[mathinpens]

handful = 14 boats on deterrence patrols. there are literally 1000 warheads on active american boomers with superfusing.....

If literally one submarine survives this amazing russian counterstrike by taking out every single other ohio class at once that still leaves a counterforce of at most 12*24 = 288 warheads. that is 144 to burn russian cities and 144 to burn chinese cities. to me that seems like a credible strike.

and this is still assuming literally NO land based or air deliverable weapons are left. ... considering the spotty accuracy of russian missiles (seriously go look up their CEP ratios - do you even know what CEP stands for? ) I find that scenario very unlikely.

China is widely believed to have only 270 warheads...

https://thebulletin.org/how-us-nuclear-force-modernization-u...

[staunch]

1. The US claims to have 14 active but that doesn't account for maintenance problems and the times when they're going in and out of port, something enemies track very closely. The real number is likely even lower than this already low number.

2. Why do you think superfuzes helps in a counter strike? They massively increase accuracy but that's not even the problem to solve in a MAD scenario. Superfuzes help in taking out an enemy's nuclear force while it's on the ground, as in the case of a first strike. You don't need them to hit cities.

3. Counting warheads is misleading because it ignores the possibility of interception or failure of the missiles themselves. Countering some number of those 24 missiles is entirely conceivable.

4. Yes, I know what CEP means because I too have read pages on Wikipedia. Is this your weak attempt at claiming expertise where none likely exists?

5. Here's an open letter from the actual experts that ran the US Strategic Command. They agree with me that the US nuclear triad is in dire need of modernization.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-u-s-nuclear-triad-needs-an-...

Some of their recommendations have already been implemented and a lot more needs to be done before we can rely on MAD being in effect in the future.

6. Putting the hopes of humanity on a few subs that were designed in the 1970s is a very dangerous idea. It's an admission that the triad is broken. When you've let two thirds of your redundant system fail, you've got a very urgent problem.

[0xdead_beef]

Don't you think any of those 1970s subs have seen modernization efforts?

[staunch]

Have they been upgraded? Yes. Have they replaced those 1970s era engines with subs that have quieter electric drives as planned? Nope.

From the open letter (linked above) by the experts: "The last concentrated investment to modernize the triad came during the Reagan administration."

Even if you believe the subs are in great condition, that doesn't fix the other two fundamentally broken legs of the triad. The B-52 fleet would likely get shot down because they're very slow and non-stealthy. The ICBMs probably don't even work (no public evidence they do), they're in well known static silos, and have just a few minutes of "use or lose" time.

[mathinpens]

you do realize the ohio replacement class is literally in development right now.

> The ICBMs probably don't even work (no public evidence they do), they're in well known static silos, and have just a few minutes of "use or lose" time.

They fire off a few randomly selected minuteman IIIs every so often and the footage is typically public. maybe not perfect evidence but it is some evidence.