'Will retaliate if offended by US', warns Chinese General

Of the 14 SSBNs currently in the fleet, two are normally in overhaul at any given time. Of the remaining operational 12 submarines, 8-9 are deployed on patrol at any given time. Four of these (two in each ocean) are on “Hard Alert” while the 4-5 non-alert SSBNs can be brought to alert level within a relatively short time if necessary. One to three SSBNs are in refit at the home base in preparation for their next patrol.

This is what I was getting at, I do know the difference from hard alert (subs launch ready missiles pre-targeted) to just deployed this has directly to deal with the fact that we shut down our ELF transmitter in WI. Only the Hard Alert subs are shallow enough or streaming a VLF buoy the others are deep and silent hiding for a second strike, with the old ELF bell ringer all the subs could be deep and silent listening to ELF waiting for the balloon to go up ready to loft their birds. In 1995 SLBM Strategic Retargeting System (SRS) was approved. D-5s can be rapidly re-target to any spot in the world. We offloaded some MIRVS from our D5's which greatly increases there range, like I said boats in port in WA & GA can hold China at risk we have tested surface launching SSBM's successfully in the past and one of the crews is always with the sub even in port unless its undergoing midlife retrofit. If China starts saber rattling you can bet all 8-9 boats will be on hard alert. The D5 as deployed has a range of 12000km this is the area of the globe a D5 SSBN can be in to hit Beijing. you will notice that both WA and GA are with in the circle as is most of the northern hemispheres oceans only the southern oceans by south America are out of range and we can assume not many Trident boats are down there holding Brazil at risk.

Ultimately, in it’s current configuration, only 4 USN boomers would be in range to launch against China on short notice(within 10-20 min). And for this to even be possible, we are assuming 4-5 MIRVs per Trident. Upping the payload on each D5 to 12 MIRVs would decrease the number of hard alert subs within striking range at any given time.

I’m discounting the 2nd strike capabilities of the SSBN fleet because China would never strike first in the current strategic calculus(what with it’s numerical disadvantage in warheads). And also because, China’s land-based ICBM capability has a response time of 10-20 min. So by the time the 2nd strike SSBNs are in position to launch, the initial nuclear exchange would’ve already happened.

So still, we are talking about 96 missiles, 4-5 MIRVs each => 384-475 warheads against China in a first strike.

If one keeps in mind, that China can retaliate within 10 minutes of launch detection with 150-160 warheads on the conus directly, and another 200-300 against U.S bases and allied nations in the Pacific. It becomes clear that initiating any kind of nuclear blackmail with China is extremely risky at this stage.

So 4 trident boats are lost in the south seas? With 5 Mirvs the Trident has 12000km range this puts China in range from anywhere in the light area of my map, including boats sitting in port. Most of our boats are in the Pacific or Indian oceans or North Atlantic there is no credible targets worth tying a boat up in the south seas. I disagree with 4 boats more like 7 of 9 would be somewhere in the light part of the map. The sino population is so dense even with 300 warheads targeted at a counter population strike we would kill a couple hundred million or so in a first strike followed shortly by the MM3 wiping another few hundred million. China has 286 cities as defined by population of 50000 or more We could hit every city they have with 50000 or more persons with at least 2 warheads surface burst one on the upwind side of the city for maximum fallout effects. Yes they have maybe 150 warheads to use on the CONUS this is why its absolutely imperative we field the multi kill vehicle on or GBI, SM-3Block II, and field THAAD + PAC3 domestically these systems make for a NMD program.

Also you leave out the LGM-30 Minuteman III 500 sit ready to launch at a moments notice they too were given the strategic rapid target upgrade. We foolishly are deMIRVing them, we should be going in the opposite direction and putting the 7 mini MIRV designed to fit them, we also should have never gave up our Peacekeepers which could hold up to 30 yes 30 of the same miniMIRVs which were developed for the Midgetman mobile missile program. The Soviets and now the Russian have NEVER ever keep their end of the bargain with treaties. They still field SS-18 Satan’s that hold up to 30 mirvs we let them keep some MIRVed for some stupid reason, SS-19 Stiletto, SS-25 and SS-23 mobile ICBMs we have been had at a level that is not parallel in human history to be disarmed so much with no reciprocity from our enemies.

That’s right I forgot about the minutemen. :)

In any case NMD technologies are not yet mature. Our 20 GBI interceptors have something like a 50% success rate against unitary ICBM warheads, less than 30% against MIRVs with decoys. To defend against a single DF31A with 5 MIRVs would require our entire GBI stockpile ATM.

Moreover, with the Chinese JL-2 SLBM slated to become operational in the near future, we could be faced with up to 300 Chinese warheads on the conus within 2 years.

My point is that the Chinese arsenal is designed to prevent US nuclear blackmail. If there is a regional war in East Asia, china would eventually win if it manages to keep it conventional.

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