How Many Nuclear Arsenals Can the US Disable?

The US possesses a missile defense system that can take down any approaching nuclear missile. But how many interceptions can it make until one strikes its target? Read this shocking narrative to learn about the US military's capacity to safely defend the country from a nuclear attack. 💥💨🚀🚀💨💥

The threat of nuclear war has increased since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It's understandable that Putin is getting closer and closer to pressing the nuclear button given how badly Russian forces are being beaten in Ukraine on a daily basis. How many nuclear weapons could the US reasonably shoot down in the event of a nuclear Armageddon? Before we discuss how the US can shoot down an ICBM carrying a nuclear warhead, it's crucial to comprehend the fundamentals of ballistic missile defense. The range and speed of a missile are what distinguish it as a ballistic missile. Ballistic missiles can be divided into short-, medium-, long-, and intercontinental ballistic missiles. Additionally, the majority of short-range and some medium-range ballistic missiles can be categorized as subsonic, meaning they move more slowly than the speed of sound.

The majority of ballistic missiles are supersonic or moving faster than sound. The uniqueness of an ICBM lies in its capacity to carry large payloads over great distances. These are some heavy and significant weapon systems, with nations like Russia and China claiming that their best ICBMs can travel almost 20,000 kilometers. Additionally, these missiles move at speeds of up to ten to twenty times the speed of sound. The vast majority of nuclear warheads are attached to ICBMs due to their weight, speed, and carrying capacity. While some nations, like Russia, may have additional ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads, the majority of the threats the US would face come from ICBMs. The flight path of a ballistic missile is divided into three parts at launch.

The initial stage is referred to as the boost phase. This stage of flight is when the rocket is launched and starts gaining enough speed to move on to the next stage. The mid-course phase is the following phase. Ballistic missiles fly on a comparatively stable plane during the mid-course phase of their flight path. The majority of the missile's journey to its target occurs during this phase. The missile moves from the mid-course phase to the terminal phase once it reaches its conclusion. The missile switches from its mid-course section to its terminal phase in order to plow into its target. The earth's gravity helps the missile reach its highest speed during this phase of flight. Additionally, the Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles, or MIRVs, of the missile are deployed during this phase of its flight.

In terms of ballistic missile defense, the best time to strike a missile is mid-course. The missile is at its most vulnerable during this period, and due to its relatively flat trajectory, any target nation has the best opportunity to shoot it down. The majority of US systems are designed to destroy the missile during this phase because it offers the highest chance of success. But over the past thirty years, nations like North Korea, China, and Russia have been working on countermeasures to stop a successful shoot down when a missile is at its most vulnerable. It is challenging to solely rely on shooting down ICBMs during the mid-course phase because of the development of missiles that can weave while in flight and the preprogramming of ICBMs to fly to regions of the earth that US radars cannot cover, such as the poles.

The ability of a radar to precisely track ICBMs and direct interceptors to the target further complicates the situation. Most interceptor missiles lack an active radar of their own, so they must rely on radar systems installed on ships or on the ground to track their targets. To assist in providing that coverage, the Navy created the Aegis combat system. Aegis was, and still is, a cutting-edge system. It was first introduced in the early 1980s as a component of the Ticonderoga-class cruiser program. The US destroyers and cruisers' weapons and sensors are integrated into one combat suite by Aegis, a hardware and software system. Aegis functions as a defense system that can be used to protect the ship, nearby ships, and land-based targets all from a single location by collecting data.

The SPY radar, which is at the center of the Aegis system, is still the world's top air defense radar today. The ballistic missile defense mission of US ships is successfully completed by SPY, despite the fact that its precise parameters are still under wraps. The frequency band that SPY uses is one of the key factors in its success. For BMD missions, picking the appropriate frequency is crucial. If you pick a frequency that is too low, you won't get enough fidelity to create a track that is accurate and coherent. Radar range suffers greatly if a frequency is chosen that is too high. The US has perfected the frequency range for air defense radars after decades of testing and development. Radar cross-section is another element that US planners had to take into account when designing Aegis and any other fire control radar, for that matter.

