dand@tekigm.UUCP (Dan C. Duval) (12/09/83)
Greg Stephens makes a case for how difficult it would be for the Air Force
to accidently launch its missiles in the US. By the same token, it would
be difficult to launch Europe-based missiles and the Strategic Air Command
bombers, but all of this is dependent on one thing:
The FAILSAFE system.
According to the Failsafe scheme, the President has the only key that allows
the US missile forces for launch or the airborne bomber weapons to arm.
However, if the radio link between his control case (that Air Force officer
that is always following him around with a small suitcase-- that suitcase is
the Failsafe control) and Omaha/Cheyenne Mountain is broken, then the SAC
commanding officer has temporary control until the Vice President (or whoever
else is supposed to be the new President) has the Failsafe control, or that
communication is reestablished with the President's control. So some schmuck
puts a bullet into the case instead of the President and for several minutes at
least some essentially unknown general has the power to launch.
Now for the bad news.
The US Navy ballistic missile submarines are not on the Failsafe system. Boring
holes in the ocean is not conducive to decent radio reception, so the Failsafe
system does not extend to the subs. On any US submarine at sea, the decision
to use nuclear weapons falls on the Captain, the Executive Officer (second-in-
command), and the Engineering Officer (third-in-command). These three men have
the keys and the codes to launch, so only the three of them have to agree that
launch is necessary/desirable. Paranoid conspiracies aside, just how difficult
would it be to convince the officers of a ballistic submarine that a launch was
already in progress? The easiest way, of course, is to detonate a nuclear
weapon in the vicinity of the sub -- any of you like to poke your boat up into
the air to signal Washington, assuming the explosion did not screw up the
atmospherics too much to make contact? Granted, finding the sub may not be
very easy, but if a fanatic can get hold of a bomb, lobbing it into the water
near a missile sub can't be that much more difficult.
So for the sake of argument, let's say we've convinced the sub's crew to
launch their missiles(let's also assume that world tensions are high, and
that the US defensive status is DEFCON 2 or DEFCON 1, so that the missiles
have been targeted inside the Soviet Union and their inertial guidance
systems are being updated as fast as the data can be pushed into them).
I do not believe the Soviet Union would launch their missiles if one or two
launches were detected, but now they suddenly start tracking twenty-four
missiles, launched from about 1000 miles south-east of Japan, flight time
is 12-15 minutes depending upon how far into Siberia the missiles are
programmed to penetrate. Figure from 1-3 warheads per Trident missile,
putting up to 72 Soviet targets under the gun.
(Please pause here to shudder.)
Now, my plug. The Navy has been trying for the last 15 years to get a low-
frequency radio system into operation in the United States. These radio
waves will reach submarines at sea, fairly reliably. So far, no states
are willing to have a 100-mile square grid of cables buried in their state
as the transmitting antenna. Once in operation, the subs become part of the
Failsafe system, thus reducing the chances of accidental nuclear war by
removing a number of the possible scenarios.
I do not believe that this is an outrageous request, and it does reduce the
possibility of a nuclear exchange. Michigan refused to allow the system in
the Upper Peninsula in the mid-70s. I don't know about other states, and
I haven't heard whether the Navy is still pushing this program or not,
but it sounds like a damn cheap assist to keep my precious ass from being
blown off. Yours?renner@uiucdcs.UUCP (renner ) (12/12/83)
#R:tekigm:-3300:uiucdcs:29200054:000:724
uiucdcs!renner Dec 12 00:53:00 1983
The very low frequency radio network described by tekigm!dand is known as
the ELF grid. It will permit reliable communication with submarines, but
(naturally) at a very low data rate. I recall reading that it is being
constructed in the north part of Wisconsin (could be wrong here).
Another submarine communication system being studied involved placing
blue-green lasers on satellites. There are still technical problems.
Also political problems: is this the dreaded "militarization of space?"
(Side note: the horrible "military" payloads carried on the Shuttle
will serve a similar purpose. They are for navigation, communication, or
observation. No weapons so far.)
