Project Casaba-Howitzer was like a shaped charge, but nuclear. I could see a few of those floating in space in this TL.

orionpunit.jpg
 
A huge Orbital Platform would however, be ideal host for defensive ABMs like Spartan.
Plenty of time to plot an intercept, as well as being able to use a bit of Δv to alter course that means you need far more capable interceptors: Orbital rendezvous are difficult enough, without the target trying to avoid. You will need something the size of a Saturn Ib to get that interceptor launched
 
I can think of half a dozen catastrophic ways that the long flight time model might fail that way. Not least of which is you have a thermonuclear weapon in flight toward your enemy which requires active intervention not to strike, and everyone knows it. Which simply has to be considered damned provocative. The target will just say "the moment those warheads get beyond their final abort point we will launch everything we have, and the world dies" and then the ball is back in the other guy's court. They have to abort, because not aborting is equivalent to trying a first-strike with ICBMs. Pointless. And the target certainly has all of the time he needs to fuel and ready his missiles, so they can launch on very short notice.
Which, of course, is why you don't burn the retros right to entry - on the same theory as bombers having fail-safe points. You do your sabre rattling, and when things get serious the warheads are deorbited to the point where they're skimming the atmosphere. Say a periapsis of 150 kilometres, though that's an arbitrary number. At this point, the opponent is in the same situation as if a thundering herd of B-52s was heading their way. If they don't back down, you issue the order to attack, the final retro burn takes place, and the warheads drop on target. If they back down, no order to proceed is given, and the warheads loop on back out to high orbit, where a modest burn allows them to rendezvous with the launch platform for refuelling and servicing.

There's the same disadvantage to this setup and the bombers, in that if the strike is aborted then there's a definite regeneration time. On the one hand, the bombers can wait at their failsafe points, allowing for a delayed attack at an ordered time at the expense of fuel. On the other hand, the space-based warheads can be kept orbiting so that they present a threat pretty much indefinitely, but at a delay dependent on the orbits chosen.

Doing this requires the final retro burn to be be quite large, definitely in delta-V terms and probably in terms of acceleration as well. The closer to periapsis, the bigger the burn needs to be to achieve deorbit; the size of the manoeuvering stage and any post-launch trajectory refining manoeuvres will therefore drive how late the fail-safe point can be.
 
WhAt this point, the opponent is in the same situation as if a thundering herd of B-52s was heading their way.

I don't know if it's quite the same. Flying a bomber into enemy airspace is an active act. It takes effort, and someone to further act to make that strike. If bombers are orbiting at their failsafe and nobody gives the order to proceed or if communications fails, no strike happens. This is the very meaning of fail-safe.

Conversely, once the orbital nuclear bombs are on their way they, well, they are on their way. It is passivity, not action, which results in a strike. Physics dictates this. If the warheads are falling towards their targets and no one gives an order to abort or if the abort mechanism fails, a nuclear strike results. It takes effort and someone to act to stop them. This is fail-unsafe. It's dangerous.

And if you send the warheads on a "close approach" and require a proceed signal to nudge them to deorbit and have the strike, well, then you have just recapitulated the low orbital bombsat in a much more complex and expensive form.
 
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Also there is the question of whether it is a good treaty or not, and whether or not someone violates it in future, whether the original signatories were well founded in their reasons to agree to it or not.

1967 might have been a little early for the USA and Soviet Union to both agree to it, but I think by then both had had time to think over their options carefully and if they had any reservations, to hesitate or make provisions for something. I think the fact that neither one saw any advantage in reserving the freedom to militarize space with weapons of mass destruction is good evidence that there are few perceptible advantages in holding out for that, relative to the definite advantages of discouraging potential rivals to develop systems they must then pay to defend against, or either risk losing expensive space assets to aggression or refrain from taking advantage of space peacefully.
 
