Doesn't matter a whole lot. Even if say 30 or 40 percent of US nukes are duds all you do is create another waiting period while the US proceeds to build more warheads and delivery vehicles while the Soviet Union has pretty much been killed as a country and most of it's major cities are either very heavily damaged or wiped out (even if say the city isn't outright wiped out by the warhead that targeted the post initiation firestorm could burn for a good long while and pretty much burn anything for a decent perimeter to ash. The Soviets will have used or lost virtually all of their warheads or long range delivery vehicles as well as their major air defense assets (major radar stations, fighter bases, pretty much anything with a moderate sized air strip, av fuel supplies, any and all Soviet military flight training apparatus/aircraft/staff. Maybe a decent chunk of the Soviet fighter portion of the air force survives initially but even if SAC is still waiting for another full blown wave it will still be looking to wipe out any remaining air defenses/WMDs/command and control even if it means say bathing any surface flatter then the lunar surface with alternating treatments of high explosives/Napalm/VX/Anthrax and so on in the meantime and would systematically work to eliminate fuel sources gradually forcing any remaining Soviet fighter assets to either try to reposition (where US long range and very high altitude aircraft have a good chance of picking up any sort of unit sized movement) or try to fight for their bases which is a death sentence no matter what because if you have no known sources of fuel besides your current base even say having a single SAC bomber drop a payload of a long lasting nerve agent or something like VX means the defenders have no where to go. Or if at least some of the American aircraft successfully attack and even damage remaining fuel stores it's also a death knel for that set of defenders. Their position has been located and their ability to call in support (or even just get confirmation when radar sites pick up upcoming attacks) has evaporated and by that point any remaining portion of said defenders can choose to land to try and refuel and salvage what they can. In which case odds are most die on the ground before they can successfully refuel and take off again, Or they can try and flee and likely die either when they run out of fuel and crash or when running on fumes try to land to perhaps try and walk it. If said refugee fighter pilots even succeed at identifying and locating and reaching a position with the fuel, supplies and runway like surface to even temporarily act as a runway for whatever defenders may be hiding their already then congratulations the first set of would be refugee fighter jocks have likely managed to lead SAC to a second base which will likely be attacked again to cripple any attempt to fly and then destroy the aircraft, the infrastructure, supplies and the skilled personel.
Like I said even with a pretty damned big chunk of US warheads being complete duds at this point in time the comparative arsenals of the US versus the USSR, the delivery methods and capabilities, access to allied or distant basing closer to your enemy then your homeland, ability to utilize submarines and aircraft carriers to deliver a sizable number of nukes via integrated attacks on critical targets by entire squadrons worth of top tier carrier combat craft of different types mixing say capabilities to best deliver the nukes with types best for decimating enemy air defenses, supressing enemy radars and ground based units, launching decoys and havoc to disorient the defenders, utilize for the time extremely powerful and long range radars both shipborne and AWAC combined with radio to allow for rapid detection of any new enemy air threat and vectoring along with general command and control to make the most of the force, anti submarine warfare craft to surpress and destroy any cheap enemy attempt to remove carrier air operations from the table, air tankers to allow other planes to fly longer, recon models to gather information and help plan continued or future strikes and the like along with the assembled attached forces of supply ships/cruisers/destroyers/frigates/support vessels allowing for a massive area of electronic coverage and warning, hundreds of medium to long range guns capable of anti aircraft work fighting subs, keeping the carriers supplied and so on. And the US vast fleet carrier force (What like 16 active Essex class boats and 3 Midway class with at the time a Essex class still being capable of carrying a typical load of like 70-80 aircraft most large (for the time) combat jets and Midways being able to carry like a payload of 100 mostly jets along with some prop jobs and choppers or a somewhat smaller "normal air attachment" and a heavily modified PV2 maritime recon plane modified with extra fuel tanks, modifications to carry a large nuclear weapon, JATO or RATO devices to allow the huge plane to launch no matter what so figure maybe 40-60 for a "rest of air complement". But the PV2 gives the 3 Midways the capability to pretty much delivering a single low strategic yield manned Kamikaze missile within a pretty good range of a long distance from the Soviet coast in both east and west. Or by then figure for plans without the manned missiles and instead just a mixed first air attack of like 50 mixed variety top tier combat aircraft possibly carrying multiple nukes in the first air sortie and perhaps the same in the second which would arrive minutes after the first. And the greatest benefit of USN carrier air groups is that they can move fast and continously with a huge underway supply fleet and lots of experience meaning that the carrier battle groups could probably keep getting fuel, weapons, spare parts and such for a long time while also potentially both combining or splitting. Say combining a Midway carrier battlegroup with two Essex class CBG would potentially allow rapid attacks of waves of top of the line combat planes manned by excellent pilots numbering in the hundreds from a base that never exists in one plane. And things like recon birds, submarines radar and such can help identify Soviet hunting aircraft and lead back to surviving targets.
