Posted on 05/26/2012 11:54:47 PM PDT by moonshot925
Very interesting film. A suprise attack on American strategic nuclear forces.
All Russian boomers with SLBMs were all tailed by US attack subs. Our subs were very good at finding and following them after they left Russian ports and went to open waters. If a Russian boomer got off missile shots depending where they were in open waters, it would be about 10 to 15 minutes before they would strike their US targets. The warning would go up to about 30 minutes warning time for Russian ICBMs before striking the US. A good portion of our standby bomber force if not all would be in the air within 30 minutes. The Russian SLBMs at the time were not all that accurate and would be targeting softer targets like US bomber bases instead of hardened Minuteman II, III, and Titan ICBM silos. Our ICBMs would have enough time to launch on warning before they would get hit before a half hour expired. And moreover, about 25% of our nuclear SLBM submarine force would be out to sea at any given time of the year and they would have rained destruction on the enemy.
Contrary to the conclusion of this documentary, our nuclear forces would have been more than sufficient to hammer the Soviet Union in retaliation. BTW, I remember this film when it was first broadcasted.
saved for later
Agree.... Served from 72 to 96. The triad an MAD doctrine worked .
Stay safe.
We dominated the seas and projected power. Undersea superiority was a vital aspect of this strategy.
I was told a lot of our sub patrols were under ice, i.e., Arctic waters. Really amazing stuff. One dark spot was John A. Walker; a Navy communications specialist who had extensive access to highly classified U.S. submarine material.
No boomer patrols went under the arctic ice.
There were 4 submarine bases that the boomers were homeported at.
- Charleston Naval Shipyard, South Carolina: Patroled around Bermuda.
- Naval Station Rota, Spain: Patroled in the Mediterranean Sea.
- Submarine Base Holy Loch, Scotland: Patroled in the Norwegian Sea and Barents Sea
- Naval Base Guam: Patroled in the Philippine Sea
You sure have a way of posting negative, loser information on a day I’d rather be a little more aggressive against anything we call ‘enemy’
I don’t agree the with film. We always had at least 25 boomers on patrol. They would turn the USSR into glass. A submarine commander could fire his missiles without authorization from the president. I was an electronics technician aboard USS Francis Scott Key (SSBN-657) from 1984 to 1989. Blue Crew.
It wasn't effective, but it didn't matter as eventually the Peanut Farmer was ejected and Mr. Reagan took care of it from there.
The MX Missile was never necessary. I have no idea why it was developed. 12 Madison and Franklin class submarines were refitted with the Trident C4 SLBM from 1978 to 1982. A total of 192 Trident C4’s. Each one could carry 8 W76 (100 KT) warheads with a range of 4,000 nautical miles. The Trident C4 was also deployed on the new Ohio class submarines. By the end of 1986 we had 3,072 warheads deployed on 20 Trident submarines.
There was really no need for the MX.
I believe that it truly was time to modernize our land based missiles, although I would have preferred they be on mobile launchers, but I think we agreed in a treaty not to field such capabilities, but I don't remember for sure.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peacekeeper_Rail_Garrison_Car#cite_note-8
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