Low Yield Nuclear Warhead for SLBM

I thought that I would post this and allow others to comment before sharing my own thoughts.

https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/com ... ield-nuke/

I have given everyone considerable time to comment.

The issue of counterforce strikes is something that I have been acutely aware of for four decades. As an exercise to demonstrate profeciency with statistics, I did a study during my aborted education analysing the comparative capacities of the Soviet SS-17, SS-18 & SS-19 missiles verses the American Minuteman II and Trident 1 (Trident 2 didn't exist yet) missiles to perform a counterforce strike against the other. This included a realistic assesment of casualties and destruction that could be inflicted by surviving nuclear forces. It earned me an excellent grade with massive extra credit, but also a rather hostile interview with the FBI because of my deductions about the proposed Midgetman missile.

The bottom line was predictable. The Soviets had the capacity to destroy about 90% of US ICBMs in their silos but US Submarines would devastate the Soviet Union. The US had the capacity to destroy mayby 1/3 of Soviet ICBMs. However; US SSNs had the scary capacity to hunt down many of the Soviets SSBNs. While the overkill factor was massively overstated by the popular press, both sides could absorb a first strike and still destroy about 1/3 of the other's population. Targeting key industries such as oil refineries could economically cripple the other with only about 100 warheads.

Deterence was getting a bit shaky but it seemed stable unless there was game changing developments such as the Soviets making a breakthrough in SSBN hunting or the US deploying about 300 MX missiles.

Now missile guidance technology has advanced dramatically. The result is accurately described in this article:

https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/fu ... EC_a_00273

The bottom line is that the US, Russia and China, and may be India have the capacity to destroy a likely adversary's land based missile forces. Even mobile missiles are now vulnerable. As this article points out, it is even becoming possible to destroy hardened missile silos and other hard targets without inflicting massive casualties from direct weapons effects or fallout.

My one caveat is that while precision air bursts can be very clean, precision, low yield Earth penteator warheads can kill missile silos while killing even fewer people.

This brings us to the proposal to develop a low yield warhead, allegedly for the Trident missile. Not stated publicly but probable is that the warhead will be combined with a precision guided, Earth pentrating MARV. Also misunderstood by this article is that it is far les improbable that theses weapons would be used against Russia rather than "rogue" nuclear states.

Guess what? I am for developing the warhead and precision guided, Earth pentrating MARV, but I am against mounting it on the Trident 2.

Reason 1. The Trident subs and the new Columbia class SSBNs are suppossed to be very survivable second strike weapons. Employing them in a counterforce strike reveals their location and makes them vulnerable.

Reason 2. If Russia detects Trudent 2 missiles launching, they will presume that Russia is being targeted until it becomes obvious that the trajectory does not target Russia.

My alternative is to deploy these low yield, precision, Earth pentrator nukes on a totally new missile that could be deployed on Virginia class submarines with the Virginia Payload Module or surface ships.

The US needs a new,single warhead, missile to mount these new nukes on that can not be mistaken for a strategic missile. It might be a hypersonic SCRAMJET rather than a ballistic missile.