To finish my response to TheBatafour;

TheBatafour wrote:
Oh, and as a supplementary counterargument: might there not be organisatory reasons that space was never militarised? In the case of the US, the military's attempt to get soldiers into space became a lot harder to justify not only because of its practicality vis-a-vis automated satellites, but also because a civilian agency was in charge of space exploration. Had Eisenhower not created NASA, spaceflight would have been a military enterprise in the US.

Shevek23 wrote:
To this day the USAF has a mandate to perform any US space military missions that prove to be necessary. They just haven't been able to think of any.

As Shevek notes, (and I can in fact confirm he's not me :) ) the USAF is the main service for military space missions. (Note however "Space Command" is actually mutli-branch and includes all the US services including some Coast Guard which I did not in fact know) And while almost every branch in the beginning tried to find justification to absorb the 'space' role none of them could actually articulate a viable, justifiable role in manned space activities. It should also be noted that while the Air Force is 'tasked' with military space launch they in fact do not control or are the ones in charge of the majority of 'payload' design, specification or construction. Mostly because they pretty much 'failed' at the job at higher command levels early on. The program was/is run under a joint command of the CIA and elements of the Air Force under the National Reconnaissance Office.

I think I've mentioned that my take on the subject is that IF the US space effort had been left in military hands it probably wouldn't have been as effective as it was under NASA and specifically the manned aspect.

TheBatafour wrote:
Now, you seem to have anticipated this argument, as you state that the USSR did put spaceflight in the hands of the military, and nothing ever came out of that.

Again I'm going to generally agree with Shevek23 in that without a specifc and clearly defined 'military' mission progress is going to be slow, and neither the US nor the USSR, (or frankly anyone as of yet) has managed to do this.

Yet I can see three points that might still speak up against this.

First, from what I know of USSR space history, the soviet design bureaus were notorious for their infighting. Yangel, Glushko, Korolev (later Mishin), Chelomei, having them all agree on something was impossible, and duplicated effort (or at least split effort) seems pretty common. This could explain part of the lack of militarisation.

Secondly, while the early Space Race had the US chasing the Soviets in setting spaceflight records, we know now that this was more of a show than a genuine lead. Not to discount the efforts of the Soviet space program, but IIRC the first satellite could easily have been American, and even during the Cuban missile crisis the US still believed in a missile gap (didn't that idea help Kennedy get elected?). Ironically, the one area where they underestimated the amount of missiles was Cuba itself, and even more ironically the entire crisis came about because the Soviets could pose a greater threat with medium-range missiles from Cuba than with ICBMs in the motherland, which they didn't have enough of. At least that is my understanding.

The Soviet missile and space effort is/was obviously complicated for various reasons but Shevek does hit the high points in that while there was constant conflict between certain segments on the other hand there were many other 'players' that in fact were cooperating at levels below that of Chief Designer and that got things done. Yangel for example specifically listened to the military with little of his own bias' getting in the way and the military considered him to be "their" designer. (The quote was something like, "Korolev designs spaceships, but Yangel works for US!" attributed to the military, https://falsesteps.wordpress.com/2016/09/11/the-r-56yangel-works-for-us/)

Which is actually true as while Glushko advocated storable propellants his 'angle' was that they were easier for him to design with rather than their performance or effectiveness. Chelomei was the same way as he viewed them as more easier to achieve his goals with than kero/LOX whereas Korolev preferred kero/LOX on the grounds or capability and safety, neither of which is a 'priority' in a military weapons system. Yangel on the other hand asked and listened to the military when they said their priorities were rapid readiness over toxicity and operations.

