Russia the most powerful nuclear country

Originally posted by Omega Vision
Which is why America would have Russia's number in a nuclear conflict. Submarines are all but impossible to target for a pre-arranged attack unless you have some incredibly good intel (like competent spies on every submarine relaying constant information on secure channels)

True, and I agree America would end up the victor in that conflict, but Russia isn't too far behind.

They have like 20 of these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT-2UTTH_Topol_M

for sure, more liable to get hit than a sub during a first strike, but still, the Russians aren't without 2nd strike capacity. idk, I tend to see MAD between the US and Russia as being still in place, I think everyone realizes that the Russians are slipping (hence why they are trying to bolster their arms cache and develop new subs etc) but the conflict, regardless of who had first strike, would be so Pyrrhic for the Americans that it wouldn't be worth it at all. imho at least.

Originally posted by inimalist
True, and I agree America would end up the victor in the conflict, but Russia isn't without second strike.

They have like 20 of these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT-2UTTH_Topol_M

for sure, more liable to get hit than a sub during a first strike, but still, the Russians aren't without 2nd strike capacity. idk, I tend to see MAD between the US and Russia as being still in place, I think everyone realizes that the Russians are slipping (hence why they are trying to bolster their arms cache and develop new subs etc) but the conflict, regardless of who had first strike, would be so Pyrrhic for the Americans that it wouldn't be worth it at all. imho at least.

I was thinking that as the technology for interceptors matures, conventional nuke delivery is going to become useless/void. There are already systems in place that can intercept (though not perfect) incoming ballistics. More technologies are being worked on, too.

I think that if nuclear warfare will be waged, it will have to be done with discreet delivery (like a dude setting it off in a subway).

Originally posted by dadudemon
I was thinking that as the technology for interceptors matures, conventional nuke delivery is going to become useless/void. There are already systems in place that can intercept (though not perfect) incoming ballistics. More technologies are being worked on, too.

I think that if nuclear warfare will be waged, it will have to be done with discreet delivery (like a dude setting it off in a subway).

the Russians claim their modern missiles are able to penetrate anything the Americans have

Though I'm curious, I suppose I hope we never learn the answer

The problem with such small scale stuff is that it is more of a psychological warfare than warfare aimed at destroying the enemy. People with briefcases and car bombs wont get close enough to destroy the military infrastructure. You could set one off in a very heavily populated area, however, you are unlikely to get one into the place where they are manufacturing tanks or planes or whatever. Additionally, if would be far more difficult for coordinated first strikes, etc.

I'd suspect we'd see the militarization of space before defensive technology comes to the point where there is no long range type of equivalent of the modern ICBM.

Originally posted by inimalist
the Russians claim their modern missiles are able to penetrate anything the Americans have

Though I'm curious, I suppose I hope we never learn the answer

It's typical boasting and both sides do it. But it is impossible to stop an interceptor when it has 3 methods of tracking. They would have to be claiming "Star Trek" levels of cloaking which is a bit absurd on their part.

Originally posted by inimalist
The problem with such small scale stuff is that it is more of a psychological warfare than warfare aimed at destroying the enemy. People with briefcases and car bombs wont get close enough to destroy the military infrastructure. You could set one off in a very heavily populated area, however, you are unlikely to get one into [b]the place where they are manufacturing tanks or planes or whatever. Additionally, if would be far more difficult for coordinated first strikes, etc.

I'd suspect we'd see the militarization of space before defensive technology comes to the point where there is no long range type of equivalent of the modern ICBM. [/B]

What is the use of nuclear warfare other than to destroy civilians and military targets at the same time?

But, I would not put it past a new-age of nuclear weapons that are built from things like cars.

A nuke that is built to look like a functional car could be a discreet delivery method. Then there's the old school infiltration methods: spies. So combining the two into a delivery package is possible: nuking a military facility via car-bomb-nuke. The person delivers it because he or she works there. The warhead can be more than small enough, even at decent yields (100 Kt), to fit on a vehicle. The warhead from the MGM-52 is definitely small enough to be fit on a medium car (sedan). It would not take clever engineering, either. Bombs with higher yields could probably be custom built into cars for a very potent yet discreet delivery.

