WI: Americans Discover Already Ready Nuclear Weapons in Cuba

What if in October 1962, the American spy missions are too late to find the installation of Russian nuclear missiles in Cuba, but ones which are fully installed and ready for launch at a moments notice?
 
I think the Americans would just be scared, but don't do anything at all. After all, the blockade was only made to prevent the entry of missiles to Cuba, but if they found that they have been installed, what more can they do?

Khrushchev won't be ousted that's for sure. Only the Cuban Missile Crisis caused his fall.
 
I think the Americans would just be scared, but don't do anything at all. After all, the blockade was only made to prevent the entry of missiles to Cuba, but if they found that they have been installed, what more can they do?


SAC head General Powers does a nuclear first strike on Cuba, followed on the rest of SIOP attack plans on the rest of the 2nd World.

He's who 'Jack D. Ripper' was based off of. On his own, he moved SAC to DEFCON-2 OTL

LeMay made sure that the PALs JFK wanted were able to be bypassed by SAC crews.

Plus Ike had predelegated nuclear command authority to LeMay and other commanders in certain conditions, like if the President couldn't be reached in time. This was not changed substantially until LBJ was President
 

hipper

Banned
What if in October 1962, the American spy missions are too late to find the installation of Russian nuclear missiles in Cuba, but ones which are fully installed and ready for launch at a moments notice?

that was in fact the OTL situation
 
Were they really that far along?

Partly. Only a single missile site (6-8 missiles) was brought successfully to operational status by the time the US imposed the blockade, but the Americans didn't find out about that bit of trivia until 1998 (they thought none of the missiles were ever made operational).

See the Soviets forgot about their own bit of maskirovka and went about setting up the missile sites exactly the same way they did in Eastern Europe. The CIA was familiar with this lay-out so when they looked at the photographs of the Cuban sites, they almost immediately recognized it for what it was from pretty much the layout alone.

Interestingly, it is precisely because the Soviets didn't treat the actual warheads they had on Cuba the same way they did in Eastern Europe that US intelligence didn't think the Soviets had successfully gotten any warheads on to the island. The CIA's baseline for identifying them was the level of security given to nuclear warheads in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The nukes on Cuba were barely guarded— just in anonymous vans or barely-attended-to bunkers —so they assumed there must not be any nukes. The reason they were so unguarded is not known — that is, whether it was purposeful to avoid scrutiny or just a different (lax) security standard.

So the US thought there were a bunch of missiles being set-up and the warheads were yet to be delivered. Once all the sites became fully operational, which was scheduled for sometime in December I recall, Khrushchev planned to go public with the information and present the US with a fait accompli. If Khruschev is able to get all the missiles he wants operational, then there probably isn't any crisis: the missiles are already there and operational, everyone knows this, and the US knows it has no way to get rid of them without an unacceptably high risk of getting nuked.
 
Didn't the missiles in Cuba require extensive time to fuel before launch and couldn't remained fueled and ready for long because of the corrosive nature of the liquid fuel?
 
Didn't the missiles in Cuba require extensive time to fuel before launch and couldn't remained fueled and ready for long because of the corrosive nature of the liquid fuel?

The R-11 MRBM used nitric acid as an oxidizer and kerosene as a fuel and thus could be stored for extended periods of time. I'm less sure about the R-14 IRBM, but given that it's development was in parallel with the R-11 that may also have been the case. In any case once fully established, there would be nothing preventing the Soviets from keeping a significant alert force ready-to-launch on a rotating basis. The Americans would know this and it would be a significant deterrent to trying to attack the missiles.
 
I think the Americans would just be scared, but don't do anything at all. After all, the blockade was only made to prevent the entry of missiles to Cuba, but if they found that they have been installed, what more can they do?
Beyond any doubt, we would have hit Cuba immediately with a pre-emptive strike, followed up by all out invasion. If the tactical airstrikes do not prevent said missiles being launched against the USA, then WWIII begins, and in any event, there would be nothing left of cuba.
 
