Nuclear Reset - Program on Strategic Stability Evaluation (POSSE)

Chapter 11. The Threat of Accidental <strong>Nuclear</strong> Exchange229not require any additional money to be spent on maintaining aining the deployedSLBMs in operational condition. To reinstall the warheadson each SLBM would take at least three hours. Consequently, itwould take between 48 and 72 hours to install the warheads on allof the SLBMs to be deployed on each submarine, depending uponthe number of launch tubes on the various classes of SLBM submarine.It would take substantially more time if the warheads have been removedfrom the base to centralized storage.The method of reducing combat launch readiness by removingthe SLBMs from a submarine’s launch tubes and placing them intostorage would be the most time-consuming in terms of restoringlaunch readiness. Although under current U.S. practice, a portionof a submarine’s s SLBMs is stored in the loading tubes, which permitsa fairly rapid reload of all of its launch tubes (48 to 96 hoursfor an Ohio class submarine), the technology for loading the SLBMsinto loading tubes has remained quite labor and time intensive, andthe time required to bring a single strategic submarine to launchreadiness could be as long as 30 days, assuming that there are enoughloading tubes available.At the same time, all of the measures described above would alsoallow complete monitoring over the technical conditions of nuclearsafety on patrol and would allow remote electrical checks to be made;in addition, they could be conducted in parallel with any scheduledrepair or maintenance work. The missiles could not be launched untilrestored to their previous condition, since in deactivated mode theirlaunch sequence controls are automatically blocked.The air component of the U.S. and Russian nuclear triads hasnot usually been associated with the launch-on-warning concept.Unlike ICBMs in fixed or mobile launchers or SLBM submarinesat sea on patrol, bombers would not survive a nuclear strike on theirbases and would be able to escape destruction only if they succeededin making a quick takeoff. Unlike missiles, however, aircraft can berecalled ed to base in case of a false alarm. In a crisis situation, bomberscould be placed on 15-minute alert (with the aircraft fueled andparked at the end of the runway, weapons secured in bays and on py-lons, and the flight crews in their cockpits). Some of the aircraftcould be designated for flight patrol, where they could remain aloftfor prolonged periods (up to 76 hours for the B-52 heavy bomber).Nevertheless, once the reduction in missile launch readinesshas reached a certain level, the aviation component would have