrote:
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That is what the US got hit with. With the USSR response. I shudder to think what the US hit USSR & etc with on first strike. We got our B-52's off the runways, the Minutemen out of the silos and the Posidens and Tridents out of the subs.
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In the neighborhood of 6000 megatons, from Department of Energy stats (they released total yield figures periodically).
Elsewhere, I'm having a discussion with people who wonder why the Soviet attack was so big because the USSR was technically incompetent. It is difficult to reconcile this with their impression that the U.S. arsenal needed to be big to deal with the Soviet strategic threat.
The size of the first strike depends on how quickly the U.S. went on the attack. There may not have been time to mobilise all the subs and bombers - only a fraction of both forces is on launch on warning type alert.
From the NRDC database:
http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/nudb/datainx.asp
US Forces, 1989:
ICBM
Minuteman II 450: 1.2Mt W56
Minuteman III 500: 3x 170kt W62 (200) OR 3x 335kt W78 (300)ea.
MX/Peacekeeper 50: 10x 300kt W87 ea.
SLBM: 25 Poseidon, 8 Trident subs. 50% on patrol during normal conditions.
Poseidon C3 208 10x 50kt W68 ea
Poseidon C4 192 8x 100kt W76 ea
Trident C4 192 8x 100kt W76 ea
Bombers: total aircraft available for combat, not training/maintenance.
173 B-52 Stratofortress - 8 bombs or 12 SRAMs/ALCMs and 4 bombs ea.
48 FB-111A - 6 SRAMs or 6 bombs ea.
90 B-1 Lancer - 8 bombs ea.
1100 AGM-69A SRAMs: W69 170kt
1600 AGM-86B ALCMs: W80-1, 5-150kt
Bombs: 2400 immediately accessible from following:
B28 380 70-1450kt
B43 500 <1Mt
B53 50 9Mt
B57 825 <1 to 20kt
B61 900 (var 0,1,7) <1 to 500kt
B61 2025 (var 2-5) <1 to 345kt
B83 1000 up to 1200kt
Matt,
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But that does lead to a potentially "interesting problem" for international relations: any surviving states know that the USA started WW3.
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That's easy. All the explosions (12000+MT) push us well over the nuclear winter threshold. There won't be any surviving states.