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Run Silent Run Deep: The Kids Who Protect the US with Armageddon

Below is a snippet from “Life Aboard US Navy Ballistic Missile Submarine USS Wyoming.” Watch it carefully. Observe that the vast majority of the crew are very young; almost children. Observe the deep and focused seriousness with which they carry out their assigned tasks on the USS Wyoming when it is on station. Think about what it takes to serve for months sealed in a steel tube deep beneath the surface of the ocean with the constant unremitting whirr and whine of machinery. Take a look at the rack space, the personal space, these young crew members are given. Take a careful and thoughtful look at those scenes where they can be seen to be walking in a forest of carefully monitored and attended vertical tubes.   The tubes hold the mission.

Then think about the mission of the crew of the USS Wyoming.

That mission is, should it ever come to that, to destroy the world.  To burn cities to cinders in a moment. That is the crew’s mission and they serve on one of the tools, one of the strategic assets, of the United States designed to do just that.

The payload of the USS Wyoming is comprised of 24 Trident II D-5 ballistic missiles. Each Trident II holds from 8 to 12 MIRV (Multiple Independently Targetable re-entry Vehicle) W88 or W76 thermonuclear weapons Each warhead yields 475 kilotons. How many kilotons was the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima? 15 kilotons. The math for maximum Armageddon is thus:

24 x 12 = 288 warheads x 475 kilotons = 136,000 kilotons / 15 = 9,120 Hiroshimas.

Which should pretty much do the job of ending the world, right? Right.

[That’s just from 1 (one) of our ballistic missile submarines. Did I mention that we have 14?]

To Launch a Nuclear Strike, President Trump Would Take These Steps:

If the missiles are launched from a submarine — The captain, executive officer and two others authenticate the order. The launch message provides the combination to an on-board safe holding the “fire-control” key needed to deploy the missiles. Missiles are ready for launch about 15 minutes after receiving the order.

The end of the world then proceeds as follows:

Before the launch sequence is initiated, the onboard MARK 6 navigation system is activated. The specified mission trajectory [Translation: Target] is loaded onto the flight computer.

Once the launch command is given, a steam generator system is activated, igniting a fixed solid-grain gas generator. The exhaust is fed into cooling water, causing expanding gas within the launch tube to force the missile upward, and out of the submarine.

[At this point the end of the world cannot be called off]

Within seconds, the missile breaches the surface of the water and the first-stage Thrust Vectoring Control (TVC) subsystem ignites. This enables hydraulic actuators attached to the first-stage nozzle. Soon after, the first-stage motor ignites and burns for approximately 65 seconds until the fuel is expended; in addition, an aerospike atop the missile deploys shortly after the first-stage ignition to shape airflow. When the first-stage motor ceases operation, the second-stage TVC subsystem ignites. The first-stage motor is then ejected by ordnance within the interstage casing.

Once the first stage is cleared, the second-stage motor ignites and burns for approximately 65 seconds. The nose fairing is then jettisoned, separating from the missile. When the nose fairing is cleared of the missile, the third-stage TVC subsystem ignites, and ordnance separates the second-stage motor. The third-stage motor then ignites, pushing the equipment section the remaining distance (approx. 40 seconds) of the flight. When the third-stage motor reaches the targeted area, the Post Boost Control System (PBCS) ignites, and the third-stage motor is ejected.

The astro-inertial guidance uses star positioning to fine-tune the accuracy of the inertial guidance system after launch. As the accuracy of a missile is dependent upon the guidance system knowing the exact position of the missile at any given moment during its flight, the fact that stars are a fixed reference point from which to calculate that position makes this a potentially very effective means of improving accuracy. In the Trident system this was achieved by a single camera that was trained to spot just one star in its expected position. If it was not quite aligned to where it should be it would indicate that the inertial system was not precisely on target and a correction would be made.

The targets are locked in. The warheads separate and you have…. incoming! Maximum sunblock is suggested.

