AHC: A totally different Nuclear Triad

I find this argument a bit strange. Land-based missile silos seem to be in a comparable position, yet, we're all quite willing to accept them as part of a triad. The French used MRBMs as part of their deterrence force, so range is obviously not an insuperable problem. You can't hide it or harden it? Well, you can't hide or harden missile silos either - or more to the point, the same techniques used on them will work just as well on a gun if most of the barrel is underground. Yet clearly missile silos were considered to be durable enough to be worthwhile, even in the face of an opposing superpower's arsenal. Arguing that they were a waste of money is possible, but difficult. If we remove the requirement that this be used by a superpower, then it might be possible.

For the record, I'm not asserting that this is superior to SLBMs or TELs rumbling around in a desert somewhere. But that's okay, because all we have to do is find a different nuclear triad, not one that's better. And I don't think a gun is obviously crazy talk - Project HARP test-fired RVs with delicate electronics and they did okay, so delicate systems can survive those sorts of launch stresses.
The range was specifically in the context for Israel. Namely that said gun would in Israel's case be in range of tactical weapons from their neighbors and thus vulnerable to non strategic conventional weapons

You can in fact harden a silo, as it only needs a 3 meter or smaller hole for the missile to leave from. The gun needs quite a bit more than that so that it can be brought out and traversed onto the target. Otherwise you are stuck with having to have each gun only dedicated to a band of targets, and realistically you need a cluster of guns for each band of targets as some will not survive the enemy first strike and dealing with mechanical issues. As such Israel, who has to worry about all of its neighbors would need a whole bunch of different gun batteries, or if using a single gun or battery of guns, have to have it be able to traverse, which means a railway gun style turntable system

HARP did it's work in the early to mid 60's, and managed to achieve their electronics shielding at the cost of payload mass, namely them filling the electronics bay with sand and epoxy adding weight, similar to how they eventually got the rocket propellant to survive by filling it with liquid. I'm fairly sure the guidance systems of the time won't work that way, and without guidance the dispersion at that range is too much even with nukes

The issue with HARP type weapons is that they only become viable after missiles exist and you can piggy back off others missile programs easier than developing the gun on your own
 
Note that thermonuclear weapons need periodic maintenance (they contain assorted radioactive elements like tritium and polonium that decay), so you can't just stash them forever in space or at the bottom of the sea.
 
The range was specifically in the context for Israel. Namely that said gun would in Israel's case be in range of tactical weapons from their neighbors and thus vulnerable to non strategic conventional weapons
Unless you are China, USSR or the USA, it's likely all of your Triad Assets would be in range of your neighbors tactical weapons, excepting Boomers, but even the bases would be-- Soviet SS-4 missiles from the Kaliningrad Oblast covers all French and British bases.

The main problem with HARP was that funding was cut when the Army lost any program with range of more than 100km, and that was a few million dollars a year, chump change, and then lost the remaining Canadian funding. All up, it was less money that the cost of a couple B-52 bombers for the entire program,with a few 16" guns built and some smaller test examples.

With funding equal to what was spent on the Redstone Rocket, over $90M, yes you can iron out those problems
 
ii) Submarine-based ballistic or cruise missiles. This is substantially different from land-basing due to the global range of it's mobile, hardened, and top secret launching capabilities. To counter this you need anti-submarine warfare capability.
You're forgetting that surface assets can carry and launch nuclear weapons as well.

iii) Bomber delivered weapons. Maybe carrier based bombers or permanent air-basing could be counted separately, but the substance here is about the bombers making it through air defenses, so I'll count it as one.
Don't forget missiles launched from bombers.
 
No one has yet suggested that supervillain favorite: inside a volcano. The heat from the lava would disguise launch plumes, making it harder for the enemy to detect.
esquire-yolt-volcano-artwork-james-bond-007.jpg

Something like this?
 
You're forgetting that surface assets can carry and launch nuclear weapons as well.

Don't forget missiles launched from bombers.

Points taken, whoever is making the next list should consider these options.

Is the super-gun different enough to get a category to itself as well?

And maybe the Davy Crockett model could be another side of the deterrence polygon. You arm your conventional forces with a nuclear option, as was explored in studies on the pentomic division and the Operation Dropshot. The weapons are distributed widely and less vulnerable to a first-strike, and making it possible for units that survive the initial exchange to engage in ad-hoc third strikes against targets of opportunity.
 
