Time to read THE LAST CENTURION?

TFLYTSNBN wrote: However; is a defense really futile if 90% of cities are not destroyed. How about if 75% survive or even 50%? Obviously; the destruction of only one city is catastrophic. Given better timing, the 9-11 attacks should have killed 100,000 people concentrated in the financial industry. The US would have obviously survived but it would have been even more horrific.

Well, let's assume SDI is 90% efficient. It would means, that from about 5000 Soviet ICBM warheads launched, about 500 would reach their targets. If we assume only counter-value strikes, it would means a nuclear attack against each US city with a population of more than 100.000, and up to five nuclear strikes against each US city with a population of more than 600.000.

Assuming 50% losses, it would means about 30 millions Americans killed or maimed as a direct result of attack. Considering that such attacks would also cause destruction of civilian infrastructure, food and water supplies, medical facilities, it could be assumed that this number would essentially double in a short time. Let's point out, that with attack on cities disproportional number of industrial workers, engineers, highly trained personnel would be killed, so essentially the nation would be left without its best cadres.

It's hard to see what any talk of survivability would mean if we were in the midst of a nuclear winter or if the planet glowed.

Don

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When you get right down to it, SDI was a massive con aimed at the USSR, and to a fair degree it worked.

n7axw wrote:It's hard to see what any talk of survivability would mean if we were in the midst of a nuclear winter or if the planet glowed.

Don

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Nuclear winter is a theory, must point out. Since its hard to assume is this theory right or wrong... Most likely it was right for the Cold War era of megaton warhead, capable of throwing enormous ammount of soot into stratosphere, but not for a modern warheads of hundreds of kiloton yield.

Dilandu wrote:

n7axw wrote:It's hard to see what any talk of survivability would mean if we were in the midst of a nuclear winter or if the planet glowed.

Don

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Nuclear winter is a theory, must point out. Since its hard to assume is this theory right or wrong... Most likely it was right for the Cold War era of megaton warhead, capable of throwing enormous ammount of soot into stratosphere, but not for a modern warheads of hundreds of kiloton yield.

Let's avoid finding out whether the theories are right or wrong by not using the things to start with. Best choice is to get rid of the things altogether...

Don

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n7axw wrote:
Let's avoid finding out whether the theories are right or wrong by not using the things to start with. Best choice is to get rid of the things altogether...

Don

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Of course not. It's a stupid idea. Nuclear weapon protected peace on Earth for decades. There are all reasons to assume that it would be a powerful deterrent against starting international conflicts in future, too. Also, it's a... powerful argument in hands of small nations against great powers)

gcomeau wrote:Since some people apparently need this pointed out to them over and over and over and over again...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronaviru ... hina-odni/

U.S. intel community says coronavirus "not manmade or genetically modified"

...

"The entire Intelligence Community has been consistently providing critical support to U.S. policymakers and those responding to the COVID-19 virus, which originated in China," the ODNI said in a statement. "The Intelligence Community also concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified."

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And of course US intelligence never makes errors.

The speculation that the Coronavirus wasn't engineered is predicated on the opinion that it could be modified to be even more virulent. Even if true, this does not preclude tampering. The suspicion is that the Wuhan lab was working on a mechanism for an AIDS vaccine. They were merely using nearly natural techniques to increase the ability of the virus to infect human tissue by repeatedly exposing human tissue to the Coronavirus and reinfecting other human tissue with whatever fraction succeeded. It wouldn't be actual weapons research, but it could result in a virus that is the next worse thing to a bioweapon. I. Some respects it is worse because infected people remain asymptomatic long enough to expose many people. A virus that was more aggressive would quickly cripple or kill people, making it easier for other people to avoid them.

This is a bull shit argument and the researchers know it. You do to.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:
And of course US intelligence never makes errors.

When something looks pretty natural, have a predicted natural way of evolving, and intelligence could not find any clues about it being even a bit artificial, there are strong reasons to assume, that it is natural. Reality is not gonna change only for US to be able tocontinue linger in delusions of grandeur.

TFLYTSNBN wrote: The suspicion is that the Wuhan lab was working on a mechanism for an AIDS vaccine.

This is just ridiculous.

Dilandu wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote: However; is a defense really futile if 90% of cities are not destroyed. How about if 75% survive or even 50%? Obviously; the destruction of only one city is catastrophic. Given better timing, the 9-11 attacks should have killed 100,000 people concentrated in the financial industry. The US would have obviously survived but it would have been even more horrific.

Well, let's assume SDI is 90% efficient. It would means, that from about 5000 Soviet ICBM warheads launched, about 500 would reach their targets. If we assume only counter-value strikes, it would means a nuclear attack against each US city with a population of more than 100.000, and up to five nuclear strikes against each US city with a population of more than 600.000.

