[moonshot925]

“All that is left of the mighty nuclear triad is a reduced SLBM force”

The SLBM force is more than enough to provide our deterrence.

1,288 warheads deployed on 14 Ohio class SSBNs.

Each W76 warhead is 7 times the yield of Little Boy dropped on Hiroshima. Each W88 is 30 times the yield.

Ohio class subs are untra-quiet and have great communication via ULF. At least 8 are on patrol at any given time.

The Trident D5 has a range of 12,000 kilometers with an accuracy of 90 meters CEP. It has had 142 consecutive successful test launches since 1989.

[jboot]

Thanks for the info. I am aware of the capabilities of the Trident D5. This single system represents more than three-quarters of our nuclear arsenal. Such reliance on a single system is alarming. Moreover, it is tied to 14 aging SSBNs, each of which houses a significant percentage of our entire nuclear arsenal and represents a glaring single point of failure.

The purpose of the Triad was to ensure that the USA was not reliant on a single system. Our greatly reduced arsenal is now a two-legged stool, and only one of the legs of the stool is a modern system. Minuteman III is already a relic and will be utterly obsolete long before it reaches EOL in 2030. All potential follow-on programs have been cancelled.

I hate to be a downer, but in my opinion our deterrant capability is rapidly aging, single-threaded to a fault and out-of-sync with current threats.