If one of the 475 KT warheads were to detonate on Chico, CA (Population around 90,000 and about 20 miles from my house) the death circles would look like this.

Short form: More injuries and fatalities than the total population. That’s the potential the young, very young, crew of the USS Wyoming commands.

[HT: Captain Monroe]

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • Monty James August 20, 2018, 5:23 AM
  • Dan Patterson August 20, 2018, 5:37 AM

    Yeeks a-mighty.
    Fools, like those dressed in robes and screaming about the greatness of some god or other, should consider their options carefully when poking that wolf with a stick. It’s a short stick.

  • Larry Geiger August 20, 2018, 5:43 AM

    Yammer, yammer, yammer. Talk, talk, blather. Norks. Iranians. Russians. Blah, blah, blah. Everyone essentially forgets the Tridents. And the Navy would like to keep it that way. Oh, yeah, by the way, the Chinese will invade the US. Blah, blah, blah. I can assure you that Xi and Putin have not forgotten them. One sub comes near the surface off the coast of India. Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and a large part of China, gone. And there are what, 33 of these things?

  • Dan Patterson August 20, 2018, 6:00 AM

    The new frontier for deterrence (with apologies to Donald Fagen) is space, near and far, for the same reason subs are so effective. The next race is weapons platforms and their defense against killers.

  • Donald Sensing August 20, 2018, 6:49 AM

    In my military career two units I served in were equipped with nuclear warheads. As the operations officer of one of them, I was deeply involved in Nuclear Control Orders procedures and decoded more than a few. None for weapons use, obviously. It was a multi-step process and always required two-man control and verification. The final step to authenticating an NCO message would not be obvious to those not trained in it and was not in the slightest a technical process. But it was probably the most important.

    The real bottom line is this: the commander in actual control of the warheads has the final say. The NCO can decode correctly, the two officers can agree that it is valid, and the commander thereof can say he will not launch.

    I recommend the movie Crimson Tide, starring Gene Hackman as a boomer-sub commander (USS Alabama) and Denzel Washington as the XO. It is a launch-order drama and for the most part relates the procedures and difficulties quite well.

  • ghostsniper August 20, 2018, 6:57 AM

    Bet Venlet chimes in on this’n.
    1st hand ‘sperience and all.

  • ghostsniper August 20, 2018, 7:02 AM

    BTW, was snooping around in Pearl Harbor the other day on google maps trying to see them sunken ships and counted no less than 14 submarines in the farm down there in the south east.

    14.
    That’s a lot of subs, out of 33, to be sitting around isn’t it?
    They ain’t “makin’ bacon” unless they’re out on patrol, right?
    Denizens of the deep, big hammer looming, and all that.

  • David August 20, 2018, 7:40 AM

    A minor quibble: Trident missiles are limited to 8 MIRVs under the START treaties.

  • Vanderleun August 20, 2018, 7:49 AM

    That’s true and I am certainly sure that we are certainly surely obeying those limits for sure, but the maximum technical capacity is given as 12.

  • John Venlet August 20, 2018, 8:22 AM

    Though I was on a fast attack boat, the USS Los Angeles (SSN688), I am well acquainted with boomer subs, as we often referred to them, such as the Wyoming. While I was aboard the LA, acting as the boat’s Personnel Officer (a billet filled by a lowly enlisted man such as myself, then an E5), the average age of the entire crew was 20 years and some few months. War is an enterprise requiring youth, and youths, no matter what branch of service.

    Boomer sub sailing is somewhat different than fast attack sub sailing, especially once on station, but, needless to say, the overall duties are not much different, with the exception of the boomers being able to produce a bigger boom, in spades.

    I’d go back to sea on a sub anytime, and with pride. The military, and its main duties of protecting out country, America, is a government expenditure I fully support.

