h a l f b a k e r yThe phrase 'crumpled heap' comes to mind.
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The name tells it.... Addition: What if you had satellites equipped with nuclear heads? It is very difficult to see those coming before they are all ready at their target.
Meteor
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079550/
[not_morrison_rm, Jan 30 2019]
Kinetic bombardment
https://en.wikipedi...Kinetic_bombardment
Why you don't need a warhead at all if you're attacking from space [notexactly, Feb 03 2019]
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Annotation:
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Satellite launchers were developed from ICBMs. |
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Orbital placement of weapons is banned by international treaty (allegedly). |
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[marked-for-deletion], WKTE. |
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//Orbital placement of weapons is banned// unless,
tragically, your perfectly legal ICBM overshoots and just
happens to get stuck up there. |
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S'OK, the Ferengi come past every few years and collect anything of value left unattended. Most of the stuff down there is low-grade junk though, even a bunch of pikeys like that don't want to be bothered. |
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You're just saying that because they scammed you for re-
tarmacking the cube. |
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Swindling flap-eared bastards. First light meterorite shower and the whole top surface came right off. |
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We're going to have to have it all re-done. Sturton's offer for the job seems suspiciously competitive ...t does he actually know anything about tarmac, or is this another case like the Cutty Sark ? "That old paint ? Naaa, just get a blowlamp on it, it'll come right off ..." |
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Well, he was right, in a way ... |
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Sturton's tenders are always highly competitive. He just
subcontracts it to the pikeys for a third of the money. He
may be obese, foul-mouthed, inconsiderate and self-serving,
but he's not stupid. Well, OK, he may be obese, foul-
mouthed, inconsiderate, self-serving _and_ stupid, but he's
not a fool. |
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...shades of "Meteor" with Sean Connery in a second-
hand car salesman coat (the coat was better in the
book, so was the acting and the special effects). Link. |
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//Orbital placement of weapons is banned by
international treaty (allegedly).// |
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One of those "treaties" that dumb politicians sign
that do
nothing but exhibit their ignorance. |
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To hit a target with a nuke you can A- Orbit several
dozen
nuclear weapons so whenever you want to nuke,
say, East
Palo Alto (be my guest) you wait for the closest
one to
get in the right trajectory window and activate the
thrusters to initiate re-entry to your target hoping
that
East Palo Alto, having known the exact location of
all
your nukes because they're circling overhead every
half
hour or so following incredibly easy to track orbital
paths
didn't shoot them all down or B) Push a button
and have your missiles fly out of either hidden
submarines, deep concrete bunkers or impossible
to track
mobile missile launchers and hit their target with
perfect
accuracy in about a half hour.* |
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* U.S.
Strategic
Command guarantees that your first
nuke will arrive within a half hour or your second
nuke is
free. :) |
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If I were a hostile country, why would I waste money on either
orbital missiles *or* ICBMs? If I were [insert name of hostile
country here], I would have spent the last few years installing
nuclear bombs in all major cities in [insert name of other
country here]. I'm pretty sure that Russia (to pick a name out
of the hat) would not find it particularly difficult to buy a few
properties in NY and install a few warheads in the basements,
nor vice versa. |
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Problem with that is if you get caught you've just
initiated a first strike without actually blowing
anything up. They find it, diffuse it and decide to
push the naughty button to retaliate. |
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No, it's tough to beat the whole "Keep your
naughty
nukies at
home until you want to push the button
and say bye bye civilization." program in place for
going on 70 years now. |
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That being said, these are the rules of the
somewhat civilized countries. (I'm being extremely
magnanimous calling Russia and China civilized) If some
charming
culture with an alternative view of what
constitutes a civilization puts a crude nuke on a
shipping container in a harbor that's pretty hard to
stop and doesn't require much in the way of
technology. No missiles, no guidance systems, just a
relatively easy to make contraption made utilizing
instructions readily available on
the internet once you get the fissile material. |
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Wanna stay up at night, there's your nightmare scenario.
