So, everyone’s gone a bit mad and decided to sit down for a nice game of Global Thermonuclear War. The conventional wisdom is that most nuclear combatants - troops firing nuclear weapons - would die very, very quickly. The men in the launch bunkers are dead, a great many ground troops are dead, the carriers are gone - the only military folks with any real longevity would be nuclear submarine crews.
Is this more-or-less correct, or would substantial conventional military forces persist for some time even into a global thermonuclear war?
Lots of troops would survive any nuclear exchange, if for no other reasons than they weren’t sitting on top of a high-priority target. That was true even at the height of the Cold War, when the world had a lot more nukes than it does now. Even if everybody launched everything they have, it’s unlikely that Lackland AFB would get hit, for example. If somebody tried to nuke 29 Palms Marine Base, I doubt anybody would notice.
I agree that many forces would survive especially if it was short of a complete nuclear exchange between America and Russia. If it were, say, Russia versus France, France only has a force de frappe, meaning enough weapons to completely ruin any one nation’s day, but not enough to completely wipe them off the planet. So if Russia for some reason got in a ground war with France and didn’t want to use nukes for some reason, France could attack Russia with everything she has, and destroy much of their population – but not all. I assume the same goes for their ground forces.
And France is the third largest nuclear power: everyone else has even fewer warheads. So for any exchange short of a near-total discharge of either Russia or America’s arsenal, I would expect some combat forces to survive for quite some time.
I’m not so sure about this. I’ve been to the Titan Missile Museum in Arizona, which is an old Titan missile site. The underground part of the site was designed to be able to be closed off and survive a hit by a nuclear weapon. I don’t know if this design was ever tested, though. Obviously it never was in a war, but I don’t know if any of the nuclear tests were used to test this kind of thing.
I guess that depends on how you define “substantial”. While I agree with Silenus that there would definitely be troops remaining even in an all-out exchange, I don’t know if there would still be enough to effect an invasion of each other’s territory for instance. Most of the troops would either be dead or dying, along with the rest of the population. Even in a post-nuclear exchange society, you’d still need hundreds of thousands of troops to mount offensive military operations of any size, and I don’t think that manpower or the logistics would still be available.
Note that individual tanks and planes won’t survive long in a full-scale conventional war, never mind nuclear. Tom Clancy has written that main battle tanks have an expected average lifespan of minutes once the balloon goes up, and the Soviets famously designed combat aircraft with the understanding that it would be wasteful to make them very durable since they wouldn’t last long in a shooting war anyway (and regularly replacing them with new production in peacetime keeps your production lines open and your workers trained and employed, so it’s win-win).
Even a full-scale US/USSR exchange would still leave millions of troops under arms and capable of fighting. However, I agree with FGIE that few would have the morale to do so. Blast the US and USSR into slag, and a billion Chinese don’t even notice. The armies of India, Australia, Pakistan, South Africa, etc. roll on.
Those troops might as well commit suicide or play tennis or go for a walk, most of the men who command them will be by that time bits of pollution.
The armoured spearheads would be toast true.
Attack subs go out looking for trouble so while a safer place maybe, it would still be a high risk profession. As for the boomers, well the Russkies don’t need to locate an Ohio with any greater precision than with the lethal radius of a nuclear warhead…or ten.
Raises a good question: compared to their el cheapo WW2 counterparts, today’s multimillion dollar combat aircraft take awhile to build and a lot of resources (and manpower) to do so. Could factories which operate on peacetime build rates ramp up production fast enough to account for combat losses in a full shooting war?
To elaborate a bit on what I posted above, one of the likeliest scenarios for a full nuclear exchange is after conventional war has progressed to the point that one side (or both) has suffered catastrophic losses. (Sure, it could come out of the blue with no warning, but if there’s a devastating conventional conflict, escalation to nuclear is more likely.) In such a case, the nuclear destruction (and concomitant degradation of morale) would be inflicted on already-badly-damaged military forces, not pristine full-strength units.
I seriously doubt that the OP could happen anymore, but as I was a teen in the Eighties I can sure imagine it. I suspect the result would be a lot of Military movement, by a host of Countries because the Two(possibly three as China would probably get involved) biggest players on the field aren’t there anymore and can’t stop it.
Possible examples
Multiple Arab Countries vs. Israel, this makes the OP worse if Israel nukes back
Iran vs The Sunnis(Bahrain, Saudi Arabia etc)
Independent Kurdistan vs Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran
India vs China vs Pakistan triple the fun and makes the OP even worse if they Nuke each other
Argentina vs Britain Falklands/Malvinas anyone?
As I see it the gloves come off because the world afterward is a great unknown, if you as a Country want to make your claim the OP is the time to do it. All the worlds structures and systems(Treaties, UN World court etc) are going to be out of action for a while. Grim But likely IMHO
Capt
Significant ground forces, tanks and artillery would remain even after a major nuclear exchange, even aircraft and warships. The problem is that they would remain right where they are at, which is probably not where they are needed.
Airfields, ports and the infrastructure to move your military assets to where you would need them to be to continue the war would certainly be destroyed.
Logistics and supply are essential and become the limiting issue to continued conflict. Your personnel losses do not even have to be very large to shut down your ability to fight back.
Your fighting groups are now isolated, will run out of food and fuel in short weeks, and out of will to fight even before then.
Even the WW2, low tech, D-Day invasion would not have been possible to initiate without massive pre-staging of supplies. And certainly could not have got far from the beach head without the supply line that followed.
Nuclear exchange is going to shut all these logistics down for some time. And you have several angry armies with no place to meet to fight.
