In an age of ICBMs with MIRVs, how relevant is it to station nukes close to their possible targets?
EDIT: Come on, this is a genuine question, has missile defence technology become good enough that it can defend against a missile with MIRVs launched from the other side of the world but not against those launched from a closer country?
First, flight time is a thing. ICBM flight time is about half an orbital period. Launching from closer shortens that a lot. There are cases where this is important, but that’s not the likely issue here.
What I think is going on here is that we’re talking about relatively small bombs (as far as nuclear weapons go) launched or dropped from airplanes. There are similar setups all over central and southern Europe, for example at Aviano in Italy and Incirlik in Turkey.
I’m not exactly certain what their propose is in current NATO doctrine, but in the Cold War they were intended to counter massed armor formations (ie. Tank assaults) from the eastern block. For that mission you need precise targeting of moving targets, which could not be done with 1970 era inertial guidance. Hence, planes.
A lot of things have happened in Europe over the past few years, and it’s not unreasonable to plan for scenarios where you have to fight off a tank assault on say Poland or Estonia. Why the UK instead of further east? Good question. It might be political expediency over tactical considerations.
Personally I think I’d be livid if I were the UK. Participating in US nuclear sharing arrangements makes a mockery of their already borderline credible independent deterrent. If you are a serious nuclear weapon state, you perform this mission with your own bombs on your own planes.
Personally, i’d recommend Perun’s excellent video on the topic of your curious on the present state of nuclear deterrence, though it is several months old at this point.
In an age of ICBMs with MIRVs, how relevant is it to station nukes close to their possible targets?
EDIT: Come on, this is a genuine question, has missile defence technology become good enough that it can defend against a missile with MIRVs launched from the other side of the world but not against those launched from a closer country?
There are two things at play here.
First, flight time is a thing. ICBM flight time is about half an orbital period. Launching from closer shortens that a lot. There are cases where this is important, but that’s not the likely issue here.
What I think is going on here is that we’re talking about relatively small bombs (as far as nuclear weapons go) launched or dropped from airplanes. There are similar setups all over central and southern Europe, for example at Aviano in Italy and Incirlik in Turkey. I’m not exactly certain what their propose is in current NATO doctrine, but in the Cold War they were intended to counter massed armor formations (ie. Tank assaults) from the eastern block. For that mission you need precise targeting of moving targets, which could not be done with 1970 era inertial guidance. Hence, planes.
A lot of things have happened in Europe over the past few years, and it’s not unreasonable to plan for scenarios where you have to fight off a tank assault on say Poland or Estonia. Why the UK instead of further east? Good question. It might be political expediency over tactical considerations.
Personally I think I’d be livid if I were the UK. Participating in US nuclear sharing arrangements makes a mockery of their already borderline credible independent deterrent. If you are a serious nuclear weapon state, you perform this mission with your own bombs on your own planes.
Interesting, thank you, it seems like this subject is something I need more up to date info about, I’ll have to do some reading later!
Personally, i’d recommend Perun’s excellent video on the topic of your curious on the present state of nuclear deterrence, though it is several months old at this point.
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