  • GoneWithTheWind August 20, 2018, 8:29 AM

    But in the calculation do not forget that China has vast underground bomb proof and fallout proof shelters large enough to hold their entire military might and their equipment. They have hardened much of their military related production capability. They have shelters for their essential people too. China intends to survive the first strike and the Boomers strike with an intact military, government and a considerable number of their population. The U.S. has ONE bomb proof shelter and it is presently not in use. It has no bomb or fallout shelters for it’s military and their equipment. It has no shelters for civilians. Go ahead, find a shelter in your community. There hasn’t been any shelters built since the 50’s and those have all been decommissioned for decades. The U.S. is not planning to survive the first strike and second strike of a nuclear war.
    Switzerland has shelters for 100% of their population. They have no nukes but they do have a military plan to repel/prevent an invasion. But the U.S. does not. Why?

  • ghostsniper August 20, 2018, 9:52 AM

    “But the U.S. does not. Why?”
    =======
    I’ll give ya 3 guesses and the first 2 don’t count.

    BTW, how much would it cost to protect 1 person 100% from a nuclear strike?
    Now take that times 320mil.

    Never mind that there are lots of people like me that will never sanction this rotten assed gov’t to do anything at all. I won’t tolerate shitty, half assed quality.

  • Casey Klahn August 20, 2018, 10:58 AM

    Not all nukes will make their target. Doomsday scenarios forget to calculate that; they go to the ultimate threshold, without any friction. Read Clausewitz: war generates friction. Full force, although desired, is unachievable. Some commands will balk (on either side), many of the planes will be attrited, subs may be attrited (I’m no expert in tactics to counter missile subs, which seems impossibly hard), and stacks of silo launched missiles will be interdicted, fail technically, or just plain not launch. Additionally, there will be double hits, and also understand that a nuke is a device, not a stick of TNT. Destroying a nuke does not cause a sympathetic explosion.

    While I’m on a roll, I’ll point out some of Sagan’s many faults in his NW theory. Are you aware that explosions can just as well put out a fire as start one? Overlap, attrition, and failure shrink the nuclear punch of any exchange.

    Not to harsh your buzz. Enjoy as much nuclear terror as possible, but don’t expect the full force to hit when it does, God forbid, happen. Learn it. Live it. Love it.

  • Dan Patterson August 20, 2018, 11:59 AM

    Somebody has to do it. So:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snTaSJk0n_Y

  • GoneWithTheWind August 20, 2018, 12:19 PM

    “how much would it cost to protect 1 person 100% from a nuclear strike?”

    That wouldn’t be the goal. The correct goal would be to protect the military/defense, critical production facilities and provide shelter where the population could survive the fallout. Most of this could have been done by simple regulation where every new building/house is required to include a fallout/storm/emergency shelter stocked with necessities and kept at the ready for emergencies. The cost to provide adequate protection for the military would cost about half the cost of the 2nd Gulf War, maybe far less.

    “there are lots of people like me that will never sanction this rotten assed gov’t to do anything at all”

    I don’t understand that attitude at all. I actually love my country and would give my life for it. I don’t like everything politicians do or allow to be done but “that” is not my country that is politics. MAGA!

  • Mike Guenther August 20, 2018, 1:19 PM

    From what I’ve read, Boomers are basically silent holes in the water. If they aren’t moving, you ain’t finding them. And even if they are on the move, even a Los Angeles class attack sub would have a very hard time finding one. It’s a big ocean out there.

    Kind of like when we did RBS back in the day, even though we had a specified IP where the aircraft was supposed to be,at a specific time and altitude, it could still be difficult to find and lock on for the “bomb run.” It’s a big sky out there, too.

    RBS…Radar Bomb Scoring

    IP…Initial Point

  • Sam L. August 20, 2018, 2:49 PM

    There are very few videos of Minuteman Missileers at work.
    Two people in a small launch control center isn’t all that interesting.
    Four in a larger Titan II launch control center isn’t much better, and they were gone by the early-mid-’80s. MMers are up in the frozen north. Well, in winter.