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If the US attacked Cuba they could expect to receive at least 30 and potentially a couple of hundred strikes on CONUS in return. Given JFKs reluctance to escalate the issue when they thought there weren't missiles ready to go I doubt he'd want to escalate an even more dangerous situation where they knew missiles were emplaced.
 
With all the missile sites operational, it would definitely be at least a couple hundred.

The Kosmos 2 , a derivative of the SS-4 Sandal (R-12) used for payload lofting, had a 30% failure rate.

There were just 36 Sandals in Cuba, and 6 training missiles, not capable of being armed OTL in October, but launch pads could be used with 'real' missiles, en-route from the USSR, along with 24 SS-5 Skean (R-14) IRBMs

Also some 42 Il-28 Bombers with 6, 12kt gravity bombs, and some AS-1 Kennel (FKR) cruise missiles based off the Mig-15 with 16 launchers along with some Frog launchers. 6 launchers with 36 reloads for anti invasion duties, but only 12, 2 KT warheads, rest conventional warheads

Most were targeting Guantanamo Bay.

final counts were to have been 48 SS-4 and 32 SS-5 missiles in Cuba with 40 launch pads in total.

Now the Nike-Hercules SAM had limited ABM ability, batteries protected the metro areas and military bases targeted by Soviet Missiles.
 
The initial U.S. strikes are going to destroy a fair number of the nuclear missile sites.

It isn't like the Soviets will be able to "instantly launch" as soon as American bombers appear on the horizon.
 
The initial U.S. strikes are going to destroy a fair number of the nuclear missile sites.

It isn't like the Soviets will be able to "instantly launch" as soon as American bombers appear on the horizon.

Plus, do the Soviets try for decapitation strikes on DC and Offutt AFB, Counterforce on Atlas ICBMs or just kill cities?

given the poor reliability and 5km CEPs, you will need multiples on a target to ensure destruction

There was a real reason for overkill, and the Soviets didn't have that in 1962. The USA did.
 
final counts were to have been 48 SS-4 and 32 SS-5 missiles in Cuba with 40 launch pads in total.

That's up to 80 potential nuclear strikes, plus another 40-60 from Soviet ICBMs. Even with a 30% failure rate, we're still looking at more then 100 nuclear warheads striking. Le May and Powers can push for a nuclear strike all he wants, but no way is Kennedy going to authorize in the face of 100 American cities getting nuked. If Le May or Powers try to go ahead anyways, they would rapidly find themselves relieved of their command.

The initial U.S. strikes are going to destroy a fair number of the nuclear missile sites.

No responsible military or political leader would plan and execute a strike under that assumption. OTL the possibility of even a few dozen nuclear strikes from Soviet ICBMs against the US was enough to force Kennedy to resort to methods that did not involve striking at Cuba directly? Faced with the prospect of 100+ nuclear strikes against the US, he's more likely to either let the Soviets have their missile base or try to negotiate it away (like he wound up doing IOTL anyways).

Plus, do the Soviets try for decapitation strikes on DC and Offutt AFB, Counterforce on Atlas ICBMs or just kill cities?
Likely just kill cities. Washington would definitely be on the target list because of it's importance, but more as a countervalue target then a counterforce one. The Soviets did envisage using tactical nukes as a military support, but their concept of strategic nuclear war in the 50's and 60's was pure countervalue.
 
With all the missile sites operational, it would definitely be at least a couple hundred.

It's been a while since I knew this stuff well but discounting the nukes on Cuba I believe the Soviets had about 50 ICBMs and about 300 Bombers capable of reaching the US. Given availability rates and simple operational failures perhaps about 2/3 or about 35 ICBMs and 200 bombers will be ready to attack if the balloon goes up. In a 'fair fight' the Soviets could expect to lose large numbers of ICBMs and bombers to offensive strikes and more bombers to ADCOM. This is where I get the at least 30 number from, the US isn't going to be able to stop all strikes on CONUS and will eat at least that and depending on the day maybe double, triple of even 4 times that number.

Now while 30-120 nukes is frightening its nothing to what the US could download onto the Soviet Union at the time, so emplacing what appear to be small numbers of IRBMs and bombers in Cuba results in more or less doubling the Soviet deterrent. It all makes sense, in the bizzaro world of nukes that is.
 
