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To add: These are nuggets of conventional wisdom that everyone “serious” believes but that aren’t really true. A short thread.
The claim that ICBMs are more “prompt” because of ease of communication was oft asserted but never tested until 1992 when @USGAO discovered it wasn’t true — SLBMs had “about the equal of speed and reliability of communications to ICBM silos”
gao.justia.com/department-of-…
gao.justia.com/department-of-…
As a result, @USGAO concluded that “depending on the scenario, SLBMs from SSBNs would be almost as prompt as ICBMs in hitting enemy targets.”
As for accuracy, the numbers are all classified but the D5 is extremely accurate and one could, in certain scenarios, cut that number *in half* by super-grooming them.
Here I would also note that the addition of a new radar fuse has given the W76 a new hard-target kill capability. The idea that SLBMs are relatively inaccurate is long out of date.
govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CH…
govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CH…
Espers # arguments aren’t that strong. Of course, if one really did believe the US needed land-based ICBMs, the cheapest option would be to slide D5 canisters in existing Minuteman silos. But Esper’s support for ICBMs is about winning confirmation not the merits of ICBMs.
