Post by torpedo on Jan 30, 2020 8:44:57 GMT
What Putin Would Nuke
A hypothetical first strike scenario on the United States showcases Russia’s current and future nuclear arsenal.
One hypothetical 10-warhead load from a Satan-2 hitting nuclear ICBM silos. Orange is the fireball radius.
Joe Pappalardo
USS Michigan, an Ohio-class sub.
U.S. Navy
A hypothetical first strike scenario on the United States showcases Russia’s current and future nuclear arsenal.
By Joe Pappalardo
It's 2025, and Vladimir Putin (yup, he's still in power) wakes up in a historically bad mood. He decides—and everyone around him agrees—that it's time to launch an all-out nuclear assault on the United States.
This is the nightmare scenario laid out in the latest Nuclear Defense Posture Review. It’s also the war envisioned by Putin himself. Last week he took the stage before the Russian Parliament and rattled off a litany of new nuclear weapons to be delivered by silo, submarine, and aircraft—weapons he claimed to be unstoppable.
This is the nightmare scenario laid out in the latest Nuclear Defense Posture Review. It’s also the war envisioned by Putin himself. Last week he took the stage before the Russian Parliament and rattled off a litany of new nuclear weapons to be delivered by silo, submarine, and aircraft—weapons he claimed to be unstoppable.
On Friday, he told NBC’s Megyn Kelly that “each of these weapons systems is at a different stage of readiness. One of them is already on combat duty. It’s with troops. For some of the systems, we are still working on them. We have no doubt that we will get there.”
All of this—the Pentagon's report, Putin's gloating, and years of observations by defense analysts and reporters—allows us to imagine what Russia’s arsenal could do in a real first strike against the U.S., in a future where Russia's modernization has peaked but the U.S. has not progressed. Here's what Putin would nuke.
All of this—the Pentagon's report, Putin's gloating, and years of observations by defense analysts and reporters—allows us to imagine what Russia’s arsenal could do in a real first strike against the U.S., in a future where Russia's modernization has peaked but the U.S. has not progressed. Here's what Putin would nuke.
Satellite Warfare
Putin’s first strike has two simple aims. One: cripple the United States with a blow that shatters the nation for at least a generation. Two: Keep the U.S. from launching an equally crippling counterattack, immediately or in the future. Getting all U.S. nukes before America has the chance to strike back is not likely, so Putin's goal is to make the exchange of warheads as uneven as possible.
It's obvious, then, that the first targets for Russian nukes are U.S. nukes. But the first step to “winning” the coming nuclear war is to mask the launch of Russian ICBMs and give Putin's side a head start. That means playing a few tricks on American defenses.
The U.S. Air Force operates infrared satellites in geostationary orbit that scan the globe for telltale plumes of rocket launches. In 2018, there are four in space; in our hypothetical world of 2025, two more have been added. Staying in the same location is good for persistent surveillance, it but makes them an easy target.
Putin, that rascal, has spent years parking six harmless-looking communications satellites along the same orbital plane. The U.S. keeps an eye on these, but there’s no easy or guaranteed way to detect if an enemy satellite sidles up to these early warning spacecraft.
The Russian sats are motherships. From each, a smaller craft detaches and fire its thrusters and eases toward the launch detection sats. Some have lasers that can dazzle the infrared sensors or burn parts of the satellite, causing the spacecraft to tumble. Other have crude robotic arms that can grapple with the U.S. warning equipment. Others just make a kamikaze run against U.S. targets.
Malfunctions and confused signals from space put the Americans on high alert, but the U.S. is not ready to start a war over dead satellites. Further muddling matters, the Russians report that their GEO sats have also suffered a failure. Cyberattacks rattle the U.S. grid and social media is flooded with disruptive reports of UFO invasions, the Rapture, space weapons tests from China, warnings of solar flares—anything to sow confusion and chaos.
