Bluesman

A missile shield need NOT be 100% effective in order to be 100% effective. By just being a 'force-in-being', it has the capability to negate every single enemy missile, even if it could not shoot 'em all down.

What is a missile shield designed to do - prevent ALL enemy missiles from impacting? Then, one that is 'good enough' truly IS 'good enough'. Because a nuclear exchange is not a game of 'Missile Command', where one side gets points for landing some hits. No, presumably, there was a political objective in mind when one side or the other contemplated the use of ANY weapon, and as we all know, if somebody launches ICBMs on the US, it's curtains for 'em, UNLESS they utterly destroy our retaliatory strike. Completely.

So, the calculus goes like this: Aggressive piss-ant country that has only managed to develop SOME ICBMs, and not very accurate ones at that, wargames the likely result of an all-out attack on US retaliatory capability, BEFORE we can retaliate. However, NObody on the enemy side knows how effective the US ABM defenses will be (and maybe we won't even know, ourselves). The degree of uncertainty is unacceptable to war-planners, and this mad, hopeless plan is 86'ed before it gets past the 'Well, what if we..." stage.

But just suppose they're feeling lucky, and decide to accept a certain percentage of loss on that all-important first strike. They decide to go out on their WAG limb even farther, and say that...ummm...lessee...carry the two...square the speed of heat...HERE we are...no more than 75% of the strike force will actually survive launch (we decided to scenario ourselves most rosily, Your Excellency).

Okay, WHICH 25% won't hit? Which targets should we double-tap, just to make sure (or as sure as we can, anyway)?

Complicate things further by the fact that only a few countries have the capability to actually do anything other than city-bust with their crappy ICBM force, and you have effectively reduced your piss-ant enemy's capability to launch that devastating first-strike to nil. THAT is why a missile sheild does NOT need to be canoe's impermeable high-tech perfect defense. 'Good enough' is truly 'good enough'.

Buy it, build it, deploy it. Let's put the Defense Department back in the business of defending the American People.

__________________
"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it, and if one finds the prospect of a long war intolerable, it is natural to disbelieve in the possibility of victory."
- George Orwell

Peter cairns

There is another way to look at this in that they could be replaced with something smaller.

The so called "Rod of God", is getting a lot of interest. A the moment is looks like replacing an ICBM warhead with a 1 ton tungsten rod, that hits the ground at mach 10, and has the effect of a small nuke.

The other option is a fletchet version that has 1,000 1 kg rods that impact a wide area at the same speed.

This as seen as a replacement for tactical nukes.

As to deliver systems, one that is at least being looked at is AUWV's Autonomous underwater vessels. Basically it's a slow stealthy torpedo with a range of hundreds or eventually thousands of miles. You can deploy it from a sub, ship , cargo vessel, trawler, from the back of a transport aircraft by parachute, or just from a pod on the seabed,and at 3-4 knots (100 miles a day) it makes it's way to the target coastal city over a month or so.

After all "who said retaliation had to be immediate". good for nations that don't have much money.

Peter.

Anon

Either way it's obsolete.

leib10

So I guess that the question is not whether nuclear weapons but rather their whether their current delivery systems are obsolete.

__________________
"The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world. So wake up, Mr. Freeman. Wake up and smell the ashes." G-Man

Anon

Two seperate but linked issues IMO.

Eventually both of them will be militarily obsolete.

leib10

Of course. Eventually anti-matter bombs will be invented, which will offer even more devastation than nuclear devices. We're always looking for more efficient ways to destroy each other.

Wraith601

I have doubts about orbital KE weapons. I'm not convinced there anywhere near as accurate as a bomb or missle and there's concerns they may "overpenetrate" and bury themselves deep underground. While anything in there path will be destroyed they will have a very limited area effect if some projections are to be believed.

__________________
"We always have been, we are, and I hope that we always shall be, detested in France."
-Sir Arthur Wellesley

Anon

Oh they'll work. A 1000kg object(The throw weight of a Minuteman III ICBM is 1150kg for comparative purposes) impacting at 3kps(mach 8.7@SL) would release 4.5 million megajoules(4,500 gigajoules) of energy on impact.

http://www.divine-salamis.com/phpBB/...c+conventional
Read my comments on the above link, they should be pretty educational to anyone interested in the subject of high velocity impacts.

sparten

The Hand Grenade became obsolete and then returned with a vengence in WWI. SO yes nukes will become obsolete and they will probably return.

Does this mean that horse cavalry will return too someday?

__________________
"Any relations in a social order will endure if there is infused into them some of that spirit of human sympathy, which qualifies life for immortality." ~ George William Russell

Anon

micro-varioyield thermonuclear hand grenades would be interesting.

Hehehe.

canoe

Sure, but not until after we use the nukes.

dalem

Hell, read Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress". Mike throws rocks.

-dale

Sandman

I would rather be on the side that is ahead of the rest from purely a survival standpoint.

Anon

Hmm, just figured out the KE of a unitary solid penetrator warhead equipped Peacekeeper ICBM.

Peacekeeper maximum throw weight: 3900Kg(8710lb)
Penetrator mass: 3603.6Kg(8000lbs)
Peacekeeper maximum impact velocity: 6kps(6000m/s)
Kinetic Energy release on impact: 64.86 MILLION Megajoules or 15.5 Kilotons.
Estimated CEP without terminal homing/guidance: 500 meters

Figures gleaned from the below scientific article:
http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/missile/icbm.htm

gunnut

Ah yes, the holy hand grenade.