Letters of last resort

[stevie lee]

That actually shows it was a lot less than i was expecting, a 100kt is a little over a 2 mile radius for fatalities and building destruction, to level somewhere like Moscow would need 7-9 warheads so effectively we'd only be able to flatten 7'ish large targets, that hardly seems worth it and going after launch sites would be a bit pointless as i guess most of them would now be empty.

tried it with the fallout option on?
surface 100kt blast on my house. wipes out entire of southport. all of it. then the fallout lands from Preston all the way to Newcastle area.
https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?...hob_ft=0&zm=10

fallout is what'll get ya.
there was a bunch from Chernobyl that landed in beaches this are and north ways up to cumbria.


as for the letters. depending on who did the nuking that destroyed the entire of Britain, would any other nation still claim to be our allies if they haven't yet been targeted?

say Russia went "Ha take that Britain!" would France go "fire the nukes at Russia!!", they'll be flattened quicker than you can blink. any sane nation would go "yeah, take that UK that'll serve you right, you showed em Russia, pls no hurt me"

there'll be mass condemnation in the streets, diplomats going Why russia why?? then they'll spend the next few years dealing with fallout effects while praising the new overlords of world power.

maybe the US would retaliate immediately if they thought nukes were flying their way. but i'd think even they would wait a bit, see what Russia does next, while planning and moving as many subs as they could into positions off Russia to wipe it out in one go. anything else then thatl mean the end of humans, because then and only then would everyone else go "aah soddit, Fire!"


so my letter would be..
find out who fired it, consult with allies as to what they want to do r.e. retaliate immediately or not. then help with any survivors.

[Ttaskmaster]

as for the letters. depending on who did the nuking that destroyed the entire of Britain, would any other nation still claim to be our allies if they haven't yet been targeted?

Since the 'nation of Britain' in thi scenario would then solely comprise a bunch of boats with a shedload of nuclear weapons, I'd think any nation not already friends with whoever nuked us would happily have us as allies.

[Peter Parker]

say Russia went "Ha take that Britain!" would France go "fire the nukes at Russia!!", they'll be flattened quicker than you can blink. any sane nation would go "yeah, take that UK that'll serve you right, you showed em Russia, pls no hurt me"

These are the 1980s ideas of cold war alliances and Mutually Assured Destruction. Many smaller NATO nations don't have nukes, but got by on the understanding that if, say, the USSR had launched a first strike at West Germany, then the USA, UK and French nukes would launch against the USSR and possibly other Warsaw Pact members. If you're "MAD", then the "sane" response is to launch a full strike retaliation! I hope times have changed...

I love this scene of the simulations in the movie Wargames (possible spoilers if for some reason you haven't seen this classic yet!) :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeOHEU7Ykyg

[Corky34]

tried it with the fallout option on?
surface 100kt blast on my house. wipes out entire of southport. all of it. then the fallout lands from Preston all the way to Newcastle area.
https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?...hob_ft=0&zm=10

fallout is what'll get ya.
there was a bunch from Chernobyl that landed in beaches this are and north ways up to cumbria.

I did but thought maybe we wouldn't be going for maximum deaths but maximum damage, i know it sounds silly when talking about nuclear blasts but i was thinking the maximum death thing would be seen as unnecessarily vindictive, added to that is the unsociability of fallout drifting over countries that weren't involved, not that there'd be much in the way of people to blame if the entire chain of command had collapsed and they had to open the letters.

Going for maximum deaths doesn't seem like the sort of legacy you'd want to leave to those who remained.

[Saracen999]

These are the 1980s ideas of cold war alliances and Mutually Assured Destruction. Many smaller NATO nations don't have nukes, but got by on the understanding that if, say, the USSR had launched a first strike at West Germany, then the USA, UK and French nukes would launch against the USSR and possibly other Warsaw Pact members. If you're "MAD", then the "sane" response is to launch a full strike retaliation! I hope times have changed...

I love this scene of the simulations in the movie Wargames (possible spoilers if for some reason you haven't seen this classic yet!) :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeOHEU7Ykyg

I hope times have changed, too, but given the scenario this thread is based on, they evidently haven't yet changed enough.

MAD may be mad, but this week's D-Day remembrances are a pretty chilling example of what can happen if one .... unreasonable .... regime thinks it can use massive violence as a political tool for some kind of advantage, and get away with it.

