What If? What if Russia's nukes were in just as good condition as their tanks and decided to launch ?

Scooby Doo

Well-known member
Let's say Russia decides to launch nukes but the representation of their equipment in Ukraine is also accurate to their nukes.

Would the risk of their nuclear arsenal be able to be mitigated because of this? Would Russia even have enough functional nukes to take out the EU and America?
 

The Whispering Monk

Well-known member
Osaul
It would be a shitshow, b/c any fault in a ballistic missile similar to what the tanks have undergone would more likely result in catastrophic failure.

I haven't seen any real hard numbers on the Russian army mechanical side about what percentage of equipment failed at what point...
Unable to leave the motor pool
unable to leave the assembly area
broken down in movement to battle area
breakdown after 24/48 hours hard use
etc...
You're really need those hard numbers to figure out your setup.
 

Scooby Doo

Well-known member
It would be a shitshow, b/c any fault in a ballistic missile similar to what the tanks have undergone would more likely result in catastrophic failure.

I haven't seen any real hard numbers on the Russian army mechanical side about what percentage of equipment failed at what point...
Unable to leave the motor pool
unable to leave the assembly area
broken down in movement to battle area
breakdown after 24/48 hours hard use
etc...
You're really need those hard numbers to figure out your setup.

Let's say three scenarios


30% bad
60% bad
80% bad


Bad meaning incapable of being used for it's original intended purposes.
 

Scottty

Well-known member
Founder
I doubt they've neglected their strategic stuff, but let's break it down:
A nuclear-armed ICBM consists of at least these 3 components:
1) The propulsion system - it's a big ol' rocket
2) The guidance system - built in computers that steer it in the right direction
3) The warhead or warheads

So... failure to launch/blow up on attempted launch? Not good for the people in the area, but probably no nuclear fallout.
Launches, but the guidance system malfunctions? Please no, this would be bad, bad, bad...
Goes where it's meant to, but the warhead fizzles? Not really so bad, but still probably a radioactive mess over the target.
 

The Whispering Monk

Well-known member
Osaul
Let's say three scenarios


30% bad
60% bad
80% bad
I'll just assume that this is total for the Missile Force, and that these numbers include the 15-20% failure rate that was expected at the height of Russian/Soviet preparedness.

At 30% a number of cities around the world are going to glow in the dark. If we take their total ICBM (ground and sub based) at 1500 warheads, that means that your total working numbers are 1050/600/300.

The problem for Russia is that these numbers are spread across all global targets...US, Europe, China, Japan, Other Places. At least half will likely be targeted just at the USA, maybe up to 75%. Let's just say 50% US, 20% EU/UK, 15% China, 5% Japan and 10% Other places. So warhead count is like this: USA 525/300/150, EU/UK 210/120/60, China 152/36/18, Japan 21/12/6, Other Places 105/24/12

Other places are likely too poor to have capable interceptors and just get can'd sunshine.

Japan will have interceptor capability, and, if no one else launched against them, they'd likely do OK.

China is probably FUBAR'd even if they have some interceptor capability I don't know about. The Dam gets whacked, and flooding, starvation, death and are rampant.

EU/UK is going to have an ugly time of it. They'll have some interceptors but little response time. UK probably does the best with France and Spain close 2nds. Course, "best" still means lots of people have instantaneous and terminal suntans. How bad it gets really depends on what gets whacked. I can easily see quite a few countries lose governmental control. Services crash, and many people will die as a result. Lack of medicines and easy access to food and clean water the main culprits.

US will suffer the greatest volume of fire, but we're best suited to deal with it.
I have no idea if we have a deployed asset capable of intercepts within the boost phase. If we do, it's a game changer, and we get off much lighter than anyone else. Each missile killed then means multiple warheads removed from the equation.
Then you get into all the phases of our multilayered anti-missile shield systems. High, medium and short range intercepts. THAAD is expected to field up to 1,400 missiles able to engage at altitudes of up to 150-200km. I've not seen recent numbers confirmed, but I know that up to 200 were delivered by 2016. These may be able to engage the full package before the MIRVs separate, but I doubt it.
Then you've got the PAC-3 Patriots that cover altitudes of 2-10km. Spam the launches to kill the warheads. The PAC 3 is said to be extremely capable and able to make kills on MRBMs. Not sure if they've ever executed a kill against a full blown ICBM target.
The whole system is tested but untried. I know it'll get some shoot downs. If we have 1400 THAAD missiles ready to go...let's say 10% fail right away. That leaves around 1260 Let's be mean and say the hit rate is only 35% in a confused target environment. That's 440 warheads knocked out; more if they hit missiles before MIRV sep.
Then it's spam the patriots and everything else that might reach a warhead, and is ready.

With those numbers the US gets hit no more than 85/0/0 at the max with those numbers. Which is scarily good for the US all things considered. The 85 will likely be degraded by Patriot fire and other systems. Shit will get through, and it'll suck. World supply being what it is, we'll also see a lot of people die due to lack of meds and food. Potentially lots of bad things.
 

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