Oddly enough, the early thinking in both the US and USSR were in some ways parallel in that there was a very real consideration of 'skipping' shorter range, (IRBM/MRBM) though the obvious need for 'tactical' missiles was evident the main thrust of research was suggested on strategic or ICBM missiles ONLY at first. (The main advocate in the US, Trevor Gardner quite his job as Secretary of the Air Force's Special Assistant for Research and Development when it was decided, over his objections to proceed with not only the Atlas and Titan ICBM's but the Thor and Jupiter IRBM programs on an equal basis) The Jupiter IRBM was initially a joint Navy/Army project with the aim of giving them a role in strategic nuclear strike which they lacked at this point, but the Navy dropped out because they disliked the idea of liquid propellants on shipboard. While the Army proceeded with the idea as a mobile missile a decision by Charlie Wilson as Ike's Secretary of Defense defining 'range' as part of the services operationally areas moved it from the Army to the Air Force who were already working on the Thor IRBM. (The genesis of the Thor being the Air Force attempting to supplant the Army/Navy Jupiter and ending up with two IRBM's they actually didn't want)

While the USSR had IRBMs they were less useful because their 'target' was in fact the continental United States which they could not reach so they concentrated more on building missiles to reach from the USSR to the US whereas the US had "allies" in range where their IRBMs could reach the USSR from. But it is a possible POD that had there been more 'difficulties' with the allies, (specifically Italy and Turkey but England as well where the Thor was based) or more incentive to concentrate on ICBMs its' possible that Cuba would never had had Soviet missiles there in the first place!

Now, why do I make this point? To show that in terms of militarising space, the USSR was in fact chasing the US's coattails, and a serious attempt at militarising space might not have been financially justifiable (soviet military budgets were inflated, but not infinite) unless the US was making an effort themselves. Something like this did in fact happen IOTL: the Soviet Buran shuttle came about 'because the US has one'. It might be anecdotal, but from what I've heard on here, the Soviets actually knew that the shuttle might not be as economical (certainly in its eventual state) as the projections would have them believe. However, they presumed that it must therefore have an additional application, one military perhaps, that would make it a threat to the USSR. So they had to respond. It's not a very nice thesis, and I don't subscribe to it myself outside of this retort, but the idea that the USSR was mostly reactionary (bad joke) in terms of military development has some things going for it.

Lastly, it might just have all been a case of bad timing. Not in terms of relative technological development, but in terms of speed of development. In this sense, developing the launch power necessary for orbital battle stations only became possible after several treaties had banned it. This not just refers to the USSR (who would only get a working superheavy rocket in the 80s with Energia), but also the US, whose big Saturn V was also late to the party (and was a civilian machine after all).

Now, I bet you can poke these arguments full of holes. This I'm anticipating. In fact, it was my plan all along!

The Buran/Shuttle story is very interesting and eye opening but it must be remembered that the REAL reason was not that the US had a "shuttle" and the USSR didn't but that 'someone' got the bright idea that a Shuttle, launched from Vandenberg, could hide nuclear missiles in the payload bay and launch them with little or no warning available in a "first strike" role. This was because with essentially the 'same' information that was given to the public and some policy makers on the economics and utility of the Shuttle the Soviets could not make the numbers 'work' to the same extent that the US seemed convinced of so therefor, logically, there had to be a 'different' reason behind the US building the Shuttle. And despite the 'civilian' nature of NASA the obvious fact was that it had absorbed numerous military programs, equipment, and people and given that the Soviet space program was also heavily 'military' in nature the conclusion that the Shuttle MIGHT have a direct military role could not be discounted.

And this is where the 'intent' of the operator comes to the fore as at its most basic the 'difference' between a military MISSILE and LAUNCH VEHICLE is really what the payload is. North Korea, as a good example, doesn't really have an "ICBM" but a rather mediocre satellite launch vehicle they could put a nuclear warhead on and launch at the United States. It take an obvious and hard to conceal effort to set up the LV for launch and they only have a few pads from which to launch but it is 'equivalent' of the most early US and USSR ICBMs IF you put a warhead instead of a satellite on it.

And as we've seen there is an indistinguishable 'difference' between a "missile test" and a failed satellite launch...

And this allows me to bring up a specific point that is often neglected in this type of discussion; What is "militarizing" space?