Sweet dreams. |
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//diffuse it and decide to push the naughty button to
retaliate// But do they? You're president of the USA (let's
assume you're not Donald Trump, please). You discover a
nuclear warhead in downtown NY. You either diffuse or
defuse it. It takes you about a week to conclude that it is
either Russian, or has been built using Russian components
to make it look Russian. Probably it's Russian, but just
maybe it's Chinese or Ukrainian or whatever. |
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You've now neutralized that particular threat. If you
believe it's the only one, you have no incentive to start
WW3, since losses on your side (as well as the supposed
enemy's side) will be huge, and the world will never forgive
you or your country. Better to make political capital out of
it. If you believe it's one of many, you know that if you
launch at Russia, they will not only detonate other sleeping
bombs, but will also of course retaliate conventionally. And
maybe it's not really a Russian bomb anyway, and North
Korea is laughing up its collective sleeve as the two of you
nuke it out. |
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I guess Russia can afford ICBMs. But if I were, say, North
Korea, I'd probably spend the money on smuggling rather
than those expensive fireworks. |
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Smuggling nuclear fissile material into the US is not
for the faint-hearted. It tends to set off Geiger
counters used by criminals who've ingested
radioactive material with hopes to hide their
tracks... |
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Ahem, in Meteor the nukes were in geostationary
orbit, with the US nukes being over Moscow, etc and
vice-versa. |
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You'd have to have at least 167% belief in your own
protective rocket shield system. |
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Scientologists can manage that level of belief quite easily, sometimes much higher. |
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//buy a few properties in NY and install a few warheads in
the basements,// |
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//Problem with that is if you get caught you've just initiated
a first strike without actually blowing anything up.// |
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Embassies/consulates represent an opportunity there... |
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//You're president of the USA (let's assume you're
not Donald Trump, please).// |
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That's been a pretty safe assumption to make
about me most of my life. |
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If President "I'm not Donald Trump" Remulac III
found a nuke and wasn't sure who hid it in his
basement, first he'd make a speech saying that
there's a group, regime or country out there who's
days are numbered. I'd then say it was in the best
interest of every group, regime and country in the
world to assist us in finding these nuclear
pranksters because having jokes like that played
on me really upsets my aim and there's no telling
where these nukes might land if I aim them while
cranky or upset. |
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If I found out that Russia did it I'd ask Congress for
a declaration stating that a state of war now exists
between Russia and the United States and preceed
to make sure that any further attacks resulted in
Russia being sent back to the stone age. What's
that for them, 3 or 4 weeks? But I wouldn't destroy
a
city unless somebody else did it first. That being
said, one nuke wouldn't
bring a response of one nuke, the perpetrators
would cease to exist. Nukes are a very ugly
business
and that threat is the only thing that really keeps
us safe so it has to be credible. |
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But seriously, I don't think Russia wants that any
more than we do so I'd be working on trying to
normalize relations with them. |
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Because that worked out really well for the the
guy who IS Donald Trump. |
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After thinking about it I don't think I could ever nuke
anybody, which is probably why I shouldn't be in
charge of protecting a country. |
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If I got kidnapped and forced to be president, I think
I'd institute a new war plan of "Total Warfare Against
Enemy Leaders Only". |
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Think I'll post the idea. |
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Orbital velocity at LEO is almost 8 km/s. At ground it's more like 7.1 . "nuclear" seems a bit redundant. |
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"it's tough to beat the whole "Keep your naughty nukies at
home until you want to push the button and say bye bye
civilization." program in place for going on 70 years now." |
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But there is always something new. I think I posted an
idea on here about putting big piles of cobalt on top of
likely targets, including missile silos. If a nuclear weapon
strikes the city (say Washington DC or Moscow), or missile
silo, the cobalt gets zapped too, the radioactive cobalt
then reaches the atmosphere and turns a single strike
into a "doomsday" nuclear device affecting the whole
planet. |
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