I honestly don’t even think a full ICBM attack on the United States would work nowadays, at least not to the extent during the Cold War. Missile Defense capabilities are extremely advanced, given that we’ve had quite a few decades to figure out how to defend our self against them. I mean, hell, we’ve shot down a satellite in space traveling 17,000mph. I think we can take out a few nukes. Granted, the satellite was at a relative low altitude (250km) compared to a mid-course ICBM altitude (~1,000km), but we have othersuitable defenses in place.
So sure, I’m sure enough would get through to cause considerable damage, but the military would be far from demoralized.
We would also be aware of, and thus be able to launch against said Russian ICBMs much more quickly then the Russians could to us. Hawaii in this case is our ace in the hole.
You perhaps grossly underestimate the number of nuclear warheads the U.S. and Soviet Union planned on lobbing at each other. There were plenty to spare for anything of military significance. Lackland, 29 Palms, pretty much any regular military base (and many reserve bases) in the U.S. had kilotonnage dedicated to it. Conversely, by all accounts the U.S. SIOP simply ran out of useful targets to hit-- I recall stories of U.S. planners dedicating multiple warheads to cement factories by the end there.
Nowadays, with fewer deployed strategic weapons, the battle plans are surely more “choosy,” but the again, there are fewer targets worth hitting these days thanks to base closures in the U.S., the breakup of the Soviet Union, etc., etc.
RE: silos, nobody knows precisely what counterforce strategy the Soviets would apply. They could have struck the silos by themselves-- a tough target without accuracy, but that’s why the Soviets invested so much in bigger megaton-class bombs. Ditto hitting the launch control centers vs. hitting the individual silos-- an easier target if found, but still one that had to be “dug out” by a big enough bomb.
Often multiple bombs-- most counterforce calculations require multiple warheads to ensure the greatest possibility that you’ve destroyed your targets. That’s partly why dispersed single-warhead/single-missiles silos are great for deterrence-- they work as “warhead soakers”-- whereas things like MIRVed missiles, bomber bases and subs kept in port become juicy counterforce targets-- for a few warheads I can take out far more enemy warheads than I use myself.
Alternatively, there was talk of doing atmospheric “saturation” bombing above the missile fields-- don’t bother hitting the actual silos, just detonate airbursts above the fields at regular intervals creating enough EMP/atmospheric turbulence/all-around chaos to keep the U.S. from effectively launching through all that muck (this was a consideration when the MX missiles were considered for a “dense pack” deployment-- the Soviets didn’t have to destroy the silos, they merely had to interrupt them).
Of course, a counterforce strategy is only as good as what the other side chooses to do. The other side could do launch under warning-- i.e. launch the moment your satellites detect the incoming strikes-- or they could launch under attack-- ride out the first strike and launch the retaliatory strike. Both strategies have their disadvantages: LUW risks a false alarm, LUA risks losing too much of your retaliatory power and the command & control capability to employ it.
The latter is an important point-- after a first strike, what do you do with your surviving missiles? Launch them counterforce at potentially empty, yet replenishable, silos? Or adjust to a countervaling strategy, i.e. take out cities and other civilian targets? And at that point, after deterrence has clearly failed, is that second strike even worth the effort?
U.S. strategic missile defenses are rudimentary, and oriented towards the Pacific/North Korean axis. The GMD system at best could take out a handful of missiles.
This is partly why Russian missile-defense protests are always so laughable. Given the size of their arsenal, there’s no way that even the more robust systems envisioned (including the NATO ones) could prevent a catastrophic Russian strike-- those systems are clearly aimed at rogue nations.
Note: there is a curve that comes into play with missile defense systems, but not against first strikes-- instead, they become effective at SECOND strikes. Meaning, if the U.S. had a robust counter-ICBM capability, they could theoretically launch a first strike against the Russians that would leave the latter without enough weapons to confidentally penetrate the U.S. missile defenses. According to MAD theory, this scenario paradoxically increases the risk for nuclear war, as in this case the Russians would have a strong incentive to launch their own first strike knowing that such a strike would be the best, and perhaps only, way of overcoming U.S. missile defenses.
Again, however, the kind of robust U.S. missile defense system required to upset Russian second-strike calculations doesn’t exist, not in practice, and not even on paper, contrary to what Putin’s propagandists parrot.
Well, if you’ve not yet even touched the enemy yet, one assumes they’ll follow up their nuclear attack with a conventional invasion unless stopped. Nuking those conventional forces certainly sounds useful.
20 minutes was the running joke for tankers on the Fulda Gap. But that was for frontline forces on the inter-German border, the units that expected to be engaged within minutes of war.
In reality, however, in any conventional “bolt from the blue” WWIII scenario where there wasn’t any crisis buildup, most forces on both sides would still be far from the battlefield on Day One. Those first-engaged cavalry forces would have a lousy morning, but in the hours and days to come other units would boost that average survivability lifespan considerably.
However, by all accounts, a conventional WWIII in Germany would have been fast, merciless, and bloody. Witnessing similar conventional battles in modern war (Arab-Israeli Wars, the U.S. wars in Iraq, etc.) support this contention. Perhaps after everybody shot everybody’s toys up and the low ammo/supply stocks quickly ran out a stalemate would ensue, but it wouldn’t take long to get to that point-- weeks, if not days.
Of course, if the war went nuclear (either day one, or soon after), then the calculations are completely different. Garrisons, tank parks, supply convoys are all wonderful things to hit with tactical nuclear weapons. That would drive the “average lifespan” down from minutes to seconds in a hurry.