Putin, that rascal, has spent years parking six harmless-looking communications satellites along the same orbital plane. The U.S. keeps an eye on these, but there’s no easy or guaranteed way to detect if an enemy satellite sidles up to these early warning spacecraft.
The Russian sats are motherships. From each, a smaller craft detaches and fire its thrusters and eases toward the launch detection sats. Some have lasers that can dazzle the infrared sensors or burn parts of the satellite, causing the spacecraft to tumble. Other have crude robotic arms that can grapple with the U.S. warning equipment. Others just make a kamikaze run against U.S. targets.
Malfunctions and confused signals from space put the Americans on high alert, but the U.S. is not ready to start a war over dead satellites. Further muddling matters, the Russians report that their GEO sats have also suffered a failure. Cyberattacks rattle the U.S. grid and social media is flooded with disruptive reports of UFO invasions, the Rapture, space weapons tests from China, warnings of solar flares—anything to sow confusion and chaos.
Strike on Thule Site J
The route of the doomsday drone.
Joe Pappalardo
Joe Pappalardo
“Russia is also developing…a new intercontinental, nuclear-armed, nuclear-powered, undersea autonomous torpedo.” – 2018 Nuclear Posture Review
The launch detection sats are just the first line of defense. The U.S has a sophisticated network of high-power radar scanning the skies for missiles. Thule Air Force Base in Greenland has one such radar system. On the northern edge of the island, a little more than 2 miles from shore of an inlet of Baffin Bay, stands a massive building with some funky geometry. This is the AN/FPS-120 Solid State Phased Array Radar, whose electronically steered beams can spot and track multiple targets. The site’s phased array radar bounces energy off the ionosphere to scan for objects beyond the line of sight, well over the horizon. The radar array is specifically watching for Russian missiles. Any sign of them and STRATCOM will know about it and be able to launch ICBMs of their own.
An ICBM takes 30 minutes from launch to landing. The time between detection and retaliatory launch is tight—around 15 minutes to spot, identify, and decide to shoot back. That’s too much time to keep Putin’s attack one-sided. So the radar at Thule has to be taken out. It’s vulnerable to attack, though an obvious strike would tip Russia’s hand. Putin needs a devastating weapon of sneak attack. And he has one, mounted to the submarine Khabarovsk.
Days earlier, the sub slipped past the Greenland-Iceland-Denmark Gap, a once-formidable NATO screen of sensors and sea/air patrols that guarded against this kind of incursion. The Russian sub carries an external pod with a doomsday weapon: an underwater drone carrying a nuclear warhead. The CIA calls it the “Kaynon.” Russians dub it the Status 6. (This is real tech, by the way. In 2015, during a televised meeting with Putin, media cameras captured images of this weapon in development. It was a set-up, a way for Russia to rattle its saber.)
The launch detection sats are just the first line of defense. The U.S has a sophisticated network of high-power radar scanning the skies for missiles. Thule Air Force Base in Greenland has one such radar system. On the northern edge of the island, a little more than 2 miles from shore of an inlet of Baffin Bay, stands a massive building with some funky geometry. This is the AN/FPS-120 Solid State Phased Array Radar, whose electronically steered beams can spot and track multiple targets. The site’s phased array radar bounces energy off the ionosphere to scan for objects beyond the line of sight, well over the horizon. The radar array is specifically watching for Russian missiles. Any sign of them and STRATCOM will know about it and be able to launch ICBMs of their own.
An ICBM takes 30 minutes from launch to landing. The time between detection and retaliatory launch is tight—around 15 minutes to spot, identify, and decide to shoot back. That’s too much time to keep Putin’s attack one-sided. So the radar at Thule has to be taken out. It’s vulnerable to attack, though an obvious strike would tip Russia’s hand. Putin needs a devastating weapon of sneak attack. And he has one, mounted to the submarine Khabarovsk.
