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From: medin@ucbvax.ARPA (Milo Medin)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Star Wars -> Nuclear war
Message-ID: <6391@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 20-Apr-85 20:06:51 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.6391
Posted: Sat Apr 20 20:06:51 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 22-Apr-85 11:43:13 EST
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Organization: University of California at Berkeley
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> The Soviet population is less concentrated than ours, but they are still
> grouped into cities.  I think the 4-10% estimates of population dead
> might be assuming that the population has already been dispersed to
> civil defense facilities.  20-30% is much more likely if they aren't
> dispersed.

Lauri, I think that if you check out the yields and numbers of
US SLBM warheads (remember only about 50%-60% of the fleet is
out at a given time), you'll see that a 4-10% casulty rate is
quite reasonable.  I believe the 4% is with dispersion, and around
10% without dispersion.  Remember this is SLBM warheads alone.
ICBM's (the few remaining) would be used on counterforce targets,
and the bombers, which carry 55% of US Megatonnage would be wiped out.
All the big warheads are on the bombers.  The missiles used to take
out SAM sites in the bombers paths (example the Hound Dog), carry
4 megaton warheads, bigger than anything our ICBM's carry.


> Part of the bomber fleet is in fact kept on airborne alert.  An
> additional part of the fleet is kept on strip alert, which means they
> are supposed to be able to get in the air within 5 minutes of being
> ordered to do so.
> 

I'd really like to know your sources for this, I've talked to 
many SAC people, and they never thought we had an airborne alert force
these days.  At any given time, only 1/3 of the bomber force is even
armed (training missions are flown unarmed), and then the pilots are
not in the planes.  A strip alert is a condition of increased 
readiness, not the normal state of things.  As I said, I think 
I'm right on this.  Anyways, there was an article several months ago
(in SA I believe) detailing the timetable for a response to an attack,
showing that it'd be too late for the bombers given a sneak
SLBM attack, remember it takes a bomber quite a while to get out
of the range of the blast, taking off isn't good enough.  And our
bombers are mainly based on the coastlines, another really swift
move.


					Milo