  • Casey Klahn August 20, 2018, 3:58 PM

    Female service members usually kit up very nicely, but that one lieutenant needs to trim the standing end of her web belt shorter. An inch or less from the buckle clamp; she cannot be USNA. Whatever. I wish I could’ve worn hooded sweatshirts when I was in. Damn navy almost is military. Any sloppier, and they’ll be air force.

  • Mike Guenther August 20, 2018, 4:30 PM

    Any sloppier, and they’ll be air force.

    Damn Dude, that was harsh.

  • R Daneel August 20, 2018, 5:42 PM

    Remember this?
    The Sacrifice and the Reckoning: The Event
    Might be worth reposting.

  • R Daneel August 20, 2018, 5:58 PM

    GoneWithTheWind: “The correct goal would be to protect the military/defense, critical production facilities and provide shelter where the population could survive the fallout.”

    Mmmm, not quite. The goal was to protect war fighting capabilities for 2nd, 3rd strike.

    Done by the end of the 80’s.

  • Eskyman August 20, 2018, 5:58 PM

    Not to worry, I’m fully prepared for whatever comes: I have a schooldesk from 1958, and I practiced the drill over and over when I was a boy.

    Now I can get underneath that desk immediately, when it’s time to kiss my ass goodbye!

    (BTW- even back then I wondered what the point of getting under the desk was, but it seemed to make the teachers feel better when we did. I figured it must be 100% protection from nuclear blast, otherwise what’s the point?)

  • Exnuke91 August 20, 2018, 6:07 PM

    I was a nuke on the USS Ray SSN 653 out of Charleston. We hated “boomer fags”. Meaning they had great duty and we got F’d. 3-1/2 years and I never spent more than a few weeks off the boat. The boomers have two crews. While the gold crew was out on patrol for three months, the blue crew was mustering at the Piggly Wiggly for a month and finding out who the boomer widows were at the radar club at the AFB. And then training for a few months before they got the boat back. Like I said, jealous! We were kids. Even the CO was a baby, maybe mid-late 30’s. When it was game time it was impressive to see what 18 and 20 year olds are capable of. So in the corporate world today when I don’t show respect for limp dick VPs who never did shit, well let’s just say I’ll retire as a non rate! Much respect to all those out there with dolphins on their chest! Thanks for posting!

  • ghostsniper August 20, 2018, 7:34 PM

    “I actually love my country and would give my life for it.”
    ============
    No you wouldn’t, because you don’t seem to have a clear idea of what a country is.
    And you would have done so when you had the opportunity.
    Talk is easier than walk.
    I already have. Twice. Doubtful I will again.
    I’ll protect what’s mine and that’s all.

  • Casey Klahn August 20, 2018, 8:26 PM

    Mike G: all in good fun. I respect these swabbies; this crew actually has a critical job.

    My family and I toured the USS Iowa, in Long Beach, in July. Along with the Missouri, it is an incredible and impressive expression of naval might. Those guys probably let their belts get loose once in a while, too.

  • The Usual Suspect August 21, 2018, 7:05 AM

    I wonder how many of the Wyoming crew know the name of the rider and horse on the right side of their baseball caps? Rider-“Clayton Dankes”, Bucking horse-“Steamboat”
    The sailor at 3:22 in the video (322 is the secret number of Skull & Bones) has an odd fork technique.
    Safest place on the planet earth, aboard a boomer sub.

  • Monty James August 21, 2018, 7:37 AM

    “BTW- even back then I wondered what the point of getting under the desk was, but it seemed to make the teachers feel better when we did. I figured it must be 100% protection from nuclear blast, otherwise what’s the point?”

    The point was to survive the immediate effects of blast, flying debris, the windows in the classroom flying into the kids’ faces in the form of shards, perhaps partial or complete collapse of the ceiling. Afterwards would be the time to shake it off, and those who could would get to shelter or back to their homes.