You can in fact harden a silo, as it only needs a 3 meter or smaller hole for the missile to leave from. The gun needs quite a bit more than that so that it can be brought out and traversed onto the target. Otherwise you are stuck with having to have each gun only dedicated to a band of targets, and realistically you need a cluster of guns for each band of targets as some will not survive the enemy first strike and dealing with mechanical issues. As such Israel, who has to worry about all of its neighbors would need a whole bunch of different gun batteries, or if using a single gun or battery of guns, have to have it be able to traverse, which means a railway gun style turntable system

Okay, I think part of the problem is we've been talking about different things. It sounds like you're imagining the gun system as being like a battleship turret, which can be traversed and elevated to attack different targets. That would certainly be more difficult (although see below). I was imagining a gun tube with a fixed orientation and elevation, with the propellant charges and projectile doing all the work of changing trajectory. Such a system would only be able to attack targets in a predetermined and limited area, but in many cases that will be okay. If you want to threaten different areas, you build a different gun installation (or just build one, but make it a FOBS). I don't really see why a battery of gun tubes per target area is impractical, since with missiles you'd want several silos per target area anyway.

esquire-yolt-volcano-artwork-james-bond-007.jpg

Something like this?

On the other hand, if you do want a railway gun turntable system, you don't have to raise the whole thing out of the ground to fire it. Imagine something like this, with the base of the gun on rails running around the outside of the dome and the end of the barrel in the middle. The external hole might not be much larger than a missile silo, but the installation would still be able to attack a much wider range of targets. An alternative would be to have the gun turret in the middle, with different holes in the walls for the gun tube to line up with depending on the target area it was attacking.

I did think about something like this, but decided it was impractical in most cases and a battery of fixed tubes would be much cheaper and easier to actually build and service. Having said that, I don't know much about the engineering of large underground volumes, so maybe it would be viable. A more practical option might be to have the gun barrel and mechanism stored vertically (much like a missile in a silo) - it only swings down from the vertical once it's been raised to firing position. You raise it, traverse and elevate, fire the shot, then pull it back down to reload and service it before the next shot - sort of a modern version of the old disappearing guns.

The point I'm trying to make is that IOTL we spent a good deal of money and effort on ballistic missiles and ended up with basing modes for them which we thought would have worked "well enough", despite how weird some of them seem today (the old Atlas "coffin" silos spring to mind here). But if we spent some money and effort on superguns, we might be able to come up with basing modes for them which could plausibly work "well enough", even if they don't match what today's missile systems look like.
 
Unless you are China, USSR or the USA, it's likely all of your Triad Assets would be in range of your neighbors tactical weapons, excepting Boomers, but even the bases would be-- Soviet SS-4 missiles from the Kaliningrad Oblast covers all French and British bases.

The main problem with HARP was that funding was cut when the Army lost any program with range of more than 100km, and that was a few million dollars a year, chump change, and then lost the remaining Canadian funding. All up, it was less money that the cost of a couple B-52 bombers for the entire program,with a few 16" guns built and some smaller test examples.

With funding equal to what was spent on the Redstone Rocket, over $90M, yes you can iron out those problems
Hence why they should choose TELs to complement their Boomers and aircraft. It's worth noting when France had a triad they only had 18 silos and located them where it would be hard for Soviet tactical aircraft to reach, as those are functionally the only threat to silos without going nuclear until the modern day

HARP had a bit over $10M spent on it, and was not even close to a viable weapon. You'd need a lot more than $80M to make it one

But why should you spend that money on a capability you already have things that can do the job you already spent money on? Or somebody else already spent money on that you can crib off of?
Okay, I think part of the problem is we've been talking about different things. It sounds like you're imagining the gun system as being like a battleship turret, which can be traversed and elevated to attack different targets. That would certainly be more difficult (although see below). I was imagining a gun tube with a fixed orientation and elevation, with the propellant charges and projectile doing all the work of changing trajectory. Such a system would only be able to attack targets in a predetermined and limited area, but in many cases that will be okay. If you want to threaten different areas, you build a different gun installation (or just build one, but make it a FOBS). I don't really see why a battery of gun tubes per target area is impractical, since with missiles you'd want several silos per target area anyway.

On the other hand, if you do want a railway gun turntable system, you don't have to raise the whole thing out of the ground to fire it. Imagine something like this, with the base of the gun on rails running around the outside of the dome and the end of the barrel in the middle. The external hole might not be much larger than a missile silo, but the installation would still be able to attack a much wider range of targets. An alternative would be to have the gun turret in the middle, with different holes in the walls for the gun tube to line up with depending on the target area it was attacking.