Because it is in fact NOT obvious since the actual definition of the various terms of 'space,' 'orbit,' and extraterrestrial are not as clear as one could hope. Most people do not consider that ICBMs which in effect travel 'through' space but not into 'orbit' are not "militarizing" but something like an 'orbital,' 'boost-glide,' or 'skip-glide' "bomber" would be. In truth though they are very much the same except the ICBM was not designed for 'recovery' or reuse. In operation the bomber would have to fly almost the same trajectory as the ICBM in order to achieve the lest warning and most effectiveness. Similarly the FOBS concept required enough 'energy' to 'orbit' the weapons even though they would not in fact BE in orbit.

But they are not in fact 'space' weapons systems but various types of delivery systems for surface-to-surface weapons. "Space" basing just doesn't give enough advantages to be seriously considered once you have any capability of actually getting there, because the same capability gives you the ability deliver weapons on-target already.

As for the idea of less 'rational' Cold War governments I don't know that it would have 'helped' move the scenario along much as it was a LOT of people being both rational and in some ways irrational that arrived at the space race and outcome that it did. I've personally argued that Truman and Eisenhower actually retarded the US space capability in their own ways and that had either, (or both) never been President we would have actually seen a deeper manned space program on the US side BUT one that would probably lack what many consider essential elements from OTL.

As a vague example, keep in mind that the entire 'rationale' behind the development of the Saturn-1 booster was simple to keep the Von Braun team together and intact during a period of budget and policy uncertainty. There was never a viable military requirement to build the Saturn-1 or any large booster for that matter. The same issues retarded the development of Soviet 'big' boosters with the nominal justification for the Proton to boost large military satellites but was never applied to the N1. A more 'rational' approach would probably have never required the Energia, Shuttle or Saturn-V where as a more 'irrational' approach could easily come to the same conclusion from a wholly different perspective!

Ok enough of this post before I need to publish it in book form :)

Randy
 
TheBatafour wrote:
Furthermore, were computers to be less advanced relative to spacecraft in an ATL, military-man-in-space seems inevitable, if only for the purposes you mentioned (intelligence and communications).

Probably no actually, the 'incentive' would mostly be towards shorter mission duration rather than a manned requirement. But it's not simple either. Manned presence represents several additional challenges to operations in adding systems and mass which can be more simply used to add additional 'back-up' electronics or support hardware. Further, the pressurization requirements add significant mass and complexity that most recon or communications systems do not require. (This was where the Air Force 'failed' in requiring the SAMOS-5 supposed photo recon satellite to be pressurized and recovery the telescope which was actually added as requirements seemingly mostly to allow the possible use of the SAMOS-5 film recovery capsule as a very minimal manned capsule; http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1410/1) Lastly and most importantly for the photo/visual reconnaissance role, people and their support equipment add huge amounts of vibration and motion that must be compensated for to allow viable photography. The idea of having men on-board to allow 'target-of-opportunity' photo's was touted as a major reason behind the MOL program but even then it was already known that the actual utility of such shots was questionable. The men on-board would have required numerous systems that would induce vibrations and motion that would have be actively dampened both by systems mounted to the camera's and thrusters on the MOL itself and studies showed the utility wasn't as high as the Air Force was saying it was.

The problem doesn't get better if you have retarded electronics technology either as while when the requirement for manned operation was being suggested (mid-to-late 50s) tube technology was already progressing rapidly and solid state electronics were already being lab tested. (I recall at least one AH thread where it was pointed out that there were in fact a couple of 'possible' points where solid state electronics could have been developed in the early 30s if not sooner but were in fact not pursued for various reasons)

And you need a certain 'threshold' of both tech and ability to get into space, survive and come back and it's not a linear scale either.

