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From: ld@hpda.UUCP (Larry Dwyer)
Newsgroups: net.tv.da
Subject: Re: TDA unrealistic (?) - (nf)
Message-ID: <498@hpda.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 27-Nov-83 21:25:30 EST
Article-I.D.: hpda.498
Posted: Sun Nov 27 21:25:30 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 1-Dec-83 20:44:00 EST
Sender: ld@hpda.UUCP
Organization: Hewlett Packard, Cupertino
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#R:bbncca:-34500:hpda:18300003:000:1352
hpda!ld    Nov 27 18:25:00 1983

    Of course the scenes showing the aftermath were understated/unrealistic.
    The war depicted what MIGHT have happened if 10-megaton warheads were
    dropped.  It is my understanding that no major power maintains missiles with
    < 20-megaton warheads; usual firepower is more like 100-megatons.

Dropping a 10 megaton warhead on the silos near KC is an extreme-
ly  ineffective  way  to destroy them.  It is more likely that an
array of MIRV missiles with 10 500 kiloton weapons each would  be
dropped  on each cluster of 10 silos.  Since the film stated that
there were blasts from Sedalia through Green Ridge  and  Windsor,
the  targeting  appeared to be the ICBMs and their control rooms.
If the attack was preemptive, then the silos are the primary tar-
gets and the Soviets should use the smaller MIRVs.  If the attack
was not preemptive, then the silos are assumed to be empty and of
little  value,  hence  large cities become the targets with over-
sized payloads (possibly the retaliatory 10-100 megaton variety).
I  suspect  that  the Soviets cannot change the payloads in a few
minutes based upon whether the US attack was preemptive or not.

Of course, the Soviets are not likely to have as good a targeting
system  as  we  do, so they may resort to large payloads and hope
that close is good enough.


		Larry Dwyer
		ucbvax!hpda!ld