    No guarantees, of course, and if you’re in the zone of total destruction you’re screwed, but that was the point of taking cover, it was the same principle as grunts hitting the deck when they hear incoming artillery–survive the immediate effects of the explosion. After that you have a chance to get to shelter and survive the radiation. And if you can survive that you and your family can suck it up and start surviving the aftermath.

    In other words civilians were on the front lines, and could fight back by surviving and refusing to say die. That was the point of trying to survive the immediate overpressure effects of an atomic detonation. Decades of commie propaganda repeated by the traitor Left mocking this was meant to instill the idea that there was no point in even trying. That succeeded, to a certain extent.

  • Monty James August 21, 2018, 8:00 AM

    Should have included this, it takes a certain amount of time for the blast wave to arrive after you see the flash. If you’re far enough away, there is time to try and not catch a faceful of flying awful:

    http://armychemicaloperations.tpub.com/Cm5206b/Nuclear-Burst-Parameters-For-Yield-Estimation-8.htm

    “A primary measurement is the time from “flash-to-bang”. This is the time interval, in seconds, between the detonation, “blue-white flash,” and arrival of the sound of the explosion or the shock wave at the observer’s position. The sound of the explosion travels at an average velocity of 350 meters (1122.8 ft.) per second. The distance, in meters, from an observer to ground zero can be estimated by multiplying the flash-to-bang time in seconds by 350. Divide the product by 1000 to obtain the distance in kilometers from the explosion to the observer.”

    Again, nothing is certain, and if you’re close enough to the burst you’re boned. Farther away, you maybe have a chance to survive and not let the bastards get you. Mindset matters in this case.

  • ghostsniper August 21, 2018, 12:17 PM

    “…if you’re close enough to the burst you’re boned.”

    Grab a coupla american communists by the hair and put them between you and the blast.
    Peaceful Technique: Stand facing the blast, drop an EBT card on the floor 5 feet out in front of you, brace for the skirmish.

  • Monty James August 21, 2018, 1:21 PM

    “Grab a coupla american communists by the hair and put them between you and the blast.”

    This, right here–mindset. Deciding that you will survive. Ghost, I am applauding.

  • Gordon Scott August 21, 2018, 4:22 PM

    Now, I once flew across the Atlantic with one of the boomer crews, so I’m an expert, see?

    My job was, when the big buzzer sounded, to walk over to the Teleautowriter and write the temperature, wind speed and the density altitude, for the tower to pass to the bombers and tankers. This type of report required the key numbers first, and then the header at the end, because seconds could matter.

    Then I would stroll outside and watch. Sometimes, I would see the aircraft on the alert pad start the engines, then shut them down. Sometimes, they would roll out of the alert area and up to the runway, where they would gun it for a thousand feet or so, then drop the throttles back.

    I did see the minimum interval take off, or MITO, a few times. But that was always during exercises, when we knew it wasn’t for real. Those last few tankers had to fly through some really mushy air, following 25 heavies before them.

  • j August 21, 2018, 7:05 PM

    Nukes…there time came and went.
    Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan
    Now..there just a Fraud and a Bottomless Money Pit used to collect and divert money.

    Here’s your “New Nuke”, less the Fallout.
    http://www.parabolicarc.com/2010/04/18/darpa-falcon-htv2-hypersonic-vehicle-launch-vandenberg-tuesday/

  • GoneWithTheWind August 22, 2018, 8:30 AM

    “I’ll protect what’s mine and that’s all.”

    That’s fine, It’s what you want and it is your right to be that way. I disagree and do nt understand your attitude, period. Yes indeed I would die for my country, I knew that back in 1964 when I held up my hand and took the oath and I knew it every four years afterwards when I took the reenlistment oath. I would die for my wife and kids and for my grand children and great grandchildren. I have always known that family and country were more important to me than fear for my life. Your attitude seems more like Mario Cuomo who thinks that America was never great. I don’t understand that attitude, Simple as that. You are welcome to it, I reject it. MAGA!