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Comment by flyaway123 | Hacker News Reader

Just curious - if the usage of acronym here a soft-euphemism? (So that only those who knew or care to know gets it)

edit: Thanks for the clarifications. That helps. I'm asking for 2 reasons:

  1. Discussing "nukes" openly where I come from would raise some eyebrows.

  2. I see acronyms used on HN frequently - sometimes ambiguously even considering the context.

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I don't think so, people could just say "nukes" but there are plenty of nukes that aren't capable of hitting targets halfway around the world. ICBM seems like the fastest way of saying "nukes that can hit stuff really far away" while also making a distinction from sub launched and cruise missile launched nukes.

The payload on the missile doesn't need to be a nuclear weapon of any sort. The important thing about the ICBM is that being further away doesn't stop it. Nuclear weapons are the obvious choice because it's hard to imagine why you want to strike something so very far away, at such great expense, with conventional explosives.

The German V2 rocket from World War II has a maximum range of about 320km. So you literally can't fire one from say Berlin to London. They were actually launched from coastal sites in the Netherlands and other occupied countries, and as the Allies took territory after Overlord, the targets changed to cities nearer Germany because the launchers were pulled back.

ICBM is a very common term. For example, the NY Times uses it in headlines. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/24/world/asia/north-korea-ba...

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