VMF vs. USN scenarios

Emmm...you know that 2058 nuclear weapons were already tested? 528 were atmospheric explosions and 1530 were underground. From 5 kt to 50 mt all kind of nuclear bombs were tested. And...surprise, surprise...we still live! And the world is not radioactive wasted.

Surprise..surprise.. none of them was launched at a city full of millions of people. And they were not lunched at the same time.

With even 500 bomb you can totally destroy a country as big as the US. 200 for the biggest cities and 200 to make all their agricultural areas radioactive. And the rest against strategical targets like ports, nuclear power plants and dam...

The first iteration of the GBI system the US was going to build in Europe only had modest performance parameters, but the second and third tranche upgrades were going to improve and upgrade the systems to the point where they could intercept most things and had enormous potential.

Who cares if it worked or not, the core problem was that if they thought it would work they might think a surprise attack on Russia might damage or defeat a good percentage of their nuclear weapons... lets say an optimistic 60%... and being American a 10% failure rate because they think Russians are idiots, which leaves 30% of their weapons for the ABM system to deal with... 30% of 1,500 is still 450 warheads, but teh GBI system in Europe and ABM missiles on AEGIS class cruisers in the Arctic ocean could be engaging Russian missiles just after launch so maybe 80 missiles with 5 warheads each, so smack down 80% of those, which means you take out 360 warheads leaving 90 warheads left and those 100 interceptors in Alaska, going for SLBMs and ICBMs as well as US fighter aircraft like the F-22 flying in the far north searching for cruise missile launches and bombers that release these cruise missiles...

The numbers start to get a bit patchy, but Politicians are idiots and when they hear that 30 warheads might get through they might think that is acceptable as long as they think none of the warheads will hit their home...

When you then say well... the Thunderbirds and Poseidon could be launched at any time and could hit any time any where so you might think you won and then these nukes start exploding all over the place and you realise nobody wins...

The purpose of Poseidon and Thunderbird is to make nuclear war seem like not an option because winning is not possible... acceptable losses are no possible... the west will call them revenge weapons and doomsday weapons, but really they are MAD weapons that prevent conflict.