The only way to detect this stuff would be radiation leaks from the fission materials. They could mitigate this by having duplicate cars and never exposing the "deliverer" to the payload UNTIL the day of delivery.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
Which is why America would have Russia's number in a nuclear conflict.

Originally posted by Colossus-Big C
what does this mean?

unless cyber warfare renders many usa icbms usless. and cause submerines to go off course.

one of our stealth planes was hacked, now they have the tech to make stealth bombers. they say they can hack missles and make them go off course and even return and bomb its point of launch.

Originally posted by Colossus-Big C
wouldnt it be better to make one large nuke that will destroy a whole country than to deploy hundreds of regular nukes to specific areas?

Do you have any idea what the implications would be if an entire country were to be nuked? Could you imagine if the dearest people in your life were caught up in such a blast? Would it seem cool to you then?

First of all no one truly knows what lies behind the curtains of some countries, for all we know the most powerful military countries in the world are the ones feigning weakness, or crying broke. The best question would be, which country in our world has the least amount of debt.

Originally posted by Colossus-Big C
unless cyber warfare renders many usa icbms usless. and cause submerines to go off course.

Cyberwarfare very well could render nukes useless.

Warfare against control systems (PLCs and other systems used for things like electricity and water) is a new area that security is just now closely improving. Generally, hackers do not even mess with that stuff because it could actually kill someone. Hackers are more interested in the "high profile" targets. It does not get you lulz to kill an old-lady by cutting off her clean water supply or electricity. It does, however, get you lulz to hack the DoD.

But...it would be easy to hack into much of the control systems and do more monetary damage than a nuke could.

"Hacking the DoD" or "Hacking the CIA" inevitably means defacing their website. Systems like missile control would never be connected to the internet to begin with, you'd have to get into the building.

Originally posted by Stoic
Do you have any idea what the implications would be if an entire country were to be nuked? Could you imagine if the dearest people in your life were caught up in such a blast? Would it seem cool to you then?

First of all no one truly knows what lies behind the curtains of some countries, for all we know the most powerful military countries in the world are the ones feigning weakness, or crying broke. The best question would be, which country in our world has the least amount of debt.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
"Hacking the DoD" or "Hacking the CIA" inevitably means defacing their website. Systems like missile control would never be connected to the internet to begin with, you'd have to get into the building.

Originally posted by Stoic
First of all no one truly knows what lies behind the curtains of some countries, for all we know the most powerful military countries in the world are the ones feigning weakness, or crying broke.

Every major world power devotes resources to investigating that kind of thing. Weapons don't spring into existence out of nowhere. If Luxembourg started importing uranium by the truckfull everybody would know about it.

Originally posted by Colossus-Big C
Yes i do know something that will happen, thats why i need this information

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Every major world power devotes resources to investigating that kind of thing. Weapons don't spring into existence out of nowhere. If Luxembourg started importing uranium by the truckfull everybody would know about it.

I always knew the Greeks, the Irish, and Luxembourg were up to something.

Originally posted by Mindship
Then make sure you stock up on water and duct tape. Though if a nuclear exchange were big enough, you'd also need at least one good snow shovel.

Originally posted by Colossus-Big C
We have far more nukes than anyone and, have nukes like the Tsar Bomb which at full power is 6 times more powerful than any nuke on the planet.

( when they tested it it was holding back) they reduced it to half the power when testing so the bomber plane wouldnt get destroyed by the blast.
That was long ago emagine what they have now...

1: The Tsar bomba was tested at 50mt not because the plane would get destroyed but because the radiation generated would've contaminated half the Soviet block.

2: The Tsar Bomba was never deployable because there isn't a plane or a missle on earth capable of delivering it to this day.

3: The reason Russia developed more powerful bombs was to make up for the fact that their missiles were completely unreliable in actually hitting their targets.