> if someone decides to nuke the US, where would they start?
First, nuclear forces: ICBM and IRBM silos and their C2, nuclear weapons storage, strategic airfields and ballistic-missile submarine bases. (This is why nuclear arsenals escalate against each other. The defensive role of missile silos is both deference and to soak up the enemy’s nukes.)
Second, leadership: command posts and communication.
Third, other military: barracks, supply depots, marshalling points, airfields, ammunition storage, tank and vehicle storage.
Fourth, military industry: ammo, tank, APC factories; refineries; railyards and repair facilities. Steel, aluminum and power generation.
Fifth, population centres. (You don’t want to nuke New York if that could have taken out a silo that will flatten a dozen of your cities.)
In summary, somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere :).
Nuking full siloes is the point of a first strike. So yes, you’re relatively safe near a silo field if America is launching first and the adversary assumes or knows that every silo launched perfectly.
> they aren’t particularly high on this list of targets
The target list is obviously conditional on a nuclear war happening. Unless your position is the U.S. is invulnerable to a first strike, then the silos should stay at the top of the list. (Even in a second strike you hit them and hit them fast. If there was a launch error you get a tremendous defensive ROI in taking them out.)
> My position is first strikes vs US, Russia, or China are almost completely useless
That’s incoherent with this thread, which started with someone asking what would happen “if someone decides to nuke the US.” Not if France launched a suicidal first strike on America.
The realistic scenarios for America getting nuked are a first strike from a rogue state, first strike from Russia or China, and second strike from Russia or China.
First strike from a rogue state is basically nuclear terrorism; it will probably target a population centre or something close and hittable, e.g. Guam for Pyongyang. First strikes from Russia or China would target silos. (Unless theatre-based, e.g. hitting Guam and our Japanese airbases ahead of an invasion of Taiwan.) Second strike would mean silos are probably empty, though not necessarily, these are hundreds of decades-old mechanisms in who knows what condition of readiness, but sure, if the American first strike is comprehensive and flawless, and the enemy omnipotent, we’d probably not see too many nukes go at silos. (You would at other nuclear infrastructure.)
So in general, no, if we’re in wide-scale nuclear war the planners who thought about this for decades in the Cold War may not have missed that launched tubes that have launched are now empty.
> First strike from a rogue state is basically nuclear terrorism
Obviously by definition someone can attack first, however:
“First strike capability is a country's ability to defeat another nuclear power by destroying its arsenal to the point where the attacking country can survive the weakened retaliation while the opposing side is left unable to continue war.”
So yes in theory sure a first strike would take out nuclear silos, but neither side believed they could preform a successful first strike. It’s a theoretical goal, not something that seems to have been possible barring the very early days of the Cold War before ICBM’s existed.
Which then brings up the question of what exactly you target if you assume thousands of nukes will hit you regardless of what you aim for.
The B part of ICBM means ballistic, and they are. Thus you can get a useful approximation of where it’s going to land based on the initial trajectory.
By useful I mean you can do significantly better than saying if it’s targeting the middle of the US, east, or west coast. Though it’s quite a large area.
And they have to assume you will assume this, so they would expect your silos will already be emptied in a retaliatory strike. Of course you have to trust early-warning systems and the ability to react decisively and quickly.
First, nuclear forces: ICBM and IRBM silos and their C2, nuclear weapons storage, strategic airfields and ballistic-missile submarine bases. (This is why nuclear arsenals escalate against each other. The defensive role of missile silos is both deference and to soak up the enemy’s nukes.)
Second, leadership: command posts and communication.
Third, other military: barracks, supply depots, marshalling points, airfields, ammunition storage, tank and vehicle storage.
Fourth, military industry: ammo, tank, APC factories; refineries; railyards and repair facilities. Steel, aluminum and power generation.
Fifth, population centres. (You don’t want to nuke New York if that could have taken out a silo that will flatten a dozen of your cities.)
In summary, somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere :).
https://www.gao.gov/assets/nsiad-91-319fs.pdf page 22