Days earlier, the sub slipped past the Greenland-Iceland-Denmark Gap, a once-formidable NATO screen of sensors and sea/air patrols that guarded against this kind of incursion. The Russian sub carries an external pod with a doomsday weapon: an underwater drone carrying a nuclear warhead. The CIA calls it the “Kaynon.” Russians dub it the Status 6. (This is real tech, by the way. In 2015, during a televised meeting with Putin, media cameras captured images of this weapon in development. It was a set-up, a way for Russia to rattle its saber.)
The drone has a hypothetical range of more than 5,000 miles, but the submarine mothership risks its neck to get closer. Who wants a nuclear sea drone zipping around unattended? A more practical consideration is that the closer the sub gets, the slower the nuclear weapon can travel, and the quieter it will be.
The 24-foot drone glides through the shallower entrance to Baffin Bay and dips to a more comfortable depth when it’s able. It's headed for the coastal area just outside Thule. If Russia can knock out the radar, it will open a hole in the radar screen and take away the ability to respond within that 15-minute window.
The drone detonates its 40-megaton warhead. The icy shoreline erupts into a towering fireball. The fireball and air pressure wave created by such an enormous explosion wipes the base and its pesky radar off the map. A surge of radioactive water washes onto the shore and swamps thousands of yards of shoreline. The amount of energy that this blast causes actually is less than a naturally occurring tsunami.
Putin's sneak attack ensures the U.S. has no way to confirm what's coming next. Putin has already pressed the button on his array of doomsday devices. The 15-minutes between detection and warhead impact has already started.
The 24-foot drone glides through the shallower entrance to Baffin Bay and dips to a more comfortable depth when it’s able. It's headed for the coastal area just outside Thule. If Russia can knock out the radar, it will open a hole in the radar screen and take away the ability to respond within that 15-minute window.
The drone detonates its 40-megaton warhead. The icy shoreline erupts into a towering fireball. The fireball and air pressure wave created by such an enormous explosion wipes the base and its pesky radar off the map. A surge of radioactive water washes onto the shore and swamps thousands of yards of shoreline. The amount of energy that this blast causes actually is less than a naturally occurring tsunami.
Putin's sneak attack ensures the U.S. has no way to confirm what's coming next. Putin has already pressed the button on his array of doomsday devices. The 15-minutes between detection and warhead impact has already started.
Killing Fields
“To destroy U.S. ICBMs on the ground, an adversary would need to launch a precisely coordinated attack with hundreds of high-yield and accurate warheads. This is an insurmountable challenge for any potential adversary today, with the exception of Russia.“ – 2018 Nuclear Posture Review
Ever since the 1960s, America's fields of intercontinental ballistic missiles have promised mutually assured destruction to anyone who nuked the United States or its allies. ICBMS wait in silos that are spaced far apart to increase the number of Russian warheads needed to target them.
But that’s 1960s thinking. These silos don't move, but weapons have become more precise, a fact that changes the number of warheads needed to hit them.
“Leaps in weapons accuracy have diminished the value of hardening,” says one 2018 paper published by the American Physical Society. “Given a hypothetical target set of 200 hardened missile silos, a 1985-era U.S. ICBM strike — with two warheads assigned per target — would have been expected to leave 42 surviving silos. A comparable strike in 2018 could destroy every hardened silo.” These numbers are talking about American weapons, but Russia now uses the same satellite and guidance systems.
Putin turns to his new wonder weapon to hit the U.S. nuclear silos before they get orders to launch. There are 25 silos in Russia, each holding what NATO calls the Satan-2 ICBM. The rockets leap out of the silos and drop stages of empty fuel tanks behind them, carrying their payloads toward space. The faring opens and the cargo of each missile is revealed. A YU-74 hypersonic boost-glide vehicle, armed with five nuclear warheads, is a careening to a suborbital altitude atop each ICBM. They separate, and each becomes an independent threat, able to steer its way to a target from unexpected directions.