Shevek23 wrote:
Well, I was going to say "sure, but that's just ASB!" But that is only so if the linkage between technologies and their states of the art is very strong. If you can't have a rocket engine that performs well enough to compete with an Atlas or R-7's suite of engines without also having solid state electronics--well, that is the assumption I was making. But every now and then I'd get drawn into an AH challenge along the lines of "could the Victorians have launched an orbital rocket" or the like, and find myself taking the idea seriously that just maybe, they could. Last time I did that I was recommending a pressure fed hybrid hydrogen peroxide oxidized paraffin wax solid fuel rocket. I figured the pumps would be the really hard part to do in say 1900, but that with enough brute force, yeah, why shouldn't a Victorian level enterprise be able to make such a rocket? Or a solid fuel one?

More so ask yourself how they keep the right end pointed in the 'right' direction and vice-versa :) Victorian is pretty much ASB as they conceivably had the ability to build a 'space' rocket but didn't have enough of the background to actually pull it off. They had enough knowledge to be capable in a very brute force kind of way but on the other hand they didn't have ENOUGH knowledge in all the right places to actually do it. For example they had no idea of the basic aerodynamic forces beyond very low supersonic speed and no clue of aerodynamic heating which was lacking all the way through the early 50s.

Less insanely, would it really have been impossible to make an orbital rocket in the 1930s?

Basic rocketry was actually available in the late 10s and early 20s from several sources so once you get the necessary power built up it's possible. But again you need the ability to control and guide the rocket which is arguably 'possible' by human control but rather doubtful under the circumstances. And then there's the materials considerations which are not trivial and were badly understood even as late as the mid-to-late 1950s. You can probably get something into orbit but how usable it is would be questionable without late technology to work with.

For guidance and control both the accelerometer and gyroscope were available by 1900 in workable configurations, similarly you have some basic mechanical control systems available such as cam or disk controlled mechanical guidance by around the same time so it's possible to get something INTO orbit by the 20s or 30s but keep in mind the aeronautical researchers were at that time only getting a grasp on high altitude reality. (On the other hand they already KNEW that 'higher' was a vacuum and a very rough environment to deal with so they might be able to grasp the essentials)

But you still have the question of utility and getting back down to deal with.

Randy
 
acrsome wrote:
EDIT- I'm pretty sure that you do NOT have to "stop a Thor directly over its target" to hit something on Earth. You just have to deorbit it, which is not nearly as expensive as stopping it dead in its tracks to drop straight down. (Frex, Apollo did not take nearly as much energy to deorbit as it did to launch into orbit.) Of course, then it takes about 90 minutes to hit its target on the opposite side of the world on a minimum-energy solution, but that's another issue. And the guidance problems remain.

Actually that was the whole point in that you dropped the 'rod' from almost directly over-head for maximum kinetic impact value and minimum response time. The enemy might be able to 'see' the satellite and the 'drop' would have almost no time to maneuver or deploy counter measures. The problem with a more 'gentle' (and longer range) de-orbit is you lose significant kinetic energy AND you now have a longer distance to cover in the same time frame.

This is one of the reasons for research into hypersonic (Mach-5+) weapons in that they are travelling so fast there is less time to react. And kinetic weapons really need higher impact speeds than Mach-5 to be effective.

In general; Impact time of an ICBM is actually relative. At best you might have anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes to less than 5 from a closer (submarine) launch. And while they are pretty much "all-in" weapons that's actually part of the whole point in that you don't attack with them FIRST but retaliate with them. "Orbital" weapons on the other hand are more problematical as I pointed out because you can never be fully 'sure' of the intent of the owner. One of the main reasons the Air Force never got significant traction on the 'deep space battery' concept was the simple fact everyone KNOWS where they are so they will always be more vulnerable than a reinforced silo or (especially) hidden submarine. Most especially once the SLBM acquired the accuracy to be deployed as second-strike/counter-force weapons instead of just deterrents.

Polish Eagle wrote:
Hm. It was actually the inferiority of early control systems that got ICBMs delayed in favor of cruise missiles (until hydrogen bombs were invented, anyway). If you could delay advanced computers a few years, perhaps the case for a boost-glide or piloted orbital bomber might finally make some sense?

