From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!C70:arms-d Newsgroups: fa.arms-d Title: Arms-Discussion Digest V0 #105 Article-I.D.: ucb.1075 Posted: Thu May 13 20:04:39 1982 Received: Fri May 14 05:30:11 1982 >From HGA@MIT-MC Thu May 13 19:57:01 1982 Arms-Discussion Digest Volume 0 : Issue 105 Today's Topics: Reloading ICBMs Need to kill silos, retargeting... Reply by ZRM to CJH Airfield used for Falklands airstrikes Retargeting Nuclear missiles ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 12 May 1982 05:07-EDT From: REM at MIT-MC Subject: Reloading ICBMs If the extra USSR ICBMs can be put into silos and fired within 45 minutes after the previous ICBMs have been fired, then our hard-kill capability isn't of much use, for the same reason as my idea of preventing retargeting of ICBMs already in silos. (We can't strike them until 30 minutes after we Launch On Warning, which is 15 minutes after they launch their first strike, total 45 minutes after their first strike launch during which they can reload and refire despite our MX silo-killers.) Agree? Question, how fast can they reload&fire? ------------------------------ Date: 12 May 1982 05:21-EDT From: Robert Elton MaasSubject: re: armsd I don't know whether this reached ARMS-D, but it was pointed out that although it takes many hours to reprogram an ICBM for a new target, it's practically instantaneous to select an alternate target among several that were already programmed in. Thus by programming in say ten targets for each missile, except those to be used in the first strike, and making these lists of targets pseudo-random, or even better complementary, you can assure that any targets missed during the first strike can be selected by DIFFERENT missiles in the remaining force, thus assure that ALL the first-strike-missed targets can be targeted during the second strike. If you have time (enemy didn't destroy your silos yet) you can even reselect your third strike to any targets missed by the first two. Asympotically you get 100% kill, unless the enemy limits you to a small number of strikes by knocking out your silos, or you use so many missiles that the number remaining times the number of targets per missile doesn't cover all targets and the one you need to kill happens to be among the missed ones. But if one or two targets out of thousands is the only one or two missed, I don't think you'll worry about it. You will have done a lot "better" than if you sent all your missiles the first strike and 5 or 10 targets happened to get all duds. The above arguments were aimed mostly at duds and other random factors, but retargeting can be useful to overcome defensive measures too. If some city happens to be defended, and thus escapes your first strike, you can retarget several warheads for it in subsequent strikes until you finally kill it. (Bletch, this whole subject is disgusting. How have I gotten into devil's advocate position, actually proposing various military plans of action just to prove a point. It's remotely possible the military doesn't have the mathematical brains I have and hasn't thought of the same mathematics I have, and hasn't thought of the same plan, and somebody in the Pentagon may actually see this message and use my military plan to make WW3 even more destructive than it would have been without my plan.) ------------------------------ Date: 12 April 1982 09:48-EDT From: DIGEX at MIT-AI In ref to RMS's question about the soviets haveing reload capability for thier ICBM's, they do have in on some of thier launchers. Generaly refered to as the 'cold launch' capability, it involves propelling the missle out of the silo with a compressed gas of some sort, and having the engines ( motors actualy ) ignight in the air about 100 feet up. Thus the silo is not damaged by the backblast. The reload time is generaly thought to be in the 3 to 5 hours range. While this does not affect teh initial and secondary exchanges between the US and USSR, It would allow the surviving ( I will assume for the moment that the attack was launched with the knowledge that there would be a lot of soviet military survivors, and that this constituted a win for them ) forces to reload the silos from the stockpiled retired nukes ( the soviets almost never scrap a missle when it is removed from service. They generaly store them with warhead attached and ready for a short servicing and launch ). Once this is done, they can take thier time in survaying the US and deciding what places needed 'another dose'. This could be done a week later with no trouble. These nukes also would be usefull against china, africa, etc. Whereever the soviets saw a problem that they would rather not deal with. This is a rather off the cuff flame, but I hope that it will cause people to look at what the world might be like after WWIII . For all the flames here