Ever since the 1960s, America's fields of intercontinental ballistic missiles have promised mutually assured destruction to anyone who nuked the United States or its allies. ICBMS wait in silos that are spaced far apart to increase the number of Russian warheads needed to target them.
But that’s 1960s thinking. These silos don't move, but weapons have become more precise, a fact that changes the number of warheads needed to hit them.
“Leaps in weapons accuracy have diminished the value of hardening,” says one 2018 paper published by the American Physical Society. “Given a hypothetical target set of 200 hardened missile silos, a 1985-era U.S. ICBM strike — with two warheads assigned per target — would have been expected to leave 42 surviving silos. A comparable strike in 2018 could destroy every hardened silo.” These numbers are talking about American weapons, but Russia now uses the same satellite and guidance systems.
Putin turns to his new wonder weapon to hit the U.S. nuclear silos before they get orders to launch. There are 25 silos in Russia, each holding what NATO calls the Satan-2 ICBM. The rockets leap out of the silos and drop stages of empty fuel tanks behind them, carrying their payloads toward space. The faring opens and the cargo of each missile is revealed. A YU-74 hypersonic boost-glide vehicle, armed with five nuclear warheads, is a careening to a suborbital altitude atop each ICBM. They separate, and each becomes an independent threat, able to steer its way to a target from unexpected directions.
A typical ICBM flight takes the shape of a basketball jump shot. But Putin's new weapons skip along the atmosphere at a much flatter trajectory, and because they can steer, it makes it much harder to predict where the warheads are coming from.
Putin’s salvo is crossing the North Pole. A radar screen in northern Canada, run by the U.S. and Canadian Air Forces, watches for such an attack. But they're using older radar not optimized to spot the gliding warheads, as an expensive effort to install new tech has been mired in political infighting in both Ottawa and Washington, D.C. The backbone of the system remains the AN/TPS-77 long range radar, which is great at spotting airplanes that are less than 250 nautical miles away and up to 100,000 feet in the air The YU-74 s are zipping along nearly three times as high and have a small radar cross-section.
Putin’s salvo is crossing the North Pole. A radar screen in northern Canada, run by the U.S. and Canadian Air Forces, watches for such an attack. But they're using older radar not optimized to spot the gliding warheads, as an expensive effort to install new tech has been mired in political infighting in both Ottawa and Washington, D.C. The backbone of the system remains the AN/TPS-77 long range radar, which is great at spotting airplanes that are less than 250 nautical miles away and up to 100,000 feet in the air The YU-74 s are zipping along nearly three times as high and have a small radar cross-section.
One hypothetical 10-warhead load from a Satan-2 hitting nuclear ICBM silos. Orange is the fireball radius.
Joe Pappalardo
The glide vehicles descend after they pass through the radar screens. They have ablative tiles to defend against the heat of reentry as they cruise through the atmosphere. Staying above the sky lanes of commercial traffic and civilian radar, the glide vehicles slow down to keep their thermal profiles to a minimum.
In the 1960s, designing silos to survive direct hits seemed excessive. The strategy to killed hardened silos back then was to use airbursts and multiple strikes to compensate for inaccuracy. But 21st century weapons score more direct hits than any Cold War-era engineer could have planned for. The underground command centers where launch crews sit survive but the silos and missiles themselves are crushed where they sit. With 125 glide-delivered warheads on the way, there are enough to strike each U.S. silo in Montana and North Dakota at least once, with warheads to spare to paste a stealth bomber airbase in Missouri, as well as a nuclear bomb and cruise missile stockpile in Louisiana.
At this point, there’s no reason not to let the rest of Russia’s traditional intercontinental ballistic missiles fly. Hundreds of missiles, each now configured to carry multiple warheads, will make sure those silos as well as other U.S. military command and control centers are out of commission. Putin presses the launch button before the hypersonic gliders even hit their targets. That way, the warheads land in pretty quick succession. There are thousands of warheads on traditional ballistic arcs aimed at the United States’ military bases, industrial ports, and political leadership.
