Giambastiani: Conventional Trident Missiles Will Aid Terror War

American Forces Press Service ^ | Paul X. Rutz

[SandRat]

and from the Silent Service....

[Grampa Dave]

Good when future Z Pigs are identified, the Navy with these missiles can take them out like the Air Force took out the Z Pig.

[Dinsdale]

Why do we need survivable conventional missles?

Would'nt land based missles be able to to this mission for cheaper?

[SandRat]

shorter launch to impact time for force projection and causing an Z-man copy cats to worry a little bit more.

[Shermy]

"Would'nt land based missles be able to to this mission for cheaper?"

Cheaper? That's a dirty word in the Defense Department.

[NonValueAdded]

"I said 'weapons free,' not 'fire three!' Whadda you mean the rwo conventional rockets are still in their silos??? Then what is that we just ... oh, oh!!!"

[Spruce]

Sounds like a pretty expensive way to get a few hundred pounds of ordinance on target. And won't firing one of these raise a big "Here I am" flag on a platform that relies on stealth to do it's main task?

[Dinsdale]

shorter launch to impact time for force projection

Depends on where the boomer is and where the target is. Differences in flight times would be measured in minutes at best, ICBMs are fast.

All costs are opportunity costs.

[faq]

If the US launched an ICBM from the states over towards the Middle East, it would probably have to fly over Russia. That could potentially cause a problem.

[tophat9000]

The problem would be if you mix nonnuclear & nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles in the same platform...the Russian & Chinese would have no way to know the difference between a nonnuclear & nuclear when the detect the launch... the might tend to overreact so you have to tell them get them calmed down (it's nonnuclear for whoever but not you) and then the could then warn the target

[RedQuill]

How do you inform other "competitors", (i.e. Russia, China) that, "ummm, yeaaahhh: we just launched an ICBM, but don't worry, it's not going to land on you."?

[SandRat]

Upon launch you do a Mad-Ivan and go All-Ahead Emergency; I think.

[ANGGAPO]

Subs can shoot and run before being detected. But the big problem that I see is that a subs missile that has that range can't toss enough explosive to be cost effective. Air force has a better way.

[Dinsdale]

That's a good question:

How do you inform Russia and China that the Submarine launced ICBM you just fired has a conventional warhead and is'nt aimed at them anyhow?

But in what sense can that be called an arguement for using boomers to launch conventional weapons? Boomers are what they are because they are a survivable deterent. We don't need survivable conventional weapons.

[Fee]

Problem is speed. It takes less than an hour for a missile going over the North Pole from mid west US to impact central USSR. Lot quicker if missile was launched from the Indian Ocean into central USSR. Many of the terror states exists along the ocean (Iran, Syria, Lebanon, North Korea, Saudi Arabia). Sit one of these subs off shore and we can hit anything within minutes after a launch.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

And we'd be more likely to use a non-nuke.

[jeremiah]

Since we are the only ones capable of building a space based missile platform, why don't we do that and then defend space against anyone else militarizing it? With anti-missile capability, and precision targeting, we could enforce freedom from above. That is much better than what the Chinese will do when they become more space capable. If anyone thinks they will not put nuclear missiles on platforms in space, I have some ocean front property in Arizona for sale.

[Mike Darancette]

aims to remove two nuclear missiles from each of the Navy's 14 ballistic missile submarines, or SSBNs, and replace them with two conventionally armed Trident missiles

Oops I meant "fire two" not "fire 5", I forgot which were NOT the nukes.

OBTW will the non nukes be MIRVed?

[SandRat]

.....I have some ocean front property in Arizona for sale.

Maybe we can work a deal you swap the ocean front property in Arizona for my 4 room ocean front mansion in Florida - of course you'll have to wait for the tide to go out to see 39 of the rooms.