Launch warning times.

[DigTw0Grav3s]

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.

[Webstral]

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.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Originally Posted by DigTw0Grav3s

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.

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.

[pmulcahy11b]

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...

[Matt Wiser]

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.

[SongofWar]

To go back to the tracking thing for a sec, if the soviets were tracking US missile boats they certainly wouldn't share that info publicly, and the americans wouldn't have anything to gain by leaking it either.

There are some stories out there from the soviet side of the submarine "war" (for lack of a better word...submarine cold war perhaps?). Apparently the Victor-Class boats did a pretty good job messing with the ASW detection systems on the east coast. Then again, the truth is probably some compromise between the official position of either side.

[Webstral]

Gauging the uncertainties is always quiet the exercise. Conventional wisdom tells us that NATO defenses are not as effective as NATO would have us believe; nor are Soviet abilities to penetrate those defenses as great as they would have us believe. On the other hand, conventional wisdom had the Coalition suffering 20,000 casualties on the first day of operations. 1st US Infantry Division was supposed to be combat ineffective 24 hours into the operation. In hindsight, we can see why the Iraqi defenses collapsed the way they did, but I never read any predictions that came close to the reality of the blow-out the Coalition produced. So it's possible that NATO ASW operations in the Atlantic would have produced an exceptionally one-sided result for reasons that would only become obvious in retrospect.

Heck, I remember having my high school teachers tell me in the mid-1980's that the Soviet Union would last another hundred years at least.

[SongofWar]

I will also contend that the unexpectedly one-sided result could go the other way as well. Realistically, the results would be somewhere between the two extremes, but we'll never truly know what would have happened.