Scott Renner
{ihnp4,pur-ee}!uiucdcs!rennertierney@fortune.UUCP (12/13/83)
Well, This is a follow-up to an article which incorrectly or unclearly made some statements. The Air-Force Officer following the President with the briefcase has a briefcase full of verification codes, no hardware: the codes allow the military to guarantee who is giving the fire command. When nastyness is happening (i.e. "Missile Tracks" approaching), and the president cannot be located, NORAD in Cheyenne Mountain will attempt to locate the chain-of-command for orders. If they cannot, the Officer in Control of NORAD has the authority to act. The reason for this is obvious: We have a FAILSAFE system coupled with MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction), the system GUARANTEES retaliation for attacks. You cannot keep weak links in such a system, such as "we can't locate the president, what shall we do?" Of course, I think the whole idea is sickening, and I further believe ANYONE working to make offensive nuclear weapons is a fool. I truly hope we survive ourselves. In Hope Of PEACE, In Hope Of LIFE, Charlie Tierney
wetcw@pyuxa.UUCP (T C Wheeler) (12/14/83)
For all those interested enough to watch, there was a very good program on PBS Tuesday night called "Nuclear Strategy for Beginners" on the NOVA series. Well put together with a complete history of the nuclear strategies that have been used over the last 40 years. The program will be rebroadcast in the New York area on Saturday at 12:00 noon. Other areas may have different rebroadcast times. The MAD scenario is no longer the policy, according to the program. T. C. Wheeler
bloomqui@uiucuxc.UUCP (12/15/83)
#R:tekigm:-3300:uiucuxc:21200028:000:598
uiucuxc!bloomqui Dec 12 17:21:00 1983
The ELF system has been proposed for construction in an area that straddles
the Michigan-Wisconsin border. Local opposition has been strongest in
Michigan where the Dept. of Natural Resources is concerned with the
environmental impacts from the presence of very low frequency emissions
over a large area. More flippantly, the reluctance of Michigan
residents to accept ELF may be attributed to the increasing "Finlandization"
of the Upper Peninsula. (Just kidding! Suomi Forever!!)
Kim Bloomquist
. . . !pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiucuxc!bloomquijrrt@hogpd.UUCP (R.MITCHELL) (12/19/83)
Dan Duval claims that I have "missed the point, and trailed a number of misleading if not downright false statements along with it" in my discussion of accidental launches from nuclear submarines. I confess to being vague in spots, as I will be below, since there are some things I just cannot talk about in detail. In those areas I state my opinion but do not back it up with facts. Apologies if that is not satisfactory; you're certainly within your rights to disbelieve anything I say. I suggest, though, that as a former Weapons Officer on an SSBN submarine, I am a knowledgeable source of information. ************************************************************************** The point is not that each sub crew is looking for an opportunity to launch their missiles the first chance they get, but rather that it is possible for them to launch without authorization from the US. There's a grain of truth in that. Nothing is perfect, and occasionally one unstable individual slips through the psychological testing and monitoring. But *so many* people are needed simultaneously to launch a missile, that the probability of having that many people, in the same sub, in the right positions, exposed to the right presssures, is vanishingly small. A much more likely hazard is human error in the Pentagon, or the Kremlin. ****************************************************************************** For one thing, the Failsafe system prevents the launch of ground-based missiles and the arming of airborne weapons as long as communications are maintained-- if any unit is out of communications, there are procedures to launch anyway. I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of procedures for self-initialized missile launch by US submarines. (That's a CYA line). ****************************************************************************** Submarines are more likely to be out of communications than airplanes and missile control sites, because their very nature is to hide from electro- magnetic detection as well as sight and sound detection. This often means diving deeper than reliable short-wavelength radio communication depths. The only real electro-magnetic detection threat to a sub is when part of it is above water. When it is submerged, even at periscope depth, E-M radiation is not a worry. Anything frequency high enough to detect the boat with any resolution will be too high to penetrate the water. *********************************************************************** In peacetime, an SSBN can cruise shallow and listen to the Bowl games, but in wartime (DEFCON 1) or when war is imminent(DEFCON 2), shallow running subs are risking detection by a hostile force. There is no effective radio communications at 100 meters down... The only difference between threats to subs during DEFCON 1 and those during DEFCON 5 (peace and serenity) is that when the Bad Guys find you during DEFCON 1, they shoot at you. It seems good common sense, therefore, during DEFCON Anything, for subs to continually practice the furtive procedures that they'd have to adopt during DEFCON 1. Also, there *are* effective radio communications at 100 meters down, if you know how to listen... ************************************************************************* I am not saying that I believe the average naval officer is looking for a chance to launch missiles. I don't believe the average naval officer is going to commit suicide, either, but some do. My contention is that we can reduce the amount of discretion the average naval officer has to do something which risks everyone. I agree with all those statements, but I dispute your conclusion. The Average Naval Officer has precious little discretion as it is in such matters, reducing that discretion further would totally eliminate his ability to perform his job when he *was* authorized to do so. The logical extreme of your position would be to have the physical triggering signal come direct from the Joint Chiefs to the missiles, bypassing those indiscrete AVOs. ************************************************************************ The contention that