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Comment by GeorgeTirebiter | Hacker News Reader

It's important to note this is a Nuclear sub. https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a37898620/... If the Navy can't successfully run these complicated machines, perhaps we need to re-think the USA's need for submarine assets in the first place. Or at least, the role of the Nuclear Submarine in 21st Century warfare; perhaps fewer, higher-tech units --- with crack seal-type units only operating them --- might make more sense. High automation. Robotics. Things like that. For sure, never give a meatbag a job better performed by automation.

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They are ridiculously complicated to operate. Teslas can't avoid hitting stuff on the road completely, I wouldn't feel great about having one completely automated and deciding for itself when to initiate nuclear war if it isn't in communications range. I highly doubt they were all sitting around drinking beers and not watching the road in front of them, but it would be good to wait until we have more information before throwing the sailors under the bus.

> with crack seal-type units only operating them

There already are highly skilled individuals that operate them. Seal team members are in limited supply and think it makes more sense to have those that are more intellectually strong run them.

They are a deterrent and non-nuclear submarines have large drawbacks when in combat. China has become more and more aggressive and they have scaled up their nuclear missile silos a bunch in recent years, have been sprinting towards a large more effective navy and I don't think they will have qualms about using morally questionable tech.

exactly, main feature/drawback of any computer is =

they do not know what reality is, they can compute/evaluate only that which they obtain by some flawed means.

> it makes more sense to have those that are more intellectually strong run them.

Ridiculous implication that Naval Special Warfare is somehow “intellectually weak” when there are multiple Trident wearers who have qualified as astronauts or went on to Ivy League schools.

How do you get that implication? Did I say they were weak? "More strong“ just means they are stronger. I'm sure there are lots of geniuses in the seals as well but I would have to guess that nuclear physicists are on average smarter.

US needs atleast 30 MIRV // MITRV inside submerged submarines at all times, to be succesfull in MAD

US means it can be US + UK because reasons.

US could lose all SLBM nuclear missile subs and still assure destruction, because of the triad.

Land based ICBMs are more accurate than SLBMs and would launch in retaliation.

The US has stealth cruise missiles it can launch from bombers.

The US has the B1 and B2 bombers that can deliver nukes.

Many Navy ships can launch nuclear cruise missiles.

The USA is the only superpower that has such robust nuclear weapons delivery via a triad (land, air, sea). With Russian SLBM subs it is said they are so noisy that US attack subs are always silently tailing them after they leave port and can take them out before they can launch. Russia and China really only have robust land-based ICBMs. If all of those could be preemptively attacked (by stealth strikes and commando raids) then the US could potentially win a nuclear war. Not that we'd want to try.

I have a hard time imagining the odds of raiding every silo in Russia at the same moment.

I have a hard time imagining that all their silos (or ours) would work as expected.

I think if the silo fails they make an airman drive out with a can opener.

1 or 2 hour global fracorbit strike on demand fries every submarine tracked from newspace capability in the Atlantindopac is next level MAD.

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