In the 1960s, designing silos to survive direct hits seemed excessive. The strategy to killed hardened silos back then was to use airbursts and multiple strikes to compensate for inaccuracy. But 21st century weapons score more direct hits than any Cold War-era engineer could have planned for. The underground command centers where launch crews sit survive but the silos and missiles themselves are crushed where they sit. With 125 glide-delivered warheads on the way, there are enough to strike each U.S. silo in Montana and North Dakota at least once, with warheads to spare to paste a stealth bomber airbase in Missouri, as well as a nuclear bomb and cruise missile stockpile in Louisiana.
At this point, there’s no reason not to let the rest of Russia’s traditional intercontinental ballistic missiles fly. Hundreds of missiles, each now configured to carry multiple warheads, will make sure those silos as well as other U.S. military command and control centers are out of commission. Putin presses the launch button before the hypersonic gliders even hit their targets. That way, the warheads land in pretty quick succession. There are thousands of warheads on traditional ballistic arcs aimed at the United States’ military bases, industrial ports, and political leadership.
Fishing With Dynamite
USS Michigan, an Ohio-class sub.
U.S. Navy
"The Defense Intelligence Agency currently estimates Russia has a stockpile of 2,000 ‘non-strategic’ nuclear weapons including short-range ballistic missiles, gravity bombs and depth charges that can go on medium range bomber aircraft.” – 2018 Nuclear Posture Review
All this mayhem isn’t enough. The United States' nuclear missile armed submarine fleet has enough firepower to end Russia by itself. For Putin to "win" a nuclear war, the campaign against American subs has to unfold as the warheads are dropping.
The Ohio-class submarines exist because they are hard to spot. They hide within range of their targets, waiting for a Very Low Frequency radio transmission telling the crews to fire, and what to target. They carry 24 Trident II missiles. Each carries up to eight warheads of at least 100 kilotons each. They are formidable weapons of war. “There are no known, near-term credible threats to the survivability of the SSBN force,” the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review said. ”Nevertheless, we will continue to hedge against the possibility that advances in anti-submarine warfare could make the SSBN force less survivable in the future.”
By 2025, the Ohio fleet is impressive but aging—and shrinking. Budget cuts have reduced the number of nuke-carrying Ohios to just eight by 2020, creating a retirement schedule of one boat a year between 2015 and 2020. Their replacements are not due to be deployed until 2030. “Fewer submarines would make it easier for a potential adversary to track and target U.S. forces,” the Congressional Budget Office reported in 2013. “The operating areas for those submarines would be more predictable because missiles must fly a certain trajectory to hit key targets.”
The Russians know about where the submarines will be. Thanks to satellites, spies, and sensors, intelligence agents know which U.S. subs ones are in port and which ones are on patrol. Even so, Ohio-class subs are hard to find and harder still to kill. There’s no time for cat-and-mouse sub hunting games. So what can Putin use to be sure? He turns to nuclear depth charges.
In the early 1990s, the world's navies realized precision torpedoes were the best way to kill enemy submarines. That trend pushed nuclear depth charges out of the inventories of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China navies that developed them. But by 2018, the Pentagon confirms that the Russians were once again working on nuclear depth charges. The idea is simple: When hunting elusive subs, it helps to use a weapon that kills everything in a wide area.
All this mayhem isn’t enough. The United States' nuclear missile armed submarine fleet has enough firepower to end Russia by itself. For Putin to "win" a nuclear war, the campaign against American subs has to unfold as the warheads are dropping.
The Ohio-class submarines exist because they are hard to spot. They hide within range of their targets, waiting for a Very Low Frequency radio transmission telling the crews to fire, and what to target. They carry 24 Trident II missiles. Each carries up to eight warheads of at least 100 kilotons each. They are formidable weapons of war. “There are no known, near-term credible threats to the survivability of the SSBN force,” the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review said. ”Nevertheless, we will continue to hedge against the possibility that advances in anti-submarine warfare could make the SSBN force less survivable in the future.”
