Permissive Action Link, basically a very fancy set of locks. One of the few pieces of US Nuclear Weapons Tech that was deliberately given to the Russians, since it makes it a lot harder for the local commander to launch without orders.
Has the current Cuban regime ever held elections? Do Cuban nationals regularly immigrate to the US? That's why it isn't the same. Russia is fighting againsty a majority with an elected government in Ukraine, whereas I'm not entirely sure Cubans wouldn't like the US to invade them and replace the current Castro regime given the choice. And as regards sponsoring proxy wars, what was Russia doing in the Donbass between 2014 and 2022 in between shooting down airliners? Except it wasn't just a proxy war since it had troops and mercenaries there the whole time, which violated all Minsk agreements BTW.
I believe that's correct, at least for B61s. I don't remember running across any of that stuff in my Required Reading for Tridents, but I wouldn't be able to confirm it if I had.
www.exchangemonitor.com
I'm not sure I agree with that.
www.thedefensepost.com
US had 320 SLCMs at the turn of the century.
www.twz.com
So start a war, get into difficulty, threaten use of nuclear weapons.Putin Warns West of Nuclear War Risk
Russia's President Vladimir Putin warned of a "real" risk of nuclear war if the West escalates the conflict in Ukraine.
The nuclear ones had a 2,800km range, as per GLCM, so any in the Med, Baltic Sea, Bering Sea, Sea of Japan, North Sea, Norwegian Sea, Barents Sea, Bering Sea, SCS or ECS, Philippine Sea (off Guam), or Gulf would likely be in range of potential targets.
At the same time conventional (1000lb warhead) Tomahawk range has increased from 1,300km to 1,700km, so nuclear Tomahawk with a 130-150kg warhead should go further than the old 2,800km too. Some scope to stretch the length also. How many can 4 SSGNs carry or Virgina Class VPMs?
Surprise low altitude attack from an unpredictable direction. Increases the number of mobile nuclear strike assets. Increases the number of warheads without adding to START limited quantities.Ohio SSGNs are getting retired, remember that Ohio came back into service as an SSGN in 2006, with a ~20 year service life remaining, and there's already an announcement from 2020 about scrapping in 2026. All 4 Ohio SSGNs will decomission about the same time.At the same time conventional (1000lb warhead) Tomahawk range has increased from 1,300km to 1,700km, so nuclear Tomahawk with a 130-150kg warhead should go further than the old 2,800km too. Some scope to stretch the length also. How many can 4 SSGNs carry or Virgina Class VPMs?
Early 2026 is just as the SSGNs are retiring, so that works quite well, which is the way it was intended anyway. They can carry 28 missiles each, and there are due to be 66 Virginia Class in total with 22 Block IVs alrteady built. Use the 12 VLS tubes for nuclear and the 28 tube VPM module for conventional, or go 20+20.
At the same time conventional (1000lb warhead) Tomahawk range has increased from 1,300km to 1,700km, so nuclear Tomahawk with a 130-150kg warhead should go further than the old 2,800km too. Some scope to stretch the length also. How many can 4 SSGNs carry or Virgina Class VPMs?
Except that's commissioning in 2026, not ready for deployment. First deployment probably won't happen till 2028 due to sea trials, maybe 2029 since there's a lot of extra stuff that needs to be tested on the Block Vs.
Due to how the tubes work, it'd probably be 19+21 at max. Each VPM gets either all nukes or all conventional due to security rules.
There is a small argument for subs whose missions take them close to the shores of a hostile country anyway to have some nukes onboard. We usually call those "Projects boats", things like USS Parche or USS Jimmy Carter. They're snooping around in places we never were.
Being able to swap payloads in the boat would be very nice. Carry 2x Sea Lances, and you can have them normally armed with a Mk54mod, but if the boss sends you the codes you can swap over to a 200kt nuke. This would obviously require some space set aside for the big booms in their locker, however, and that'd probably take up an entire weapon stow. Edit: So having 2x Sea Lances would take up 3x stows, taking a Virginia class down to 23 stows inside the torpedo room and 12 stows in the VLS.
That was looked at
The difference between the nuclear and conventional tomahawk is warhead weight. So now that the conventional one goes further, due to higher fuel fraction and smaller guidance section, the nuclear one will too.
B-52s don't though.
Well that's something I guess.
I've already explained why it isn't. Once you launch an SLBM the enemy knows it's coming.
So? It will land in less than 30 minutes if you're talking a max range shot. Depressed trajectory lands in 5-8 minutes for shorter range.
Except when all the B-21s suddenly disappear from the runway.
Even with ICBMs, you have a ~30min window from "launch detected" to "impact".
Load up every plane with max carry then minimum interval takeoffs, harkening back to the old circus elephants parading around holding the tail of the elephant in front of them.