Hmmm, since generally the requirements are the same for both cruise missiles and ICBMs probably not. However I'll point to the USAF's MACE/MATADOR (http://www.mace-b.com/38TMW/Missiles/History.htm) which was operational well into the 70s due to its TERCOM, (terrain following) guidance system as an example of why this might still make a better 'case' than manned boost/skip glide vehicles. Generally a one-way, unmanned vehicle is always going to be cheaper at the very least.

On the idea of orbital weapons and 'fail-safe' any idea of 'almost' bombing the enemy is both escalating and provocative. There's a reason the book and movies titled "Fail Safe" were as popular as they were :)

You're main problem with 'almost' dropping an orbital weapon on the enemy is IF you 'abort' you have to get it back into orbit and all the propulsion and systems-run-time that implies. "Technically" we can effectively 'saber-rattle' a missile in its silo by simply opening the door. It effectively take the missile out of action for a week or so because the door is damaged by doing so but if you WANT to get the other guys attention having a couple of missile silos with their doors wide open says very effectively "blink, I dare you" in the satellite pictures :)

But the entire reason you 'saber-rattle' with bomber is BECAUSE they take so long to reach their target and the very real fact that if things go hot they WILL be in position to reach viable targets before the missiles do. In some cases they are in fact headed towards the enemy missile silos, command and control, HQs and all the things that are needed to actually launch their missiles. Chances are very high they will be unable to materially affect a response from said missiles but the threat is there none the less.

Keep and marathag:
I've already pointed out the main reason we HAVE the OST is because no one has ever come up with a viable means or reason to deploy 'weapons of mass destruction' in space ANYWAY so neither the treaty nor the idea of 'breaking' it for military purposes makes much sense. So in effect it just happens to make doing something that no one was seriously considering an international violation :)

There's the example of the ABM treaty which the US withdrew from, (as allowed) not because of a whim but because the treaty specifically ONLY allowed the US to deploy a limited ABM system to protect its missile fields but not its cities. (Where as the Russians are only allowed to protect Moscow with their ABM system under the treaty) The US specifically wanted to deploy a limited ABM system capable of defending our cities from 'rouge nation' attack but the treaty didn't allow ANY ABM system other than the specified one and both sides could not come to a compromise agreement since Russia wanted to upgrade their ABM system. So the US withdrew, (mistake IMHO) but that's in the treaty. In the case of the OTS there isn't actually a clause on withdrawal that I'm aware of and that's because the general treaty isn't as restrictive beyond WMD in space as people tend to think. Not like the cluster that is the 1979 "Moon" treaty that was suggested to replace it. There's an obvious reason why no 'space' going nation is a signatory of the 1979 one but all have ratified the 1969 one.

Randy
 
I was trying to be pithy. Hopefully I explained in sufficient detail, above. I can post a 23-page diatribe if you insist. ;)

NO you don't buster, "novel-length-response-posts-but-can't-gen-up-a-time-line" is MY stich and I've already applied for the AH.com patent, so no stealing ;)

Randy
 
There's the example of the ABM treaty which the US withdrew from, (as allowed) not because of a whim but because the treaty specifically ONLY allowed the US to deploy a limited ABM system to protect its missile fields but not its cities. (Where as the Russians are only allowed to protect Moscow with their ABM system under the treaty)

US&USSR could have done two sites (city and Missile Field) per original wording, but since neither country had more than one site operable in 1974, was amended to the existing Moscow and North Dakota sites, as the US Montana Safeguard complex at Malmstrom AFB had work abandoned by then
002919l0.jpg

Want to know more?
 
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NO you don't buster, "novel-length-response-posts-but-can't-gen-up-a-time-line" is MY stich and I've already applied for the AH.com patent, so no stealing ;)

If you think that was a novel, Brother, then you have yet to see my finest work... :rolleyes: I can be verbose at times.

