by Trevor » Tue Apr 25, 2017 1:23 pm
I think perhaps that most important thing we could do is inform the public, shatter the myths that there is nothing you can do to protect yourself. Even Duck and Cover can make a difference between life and death, provided you're not too close to the explosion.
If the Clash of Civilizations begins with a massive Pearl Harbor style attack, I'd bet on the death toll being a lot higher, due to lack of preparation and ignorance.
Now let's say the Chinese have 3,000 strategic warheads, which is what is considered the highest number, one that many analysts tend to discount. I don't think they'd launch all of them at once, if nothing else because you won't be able to destroy everything on the ground. Just for the sake of argument, though, let's say that they do and all of them are launched at the United States.
Most of those warheads are going to be aimed towards our retaliatory capability, what military strategists call "Counterforce". This means they're going to be aimed at our army bases, air fields, naval bases, and especially our missile silos. Especially for important targets, some of them are going to be hit multiple times, just to make sure they are taken out of commission. For example, we've got 500 operating silos, which would require at least 500 of those warheads to take out under optimum conditions. If you take into account ICBMS being intercepted, the chance of a missile being a dud, and the accuracy it'll take to destroy them, it would likely be considerably more than that.
How effective our missile defense would be... I don't think anyone will truly know until the time comes. I do not agree with the idea that it would be an utterly useless gesture; our ground-course missile defense has had about a 60% success rate, with the AEGIS system about 85%, although I expect that for ICBMs, it would be somewhat less than that. In spite of that, however, we would be able to bring down at least some of the incoming missiles, making a decisive blow much more difficult.
That would leave... a few hundred warheads for our cities, most of them in the hundreds of kilotons, maybe a few in the megaton level range. I would say in that case, they'd mostly be aiming for the top ten cities in this country, all of which have at least a million people. The public would have about 15-30 of warning before the missiles hit, giving at least some people an opportunity to save themselves, depending on where they are and their knowledge of nuclear capabilities.
All of this is under the assumption that everything goes precisely as China wants: all of their missiles are launched at one time, with none of them malfunctioning on the ground or crashing shortly after launch, as one of our Tomahawk missiles did during our strike on Syria. That's also assuming all of the warheads make landfall, with nothing being intercepted along the way. The third assumption is that all of them successfully detonate, with no electronics malfunctioning during the journey.
Even under all of those assumptions, however, the United States would still be quite capable of hitting back. Some of our ICBMs would be launched before China's missiles hit, some of our nuclear-armed bombers would be in the air, and some of our submarines would be on patrol and launch their own weapons. Now much of our nuclear capability would be destroyed, but even then, we'd have enough strength left to cause China severe damage, even if it would not be a fatal blow to them either.
In practice, however, they're not likely to have as much success. The first rule of warfare is that no plan survives contact with the enemy. Warheads would be intercepted, destroyed on the ground, or just fail to detonate. I believe our defense system would have some effect, even if it wouldn't keep out everything.
I think perhaps that most important thing we could do is inform the public, shatter the myths that there is nothing you can do to protect yourself. Even Duck and Cover can make a difference between life and death, provided you're not too close to the explosion.
If the Clash of Civilizations begins with a massive Pearl Harbor style attack, I'd bet on the death toll being a lot higher, due to lack of preparation and ignorance.
Now let's say the Chinese have 3,000 strategic warheads, which is what is considered the highest number, one that many analysts tend to discount. I don't think they'd launch all of them at once, if nothing else because you won't be able to destroy everything on the ground. Just for the sake of argument, though, let's say that they do and all of them are launched at the United States.
Most of those warheads are going to be aimed towards our retaliatory capability, what military strategists call "Counterforce". This means they're going to be aimed at our army bases, air fields, naval bases, and especially our missile silos. Especially for important targets, some of them are going to be hit multiple times, just to make sure they are taken out of commission. For example, we've got 500 operating silos, which would require at least 500 of those warheads to take out under optimum conditions. If you take into account ICBMS being intercepted, the chance of a missile being a dud, and the accuracy it'll take to destroy them, it would likely be considerably more than that.
How effective our missile defense would be... I don't think anyone will truly know until the time comes. I do not agree with the idea that it would be an utterly useless gesture; our ground-course missile defense has had about a 60% success rate, with the AEGIS system about 85%, although I expect that for ICBMs, it would be somewhat less than that. In spite of that, however, we would be able to bring down at least some of the incoming missiles, making a decisive blow much more difficult.
That would leave... a few hundred warheads for our cities, most of them in the hundreds of kilotons, maybe a few in the megaton level range. I would say in that case, they'd mostly be aiming for the top ten cities in this country, all of which have at least a million people. The public would have about 15-30 of warning before the missiles hit, giving at least some people an opportunity to save themselves, depending on where they are and their knowledge of nuclear capabilities.
All of this is under the assumption that everything goes precisely as China wants: all of their missiles are launched at one time, with none of them malfunctioning on the ground or crashing shortly after launch, as one of our Tomahawk missiles did during our strike on Syria. That's also assuming all of the warheads make landfall, with nothing being intercepted along the way. The third assumption is that all of them successfully detonate, with no electronics malfunctioning during the journey.
Even under all of those assumptions, however, the United States would still be quite capable of hitting back. Some of our ICBMs would be launched before China's missiles hit, some of our nuclear-armed bombers would be in the air, and some of our submarines would be on patrol and launch their own weapons. Now much of our nuclear capability would be destroyed, but even then, we'd have enough strength left to cause China severe damage, even if it would not be a fatal blow to them either.
In practice, however, they're not likely to have as much success. The first rule of warfare is that no plan survives contact with the enemy. Warheads would be intercepted, destroyed on the ground, or just fail to detonate. I believe our defense system would have some effect, even if it wouldn't keep out everything.