By 2025, the Ohio fleet is impressive but aging—and shrinking. Budget cuts have reduced the number of nuke-carrying Ohios to just eight by 2020, creating a retirement schedule of one boat a year between 2015 and 2020. Their replacements are not due to be deployed until 2030. “Fewer submarines would make it easier for a potential adversary to track and target U.S. forces,” the Congressional Budget Office reported in 2013. “The operating areas for those submarines would be more predictable because missiles must fly a certain trajectory to hit key targets.”
The Russians know about where the submarines will be. Thanks to satellites, spies, and sensors, intelligence agents know which U.S. subs ones are in port and which ones are on patrol. Even so, Ohio-class subs are hard to find and harder still to kill. There’s no time for cat-and-mouse sub hunting games. So what can Putin use to be sure? He turns to nuclear depth charges.
In the early 1990s, the world's navies realized precision torpedoes were the best way to kill enemy submarines. That trend pushed nuclear depth charges out of the inventories of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China navies that developed them. But by 2018, the Pentagon confirms that the Russians were once again working on nuclear depth charges. The idea is simple: When hunting elusive subs, it helps to use a weapon that kills everything in a wide area.
Putin’s generals calculate their best guess at the locations of the U.S. subs and search intensively with their own submarines and drones. Any that are spotted are followed, and anywhere that doesn’t have an American sub will be spared a nuke.
Delivery comes from a couple vehicles. The Mi-14, an aged Soviet–era workhorse helicopter, may be an old design, but it was made to carry a nuclear bomb that could blast everything within almost a square mile of ocean. From 60 miles away, Oskar-class submarines can launch N-16 Stallion missiles that drop strings of nuclear warheads into the water. Bombers that take off from Russian airfields near the coast carry warheads set to detonate at various depths and strengths. Warheads that can be set for different yields are the most useful, with the rule being that smaller nukes are effective in shallower water. The bomber crews play Battleship, with each peg in the board a subsea nuclear explosion.
These warheads cause massive shock waves that reflect off the seafloor. Each time they bounce, the ocean’s surface rises in a column of frothy water hundreds of feet high. The immense pressure beneath the surface crushes submarine hulls. It’s the best way Putin has to knock out those submarines on patrol. The ones in the submarine pens are nuked by ICBM warheads where they sit.
Delivery comes from a couple vehicles. The Mi-14, an aged Soviet–era workhorse helicopter, may be an old design, but it was made to carry a nuclear bomb that could blast everything within almost a square mile of ocean. From 60 miles away, Oskar-class submarines can launch N-16 Stallion missiles that drop strings of nuclear warheads into the water. Bombers that take off from Russian airfields near the coast carry warheads set to detonate at various depths and strengths. Warheads that can be set for different yields are the most useful, with the rule being that smaller nukes are effective in shallower water. The bomber crews play Battleship, with each peg in the board a subsea nuclear explosion.
These warheads cause massive shock waves that reflect off the seafloor. Each time they bounce, the ocean’s surface rises in a column of frothy water hundreds of feet high. The immense pressure beneath the surface crushes submarine hulls. It’s the best way Putin has to knock out those submarines on patrol. The ones in the submarine pens are nuked by ICBM warheads where they sit.
With airfields of U.S. nuclear bombers struck, silos knocked out and submarines neutralized, Putin’s unlikely gamble has paid off. The United States is in the throes of an existential crisis and the worst mass casualty events in its history. Plumes of radioactive dust and debris blanket the nation.
Putin scans the incoming reports, sits back in his fortified bunker and smiles. Well, he thinks, that went better than expected.
Putin scans the incoming reports, sits back in his fortified bunker and smiles. Well, he thinks, that went better than expected.
