Foreword: Since the beginning of the Cold War, the US-led NATO organization and the Warsaw Pact organization headed by the Soviet Union have mobilized all forces to carry out life-and-death confrontation in all aspects; although no war broke out, the countless military equipment prepared for war has developed to the peak, as the most important military weight in the Cold War period, nuclear forces have profoundly affected the pattern of the Cold War, influenced the strategy of various countries, and also become the ultimate force in the process of the US-Russia game.
One: The U.S.-Russia nuclear doctrine at the beginning of the Cold War
The advent of the atomic bomb made the world's armed forces must understand the impact of this destructive weapon, the United States, as the only nuclear weapon possessor at that time, naturally hoped to use this nuclear superiority for greater strategic interests, recognizing the benefits of nuclear superiority, the Soviet Union, Britain, France and China have joined the ranks of developing atomic bombs, the United States in 1945-1952 in the nuclear superiority is a horse, but the Soviet Union is also closely catching up, August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union completed the first nuclear test, but there is still a distance from nuclear weapons But the European allies of the United States are already under tremendous pressure, the Soviet Union is facing Europe, France after World War II, France, exhausted Britain, No military strength in West Germany, only tens of thousands of U.S. troops in the military can not stop the Soviet army millions of well-trained steel torrent, the fearsome nuclear strike force has become the only guarantee for European security, but also become the United States to win European countries to join NATO magic weapon,
In 1952, Truman introduced the establishment of NATO to encircle the Soviet Union, the comprehensive development of nuclear forces "containment" strategy, when the only one that can throw atomic bombs across the ocean is the strategic bomber, in 1947, the initial U.S. Strategic Air Command has 319 B-29 bombers, but only 13 atomic bombs and a bomber brigade have the ability to throw, at the same time the Soviet Union also used B-29 bombers as a model to imitate the Tu 4 bomber, but the United States in various European allies can deploy nuclear bombers, Can hit Moscow, and the Soviet Union has no overseas bases, from the mainland Tu-4 bombers can not fly to the United States at all, this situation greatly enhances the strategic prestige of the United States, the Soviet Union in 1950-1960 did not dare to overstimulate the United States, can only lie down and try to catch up, Khrushchev came to power after thinking that future wars will inevitably use a large number of nuclear weapons, and nuclear war has no victor at all, so he proposed to use "nuclear destruction" to maintain the balance of military power to maintain peace,
Starting with the "nuclear weapons theory", the Soviet Union disarmed 3.5 million people, established a strategic rocket force, concentrated all resources to develop nuclear weapons, stepped down from the development projects of the army, navy, and air force that have nothing to do with nuclear weapons, and comprehensively transitioned to rocket nuclear weapons, the strategic rocket army will play a decisive role in the war, and at the beginning a large number of concentrated use of nuclear weapons will completely destroy the enemy, the army only needs to follow the surprise effect of nuclear weapons, if nuclear weapons are used in an all-round way, The offensive front of the First Front was expanded from 300 km of conventional weapons to 600 km, the forward speed was expanded from 20 km to 100 km, and the battle time was shortened from 35 days to 20 days, but this was only theoretical, in 1962 the Soviet Union only had 300 atomic bombs, and Eisenhower also began to carry out the strategy of inheriting "large-scale retaliation", also reducing the Army's expansion of missile nuclear forces and strategic air force, because the US industry was much stronger, in 1962 the United States already had 5,000 atomic bombs.
