Where to hide your nuclear missile submarine? | Hacker News Reader

Where to hide your nuclear missile submarine?

sattrackcam.blogspot.com

77 pointsinfosecrf58 comments

If you detect a massive ICBM launch from Russia, you know what to do - nuke Russia. You have half an hour to launch before Russian missiles take out all silos.

Now what do you do if you detect SLBM launch from somewhere in the Pacific Ocean? Who do you nuke?

The US is peculiar with its nuclear policy in trying to guarantee immediate response, by contrast say the UK only has nuclear submarines at sea, and it's expected that there'll be nothing like an immediate response, rather the captains of those submarines will find out who nuked the UK and respond.

So the answer for deterrence purposes is you don't need to nuke anyone right away, immediate response is only one layer of the onion when it comes to nuclear deterrence.

If you rely only on submarines for deterrence then you don't need satellites detecting launches in the first place. I don't think UK or France have (or need) that capability.

That's not how it works. The US also relies on the ability to promptly respond to a first strike, which say the UK does not.

What I'm pointing out is that you've conflated two things. Just because one aspect of your deterrence is the ability to launch your land-based ICBMs within 30 minutes, that doesn't mean that the inability to do so (e.g. because you don't know who struck you) means that you're out of options.

Besides, there's no way someone could amass enough SLBMs in the Pacific to take out two aspects of the US's nuclear triad without the US knowing who owns those submarines.

I was trying to explain why it is more important for the satellites to quickly detect launches from land.

With SLBMs you have other options. You can have your attack submarine shadowing enemy's ballistic missile submarine, or surface ASW ships patrolling the area that can detect the first launch and try to sink the ballistic missile submarine before it can launch its remaining missiles.

Sure, I'm just replying to your question of "Who do you nuke? [if you don't know who launched a missile against you]", which it seems to me is implicitly assuming that if someone nukes you you must nuke someone back right then and there.

That's nobody's nuclear posture, it's just a subset of the posture of the US, Russia, China etc.

The US is peculiar with its nuclear policy in trying to guarantee immediate response

This doctrine is called "launch on warning". It hasn't been official US policy for 20 years[1]: In 1997, the Clinton administration changed the official policy away from launch on warning to one of retaliation after withstanding an initial first strike.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_on_warning

I'm referring to the policy of still maintaining the systems necessary to launch on warning, past promises about how the systems will be used are just PR.

It's not like in a hypothetical scenario where Russia has launched hundreds of ICBMs at the US in a first strike scenario Trump (or any other president) is going to feel beholden to some promise Clinton made in the 90s.

The president has absolute power over when and how to launch nuclear weapons, and can do so at a moment's notice, as has been covered extensively in the media in the last year where people seemed shocked that the president had this power since they didn't like the new person in office, even though the power itself hasn't changed in more than half a century.

Per the long standing tradition in western diplomacy, blame the russians. You might not know why but they will know.

The only openly hostile country with SLBMs is Russia.

So Russia is probably the best choice.

IIRC both have about 60 subs and Russia is back at their post-1991 strength.

See the recent WaPo article about them mapping undersea cables.

Russia is hostile? By what metric?

Annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Support for the only active war on Europe.

Destabilization of EU, NATO, US elections.

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Take a look at Russian TV and polls. The Russian government (TV propaganda) and people (Putin has 80+ approval) do not want to be friends. (Unless you are Syria, Iran or North Korea).

> Russia is hostile? By what metric?

Would the metric of having invaded two sovereign nations in the last few years count?

By that metric, isn’t US then the world’s enemy?

Non-American here. There has been a role switch. We've always been at war with Eastasia.

Where formerly the right harboured the deepest suspicions of Russia, the liberals have taken over the position, probably as a scapegoat for political retreats.

Posts on HN such as yours and probably mine will turn gray-white fast since if you haven't sufficiently disavowed Goldstein then you are probably a collaborator.

How do you know North Korea has no SLBMs? They seem to be making good progress recently.

Because it's way harder to make a SSBN.

A year ago few people believed North Korea can build a hydrogen bomb, or an ICBM capable of reaching continental US.

I don’t think Norks has any functioning subs at the moment, and certainly nothing of the size to hold an SLBM.

They have 20 Romeo-class submarines, and can probably modify some of those to launch a relatively small ballistic missile.

First observation. Romeo-class = Soviet diesel-electric submarine, built in the 1950s = loud = easy to detect by US sonar. If the US knows a NK sub happens to be in the area where there was a launch, then I think they can draw a reasonable conclusion.

Second observation: Wikipedia says "Range: 14,484km (9,000 miles) at 9 knots".

Great circle distance from Pyongyang to Lima is 10,100 miles. http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=ZKPY-SPJC&DU=mi . That direct route goes through Utah, so the ocean-only route will be longer.