Honestly in say 1954 I wonder what would have it been like if say 1 full strength Midway CBG combined with say 3 full strength Essex CBG (or perhaps 2 Midways and two Essex groups) have made major strikes upon the Soviet Maritimes. Just how would the carrier interceptors/fighter bombers/attack planes/bombers/specialty types of the year/era have compared against the sort of aircraft and systems that the ground and air based Soviet aircraft/sensor networks and ground based defenses of the Soviet Navy/Soviet air force/Soviet air defense force of the time. Just what would the theoretical max strength of say multiple combined USN CBGs at that point. How effective would US air, sea and sub based radar for early warning, mission planning, guiding defenses and such and how practical would the anti submarine and anti air capabilities of the various largely WW2 warships still only equipped with guns and without any large scale SAM capability reaching the fleet (though that also makes me think about the unlikely but cool plausibility of WW2 ending with like 6 Alaska class CBs or say 10 Des Moines class being say 50 or 60 percent complete but with the war ending work stopping and arguements over what to do with the large and potentially capable fast surface platforms that are both existing as hulks if not ships yet and are even a decade later still pretty much in new condition. With the final agreement being that the unfinished Alaskas or Des Moines are much like the Albanys finished as new combined command and control ships and naval SAM power house. With their extremely powerful and capable engines and electrical systems they can keep up with carriers even at full bore while they still posess the electric capacity and space for very heavy installation of the best (and of course ridiculously huge) radar and other sensors of the time along with a communication sweet and staff space allowing the command staff aboard to not only know whats going on at any moment more then anyone on any other model of ship in the world) while also carrying a comprehensive and very capable armament with deep magazines. Think all three of the Ts! Talos for long range and for jury rig land strike cruise missile or anti radar work. Tartar for medium range work and terrier for short range work. In addition the Alaskas/former Des Moines do maintain a modified and modernized single example of their triple main gun turret forward carrying their amazing triple tube 12 inch/automatic 8 inch gun for emergency anti surface usage or more likely in support of coastal bombardment. Then their are 8 modernized examples of the classic WW2 US dual tube 5 inch DP gun. Then 8-10 two gun modified turrets each showcasing the more polished and functional automatic 3:70 DP gun (designed to rapidly allow a single turret to quickly allow radar guidance and VT fuses to shift across a number of different Kamikaze aircraft targets and for each air target have one of the 76mm VT fused shells essentially remove the enemy plane from existence while miles away and with the gun already shifting and automatically firing at the next target a millisecond before the previous target/VT fused shells detonated. Then comes roughly 25 odd improved 40mm Bofors guns and mounting spaces for a maximum of multiple dozens of MGs in the rifle to 12.7mm range or autocannon of the 20mm to 30mm size. As a prototype aboard is a example of automated prototype weapon combining elements of a captured german autocannon system modified for naval usage and for direct connection to it's own small but surprisingly capable radar set which when set would allow the prototype and it's fellows to automatically target and destroy anything within certain perimeters not with a IFF. The goal is to create a last ditch weapon capable of operating faster then human thought and automatically seek to protect the ship from any potentially hostile target that reaches within a close range. With the massive growth of aircraft range, payload, speed and ability to deploy long ranged weapons it's believed at this point that by the time a man in a armored tub with a 20mm Bofors mount could even think about firing the plane would have already deployed its weapon, have detonated and the enemy aircraft already beyond range. So the concept is to equip each warship and support vessel with multiple supporting examples of systems that combines IFF systems, recent advances in electronics, some of the more capable advances in autocannons in terms of anti aircraft usage by the Nazis during the war and combining the entire automated package with a integral radar, protected ammo magazine, redunant IFF system, and multiple electrical feeds. The 40mm-50mm weapon when combined with the other 5 aboard will automatically target anything not squawking by the time it reaches 3.5 miles from ship. If it passes 3 miles all systems capable of aiming will begin readyng. At 2.75 all available systems will begin firing while also sending notifications for the ships crew to set off every decoy or distraction system. One shell that manages to detonate within roughly 10-15 yards of the target is guranteed almost instant destruction. If it hits within 5-10 yards fragments might remain. If within 5 yards very little will remain. At maximum firing rate all six systems aboard can in the period of time between the target crossing the 3.5 mile mark and reaching the 2.5 mile mark have fired over half their supply of ammunition or roughly 550-600 rounds per gun. If not terminated at 2.5 miles then full rate of fire will commence guranteeing either complete exhaustion of ammunition or target destruction by the time it reaches 1.75 miles. It's intended to increase the ammunition supply and improve the liquid cooling. It's believed that it would be superior to deploy the units in dual tubs with two barrels and ammunition feeds in each tub with a firing guidance for