I did think about something like this, but decided it was impractical in most cases and a battery of fixed tubes would be much cheaper and easier to actually build and service. Having said that, I don't know much about the engineering of large underground volumes, so maybe it would be viable. A more practical option might be to have the gun barrel and mechanism stored vertically (much like a missile in a silo) - it only swings down from the vertical once it's been raised to firing position. You raise it, traverse and elevate, fire the shot, then pull it back down to reload and service it before the next shot - sort of a modern version of the old disappearing guns.

The point I'm trying to make is that IOTL we spent a good deal of money and effort on ballistic missiles and ended up with basing modes for them which we thought would have worked "well enough", despite how weird some of them seem today (the old Atlas "coffin" silos spring to mind here). But if we spent some money and effort on superguns, we might be able to come up with basing modes for them which could plausibly work "well enough", even if they don't match what today's missile systems look like.
When someone talks about a gun singular as a deterrent for Israel the traverse-able turret is the only way for that to work, as Israel has to worry about Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Iran etc.

A buried chamber like that is harder to harden, rather than a 3x30m shaft for a missile you need minimum something like 6x65 meters for a HARP sized gun, realistically scale that up by 20-40% in each dimension if not more. It isn't much better for the disappearing gun concept as usually optimum range trajectory is about 85 degrees, so you don't need a whole huge 180/360 arc, but this chamber is still more massive. Since you are traversing the thing you can't have reinforcements within the volume so it makes hardening much harder

The difference with missiles is that they are fungible, missile A pointed at Moscow can in a reasonably short time be pointed at Beijing or Pyongyang or Tehran. If you decide to change your targeting you have no wasted resources. With a fixed gun that is not the case, your targeting has to be planned out years in advance which makes you strategically inflexible, or you have to massively overbuild to have enough guns to launch the maximum amount of shells you may possibly want at each possible target.

My point is that by the time you get superguns to the point where they are an effective weapon, you already have a different Triad that's been in service for years
 
HARP had a bit over $10M spent on it, and was not even close to a viable weapon. You'd need a lot more than $80M to make it one
Like I said, in DoD land of the 1960s, $10M is couch change, and $80M that's not even six early B-52, and that's just airframe, not anything that's in the Bombbay-- the deterrent package is separate money, same for the Redstone, $90M for development, and the warheads and basing were extra, not to mention the cost of rockets themselves- when fielded, they were just under $2M a piece, less warhead

Let look at the Thor
Development Cost $: 500.000 million. Launch Price $: 4.930 million in 1958 dollars.

That was pretty expensive for what they did for an IRBM nuclear deterrent for a couple years before repurposed as a sat lofter

Toss $500M at a Supergun(s), and you get real results rather than OTLs shoestring budgets provided
 
Like I said, in DoD land of the 1960s, $10M is couch change, and $80M that's not even six early B-52, and that's just airframe, not anything that's in the Bombbay-- the deterrent package is separate money, same for the Redstone, $90M for development, and the warheads and basing were extra, not to mention the cost of rockets themselves- when fielded, they were just under $2M a piece, less warhead

Let look at the Thor
Development Cost $: 500.000 million. Launch Price $: 4.930 million in 1958 dollars.

That was pretty expensive for what they did for an IRBM nuclear deterrent for a couple years before repurposed as a sat lofter

Toss $500M at a Supergun(s), and you get real results rather than OTLs shoestring budgets provided
Sure, and you get those results after you've gotten results with the rocket program. By the time HARP fired the first shot you had Redstone, Thor, Atlas, Titan, Polaris and Titan II in operational service. That is my point, rockets are technically easier, ergo they will be developed before your supergun, at which point developing it is pointless
 
That is my point, rockets are technically easier, ergo they will be developed before your supergun, at which point developing it is pointless
Easier, if you are the USSR or USA and have billions to toss around to see what sticks.

Not pointless, if it give you a Triad leg for $100M

Priceless, if say you use conventional shells to wipe out the Osirak Reactor facility with zero risk of aircrew being lost, and then used to knock out every Syrian SAM site in 1982

Do all that, while still keeping the Nuclear Shapes as a Triad leg, if needed.

Redstone, Thor, Atlas, Titan, Polaris and Titan II were never used in anger, and never would be, short of WWIII
Superguns are much better for multirole
 
Easier, if you are the USSR or USA and have billions to toss around to see what sticks.

Not pointless, if it give you a Triad leg for $100M

Priceless, if say you use conventional shells to wipe out the Osirak Reactor facility with zero risk of aircrew being lost, and then used to knock out every Syrian SAM site in 1982

Do all that, while still keeping the Nuclear Shapes as a Triad leg, if needed.

