MKSheppard wrote:IIRC no, an airburst is sufficient to suck the moisture out of the concrete itself, rendering it unable to support sufficient loads for aircraft
It doesn't so much as suck the water out as cause the water bound to the physical structure of the cement to flash-vapourize and the structure to explode. That's a close-in effect and just adds to the general mayhem.
While not wishing to do anything to lessen the general air of gloom and despondancy that has been generated, its important to note that there are many, many more nuclear targets than there are devices to eliminate them. This is basically how we got into the game in the 1950s (and, in TBO how the targeteers got into the game sometime earlier). Back then, the USAF had a target list that included some 40,000 plus targets scattered across the USSR. Obviously, a target list that big virtually dictated the use of mass fleets of long-range bombers because only they could carry the number of weapons needed . The same consideration also precluded the diversion of fissile to the production of tactical warheads or nuclear power. The need for strategic warheads was simply too great. Obviously, this was very convenient for the USAF.
In the event Eisenhower (a grossly under-rated President) cracked the problem. He noted that the USAF had allocated one nuclear device to taking out the Soviet Rail Transport Administration (thus crippling their ability to use their rail network) and another equally large device to take out the Railway Equipment Production Secretariat (thus crippling their ability to make replacement railway locomotives and rolling stock).
The two administrations were in the same building.
Eisenhower insisted that an outside group go over the targeting plans and come up with somethinga bit more realistic. The job went to RAND who took a look at the targets, whimpered, and got to work. By the time they had finished they had reduced the number of potential uses of nuclear devices by about an order of magnitude (not by reducing the number of targets, simply by working out which targets would be taken down by a single laydown). This was the real birth of targeteering. RAND came up with another idea, which was that the AF had always aimed devices at a target; RAND showed that really the initiation point should be selected so that it encompassed as many targets as possible. So, a device may initiate over a specific point, not because it is a target itself but because it allows the neutralization of others.
Then, of course, people started to ask the (Obvious question but one which people never seem to ask) "what exactly are we trying to do. The Air Force answer was more or less "blow things up" which, from their point of view was quite reasonable.
Shep and Her Grace will confirm that one of my many irritating habits is, when somebody asks "how many armored divisions should the US have?" or "How many F-22s should we buy" is to ask a counter question "what do you intend to do with them? Why are we buying them at all?" Its incredible how rarely one gets a sensible answer. This isn't unique. When my company does a study contract its
always the first question we ask and we
never get a sensible answer. A company or a government agency has a product or a project and they want to know its commecrial or technical viability. We ask why they want it at all, and they look confused. Nine times out of ten, they've developed a product or project because they could develop it and never really thought about its application. Or. rather, they'd assumed because they'd developed it people would use it regardless of the availability of better, cheaper alternatives.
For an internet forum example, on another board, there was once a debate on the ideal structure of the US Army. There were the usual "proposals" X number of armored divisions, Y number of mechanized infantry divisions, Z number of paratroop divisions etc etc, all marking a great increase in the existing ToE. Then my question "Before you can say any of that, answer this. What do you want the US Army to do?" I got the usual response (straight from the book). "Close with and destroy the enemy" and had to point out that's a means not an objective and anyway, which enemy?
So, the next question is "What is the nuclear strike intended to achieve." And that is by no means as simple as it sounds. Blowing up the enemy isn't an end in itself, its a means to an end. That's one of the subtle errors made by the planners in TBO by the way, one that became much more obvious in TGG. They were so intent on planning the destruction of Germany, they forgot that the destruction of Germany wasn't an end in itself, it was a means to an end. That objective was to bring about an end to WW2. By totally destroying Germany while leaving its armies abroad intact, that end was missed. Germany was destroyed and what was left surrendered but their armies abroad kept going and it took another ten years to finish them off.
Now, it might be decided that the desired objective is to (for example) cripple the American military forces (counter-force strategy). Thus, even really juicy transport, political and infrastructure targets might be left untouched while relatively insignificant military targets get fried. Or the target may be the political leadership (that's a very bad idea by the way) and the attacks may be concentrated there, leaving the military structure untouched. It all depends on what the other guys want to achieve. There simply are not enough devices to go around if the objective is to destroy everything.
So. immediately when targeteering, after selecting what strategy to use, the next question is the relative priority of the targets. Now, here's a nasty thing. Those ICBMs and SLBMs are not that reliable; a lot of them (one source suggests about 40 percent - cannot confirm or deny) won't fire when somebody lights the blue touchpaper and retires to a safe distance. Now, in any attack plan there are a lot of targets that are must-kill. In other words, targets so important that the strategy fails if they survive. To make sure those targets die, they have to have multiple devices assigned to them (by the way, ICBMs and SLBMs can be neither retargeted nor aborted once launched).
The same unreliability puts the kybosh on elaborate schemes like using high altitude initiation to blind defenses or early warning systems (it doesn't work anyway by the way; that was a problem we despatched in the early 1970s without any great difficulty) . It would be a bit sad if one's entire attack plan depended on a single missile initiating at point X and, come the great day of Universal Bereavement, it sits in its silo going whirrr-click, whirrr-click.
So, onto the next stage guys. You've located the target list in your areas, now pick the people likely to launch an attack and ask what they wish to acheive - and which of the targets you've identified would be appropriate to that aim. The next stage is to decide on a particular strategy that your selected enemy might wish to adopt and then work out which of those targets is appropriate to that strategy
And one for the airport that i lived a mile from as a kid.
