I think it was based on rather optimistic assessments of the conditions of the MM3 silos, Launch Control, and those copper cables in Montana(etc).
Turns out, the copper cables were a hacked and spliced rats nest that needed to be replaced in their entirety. Too many splices and you start losing data packets. Picture a 50yo used car that's had 10 owners, and each one has messed with the stereo. How many splices?!? Better off buying a whole new replacement wiring harness and starting fresh!
Yeah that's fair then. I am a fan of fiber optics too so I don't really have any complaints. I just forgot the Air Force hates infrastructure.
Functionally, operationally, SLCM-N is a mess.
Well, it seems to be a very good system for the Pacific by increasing the capacity of the Navy to contribute to the tactical nuke fight. The carriers don't have gravity bombs anymore and the only tactical shaped weapon in inventory is the W76-2s, so what's the alternative?
The Air Force will be too busying keeping the PLAAF at an arm's length to attack everything with B61-12 all the time.
W76-2 is too dumb of a weapon to waste on tactical targets unless you need to rebuff a tank division or something I guess.
You can potentially put B61-12 on a carrier...maybe? I'm not even sure if the Fords have nuclear ammunition storage spaces anymore given they were designed, much less built, long after the surface ships lost their nukes.
SLCM-N gives INDOPACOM an option to hit tactical-operational targets that doesn't involve one of maybe 100-200 in-theater F-35A, a partial ballistic missile launch from the Pacific Ocean, or rebuilding the interior magazine spaces of the CVNs.
If you're generally floating around with a couple of nukes in the VLS, that's a number of conventional cruise missiles that you cannot carry. Or that you're carrying cruise missiles in the Torpedo Room in place of a few torpedoes, and Virginia class only have 26 stows for torpedoes (and 12 VLS tubes).
Block V seems to address this by a comfy margin tbf.
Plus you are imposing all the crew certification stuff of nuclear weapons, which is a paper work nightmare (trust the Missile Submarine admin guy on this one, that paperwork SUCKS).
There was a time when this was the norm though. Every surface escort had to file paperwork for nuclear Terrier/Talos and ASROC-N.
I think if SLCM-N is restricted to the Block Vs then it won't be the worst thing ever. They have a lot of VLS cells and there's only 10.
I honestly do not see any scenario where a single submarine would only launch a couple of SLCM-Ns as the attack. I'd expect more like a dozen missiles per sub as a single attack on anything that was worth expending a nuke on, just because of all the defenses that such a target would have. Yes, I'm expecting needing to fire 10-12 missiles to get one on target.
I think that's the intention, but throw in 80-90 conventional missiles to "soak" the air defense, as a dozen alone seems small tbh.
Beats the "couple hundred" a JASSM or TLAM-C would require. Both DAF and DON increasingly seem to think that tactical nukes are going to be an integral part of beating the PLA's bigger numbers though. I think DA is still trying to figure out if they're even going to participate outside of the Coastal Artillery.
If you "only" need to shoot 50 conventionals and 10 nuke missiles, and you get a couple nuke leakers to obliterate an airbase runway with 80-90 HAS, you're coming out on top in the magazine fight too. One of the things learned from Desert Storm was that the magazine stockpile of PGMs was still too small relative to traditional dumb weapons to fight for more than a few days.
Gaza suggests it's still too small, and that's a single besieged city, not an opposing superpower with multiple Megagaza supercities.
The government can/should though if GBSD is short.
The House is the reason SLCM-N exists at all. If SLCM-N dies then GBSD is also on the chopping block.
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