When considering messages, what message does it send to whoever launched a nation-killing nuclear attack if they get away with it without dire consequences? Does it not merely encourage them to do it again, if they think it gains them sufficient advantage?

[spacein_vader]

The only winning move is not to play.

[stevie lee]

When considering messages, what message does it send to whoever launched a nation-killing nuclear attack if they get away with it without dire consequences? Does it not merely encourage them to do it again, if they think it gains them sufficient advantage?

that's why I said it depends on which nation started it. if Russia, US or China, they're large enough to not be crippled in one retaliatory strike. you have to make sure you get them in one go. so the retaliation wont be immediate.
them firing at each other and not a smaller one, that's when fans get brown, sticky and really whiffy.

small nation like North Korea launch one. 1 nuke will sort them out. just need to land it vaguely near Kim and his generals. rest of the military wont fire back without orders from Kim and they won't believe the propaganda news from the rest of the world that a nuke just flattened Kim. so they'll just sit there waiting for non coming orders.

I'd like to think all the other countries are sensible enough with their nukes not to try anything. Just need to worry about terrorists breaking into the silos or nuclear power stations and Chernobyling it up, or employing a 12 year old hacker to bypass launch codes. then if its 'France' who launch one at us, was it the French or was it terrorists? then who do you retaliate against? hence my wait and see what other allies want to do and wait a bit first. they'll be able to figure out if it was the actual State nation doing it or an accident/terrorists.


immediate action just escalates the destruction too fast.

[Saracen999]

that's why I said it depends on which nation started it. if Russia, US or China, they're large enough to not be crippled in one retaliatory strike. you have to make sure you get them in one go. so the retaliation wont be immediate.
them firing at each other and not a smaller one, that's when fans get brown, sticky and really whiffy.

small nation like North Korea launch one. 1 nuke will sort them out. just need to land it vaguely near Kim and his generals. rest of the military wont fire back without orders from Kim and they won't believe the propaganda news from the rest of the world that a nuke just flattened Kim. so they'll just sit there waiting for non coming orders.

I'd like to think all the other countries are sensible enough with their nukes not to try anything. Just need to worry about terrorists breaking into the silos or nuclear power stations and Chernobyling it up, or employing a 12 year old hacker to bypass launch codes. then if its 'France' who launch one at us, was it the French or was it terrorists? then who do you retaliate against? hence my wait and see what other allies want to do and wait a bit first. they'll be able to figure out if it was the actual State nation doing it or an accident/terrorists.


immediate action just escalates the destruction too fast.

I think the flaw in that loguc is that the premise of the OO's hypothesis is that the UK has bern totally destroyed. which makes it unlikely that it's terrorists or similar, because for those "last resort" letters to be activated, the entire CoG (Continuity of Government) chain has to have been hit in one go.

As for how much damage coukd be done, even on publicly availalable data, and assuming it's correct, each British sub carries 8 missiles, each with 8 independently targetable re-entry vehicles, suggesting a total of 64 potential detonations on the target country, which is enough to put a VERY large dent, even in a country like Russia.

Each sub is capable of carrying double that missile payload, and each missile up to 14 warheads, giving a maximum of 224 nuked targets. And in the event more than one submarine was currently at sea, which it might be if tensions were such that a possible attack wad anticipated, then multiple even that by the number of submarines to give a maximum offensive capability. I would that even Russia would be crippled that that.

As for any 'retaliatory' strike if we did retaliate, what would they target that they didn't target in the initial strike that took out the entire CoG chain in the first place?

And that, of course, is why it's not jyst M.A.D. but also mad.

[Xlucine]

I think the flaw in that loguc is that the premise of the OO's hypothesis is that the UK has bern totally destroyed. which makes it unlikely that it's terrorists or similar, because for those "last resort" letters to be activated, the entire CoG (Continuity of Government) chain has to have been hit in one go.

As for how much damage coukd be done, even on publicly availalable data, and assuming it's correct, each British sub carries 8 missiles, each with 8 independently targetable re-entry vehicles, suggesting a total of 64 potential detonations on the target country, which is enough to put a VERY large dent, even in a country like Russia.

Each sub is capable of carrying double that missile payload, and each missile up to 14 warheads, giving a maximum of 224 nuked targets. And in the event more than one submarine was currently at sea, which it might be if tensions were such that a possible attack wad anticipated, then multiple even that by the number of submarines to give a maximum offensive capability. I would that even Russia would be crippled that that.

