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Comment by lionhearted | Hacker News Reader

Actually a pretty good article, despite the inaccuracies noted here in other comments. The author uses some hyperbole and makes some errors, but still an interesting discussion regarding phalanx vs. maneuver warfare.

While we're picking on individual parts, though -

> For missile silos, just target the enemy’s silos with lots of missiles and you can duke it out and win (just like the phalanx). If he puts his missiles on rail cars, you haven’t got a chance of hitting them all.

Technically that's true, but I think the reason countries use missile silos and stationary bases is actually for ability to protect key installations and arms during domestic unrest and rioting, which is a statistically much more likely problem for a world power than getting hit with a first strike from another major world power without any warning or preparation time.

Still, even with some errors and exaggerations, it was quite an interesting read.

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He misses the point entirely with missile silos. The backbone of the modern nuclear arsenal is the ballistic missile submarine. Far more mobile and far harder a target than any railborn missile.

Rails are quite easy to sabotage.

An intermediate solution are land mobile launch platforms:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT-2UTTKh_Topol_M

They have randomized patrol routes, so it is hard to track them, but they can launch thermonuclear MIRV warheads.

Yeah subs are a lot better but also a lot more expensive...

Subs aren't necessarily such a hugely expensive option though. A single typhoon or ohio class missile boat can carry up to about 200 total warheads. That's on the order of the entire nuclear arsenal for the average nuclear power (e.g. France, China, Israel, India). Considering the massive survivability boost of a submarine, it's one of the better bets as a nuclear deterrent backbone, provided you have the technology to build such things.

It sort of depends on the latest and greatest technology to be stealthy. For example, China, by putting all of its warheads in 2 or 3 subs would be putting all of its eggs in one basket. Those subs becomes the weakest link.

US probably has the capability to track other countries' subs, but it is a little harder to do that with hundreds of always moving launch platorms. Those are much cheaper to build and if they carry MIRV warheads, they can be very dangerous. It is of course possible to see them from a satellite but because they are always moving targetting them like one target a stationary silo is very different.

> I think the reason countries use missile silos and stationary bases is actually for ability to protect key installations and arms during domestic unrest and rioting, which is a statistically much more likely problem for a world power than getting hit with a first strike from another major world power...

You are very mistaken. The only reason domestic unrest is a more likely danger for a world power is because the country we are speaking of already has missile silos and stationary bases in the first place. Ownership of missile silos with nuclear warheads reduces chances of attack by a foreign power by such a huge amount that domestic unrest becomes a more realistic threat.

> You are mistaken. The only reason domestic unrest is a more likely danger for a world power is because the country we are speaking of already has missile silos and stationary bases in the first place.

Actually, I think you're mistaken, but let's think this through -

There's 200 countries in the world, roughly. Call the current world powers America, China, UK, Russia, and maybe a couple other European countries.

In any given year, there's a lot more chance of any given country having a riot/unrest than there is an attack by America, China, UK, or Russia. Like, much higher. And usually, there's considerable advance warning before attacks so you could prepare.

If you like, you can add in places with a decent mix of either high troop strength or very technologically advanced military - even adding in places like North Korea, Iraq before losing its various recent wars, and Israel doesn't seem to change the numbers that much. The chance of serious unrest in any given country in the world is much higher than the chance of attack by a militarily powerful nation.

We could check actual numbers if this isn't convincing, but the number of domestic insurrections every year are much higher than attacks by a major world power. And also, those usually come with more telegraphing beforehand than domestic unrest does.

You didn't take even a minute to think through before writing.

> And usually, there's considerable advance warning before attacks so you could prepare.

The key word is "usually". How usually is usually? When Nazis attacked the USSR, was there an advance warning? There was none. True, major attacks are rare, but when they do come, I would say about 50% of them are without warning. Yes, they are usually preceded by some diplomatic hostility, but not always. There were some 45 years of diplomatic hostility between the US and the USSR, yet there was no attack.

But the biggest thing you are missing is this: attacks on a major power by another major power are rare precisely because the country being attacked is a major power. Attacks of a major power on a minor country happen about every five years or so if recent history is any guide.