each with automatic backup so that if one fails the remaining one will slave to the gun still with data. It's believed that if superior liquid cooling/air conditioning systems are installed that still with minimal penetration each firing system could increase it's inegral ammo supply to 1500 rounds. Though another proposal would combine the heavier 50mm autocannon with a electrically powered 7 barrel 23mm Gatling gun. The concept involves similarly paring a complete 50mm autocannon close alert system with a 23mm electric Gatling gun system in the same installation unit. Much like the first proposal they would essentially each have a redudant guidance system where individual failure automatically means the blind gun slaves to the live one. The 23mm Gatling design while obviously of a smaller caliber has at minimum several times the rate of fire and only a slightly lesser range then the 50mm design. Similarly a much larger ammo supply can be carried for the Gatling then the heavy autocannon. The concept is that both would work together with each having a magazine divided by round type designed to operate at different ranges per ammo type before firing through and switching. The 23mm design would start firing longer ranged rounds at a slower speed before increases trading range for speed of fire and pure accuracry for covering the target area. The heavy autocannon would do the reverse firing fastest and with a cloud burst VT round design at max distance before shifting down to a lower rate of fire (marginally) while increasing accuracy and potential colllateral damage considerably. The combined set up would theoreticlly mean that if either gun system in a unit completely and totally failed the other could still succeed completely and combine the long range and power of the former Nazi B17 destroyer autocannon with American electronics and the rather old Gatling design with improvements in electronics, metals, cooling systems. magazine systems and ammunition types. The dual redudant system seems the perfect system with each gun network complimenting the other and together greatly increasing their capability. Though there is the possibility to also build a smaller and simpler unit simply containing the Gatling design and all integral elements . The cost would be much less, weight would be less, much easier to install, you could even install one on something as simple as a PT boat or a lowly landing craft with minimal trouble. There's also proposals to create what could be called constellations. Essentially building indiviual unit containers for the heavy gun design and installing one or multiple on a ship. The trick would be that there would be a larger number of the smaller gatling design in either dual or single gun units but with the capability of mating or slaving multiple Gatling systems to one or two heavy systems. One rather extreme proposaal calls for the newest and largest carrier class to be built with two heavy gun systems per side with each two gun system being mated to at least 4 to 6 Gatling gun systems along with one or two Gatling systems on bow and aft. The suggestion is that installing guided anti air missiles on them would be vastly more expensive, take up more interior space, signifigantly reduce aircraft capacity and yield only marginally better protection. A single one armed launcher for the short ranged SAM in comparison would reduce the "normal combat load" from up to 115 or 120 aircraft to 90. To add integral SAM capability lower then the planned multi role frigate designs (each of which would cost roughly a 1/15th of a individual carrrier by itself) would reduce at least a quarter of the capability and likely more as aircraft size grew. It might lead them to within five years at most fielding 55-65 aircraft.
Of course one of the largest attractions of the redesigned Alaska class is that comparitively it has at least 2.5 times the heavy/long range SAM capabiity of the converted earlier heavy cruisers with less launchers, less guidance systems, 45 percent more TALOS space storage, at least 25 percent faster operation in each assembly system, Alaska TALOS having a guided range at least 25-30 miles more thanks to it's improved guidance system including a remarkably advanced select guidance land attack capability and more remarkable anti radar capability which had succeeded once targeted at a copy of a medium grade expy of the capability of air warning radar system most known Russian air bases used. The missile had needed less then 25 second of active listening before the radar was of course turned off. On any other ship or design any guidance would be lost. But thankfully they had a few more options and at roughly 40 miles from the fake airbase the Talos had taken off with the missile containing the extra propulsion package, the special toy, and the prototype round. The propulsion package meant that the missile had more range and speed. The special toy activated a special form of radar or decoy which immediately gained the active attraction of the other similar set up (minus the special toy) TALOS assembled and fired immediately afterwards chasing the first. When making final approach to the fake radar mast the first Talos made an ascension and then while pointing downwards across a wide but efficient slice fired off it's first payload namely roughly 150 pounds of small ounce or two oddly shaped pieces of tungsten propelled by a mini explosive charge. Instantly over 5000 wishbone shaped incredibly sharp and dense chunks of Tungsten fired across a wide areaa both slicing the radar mast to ribbons as well as causing decimations across a wide area of the sorrounding airbases including the tungsten shrapnel opening up multiple reserves of fuel, tearing decoy aircraft apart and then carpeting a large area. The effect was like a shot gun loaded with buckshot with the gun being designed for a 50 foot man.