the use of nuclear weapons on subs is "preposterous", is itself rather silly. The Soviet FRAS 1 system mounted on the Kievs and Moskvas is an anti-submarine system which does not have a version without a nuclear warhead, and the SS-N-15...also has a nuclear warhead... These tend to suggest that someone somewhere believes nuclear weapons are effective against subs. These are valid points. They represent a key difference between the US and Soviet Navies. Ours has better electronics, etc, and so can pinpoint a target and deliver a payload closer to that target, than can theirs. To compensate, they put bigger bangs in their torpedoes and missiles. The extra bang, in my opinion, is not worth the extra buck. I suspect the US Navy agrees, since the Mk 45 torpedo, the only torpedo with nuclear-capability in our arsenal, has been phased out in favor of the conventionally armed Mk 48. So, yes, someone somewhere does believe nuclear weapons may be useful against subs, but only if the alternative is throwing rocks. ************************************************************************** ...the fact of attack puts the entire mission of the sub at danger, and increases the tension the crew is going to be under, increasing the chance of them making a mistake. Undeniably true, but the mistakes will be made as the sub tries to locate and avoid/destroy the enemy. If the sub simultaneously received a launch message and was attacked, guess what the sub commander would worry about first. Look at it this way; if he stopped to launch his missiles (which takes more than a few minutes), his attacker will destroy him before one bird takes off. Clearly, he must run away or fight first. Therefore, to worry about the crew falsely launching because of the pressures of a local attack, is unnecessary. It won't happen. ************************************************************************** Besides, a 20kt nuclear explosion 1 mile away, even through the water, is going to cause a radio-frequency pulse that the sub should be able to detect -- it won't kill the sub, but I find it hard to believe the crew could not figure out whether it was nuclear or not. If your soundman reports a splash in the water 2 miles away and the sub shakes, you might safely conclude it was not a conventional depth charge that exploded. I'm not a physicist; you may be right about an EMP being able to penetrate the water to hit the sub. But I'm not sure; if so, I'd think the Navy would be maintaining their supply of nuclear torpedoes. But I could be wrong. For the record, a sonarman could tell you the bearing to a noise source, and its relative strength in decibels, but he would in general not be able to tell you the distance to the source. (Depending on local ocean conditions -- depth, salinity, and temperature, once in a while you can get a shrewd guess. Very rarely). ************************************************************************* ...The SSBN-643, of the Benjamin Franklin class, must, according to the GAO, reset their inertial guidance system every 40 hours. Therefore, anyone around to see them has every possibility to do so. Not correcting the inertial guidance system threatens the mission of the sub, as an error of 20 km in launch position makes at least 20 km of error at the target. All true statements, as far as they go. First, the SINS (Ship's Inertial Navigation System; the kind onboard the 640-class) is a very reliable piece of gear -- specs are of course classified but the amount of drift in 40 hours is *MUCH* less than 20 km. Getting a navigational satellite fix does not require surfacing, although it does require the sub to put the navigation mast (basically an antenna mounted like a periscope) above the water. This is indeed a relatively risky operation from a security point of view, but a thin mast has a much smaller radar profile than does an entire surfaced sub. Finally, there are other ways to get navigational fixes that do not require putting anything above the surface. These alternatives are very safe for the sub. ************************************************************************* ... if American subs are so hard to detect, why are American attack subs assigned to shadow the Soviet attack subs that shadow our SSBNs, eh? If they can't find us, they can't track us, no? Fair question, but consider these points. I object to the implication that our SSBNs are regularly trailed by Soviet subs. Details are classified, but such trailings are very rare. If nothing else, we'd hear them coming for us long before he could hear us, so we could maneuver away from him. Our sub base locations are known to anyone. The approximate ranges of our missiles, the number of subs, our crew rotation policies, submerged transit velocities, etc. are all either unclassified or are presumably known by the Soviets. Therefore, they can predict fairly easily when and where a US SSBN will leave port to go out on patrol. If they want, they could easily station one or more of their subs just outside the territorial limit, to intercept the SSBN as it heads out. It is within the realm of possibility that our SSNs are sometimes stationed to intercept Them before They intercept us. This would be especially credible if the US Navy were able to track Soviet subs fairly easily, and knew if/when someone was out there waiting for the SSBN. Soviet boats are notoriously noisy... *************************************************************************** This entire discussion comes down to whether the subs can communicate or not, and currently, there is every reason to believe not -- and this is a chance to make an error. What we need to do is reduce the chances of error. Dan, I agree that this is the crux of the debate. I strongly disagree with your conclusion. Personal experience on the boats, my training, and my (admittedly fallible) understanding of the way the world works, tells me that the subs may not always get the launch signal when they should, but that if the signal is sent, the subs will get it and launch appropriately. If the signal is not sent, I am convinced that no launch will occur. The only chance for error that needs reducing is the possibility of a pre-emptive strike so quick that a retaliatory message never gets sent. And the best way to minimize that error, it seems to me, is to make it unnecessary by eliminating the need for it. But until that time, I will secure that we no launch until occur until The Powers That Be say so.