>You didn't take even a minute to think through before writing.

Side note from the referee: writing is a form of thinking things through, and even if it isn't you're distracting from the issue. 5 yard deduction and 2 minutes in the penalty box, plus parent gets a free shot.

"When Nazis attacked the USSR, was there an advance warning?"

Stalin had plenty of advance warning - there were even people defecting from the German ranks and telling them that the Germans were coming (they were probably shot for their troubles).

Even after the invasion started Stalin refused to believe the reports coming from frontline units for a long time after the invasion started.

See: http://www.simonsebagmontefiore.com/stalincourtredtsar.aspx

Intelligence information is speculative and absolutely cannot be compared to an official warning.

"official warning"

Does this mean you would only count it as a "warning" if the Nazis actually sent an envoy that said, "Hey, we're coming for you now?"

I'm not even sure what you guys are arguing about (though from a casual scan it appears to be something to do with the security of nuclear arms, and relative risk of those arms being compromised in a domestic uprising, versus destroyed by a foreign power) - but on HN, we have a tradition of civil discussion, so the comment, ""You didn't take even a minute to think through before writing."" is inappropriate here.

You may have a delightfully convincing and logical treatise on this topic, but if you lose your audience in the first sentence, we won't get the benefit of it.

A casual scan of the parent's commentary indicates some semblance of cognitive analysis of the issues at hand, so it's not even clear to me your analysis of their (lack of) thinking before exposition is accurate, and, regardless, you could have worded your position somewhat more politely - perhaps by identifying the flaws in their logic, rather than making a claim of lack of thought on their part.

A civil apology would go a long ways towards recovering traction in your discussion with them and convincing the readers of this thread of your good will.

I don't see how the argument is circular.

The previous and current nuclear strategy consists of a concept called TRIAD. Land, Sea and Air nuclear weapons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_triad

They all have their advantages and disadvantages and strategic uses. Taken together they are a complete package of nuclear strike capabilities. Nothing about it is obsolete as the author suggests.

Battleships also are hardly obsolete and also have advantages and disadvantages. For instance, when the Missouri class battleships were retired in the 90's, it was met with a great deal of opposition by the marines. No other weapon in the military arsenal could provide beach bombardment like the battleship; and certainly not for the low cost. The marines were promised a replacement - they are still waiting.

I think missile silos are stationary is pretty easy to understand. They're easier to guard and if you look at when they were built rather than their current functional use (its debatable if there is one when looking at SLBM and B-52/B-2 dropped nuclear weapons). In the 1950s, when ICBM projects began, the threat was not thermonuclear weapons, but fission weapons. It was thought that the silos might survive a direct/indirect attack on a facility.

After the advent of the hydrogen bomb, no harden target can really be called safe. Coupled with modern military GPS and you have a super-precise, super-powerful weapon.

And accuracies measured in hundreds of metres.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. "Real-world data show that some high-quality GPS SPS receivers currently attain better than 3 meter horizontal position accuracy" [1], and military GPS is even more accurate.

[1] http://www.pnt.gov/public/faq.shtml#accurate

Umm, that back in the time the missile silos were planned, there was no GPS? That combined with the relatively low-yield warheads meant that hardened silos were a viable weapon - they were likely to survive a first-strike.

Thanks for the downvote tho'.

I thought you were referring to the part where he talked about "modern military GPS."

And I'm not sure why you're so interested in downvotes, but it wasn't me.

The silo parks in USA are still nuke-proof. Because they are far enough apart that you can't get more than one per hit, and it has to be a low or groundburst, but close enough together that the first hit causes a cloud of dust that the subsequent missiles would have to go through to hit their targets. And a nuclear warhead in re-entry has no chance of surviving hitting that dust cloud.

This means that the silos are protecting each other -- you'd need to wait hours between hits to be able to land nukes on all of them. (Or hit them all within the minute.)

"The silo parks in USA are still nuke-proof"

So why the need for launch on warning? If you are confident that your missiles are going to be safe from a first strike you could sit there and take the damage.

What you describe sounds more like Dense Pack - which I don't think was ever implemented:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dense_Pack

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