Khrushchev won't be ousted that's for sure. Only the Cuban Missile Crisis caused his fall.

This is very questionable. Ian Thatcher lists the reasons Khrushchev's successors gave for his ouster:

"The anti-Khrushchev charges included policy failures, domestic and foreign. At home industry and agriculture were under-performing. Abroad relations had soured with China. Most importantly, these policy failings were linked to Khrushchev's misdemeanours as leader. Khrushchev, it was claimed, was bypassing the Presidium and the Central Committee. He had taken to issuing decrees in the name of the Central Committee that were in fact on his own initiative. Khrushchev had surrounded himself with sycophants and family members that formed his inner-staff. Presidium colleagues could not reach him directly but had to deal with this entourage. Khrushchev simply ignored the advice of the Politburo, assigning key duties to his private circle outside the control of the party elite. In this sense Khrushchev broke party norms and even engaged in corruption. The award of honours to his son and son-in-law was noted, as well as the use of state money to fund family excursions abroad on what was supposed to be official business.

"Such irregularities, it was said, occurred because Khrushchev had concentrated power in his own hands. Moreover, he did not know how to use this power sensibly. While having little or no expertise, he considered himself an expert in agriculture, diplomacy, science, and art, and his interfering had devastating consequences. Khrushchev defended the quack geneticist Lysenko, for example, despite warnings from eminent scientists. Khrushchev was unable to control his thoughts and most importantly his mouth. He had upset prominent friends within the socialist camp, causing trouble in relations with China, Albania, Romania, and Poland. Khrushchev would make promises to foreign heads of state for which he had not received the required authority from the Presidium or Central Committee. In the USSR Khrushchev had engaged in constant reorganisations of economic and party bodies that brought only additional confusion and threatened to split the party. Yet, paradoxically, this sad story of failure and illegality was accompanied by excessive praise of Khrushchev in the media. Ignored and often insulted by the man who had turned meetings of the Presidium into 'empty formality', Khrushchev's colleagues had to act. Khrushchev's 'petty tyranny' unlike Stalin's was not based on terror, but this did not excuse it. If anything, it was 'harder to struggle with a living cult than with a dead one. If Stalin destroyed people physically, Khrushchev destroyed them morally'.

"This indictment against Khrushchev was a clever use of his own denunciation of the 'cult of personality' against Stalin. (It also borrowed from the criticism, made by Stalin much earlier, that Khrushchev was guilty of 'hare-brained' schemes!) Khrushchev now found himself portrayed as a leader out of touch with reality, as making a mess of policy, and as flouting party rules, ignoring and belittling comrades, whilst surviving in an artificial bubble of excessive praise from official propaganda and an inner coterie of toadies..." http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/uhic/Aca...academy&jsid=9379280dc55d68cf71b87253e1a58c33

Thatcher feels that this indictment is largely unfair, but it is the one that Khrushchev's successors made in justifying his ouster, and note that the Cuban Missile Crisis is not even mentioned (at least explicitly)!
 
I don't think there is any way from a political standpoint Kennedy can allow an active missile base in Cuba. He campaigned on the missile gap after all, how would it look if he let the Soviets put a 100 nuclear warheads in place 90 miles from Miami? He might be able to restrain the hawks from immediately bombing Cuba, but he's dead politically in 64.
 
Haven't people forgotten that even in the actual Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy was at the end within 24 hours of launching air strikes against Cuba?
 
Haven't people forgotten that even in the actual Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy was at the end within 24 hours of launching air strikes against Cuba?

Erm... the only evidence I can find supporting this claim after some digging is a statement from Castro who, needless to say, can hardly be considered a reliable source. Said digging also turned up a similar factoid that Kennedy was presented with the option of issuing an ultimatum to the Cubans and Soviets that would state they had 24 hour to agree to remove the weapons or the US would launch an air strike, but he flatly turned it down.

More to the point, the fact that ITTL the US (something they were not IOTL until 1998) would be aware that the (vastly larger) array of nuclear weapons on Cuba are already operational would present Kennedy with less of an incentive to attack, not more.
 
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