Then the second payload of the first missile went off scattering 250 pounds of extremely fine Magnesium shavings mixed with pellets of a sort of caked fuel, small partially open cubes each composed of a walling of finely shaved and then composed magnesium shaving with a center of very pure white phosphorous Finally several dozen grenade like items were scattered across a wide area of the base each looking similar to a large smoke grenade and slowly beginning to emit a odd sort of smoke as they dissolved and began dissolving the magnesium they got into contact with. Within 25 seconds a cloud of gas combining in essence a partially stabilized form of a extremely unstable rocket fuel, huge quanties of very finally shaved magnesium floating in a cloud that lifted much of the metal shavings and even the fuel pellets up covering an area of a square kilometer of the fake airbase. When the second Talos missile went off it instantly distributed huge numbers of floating and long burning particulates that in second had turned the extremely finely filled air ablaze in a fraction of a section the square kilometer previous covered seemed to just disappear as it expanded all at once. Immediately after a hole covering the gas shaded area some 35 feet deep (though a number of the tungsten fragments had been very very fastly propelled throughout the crater and had in some areas gone a further 15 feet down among other things succeeding at penetrating a armored deeply dug emergency fuel reserve in such a wave that it would rapidly begin expelling liquid fuel that was at a incredible rate turning to a gas and exiting under high pressure through several small holes. Once roughly 5K gallons of high grade av gas had changed from a liquid to a gas the flaming particulates took effect again and proceeded to detonate the emergency fuel storage shifting large irregular sections of all nearby paved areas signifigantly increasing any runway repair.
Besides being able to actively guide two or 4 Talos missiles (if the latter two were slaved to the first) up to some 40 or so miles the medium ranged tartar had a simpler design and three two armed launchers and a single one armed launcher. Unlike the TALOS it didn't need a huge and complex assembly line and could be stored en magazine almost ready to go. While the ship could store up to 45 or potentially as many as 50 TALOS missiles depending on components per assembly line for launcher (granting the ship on average 43 in one and 53 in the other as well as a emergency supply of components that given several hours could give each assemble line a maximum of 15 to 20 more TALOS missiles. Each of the dual Tartar launchers was connected to a magazine capable of holding 50-60 missiles a piece. The single arm launcher had a different magazine chamber capable of holding roughly 40 missiles. At any given time the active guidance systems of Alaska could guide roughly 8 to 10 tartar missiles up to 25 miles away. The single arm launcher was both more capable and simpler. It fires long range decoy missiles that tends to set of various messages followed by a repeater missile that identifies any unusual noise and location. In an emergency the single arm launcher rounds can be mounted with a shorter ranged rocket and a fuel air/tungsten shrapnel warhead with a heat seeking head and no guidance from the ship beyond self destruct. When needed as such the single armed launcher could launch up to 4 to 5 missiles a minute capable of going up to 15 miles and hunting their own prey.
For the short ranged same Terrier consists of 2 trident launchers each with one missile per point along with another 3 dual point launchers and three more simplified, more basic and smaller single armed launchers. The trident magazines each contained 5 missiles per trident point. The dual launchers contain 6 or 7 per point. The five single armed launchers are a somewhat more basic design containing a protected pre mounted missile and two more ready to mount. The single arm launchers can fire all self directed missiles in magazine in 1.5 minutes and these examples can range 10-12 miles carrying a very high explosive warhead equipped with 100 pounds of pre fragmented tungsten wire designed to detonate in one of multiple conical shapes directing ounce weight chunks of tungsten at a speed capable of taking one through a armored car. Their designed as a last minute resort defense. The double and trident launchers are not as fast reloading or launching but have better range and accuracy and can be guided by one of the ships radar systems.