Actually that was the whole point in that you dropped the 'rod' from almost directly over-head for maximum kinetic impact value and minimum response time. The enemy might be able to 'see' the satellite and the 'drop' would have almost no time to maneuver or deploy counter measures. The problem with a more 'gentle' (and longer range) de-orbit is you lose significant kinetic energy AND you now have a longer distance to cover in the same time frame.

This is one of the reasons for research into hypersonic (Mach-5+) weapons in that they are travelling so fast there is less time to react. And kinetic weapons really need higher impact speeds than Mach-5 to be effective.

I'm not parsing this- maybe we're talking about different points, here. That's exactly the opposite of reality as I understand it. If you "stop a rod directly above a target" then that's the one that's going slow. It just drops straight down. This is why those incredibly high-altitude parachutists don't burn up on re-entry. If you just deorbit it, though, it is still screaming along at supersonic speed, though admittedly it takes it a while for the orbit to intersect the Earth. But that's precisely because it is still going at near-orbital speeds. (And reaction time from when it appears over your horizon until impact is still rather small.)

Essentially, most of the rod's kinetic energy comes from the rocket that orbited it. Not from just falling straight down. In fact the latter isn't very impressive at all, kinetically.
 
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And if you send the warheads on a "close approach" and require a proceed signal to nudge them to deorbit and have the strike, well, then you have just recapitulated the low orbital bombsat in a much more complex and expensive form.
You have indeed, but it's the shift from high orbit to low orbit that conveys escalation. You can de-escalate or strike quite conveniently.

You could equally well put up low-orbit bombsats from hardened siloes, and do it a heck of a lot cheaper. There's a minor catch in that de-escalating requires reentry of the bombsats, which will drive up cost for the recovery mechanism and add the complication that deorbiting to attack and deorbiting to land look very similar. Probably not a good idea, on balance.

Or you could stop messing around with orbital nuclear weapons entirely, use bombers for the sabre-rattling exercises and missiles in hardened siloes for assured retaliation, and spend the vast amounts of money you've saved on schools, hospitals, roads... anything useful, really!
 
US&USSR could have done two sites (city and Missile Field) per original wording, but since neither country had more than one site operable in 1974, was amended to the existing Moscow and North Dakota sites, as the US Montana Safeguard complex at Malmstrom AFB had work abandoned by then.

This is one reason why I had always doubted that the Soviets were just innocent leftists quivering in fear of an attack from the West, and only thinking defensively rather than planning to over-run Europe.

Siting your ABM system to protect your missile fields implies that you are trying to defend them from a first-strike. You want the missiles to survive your enemy's first-strike so that you can retaliate. This is a deterrent.

Siting your ABM system to protect your center of government implies that you're not worried about surviving a first-strike because that's exactly what you plan to do. Why protect empty missile silos? So instead they protected their own asses.

There have been a lot of interviews of ex-Soviet authorities since the dissolution of the USSR that demonstrate that, yes, at the very least early in the nuclear age the Soviets for ideological reasons thought that a limited nuclear war was possible, and that it could be "won." But later on (perhaps around 1970 or so) they shifted more to the Western view- that a nuclear war was likely an all-or-nothing affair and would lead to nigh universal destruction.
 
Shevek23 wrote:
Can't I claim prior use and thus void your patent, RC?

Pshaw! Of course not, as long as I cite you under 'prior work' (and then proceed to tear apart why MY way is obviously superior while not admitting YOUR way actually exists or is relevant) and file multiple patents on the same thing over and over again with only minor changes such as punctuation or different wording, (I hear cool illustrations no matter how un-relevant they are is a plus) I'm assured success!

Of course having the whole issue of not being able to string a decent time-line together but having long response posts means my justification section basically boils down to "because it is!" may actually work against me in this case :)

Randy
 
Acrosome wrote:
If you think that was a novel, Brother, then you have yet to see my finest work... :rolleyes: I can be verbose at times.