As for any 'retaliatory' strike if we did retaliate, what would they target that they didn't target in the initial strike that took out the entire CoG chain in the first place?

And that, of course, is why it's not jyst M.A.D. but also mad.

Only up to 40 warheads across the up to 8 missiles, unless the gov decided to change policy pre-destruction
https://www.gov.uk/government/public...u-need-to-know

More than one boat at sea is theoretically possible, but we have 4 of them in the first place to ensure 1 is available at all times - so it's not certain that there'll be another boat ready to go to sea in times of tension

[Saracen999]

Only up to 40 warheads across the up to 8 missiles, unless the gov decided to change policy pre-destruction
https://www.gov.uk/government/public...u-need-to-know

More than one boat at sea is theoretically possible, but we have 4 of them in the first place to ensure 1 is available at all times - so it's not certain that there'll be another boat ready to go to sea in times of tension

That makes two asumptions :-

1) That the information in that starement is accurate, and there is no elenent of misinformation, bearing in mind that such public statements can be read by enemies as well as friends and the UK public, and

2) That is current policy, but no such policy binds future governments, who could change policy.

Unless I missed it, the OP's scenario didn't date the incident and by whenever it happens, policy is relatively easy to change especially if increasing operational capability from stockpiles, or we could have changed from anything ranging ftom a completely new platform, to abolition of the deterrent. As the entire OP scenario is redundant in the latter case, snd the former one would be speculative in the extreme, I'm just referring to the theoretical cspability of the current platform.

Oh, and current policy isn't "one at sea at all times". It's at least one at sea at all times. While that's unlikely to be all four (especially if one or more isn't seaworthy due to dockyard works) it could well mean more than one is at sea and, as I said, if tensions have risrn sufficiently, orders could well be given for snything capable of putting to ssa to do so precisely to prevent it's loss in the event of a wide-ranging sttack. And if so, you can bet they'd be as armed as they could be, regardless of current policy.

[philehidiot]

I've not read the whole thread because I'm still waking up and picking burnt powder out of my nose after taking out my hatred of NHS inefficiency on a paper target. You do NOT want me in charge of a nuclear sub because anyone who is late for duty will have their family nuked. i get grumpy.

I once went to a talk by the ex-commander of a Trident sub. Obviously, questions asked by me were answered with "that's classified" which was entirely expected. He said he spent a very long time considering whether to take the post, consulted priest-type people and read lots of books on the subject of ethics in war, etc. He sounded like someone you would trust to take a well considered decision based on the facts at hand and due consideration of the morality of what he was doing. The responsibility was clearly taken extremely seriously. For this reason, I don't believe you put these people in charge to be robots, you put them in charge to be well rounded and sensible human beings who can be calm and considered when the world has turned into hell, and I went for "use your own judgement". My judgement would be to create an impassible nuclear wasteland around a stonkingly well stocked tropical island (rum, essential) and live out their lives whilst everyone else enjoys the occasional retaliatory strike and eventually first contact with the Vulcans.

Also consider the various different approaches you might take to relatiation. It's been a while since I read any of this but I seem to remember you have:
- Counter Force. This is where you nuke the enemy's military assets. Obviously you almost always get civilians in this.
- Counter value. Where you just nuke anything to the same perceived value as what they nuked. City for a city, etc. Obviously if they nuked Bradford, we'd probably send them some kind of hamper, so it's quite subjective.
- Mutually assured destruction (MAD) - This is the approach chosen by all sides. Enough firepower to wipe out a country's major population centres and military capability. Knowing they can do the same to you, the balance of power is even.

Also consider that there will be different deployment strategies. Each Trident missile is capable of holding several re-entry vehicles (RV). Some of these are dummies but modern radar can distinguish between a dummy RV and a live one, enabling advanced states to shoot them down. So, if you're in a situation where you think the rocket man may need a telling off, and you need to destroy an underground complex but without much in the way of collatoral damage, you may well have a missile armed with a single live and low yield RV alongside other tactical options. You may, if Russia tires of selling masses of oil to Europe and would rather it resemble a stained glass window, choose to fully load the sub with as many high yield weapons as you can muster. If Turkey is posing a problem, a low yield weapon with multiple decoys might be appropriate as they have some advanced SAM but probably won't be able to distinguish decoy from live.