Pyongyang to Lima via Hilo is 10,550 miles. http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=ZKPY-ITO-SPJC&DU=mi . That's not much longer. Still, it's a reminder that we're talking about a spot almost at the other side of the world from NK.

On the other hand, http://www.russianwarrior.com/STMMain.htm?1947vec_Romeo.htm&... says that the range at snorkel is "7,000 nautical miles at 5 knots" while on the surface it's "16,000 nautical miles at 10 knots". That's 8,000 and 18,000 miles, respectively. Which means about 3,000 miles on the surface (=visible by satellite) followed by the rest at snorkel depth. And a one-way trip.

If I were the US Navy, and saw a NK sub travel towards the Americas for thousands of miles, I think I would keep a close eye on it.

Third observation: The NK Sinpo class submarine appears to have been built to 1) replace the Romeo class subs, and 2) be armed with an KN-11 ballistic missile. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pukkuksong-1 . The longest estimated range for that missile is 2,000-2,500 km . Then again, the submarine itself has an estimated range of only 2,800 km.

The GC distance from Lima to Brownsville, TX is almost 3,000 miles, so well further than NK's relatively small ballistic missile can manage from that gap in US satellite surveillance.

So even if a Romeo-class submarine weren't detected via sonar, and had the range to get to that gap, and were modified to support a submarine-launched ballistic missile, it doesn't seem like that missile could reach the US.

Or, to quote from the last Wikipedia link:

> The Korean People's Navy has no nuclear submarines, and no diesel-electric submarines equipped with air independent propulsion (AIP), so the launch submarine's range (and by extension the missile's) is limited and assuredly prevents it from threatening America's western seaboard.

> Given their submarines' insufficient power to outrun U.S. Navy nuclear attack submarines and lack of aerial and surface coverage to protect them out to long distances, they cannot venture far out to sea, ..

> ... because of its finite power capacity, the sub would have to surface or snorkel for air to recharge its batteries if it remains hiding for an extended period, making it vulnerable to anti-submarine warfare (ASW) efforts.

You cannot nuke anybody, and you have no possibility of defense neither. That's why those cold war nuclear games were over, as soon as the Russian's had their subs, and the US had Incilik.

I choose to belive this is an amazing disinfo honeypot, and seal teams are waiting nearby with trained dolphins and magnetic explosives.

Yes, I am serious. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_dolphin

> Where would you direct your submarine, and where would you best fire you missiles, from the perspective of an as-late-as-possible space-based detection of your missile launches?

Honest question - is this the function you'd be optimizing for? What are the implications of earlier space-based detection of a launch? Presumably fast detection of a launch plume would help you find and hunt down the sub, but at that point the missiles are already in the air. I would think that the more important factor is where to hide to minimize chance of detection prior to the launch.

You want to minimise the adversary's chance to put in place proper evacuation or countermeasures.

It's assumed that a submarine can travel in the ocean for long periods without detection. I don't know whether this is still considered to be true by military strategists, but it's a large part of the motivation behind having nuclear-armed submarines in the first place.

A submarine is at least pretty stealthy, but the heat signature of a missile launch is impossible to hide.

Another way to look at it: the satellite systems described in the article (SBIRS and DSP) are optimised for early detection of a launch. So when considering the deficiencies of those systems, it's correct to consider a hypothetical adversary who optimises for the opposite.

Due to projection distortions, the size of the area was visually misleading. An area-maintaining projection would be a more accurate way to communicate this data.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map_projection#Projections_b...

I would guess that it would be exactly the area where hunter submarines will be roaming.

During my DoD days, I worked on the first 4 SBIRS satellites as well as some nuclear subs earlier on. I'm glad to see some of my DoD work in the news in a non-negative light.

The title is very misleading. This just talks about Earth coverage of missile launch detection system according to publicly available information. This has nothing to do with detecting submarines.

presumably the reason you would have IR satellites looking for launch plumes in the middle of the ocean is in fact to detect submarine-based launches

The deployment of submarines is rather orthogonal to the coverage by early detection warnings. Detection is not helpful if the flight time of missile is less then reaction time. So one wants to deploy close to US coast line irrespective of detection coverage. Besides, launching from South Pacific means US will have plenty of time to detect the warhead with normal radars.

Both RF and US operate FBM forces as deterrent second-strike forces. This is not only the operational reality but also the treaty-regulated deployed configuration.

Optimizing deployment in the manner you describe is not aligned to the current mission of these forces / our deterrence relationship.

That's not necessarily true anymore. The Russians have deployed the Sineva and the Layner SLBMs which have GLONASS supplemental guidance. This makes no sense in a second strike scenario. The Trident II is also plenty accurate for a counterforce first strike and allows less reaction time than ICBMs.

There is a complementary land based system for detecting ballistic missiles. It's more limited in coverage and also has more-or-less the same blind spot: not much coverage of missiles launching from directly south of CONUS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_State_Phased_Array_Radar...