and elsewhere, we dont know for sure that it will be the end of the world. Also, on reprogramming the targeting data on ICBMS, I have a chart around here somewhere that lists estimated times for various missle types. I will try to find it. I assure you that for the older missles it takes hours to do. This includes 80 % of the soviet missles, and half of ours. The MMI takes almost an hour, and has a very short target list ( I heard someone say 6 elements max once, but I am not sure ). Our sub launched missles are much better in this reguard, but are not as accurate . Doug ------------------------------ Date: 12 May 1982 0844-PDT From: Herb Lin Subject: need to kill silos, retargeting... RMS comment: if the Russians have hundreds of extra ICBMs for silo reload, this is a reason to be able to kill silos. I'm skeptical on several grounds. (1) Where would they be stored? Certainly not in silos (by definition). Anything else is soft, and thus doesn't require hard-target capability. (2) A near-miss (e.g. something 1500 feet away, which wouldn't have hard-target kill capability) would make the immediate area around the silo VERY dangerous to work in; how would people reload the silo? (3) What's the advantage of having lots of reloads in the first place? Missiles aren't any good without targets to hit, and the Soviets have enough missiles to hit essentially everything of significance that's fixed in place. Once they expend the missiles already in their silos, what's left to hit in the US? I would expect that cruise missiles would be able to do that job, though. Does anyone know whether they can do it? Yes. Cruise missiles have a similar sized warhead to missiles and CEPs of about 90 feet (if they work), giving them a Pk against silos of essentially unity. However, so could bombers, which are essentially terminally guided (by the pilot and bombadier), and carry large warheads. [From: rae at mit-vax] Concerning REM's recent remark on the retargeting the second half of one's strategic (read first-strike) nuclear missles. From a talk by Kosta Tsipis, I was lead to believe the retargeting of a balistic missle was a non-trivial task requiring many (14 was the number I remember) hours to perform. That may be true for the Soviets, but it's not true for the Americans. The Command Data Buffer system for reprogramming missiles takes 36 mintutes to set an arbitrary target. It is true that before the CDB was installed, it took many hours to reprogram a missile. Note the distinction between retargeting and reprogramming - retargeting means hitting a different target, but one which you have previously selected to be on a list. Reprogramming means hitting a completely arbitrary (but fixed) target. ------------------------------ Date: 12 May 1982 19:19-EDT From: Zigurd R. Mednieks Subject: Nitrates in my politics, the withering of the left, perhaps Lenin is apt First: As has been pointed out to me, Lenin was, after a fashion, an antidemocrat. His position on elections was that they should be used in order to gain exposure for the party that would later install the dictatorship of the proletariat. Still, considering his general opinions on the evils of beurocracy, radical materialism, and the withering away of the state, one cannot regard him as a classical tryrant and autocrat. Second: Respect for the ballot box is especially warranted in the case of El Salvador. That election was closely supervised by officials of various political parties in governments and in opposition in Europe and elsewhere. Many of these parties had been making much hay over the evil US warmongers backing the neo facist pig dog puppet Jose Napoleon Duarte. The Salvadorians seem to think he was soft on terrorism and surprised everybody by electing a somewhat radical rightist. Now the British Labor Party, the Socialist International and the CDU are all mysteriously quiet. And don't tell me the Falklands distracted Labor. The elections in El Salvador happened well before the Falklands crisis and election fraud would have been exploited to its full propoganda potential. Now those previously black-hatted people in the Salvadorean army are pressuring the government to keep the reform programs going because they are effective in alienating the guerrillas from the peasants. The "war" in El Salvador has quieted down quite a bit since the elections. The next year or so will tell if we really have learned the right lesson from Viet Nam -- a successful counterinsurgency fight and economic recovery would vindicate large parts of Reagan's foreign policy. So far, given conventional thought on how many troops it takes to quash a guerilla revolt, our experience in Viet Nam, and the Soviet Union's experience in Afganistan, El Salvador is going quite a bit better than was expected. You are showing the typical liberal disregard for the ability of