Assuming 50% losses, it would means about 30 millions Americans killed or maimed as a direct result of attack. Considering that such attacks would also cause destruction of civilian infrastructure, food and water supplies, medical facilities, it could be assumed that this number would essentially double in a short time. Let's point out, that with attack on cities disproportional number of industrial workers, engineers, highly trained personnel would be killed, so essentially the nation would be left without its best cadres.

You offer the usual, simplistic argument.

Point One:
Unless you are talking about 20 Megaton warheads, it takes far more than one warhead per city to kill the people in the city. The targeting plans for Poesidon missiles were a hexagonal pattern of over a dozen warheads for Moscow. Other Russian cities would have required many warheads each. Killing the people in the 100 largest Russian or American cities requires hitting about 500 seperate target areas.

Point Two:
An attacker can not predict which warheads will be intercepted. They have to target multiple warheads at each individual target area. The chances of any individual target area not being hit is then (1-Interception rate)^Number of warheads targeted at each area. The excess warheads just pound the rubble.

Point Three:

You can combine SDI with effective, shelter based civil defense. Moderately hardened shelters can reduce the lethal area of a warhead by about 95%. This protects the most critical cadre. Instead of needing to hit 500 targets, an attacker needs to hit 10,000 targets.

Point Four:
Warheads that are fused for low altitude detonation to attack hardened shelters can be engaged with gun based terminal defenses. This drastically increases the effectiveness of the defenses. A 50% interception rate can easily be increased to 90% because there can be no light weight, low cost decoys, and the warheads can not manauver and still hit their targets.

Point Five:
A full scale exchange between Russia and the US is not the only plausible scenario. It might be the least plausible. How about an attack by Great Britain or France on Russia? Only a few hundred warheads would be launched. Is Russia really willing to enable a second rate nuclear power to destroy it's cities and kill it's most skilled people just to maintain MUTUAL ASSURED DESTRUCTION?

How about an attack on Russia by India or Pakistan?
How about a nuclear armed South Korea or Japan?
Iran?
Turkey?
Germany?
Sweden?
Poland?

The same logic applies to the US.

BTW, your comment on the Nuclear Winter theory was reasonable. The TTAPS folks bypassed peer review to launch their propaganda blitzkrieg. They made massive errors in presumptions about nuclear weapons effects, behavior of aerosols, and radiative heat transfer. A nuclear Fall is a more likely scenario. Of course if a war destroys enough industrial infrastructure, billions of people will starve to death.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:

You offer the usual, simplistic argument.

I offer arguments. That's the point.

Unless you are talking about 20 Megaton warheads, it takes far more than one warhead per city to kill the people in the city. The targeting plans for Poesidon missiles were a hexagonal pattern of over a dozen warheads for Moscow. Other Russian cities would have required many warheads each. Killing the people in the 100 largest Russian or American cities requires hitting about 500 seperate target areas.

Sigh. If you read my calculation, I assumed roughly 50% of total victims in each targeted city.

An attacker can not predict which warheads will be intercepted. They have to target multiple warheads at each individual target area. The chances of any individual target area not being hit is then (1-Interception rate)^Number of warheads targeted at each area. The excess warheads just pound the rubble.

This only works until numbers are start to get big; because here the normal distribution would start to work. Yes, some cities may escape destruction, while others would be hit in excess. But with 500 warheads coming through, the overall numbers of victims would not be significantly less.

You can combine SDI with effective, shelter based civil defense. Moderately hardened shelters can reduce the lethal area of a warhead by about 95%. This protects the most critical cadre. Instead of needing to hit 500 targets, an attacker needs to hit 10,000 targets.

Nah, it's impossible. USA tried to calculate such shelter system in 1960s, and came to conclusion that it would cost far too much just to build, not to mention to maintain such system. Also, the problem was, that peoples could not remain in shelters for long. A few days maximum - till the fallout recede - and then to where they could be moved? The cities are in ruin, there are no food, no power, no clean water. Not to mention, that to organize the efficient evacuation toward shelters for more than a fraction of population would be impossible in short time available.

Warheads that are fused for low altitude detonation to attack hardened shelters can be engaged with gun based terminal defenses. This drastically increases the effectiveness of the defenses. A 50% interception rate can easily be increased to 90% because there can be no light weight, low cost decoys, and the warheads can not manauver and still hit their targets.

This is sheer idiocy. Not only USA did not have terminal defenses at all - you decomissioned all your Nike sites long before that - the gun-based defenses trying to hit an ICBM WARHEAD would literally require thousand of guns per kilometer.

A full scale exchange between Russia and the US is not the only plausible scenario. It might be the least plausible. How about an attack by Great Britain or France on Russia? Only a few hundred warheads would be launched. Is Russia really willing to enable a second rate nuclear power to destroy it's cities and kill it's most skilled people just to maintain MUTUAL ASSURED DESTRUCTION?

For what possible reason Britain or France might attack Russia?

Your arguments, as usual, are half-backed, half-competent, and generally half-consistent.