Um, it seems to me you'd direct your submarine close to the coast of a city and your missile launch would not need ICBMs.

In fact, I am worried about TacNukes - like the kind we see in James Bond movies - being smuggled INTO A CITY!

https://www.wired.com/2002/11/nukes-2/

Here is an article about loose nukes.

North Korea has ALREADY given Syria nuclear material to build a functioning nuclear weapons facility. Google "operation orchard".

I am worried that, as soon as we attack its regime, some sleeper group would use nukes somewhere.

And what do we do in general with rogue nukes? How exactly are they accounted for across every country?

You're probably down voted because actual discussion would lead to the Samson Option.

Probably a large portion of the forum thinks the subject is itself immoral. That option isn't specifically anti-semitic even if it gets those undertones, we should expect every nuclear capable state has come up with items of that sort and more like destroying an innocent non-nuclear state to demonstrate convincing evidence for convictions.

What's the Samson Option?

You should not be nuked because those are real questions. I think we have organizations (not legal) which kill anybody attempting the variations of what you describe.

We sleep soundly because there exist men willing to do inhuman things to ensure our security. It's unpleasant until compared to the other options. That's what genuine heroism is like. When Putin is praising that organization he is thinking of something like this. We live very sheltered lives I think.

It has been speculated Pakistan is already playing with tactical nukes and using unmarked vehicles to move them around the country, because they fear the USA will disarm them ala the bin Ladin raid on a larger scale. They already do not move nuclear materials in armed convoys because that would make them stand out and a target for anyone in a pretty divided country so they use unmarked vehicles. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/12/the-all...

"Asking for a friend."

In fairness, nothing ruins Christmas faster than the kids stumbling across the nuclear missile submarine you bought them.

I'll never forget the scale model of one I found under the tree Christmas morning back in Florida not long after the Cuban missile crisis.

Naturally in school we were rehearsing in case of a strike but very few fallout shelters existed so we improved our response time for getting in position safely underneath our desks.

I wonder if you could social engineer that. So when you start 'asking for a friend' you don't go with the major item that makes someone think 'wow this must be for him'. You start with lesser items and over time build up to the thing you want 'for the friend'. Hence tenderizing the target and making them less likely to question why you are asking. Because they already 'know you'.

I was trying to explain to my wife the concept. The example that I used was the person who wants the retail store password. They don't call the store and say over the phone 'hey I am at the Global Mall Store and forgot my password can I have yours?'. Immediate red flag. They start with something simpler and build a reputation as legit. Something like 'hey I am at the Global Mall Store are they saying you have to work until 7pm on Christmas also?' [1]

[1] Then follow that up with other requests over weeks finally culminating the 'password' question.

>"Orange Squeeze"

I am seriously, completely confident that name would fool the person it's meant to.

What is the purpose of publishing information like this?

At best, it’s trivia, at worst it provides advantage to a rogue nuclear power with active concentration camps.

You honestly think that such a "rogue nuclear power with active concentration camps" couldn't figure this out on their own?

Yes

Why? It's all public information. And the sense I've gotten is that the North Korean engineers overall seem competent, they just lack resources.

To play devils advocate, their resources being limited is a huge boon to our reletive superiority. This post does in effect concentrate them into an actionable plan, with minimal effort. That said, I am pretty sure the dark zone is only theoretical, due to limited publicly available data on likely classified access.

they can develop a fully-fledged nuclear program with ICBMs and hydrogen bombs but they can't scour public resources about launch detection systems

Which rogue nuclear power with active concentration camps do you have in mind? The USA?

I think the person is referring to North Korea - which has active concentration camps.

I think nerdponx is being deliberately ambiguous.

One problem is that "concentration camp" can mean something like "extermination camp" or something like "internment camp".

The US has a long history of concentration/detainment camps - Native Americans in the 1800s, in the Philippines around 1900, the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII, the recent internments at Guantanamo, Bagram, and likely elsewhere.

Some of those latter ones still exist.

Another issue is that "rogue state" is a controversial term. Quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_state :

> Both Noam Chomsky and William Blum have used the term in the title of their respective books to categorise the United States as the biggest rogue state in the world and thereby highlight the irony and hypocrisy implicit in the use of the term by the United States.

When I'm felling cynical, it seems that "rogue state" - as it's used by people in the US - refers to any country not willing to agree to US demands or wishes.

I'm sure the intersection of these is not empty, that is, there are likely many people who regard the US as a rogue state with active concentration camps.

I genuinely forgot about North Korea for a minute, so I thought they were being ambiguous and I was really curious to know what "concentration camps" might have meant. I assumed it was Gitmo, or some other heinous offshore prison I hadn't heard about yet.

Thanks for the benefit of the doubt! I'm OK with the US being a rogue state at this point, it seems fitting.

In that case, I hope we're also embargoing Tom Clancy, Michael DiMercurio, and Patrick Robinson paperbacks from said rogue state.

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