people in other countries to make a rational decision at the polls. Insulting a Slavadorian peasant's intelligence won't win you hearts and minds. As for a lack of representation of the far left in the elections, it seems somewhat irrelevent considering the huge turnout and clear swing to the right. In fact, it seems that the Savadorian guerillas missed the reason the Bolsheviks ran for office in a government they were going to overthrow anyway. They should, probably, have gone if only for the exposure. They were invited, in any case. In the opinion of the Christian Science Monitor, the election results indicate a desire for a quick end to the fighting -- bad news for the rebels, the people are *not* on their side. I guess the main problem with comparing you with Lenin is that he had a somewhat disparaging view of the leftist ideas you hold dear. However, as for your attitute toward democracy... On the subject of civil defense: You seem to think that our President is in command of the Soviet military as well as our's. There isn't anything we can do to insure we won't get nuked. If there was, the whole concept of deterrance, at any level, would make no sense. While prevention is much much better than cure (if there even is a cure), the government has the responsibility to save your ass and mine should "They" drop the big one. While noone can predict how a nuclear war will start, it seems likely there will be some warning. In any case, it is impossible to "prepare" for the somewhat unlikely event of an all out surprise attack against the population. In that sense CD is worthless. However, if the more likely scenario of attacks against military and economic targets occurs, it would be grossly irresponsible not to try to get civilians out of the way. An attack aimed at killing the most number of civilians is the most unlikely of all. It invites response in kind, escalation to biological warfare, etc. There are many good reasons to think that the Soviet Union is not out to incinerate civilians. BTW, I didn't like Nixon's foreign policy or his economic policy. Carter was much better intentioned, at least. Look, on the other hand, at the Democrat's prospects for the next election: A groteque parody of the Kennedy heritage, a conservative in Democrat clothes (Mondale), and a space kadet (Brown). As for reasonable people to fill the cabinet posts, watch out! I don't think anybody is ready to go back to the More Government days of Johnson. "We want Goldwater!" Cheers, Zig ------------------------------ Date: 12 May 82 20:03:10-EDT (Wed) From: J C Pistritto Subject: Re: Arms-Discussion Digest V0 #103 Airfield used for Falklands airstrikes: The major airfield the British are using to support the Falklands expedition is the military airfield on Ascension Island, which is a British owned island, although the airfield there was built and is maintained by the United States under the NATO agreement. Under the operating agreement for Ascension, the US gets to use the airfield for whatever it wants, with the proviso that the UK has first rights to use it if necessary. The rest of the island, including a large harbor, is administered directly by the UK. Normally only periodic resupply flights are made by Britain for that airfield. At this time, several Vulcan bombers, 4 Nimrod long range patrol radar aircraft, and about 20 RAF Harriers are based there, along with Victor refueling aircraft. These were all added after April 1, normally the only combat aircraft there are American. -JCP- PS: The British don't tell us what they're doing because we might leak it to someone... (like Argentina). ------------------------------ Date: 12 May 82 20:14:16-EDT (Wed) From: J C Pistritto To: Harold G Ancell Subject: Re: Arms-Discussion Digest V0 #104 Retargeting Nuclear missiles: On the Titan missile, (our oldest), it takes about 12 hours and 3 men to retarget the missile. All of this under *INTENSE* security, (like a guard holding a 45 automatic about 3 feet away from you while you toggle in the new coordinates and such, I know personally a person who has had the experience). On the Minuteman I, it takes 6 hours or so, I am told. On Minuteman II and III, it takes much less time, but still greater than 30 minutes. Cruise missiles are a different problem, as they require a terrain map to be generated. While it would not take long to retarget one, this depends on a new map being generated, (which assumes you know something about the launch point, which is variable for a cruise), so I suspect that only a couple of targets are actually available on-line. Those terrain maps are BIG, as they are designed to allow the missile to change course several times in flight. (that way, even if you designed it, you can't be sure which route it will fly). -JCP- ------------------------------ End of Arms-D Digest ********************