This variation in loadouts means that really the commander has to decide what is best to do with what he has. He might be against Russia, be ordered to counter-attack but not have a loadout suitable to properly eradicate their military infrastructure and therefore only incite even more fury.

[philehidiot]

Oh and anyone thinking our nukes don't seem as potent compared to Russian systems, that's for a couple of reasons:
1) Bigger is heavier so you could have fewer bigger RVs. They chose the mix of power and number. We don't have any other deployment method any more other than Trident and so we are limited by the design choices.
2) Russian nukes are bigger as they chose to focus on outright power rather than accuracy. We (read: the US, pretty much), focussed more on delivering the nuke to where it was required and so smaller payloads were required. Bear in mind MAD is focussing on population centres mostly so either approach works. The advantage of smaller, more accurate weapons is that they give you greater flexibility in deployment. The advantage of bigger weapons is that, ideally nukes being a psychological weapon, they generate a lot of fear. Look at the map of how big an area of Paris the Tsar Bomba would vapourise for an example. This makes the assumption that the weapon lands bang on target. It won't, it was never designed to. It'll be dropped from a big, slow strategic bomber some distance from that which you want to destroy, making AA defences (remember the era these weapons were developed in) somewhat less useful as you can drop it well away from city defences, turn around and off you pop and the explosion is powerful enough to do the rest. The psychological effect of weapons this powerful and the propaganda they help create is incredible and allows you influence over a population without firing a shot. It's not that the Russians couldn't have developed more accurate weapons, they just went down a different route which they saw as being more advantageous. Certainly I'd say in a world where we haven't had a nuclear war, they made the better decision but if it had come to it, I'd rather have the more accurate weapons launched from a greater stand off distance.

As for fallout, that depends entirely on local factors and mode of deployment. Lay it down on the ground in a sandy region with lots of wind and hell yeah, fallout heaven. Air burst over the sea, not so much.

EDITED to put in why the Russians went down the route they did.

[DanceswithUnix]

that's why I said it depends on which nation started it..

Probably Russia, who seem to be the only country designing pre-emptive weapons (nuclear powered nuclear weapons)

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018...ble-and-awful/

[philehidiot]

Probably Russia, who seem to be the only country designing pre-emptive weapons (nuclear powered nuclear weapons)

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018...ble-and-awful/

Nuclear torpedos have been around for a while, a nuclear torpedo was almost launched during the Cuban crisis (back when the Soviet Captains had near independent nuclear authority). A long range nuclear one is kinda daft as that's basically just an unmanned sub with a nuclear payload. If you don't have a crew to support, why would you bother with the expense or complexity of a nuclear propulsion system? You've got loads of space to play with, no problems with life support and massive reductions in current drain. The only advantage is in stealth but it has been long proven that you do not need nuclear power for that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saCdvAp5cow

As for nuclear powered flight... just no. Please for the love of all that is shortly going to be holy (or one big hole), no. It's just.... mental.

So, Putin is going to have a nuclear powered nuclear cruise missile then, eh?

[TeePee]

Nuclear torpedos have been around for a while, a nuclear torpedo was almost launched during the Cuban crisis (back when the Soviet Captains had near independent nuclear authority). A long range nuclear one is kinda daft as that's basically just an unmanned sub with a nuclear payload. If you don't have a crew to support, why would you bother with the expense or complexity of a nuclear propulsion system? You've got loads of space to play with, no problems with life support and massive reductions in current drain. The only advantage is in stealth but it has been long proven that you do not need nuclear power for that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saCdvAp5cow

As for nuclear powered flight... just no. Please for the love of all that is shortly going to be holy (or one big hole), no. It's just.... mental.

So, Putin is going to have a nuclear powered nuclear cruise missile then, eh?

The US did fly a Nuclear reactor, as part of a nuclear powered bomber project. It didn't make it far. While the weapons potential may be terrifying, Nuclear energy is the future of clean, renewable energy. The new reactors coming online in China are fantastic examples of technology!

[peterb]

Nuclear torpedos have been around for a while, a nuclear torpedo was almost launched during the Cuban crisis (back when the Soviet Captains had near independent nuclear authority).

The propulsion system of those torpedos was conventional, the term nuclear refers to the warhead, are are designed to be used against other submarines. They are tactical weapons though (like nuclear artillary shells) rather than strategic weapons like Polaris or Trident. Letters of last resort are only issued to those controlling strategic weapons.