The portion of an inbound contact known as the radar cross-section, or RCS, is visible on the screen of the operator's console and reflects radar energy. RCS is the primary objective of all military operations. To avoid being detected by an adversary's radar, Navy ships, Air Force stealth aircraft, and missiles work to reduce their RCS to almost nothing. Since this is the case, fire control radars must be capable of detecting even the smallest RCS, something that the US has accomplished with both its sea and shore-based radar systems. Approximately 48 destroyers, or nearly half of the US Navy's current inventory, are currently equipped with BMD capabilities. This ship's superior Aegis baseline compared to other Navy ships is what distinguishes it from other ships.

Since there have been so many different versions of Aegis over the years, newer versions of Aegis are installed on Navy ships as new threats emerge and new advancements in software and hardware are discovered. The Navy's Standard Missile Three is the tool used to neutralize threats from ballistic missiles. After gaining operational capability in 2014, the SM-3 is a relatively new weapon in the Navy's arsenal. The SM-3 was the US's attempt to develop a dedicated ballistic missile interceptor as opposed to merely using an SM-2 missile that had been modified and given new software to become an SM-2 Block IV. With a dedicated interceptor, the Navy is ready to function as a competitive BMD platform almost anywhere in the world.

The SPY radar and Mk 99 Fire Control Radar are both internal to the ship, allowing the Navy to provide extensive BMD coverage. Even though the SM-3's precise capabilities are still under wraps, a highly publicized test in 2020 demonstrated the Navy's ability to shoot down ICBMs with Aegis. A destroyer and a live SM-3 missile successfully intercepted a live ballistic missile target on November 17, 2020, at a remote US testing site in the Pacific. The destroyer did this while also monitoring other air contacts coming in. Since a ship would track other inbound air threats in a real war, the test's one-to-one kill ratio was both exact and realistic. Even though the test may have been a success, it is the only one about which the public is aware, and the shoot down only involved one ICBM.

Numerous inbound nuclear weapons could be present in a real-world scenario. Because of this, US planners have installed shore-based interceptors both domestically and abroad. In Romania and Poland, the US has two Aegis shore stations that are outfitted with a total of twenty SM-3 missiles each. Should Russia ever try to launch nuclear weapons at Europe while the US is barred from areas like the Black Sea, Baltic Sea, and Mediterranean, the US still has a practical option to shoot those threats down? The US has two additional systems for homeland security, both of which are owned by the Army and partially supported by the Air Force. Ground-based mid-course defense is the main system for defending the homeland.

As the name implies, the GMD system is designed to attack inbound threats when they are most vulnerable in the middle of their journey. GMD was originally created in the late 1990s, and by the early 2000s, it was ready for use. The Air Force, which provides system-wide command and control, collaborates with the two units that are stationed at Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. In essence, GMD functions in a similar manner to Aegis. It is made up of several sea- and land-based radars that offer targeting information. In the event of a nuclear attack, the Air Force gathers this data and distributes it to both bases. Each of the bases' forty-four ground-based interceptors could be fired after being received.

These enormous rockets are intended to launch an Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) that destroys the ICBM. After being launched from the GBI, the EKV guides itself to the target using a variety of computers and color sensors. It rams itself into the approaching missile to destroy it using brute kinetic force. The GBI does not employ a conventional explosive warhead as a result. Although the GMD's early developments showed promise, their general success rate has turned out to be subpar. GMD has a 52 percent chance of killing with just one missile out of the roughly twenty tests that were conducted. When four or more missiles are fired, the kill probability increases to 97 percent. Over time, the services have made improvements to the systems' accuracy. The Air Force constructed impressive radar arrays in Hawaii and Alaska in 2014 and 2018, respectively. The GMD system's range and coverage have been greatly enhanced by these arrays, enabling it to deliver precise fire control solutions. The lack of an east coast-based site is another flaw in the GMD system.

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