In addition as another experiment 2 triple pack containers each lightly armored and containing a complete guided anti ship missile developed from a common and cheap jet powered target drone. Each of the missiles can reach up to 8 miles range, can automatically make several evasive maneuvers, dispense chaff and flares, and carry multiple different propulsion or explosive packs. The bang packs range from 300 pounds to a mere 130 while the propulsion packs range from a simple RATO or JATO to some far more capable. As a experiment instead of a bang pack the missiles can carry a sort of homing system. A system which will when set automatically draw every SAM launched towards it before proximity detonation. When equipped with a very basic camera system theoretically you could send it and guide it towards a major large target and just use it as a slow judas goat for a maximum of up to 24 TALOS,46 Tartars, and 75+ terriers.
There was also a more normal series of 4 similar lightly armored disposable drone packs. Intended to act as targets, to tow targets or seekers, to distract enemy guidance systems, radiate electronic chatter that would emit random confusing signals including indications of false attacks. They can also be used to draw in targets for a shooting range, do recon, act as decoy dispensers, dispense illumination flares supporting night gunfire support, be used as emergency SOS beacons and more.
The ship also carried a couple dozen much simpler and cheaper single use sling launched target drones.
While the original design had called for carrying something like 4 to 6 of the late WW2 Sea Hawk float plane the current ship didn't carry one. She diid have her own dedicated aircraft area, a new and innovative expanding telescoping hangar with support and maintainance capabilities. At present the ship had in the ready hangar at total of 4 ready to use DASH multi purpose drone copters which could serve recon, act as bafflers and decoys, guide missiles and guns, carry sensors, carry radar extenders that could grant an additional couple miles. They could also be armed with pretty much anything. Nominally the norm was a pair of simple sound guided ASW light torpedos or a single medium torpedo. They could also carry one or more naval mine. Drop various bombs. Carry and fire numerous types of MG/cannon pods/rocket pods/ disposable recoilless tubes, grenade launchers, crude rockets, explosive charges and the like. I'd once seen a quartet of them systematically shoot WP rockets at a section of jungle to provide a break line and then disperse WP pellets covered in a temporarily stable form of very unstable rocket fuel while what looked like dandelions of fine magnesium shavings dissolved and drifted down.
I mean pretty much all NATO war plans and Soviet war plans I'm aware including post Korea conventional war pretty much all assume the Soviets were going to launch an attack west. NATO realized it just didn''t have the conventional firepower or the manpower to actually have a fraction of a decent chance of succeeeding at making it to the Polish border let alone repeat Barbossa. Considering just how deeply the Sovietss intel system had penetrated the US intel network/armed forces/elements of governent and such they had to have access to the various general warplans. For some reason the Soviet gov seemed to be endlessly stuck in this loop that NATO was just about to repeat Barbossa via a massive conquest effort east. Yet NATO higher leadership never planned or considered even liberating warsaw pact members conventionally. You can't launch a Barbossa 2.0 when your opponent has like 3 times as many divisions and several times as many artillery pieces (cruise missiles, ground launched ballistic missiles, MLRS systems/tube artillery), what like 4 or 5 as many active or in light storage category tanks. Obviously the Soviet ground based air defense net, alert network, fighters and interceptors making using the superior NATO airforces to make up the difference damned hard.
Just one of those things about the Cold war that always struck me as weird. Like Sweden effectively in every way that matters being an unofficial NATO member and their gov/military assuming any NATO/Warsaw fight would inevitably quickly lead to a conventional attack on Sweden meaning they were always planning to pretty much be fighting alongside NATO from the start of a fight (I guess they figured in order to bypass hostile Northern Norway the Russians would instead drive through North or central Sweden to hit the Southern most important part of Norway. Just kind of odd they never officially joined until recently. IF literally all of your warplans inherently involve you rapidly being attacked and invaded no matter what and requiring you almost instantly being forced to fight alongside NATO forces why not just join NATO and coordinate fforces. I mean France left the command network but they at least had a defensive barrier of the Rheine and a collection of hundreds of Nukes, long rand medium nuclear bombers, mobile or hardened land based nuclear ballistic and cruise missiles. Nuclear cruise missiles and bombs to arm modern and capable planes like the Mirage 2000. And of course a collection of some of the quietest and most capable SSBNs ever made each one when at sea carrying like 15 naval ICBMs with each submerged missile having up to like a dozen MIRVs. Giving them the ability to at least hit some of the most valuable parts of the SU. If they poke past the line you've drawn you could strike at say the Soviet mechanized forward force and gut a corp or two. Or strike say ttheir primary former logistic/transport node with short ranged ballistic and cruise missiles and make it damned painful to conquer France.
Sweden in contrast didn't even have say Nerve gasses. Nor did they have Switzerlands famous defensive terrain.