Redstone, Thor, Atlas, Titan, Polaris and Titan II were never used in anger, and never would be, short of WWIII
Superguns are much better for multirole
Easier in general, what's true for the US and USSR is true for everybody else, physics are the same for everybody. It's easier to make an electronics package that is not diameter constrained and required to survive 10g as opposed to 3600g, ditto with a bomb and the rocket component. Remember you aren't just firing a dumb shell, you need guidance to hit anything and that means maneuvering to course correct. You functionally need to build a TBM that can fit in a confined space and survive 3600g, which is harder than building a TBM that does not have to do those things, and once you have a TBM it's a short step to an SRBM, then another to an IRBM, then a MRBM and finally a ICBM

Pointless because 100million is not getting you a Triad leg, that's maybe getting to the test program to the point you have a prototype instead of a proof of concept

If you aren't risking aircrew than who is designating the lasers to let your gun hit those things? GPS guidance is a ways away, INS accuracy is low enough you will burn out your barrel before you hit anything, forget cramming TERCOM into it, so you're stuck with laser

Compared to a TBM they are not really, can fit cluster, unitary HE frag, there were some interesting KEP weapons proposed, and they have an easier time fitting guidance systems
 
Pointless because 100million is not getting you a Triad leg, that's maybe getting to the test program to the point you have a prototype instead of a proof of concept
They were at that stage in 1967 OTL in suborbital when everything was abruptly cancelled, just a few months away from an orbital flight with the Martlet 2G-2 orbital test vehicle, aka GLO-1A. the Martlet 4 was 'proof of concept'

Plans were to change the Barbados Gun to be replaced with a longer 240 foot long, 24" barrel
 
They were at that stage in 1967 OTL in suborbital when everything was abruptly cancelled, just a few months away from an orbital flight with the Martlet 2G-2 orbital test vehicle, aka GLO-1A. the Martlet 4 was 'proof of concept'

Plans were to change the Barbados Gun to be replaced with a longer 240 foot long, 24" barrel
I don't see how they ere even close to that stage regarding an actual weapon, rather than various research endeavors. I don't even see how they had more than a proof of concept for orbital launching as the 2G-2 had jack all for payload capability
 
I wonder if the Israelis would be prepared to rely on "super gun" fired nuclear armed projectiles without an all up test ?

Designing a nuke that wasn't going to be tested and could be relied upon to function correctly after being fired from a super gun might be an interesting challenge ?
They could have conducted joint tests with South Africa. Just fire it out over the ocean. They did this irl with non supergun systems.

At one point, a vertical take off Avro Vulcan was considered (a crazy concept, but would be amazing at an air show).

Of course, you could go with trained dolphins fitted with small nukes...
I was thinking earlier about whether or not you could hide a nuke inside a whale. Pretty sad thought but maybe you could guide them with sonar, like in the movie Free Willy?
 
What is the best way to design a nuclear artillery bunker?
Do you have a sliding concrete top like OTL silos?
Will the the gun swivel from the battery, which is simpler but requires a wider opening, or could it swivel from the muzzle, requiring only a tiny opening but more complex machinery below?
Would it have multiple batteries along the barrel like the German V-3 Cannon?

1280px-Mimoyecques_eastern_site_reconstruction.jpg
depositphotos_47228133-stock-photo-old-broken-german-bunkers-of.jpg
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They could have conducted joint tests with South Africa. Just fire it out over the ocean. They did this irl with non supergun systems.

Yep. I expect that could be done. It still seems like a massive distraction to me for a small nuclear power. My understanding is that many if not all of the artillery fired atomic projectiles used by the super powers also tended to need quite large amounts of fissile materials vs their yields. Not a big deal for a super power, but likely a big deal for a small nuclear power. (Especially if the small nuclear powers don't have the luxury of running extensive nuclear test programs to optimize their designs.)
 
My understanding is that many if not all of the artillery fired atomic projectiles used by the super powers also tended to need quite large amounts of fissile materials vs their yields. Not a big deal for a super power, but likely a big deal for a small nucl
The inefficiency of two point hollow-pit linear implosion is still better than the 32 point solid core pit used with Fatman that only provided 20% fission

15kt is nothing to sneeze at for an 8 inch diameter 'Shape', and you can more than double that, once you figure that pit area is prime real estate to park some tritium gas at.
 
The inefficiency of two point hollow-pit linear implosion is still better than the 32 point solid core pit used with Fatman that only provided 20% fission

15kt is nothing to sneeze at for an 8 inch diameter 'Shape', and you can more than double that, once you figure that pit area is prime real estate to park some tritium gas at.
Are you a physicist / engineer or do you just read a lot about nukes online?
 
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