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I realized later I was not clear about bombers needing to have warheads put aboard and it takes an hour or so, and they will probably get it. —— Will probably get it refers to targetting. If you’re in St Petersburg, the Russian naval central offices, you point your boomers at the targets that might immediately hit Russia. That won’t be bombers. That is ICBMs, maybe some command and control like the Pentagon and Bremerton/Groton, and not places like Wright Patt logistics or home ports with no ships currently docked.

Meaning, you aim at things that might hit you, Russia, in the next 48 hrs. Bombers aren’t going anywhere, even stealth, until there is some confidence Russian air defense has been destroyed, and thus bombers won’t be SLBM targetted. They get hit later, not first, and thus there is time to load bombs on them.

ICBM targeting and “loading targets into them” just means align/calibrate the onboard inertial nav systems (the gyros and linear accelerometers) and give them a latitude/longitude to hit. That’s a less than 1 hour activity, but it’s not less than 2 minutes. Nobody is dumb about this stuff. If a missile is offline per treaty requirements, it got cut up into pieces, not merely erased target.

SALT and START were two different things, and there are solid in-orbit recon assets for verification on both sides.

Perhaps the biggest Russian advantage in all of this is their somewhat brilliant choice to place ICBMs on mobile launchers. You have to point missiles at latitude/longitude and if they move them, you lose not only accuracy, but a completely wasted warhead that is not hitting nothingness.

US anti missile interceptors number about 44, and their somewhat optimistic effectiveness estimate is 50%. I read the test criteria that generated that number. It required all countermeasures be off and zero maneuvering past boost phase. So just put that stuff aside. There is no defense against high speed ballistics, never has been and are not now. And that was all pre hypersonic.

Note the ABM treaty allowed both sides to have interceptors to defend 2 sites. A later protocol reduced this to 1 site, because neither side built a 2nd site. The Russians put theirs around Moscow. The US, around the North Dakota launch complex. The whole idea of ABM was to reduce defenses — because if defenses were kept small then there would be no ongoing incentive to build more and more strategic ICBMs or SLBMs. Regardless, the US withdrew from the treaty in 2002. There is no ABM agreement as of now, largely because there is no point. It doesn’t work.

Owen: "I realized later I was not clear about bombers needing to have warheads put aboard and it takes an hour or so, and they will probably get it. —— Will probably get it refers to targetting.
If you’re in St Petersburg, the Russian naval central offices, you point your boomers at the targets that might immediately hit Russia.
That won’t be bombers.
That is ICBMs, maybe some command and control like the Pentagon and Bremerton/Groton, and not places like Wright Patt logistics or home ports with no ships currently docked."

I don't see the value in any such speculation because: there are thousands of different potential scenarios, all of which have been planned and war-gamed over many decades, using our best minds with the latest advanced AI -- and whatever other technology is available -- to model possible responses and outcomes.
And I'm certain that the only potential outcome which could be considered a victory is one where we never fight such a war.

Owen: "ICBM targeting and “loading targets into them” just means align/calibrate the onboard inertial nav systems (the gyros and linear accelerometers) and give them a latitude/longitude to hit.
That’s a less than 1 hour activity, but it’s not less than 2 minutes."

"Less than 1 hour" means such moves could be accomplished at any time in the lead-up period of rising tensions, before nuclear war began.
It's an inconsequential amount of time and only needs an authentic command to "get ready".

Owen: "If a missile is offline per treaty requirements, it got cut up into pieces, not merely erased target."

I think all those categories -- deployed, reserve, inactive, retired, etc. -- are ill-defined publicly and so impossible for us to say how long it would take each weapon to be made ready, should that ever become necessary.

1970s Carter's US MX mobile missile system,
became Reagan's Peacekeepers:

Owen: "Perhaps the biggest Russian advantage in all of this is their somewhat brilliant choice to place ICBMs on mobile launchers.
You have to point missiles at latitude/longitude and if they move them, you lose not only accuracy, but a completely wasted warhead that is not hitting nothingness."

We had that conversation in the 1970s, back when Jimmy Carter was president.
The MX ICBM, eventually was called the LGM-118 Peacekeeper, and Carter believed we'd need to put them on mobile launchers in many-miles-long underground covered highways so they'd be protected and able to pop-up to fire anywhere along their route.
Ultimately, it was not considered practical and Pres. Reagan put those Peacekeepers in normal silos instead, thus relying on our triad of boomers, bombers and buried silos to do the job of deterring Soviet aggression.

Owen: "US anti missile interceptors number about 44, and their somewhat optimistic effectiveness estimate is 50%."

Your 50% estimate could be reasonable, however, those 44 interceptors are only the GMDs at Greely and Vandenburg -- 3,400 mile range.
In addition, there are at least thousands, if not tens of thousands of anti-missiles in:

MIM-104 Patriots -- 100 mile range
THAADs -- 120 mile range
Aegis SM-6s -- 300 mile range
Aegis SM-3s -- 1,300 mile range

To these, we could add in some of Pres. Reagan's "Star Wars" SDI ideas, since some of those are still being worked on.

Owen: "There is no defense against high-speed ballistics, never has been and are not now.
And that was all pre hypersonic."

Well... first of all, "hypersonic" is not at all new, since all ICBMs are hypersonic in their mid and terminal phases.
What's new is claimed maneuverability, especially in their terminal phase.
But how maneuverable are they really, and how effective are their guidance systems?
To be determined.

Owen: "There is no ABM agreement as of now, largely because there is no point.
It doesn’t work."

Last word.

Saturday, Russia's Satan II missile exploded on its launch pad at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome.
The best missile defense is: premature explosion -- Satan never gets off the ground.