You and me both :) But seriously I've actually read more than a few 'novels' which had hundreds of pages of which less than "23" were actually clear, relevant, and informational so ... ;)

I'm not parsing this- maybe we're talking about different points, here. That's exactly the opposite of reality as I understand it. If you "stop a rod directly above a target" then that's the one that's going slow. It just drops straight down. This is why those incredibly high-altitude parachutists don't burn up on re-entry. If you just deorbit it, though, it is still screaming along at supersonic speed, though admittedly it takes it a while for the orbit to intersect the Earth. But that's precisely because it is still going at near-orbital speeds. (And reaction time from when it appears over your horizon until impact is still rather small.)

Essentially, most of the rod's kinetic energy comes from the rocket that orbited it. Not from just falling straight down. In fact the latter isn't very impressive at all, kinetically.

"Almost" was as I understand it the key concept. Dropping from 100-to-300 miles up and a very shallow angle was supposed to give a very high terminal velocity, mid-hypersonic speeds from what I recall reading. The longer reentry and atmospheric interface of the 'long' drop killed most of your velocity. You're only going supersonic or transonic at impact whereas the 'dropped' weapon was supposed to have a much higher impact velocity.

Randy
 
RLBH wrote:
Or you could stop messing around with orbital nuclear weapons entirely, use bombers for the sabre-rattling exercises and missiles in hardened siloes for assured retaliation, and spend the vast amounts of money you've saved on schools, hospitals, roads... anything useful, really!

Or more bombers. Submarines and missiles! Just saying :)

Randy
 
Acersome wrote:
This is one reason why I had always doubted that the Soviets were just innocent leftists quivering in fear of an attack from the West, and only thinking defensively rather than planning to over-run Europe.

Siting your ABM system to protect your missile fields implies that you are trying to defend them from a first-strike. You want the missiles to survive your enemy's first-strike so that you can retaliate. This is a deterrent.

Siting your ABM system to protect your center of government implies that you're not worried about surviving a first-strike because that's exactly what you plan to do. Why protect empty missile silos? So instead they protected their own asses.

There have been a lot of interviews of ex-Soviet authorities since the dissolution of the USSR that demonstrate that, yes, at the very least early in the nuclear age the Soviets for ideological reasons thought that a limited nuclear war was possible, and that it could be "won." But later on (perhaps around 1970 or so) they shifted more to the Western view- that a nuclear war was likely an all-or-nothing affair and would lead to nigh universal destruction

I suspect a good deal of the early thinking was based on the fact that they actually knew that the "Atomic Bomb" was not the be-all/end-all weapon that the American's said it was. Even early American damage assessments pointed out that Japanese cities were more vulnerable to blast damage than most American or European cities and that industrial targets were even less vulnerable than cities. The USSR had both a larger overall area and more dispersed targets than America which required more bombs on target to achieve the desired effects of reduction of war making capability. Which is one reason everyone was making bigger and bigger bombs for a while.

One tidbit I recall from the mid-1980s that I only found once outside the initial article was a note from a conference on nuclear physics held back east where a Soviet scientist was describing a process on a white board. Suddenly the presentation was stopped by US officials and the scientist was escorted to the airport and put on the next flight home while the white-board was confiscated and disappeared. Several other scientist present were quoted as saying the reason was probably that he had been mid-way through a description on the theoretical yield of an enhanced fission-fusion explosion in the mid-gigaton range. (Aka the Tsar-bomb would be a fire-cracker)

By the late 70s and early 80s the amount of megatonnage available to all parties in a nuclear conflict, (and it was rather obvious that there was no way to really 'limit' a nuclear exchange at that point) was sufficient that even Russia, (let alone a government) wasn't going to be able to 'survive' a nuclear conflict. One of the things people misunderstood about Reagan was he and the military higher ups were actually pointing out that in fact a 'limited' nuclear conflict WAS survivable both on the national and international scale. The problem was no one could come up with a conceivable way in which ANY 'nuclear' conflict would stay 'limited' enough to actually be survivable.

Randy
 
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