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#Post#: 217--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Military Realism Thread, MK-1: The dummy stage
By: Tarfu Date: May 8, 2015, 12:00 am
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Well, one can easily have a ballistic missile without a nuclear
warhead. Just as a nation may deliberately choose go go the
route of diesel-electric for a sub, instead of nuclear powered.
I wouldn't discount a nation's conventional warfare capability
simply because they are not nuclear capable, as nobody would
realistically want to escalate themselves to a nuclear war
anyway. Such an escalation would simply lead to their ultimate
undoing in short order.
#Post#: 223--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Military Realism Thread, MK-1: The dummy stage
By: Caos Date: May 8, 2015, 6:40 am
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That's not the point. The point is that conventional is not cost
effective, and the enemy doesn't know what's inside it. Hence
they fear nuclear attack.
#Post#: 236--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Military Realism Thread, MK-1: The dummy stage
By: Tarfu Date: May 8, 2015, 12:12 pm
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Conventional warfare is the only cost effective method of
fighting a war, considering the risks involved.
There are other costs involved as well; the long term storage of
the wastes generated, the various risks associated with that,
the infrastructure development and maintenance costs, the
cleanup costs involved when things go wrong, the cleanup costs
associated with decommissioning obsolete or worn out equipment,
the human costs involved with all of the above (especially when
bad things happen); the costs have costs. Spending all of that
money on something that you ultimately can't use anyway is not
an intelligent use of resources.
Say you have one of your nuclear subs has an accident or is
destroyed in a conflict in an important fishery in your
territorial waters; you now have a food source denied to your
people for several thousand years. An even worse, but likely
scenario is that one gets destroyed while guarding the entrance
to a port; now the area around your port in uninhabitable.
Consider that your enemy may not be nuclear capable and you are;
a very simple and cheap way for him to cause catastrophic damage
to large swaths of your territory is to simply target your
reactors. One ICBM that's NOT nuclear tipped can easily have
the same effect as a nuclear weapon by causing your own reactors
to go critical on you.
#Post#: 237--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Military Realism Thread, MK-1: The dummy stage
By: Caos Date: May 8, 2015, 12:13 pm
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And yet you have to apply that to conventional weaponry as well.
Nuclear is not as unsafe as everyone thinks, and is much more
cost effective. A MIRV can launch ten thermonuclear weapons at
once. Ten cities potentially destroyed. And for the same cost of
launching, a conventional warhead might take out one, two, three
blocks. For that cost, you might as well bomb them. Not launch
ICBMs. MRBMs and SRBMs are the only cost effective conventional
weaponry for their size. Everything bigger is a waste of money,
usually.
#Post#: 239--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Military Realism Thread, MK-1: The dummy stage
By: Caos Date: May 8, 2015, 12:25 pm
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Nuclear reactors do not make nuclear explosions when they go
critical. This is important to understand. Critical reactors go
critical; they melt, hiss, or make steam explosions. There is no
chance for a nuclear explosion. Ships with nuclear reactors are
designed not to be a big impact upon sinking.
#Post#: 246--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Military Realism Thread, MK-1: The dummy stage
By: david090366 Date: May 8, 2015, 3:54 pm
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Just from looking at specs for American nuclear vessels my best
guess (because I'm not privy to why our admiralty decide
things)why they use nuclear reactors instead of more
conventional propulsion on aircraft carriers and subs is because
they want to build exceptionally large vessels but don't want to
use the space in them conventional propulsion would take up.
Nuclear Marine Propulsion gives you much more bang for the buck
in terms of power output. On the aircraft carriers they want to
build huge vessels that can haul an entire air wing. These would
take extremely large conventional power plants to propel at the
speeds they want (30+ knots). In a submarine space is always an
issue and the United States has designed even our fast attack
subs so they can launch surface to surface missiles (Tomahawk
land attack and Harpoon anti-ship) in the Los Angeles class. So
to give space for carrying the missiles they use nuclear
propulsion once again. Another good example of this is the
Soviet Kirov class, one of the largest surface combatants
afloat. About the size of a battleship it carries more missiles
than you could shake a stick at and has a rather unique nuclear
with conventional boost power system for achieving higher
speeds.
#Post#: 248--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Military Realism Thread, MK-1: The dummy stage
By: Caos Date: May 8, 2015, 4:25 pm
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Not so much space as it is power projection.
The aircraft carriers are essential to our power projection, so
a ship with long range and less refueling between missions is
key. A ship that can survive for hundreds of days with the only
limitation being the crew is immensely powerful. The same for
submarines. The best part of the Ballistic Missile subs is the
amount of power they hold, and the second and first strike
capability. Submarines that last hundreds of days without
needing to return means a better chance at surviving a nuclear
strike.
#Post#: 249--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Military Realism Thread, MK-1: The dummy stage
By: Tarfu Date: May 8, 2015, 4:51 pm
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I didn't say a nuclear explosion. I never said anything of the
sort. You can, however, cause it to spew radiation and isotopes
all over the place, which is far more destructive in the long
run than localized blast damage.
#Post#: 250--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Military Realism Thread, MK-1: The dummy stage
By: Caos Date: May 8, 2015, 4:54 pm
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No, and no. No to all of what you said. Reactors are especially
protected against internal and external penetration or leakage,
and it would take a bunker buster to damage it. In addition,
there would not be much radiation leakage, as as soon as the
missiles are detected, the plant is likely to be shut down. I
doubt even the missile would reach it in the first place.
A nuclear explosion is far more devastating than something like
Chernobyl. Chernobyl was also a worst case scenario. Trust me.
That's not likely to happen.
#Post#: 251--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Military Realism Thread, MK-1: The dummy stage
By: Tarfu Date: May 8, 2015, 4:59 pm
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Oh really? All it took to make four of them to pop in japan was
a wave.
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