Missile flight times and warnings

[Silent Hunter UK]

Spinning off from another thread.

Here's the ones I know.

ICBM, US to USSR or vice versa: 25-30 mins
Pershing II, West Germany to Western USSR: c.10 mins
Scud missile: 3-5 minutes
UK BMEWS early warning time: 4.5 minutes (the 'four minute warning').

[Legbreaker]

Not exactly a lot of time is it.
I wonder if the shorter ranged missiles with shorter flight times would have been launched at the same time as the ICBMs (thereby potentially giving an earlier warning of attack), or held off until a little later?
There's pros and cons for both approaches I think.

[Silent Hunter UK]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Not exactly a lot of time is it.
I wonder if the shorter ranged missiles with shorter flight times would have been launched at the same time as the ICBMs (thereby potentially giving an earlier warning of attack), or held off until a little later?
There's pros and cons for both approaches I think.

That's why the Vulcans were designed to be able to take off within two minutes if the crew were on board, Blue Streak got axed and we ultimately bought Polaris then Trident; an undersea deterrent was and is by far the most survivable.

As for the missile launches, I'd imagine SIOP, the Soviet equivalent and their modern successors probably have options for both same time and held off.

[Matt Wiser]

For SLBMs off the East or West Coasts of the U.S., it was estimated six to 12 minutes' depending on where the missile subs were patrolling.

[Jason Weiser]

Or less than 5 minutes with a depressed trajectory shot.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

It's the waiting that'd make it awful. If I was at a primary site (I probably am anyway living in the Orlando area), assuming it was just an ICBM strike and not SLBMs, that 24-30 minute wait would just be ... horrible.