Second: The THREAT OF THE UNITED STATES AND RUSSIA DURING THE COLD WAR
Obviously, the size of the Soviet nuclear arsenal was not enough to be used in the European war, nor could it deter the Us mainland, and the only way to deter the Us mainland was to rely on ballistic missiles, in the early 50s the Soviet army only hit The P-1.P-2 and P-5 medium- and short-range ballistic missiles in Europe, until 1961 the Soviet Union developed the P-16 intercontinental ballistic missile, in 1963 the United States had 424 intercontinental missiles, 224 submarine-launched strategic missiles and 630 long-range bombers, while the Soviet Union only had 90 intercontinental missiles, 107 submarine-launched missiles and , 140 Tu-95 long-range bombers, these bombers can not break through the interception of the US air defense system, in order to achieve nuclear balance in a short period of time, the Soviet army deployed 48 medium-range nuclear missiles in Cuba, resulting in the United States launched the Cuban missile crisis, with a strong sea and air force to intercept the Soviet Union to sail to Cuba, if the United States and the Soviet Union broke out nuclear war in 1962, the United States has 3,000 nuclear bombs, with a total yield of 7 billion tons, the Soviet Union can project only 300 nuclear warheads to the United States. The Soviet Union's nuclear strike capabilities, both in quality and quantity, could not deter the United States, eventually forcing the Soviet Union to withdraw from the medium-range missiles and Il-28 bombers deployed in Cuba after the Commitment of the United States to pledge not to invade Cuba and withdraw from the medium-range missiles in Turkey and southern Europe.
By 1969, the Soviet Union had 1,023 intercontinental missiles, 196 submarine-launched missiles and 145 long-range bombers, and the gap between the United States and the Soviet Union had narrowed from 3.3:1 to 1.66:1, and at the same time broke through the cluster multi-warhead missile technology, by 1970, the Soviet Union and the United States had only 31 nuclear warheads, and by 1972 the Soviet Union had 1530 intercontinental missiles, 44% more than the United States. Submarine-launched ballistic missiles have also reached 560, reaching 85 percent of the United States, long-range bombers have also reached 70 percent of the United States, and the competitive Johnson administration has put forward a "flexible response" strategy under the premise of ensuring mutual destruction, ensuring that mutual destruction is that the United States and the Soviet Union maintain the ability of the united states and the Soviet Union to destroy nuclear retaliation that the other side cannot destroy, and any one side will be devastated even if it launches a nuclear strike first. Economic targets launch a full-scale nuclear assault, the first phase is expected to be the first target of 1,000 targets, the first target is the commander-in-chief, communications center and nuclear weapons base, the second is the heavy army group, important industrial centers and cities,
The US military usually takes the sea-based strategic nuclear forces as the main force of the first nuclear assault, nuclear war first destroys the Soviet strategic command center, communication center, and then eliminates the Soviet Navy, destroys the Soviet nuclear submarines in the port, and finally eliminates the Soviet missile launch base, the US sea-based nuclear forces include 41 strategic nuclear submarines of 4 levels, with an average of 16 nuclear missiles per each, with a warhead equivalent of 80 to 1 million tons, divided into the 14th, 15.16.18 and 20th five brigades, the 20th brigade is responsible for training. The 14th Brigade was placed in the Weihai Basin and the Lofoten Basin, targeting Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad, Riga, Tallinn, Warsaw and Prague, and the 16th Brigade was placed in the Eastern Mediterranean, targeting Odessa, Kiev, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Rostov,
The 15th brigade is located in Kyushu, Japan, the target is Vladivostok and the eastern coastal city of China, each brigade is equipped with 382 to 392 missiles and 1146 ~ 1171 nuclear warheads, from launch to hit only 10 to 20 minutes, only 25% to 50% of land-based nuclear missiles, which is extremely important for the nuclear assault calculated by the second, the time advantage is enough to cause sufficient pressure on the enemy's reaction, to maximize the pre-emptive strike, The Soviet Union also had a fleet of five nuclear submarine zones on 1.2.3.4.11, but the Soviet Union was at a disadvantage in the geopolitical environment, and the Soviet nuclear submarines had to start from the mainland and sail tens of thousands of kilometers through several blockade lines of the US Navy to get close to the US mainland, so the Soviet Union paid more attention to land mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Three: The number of nuclear weapons in the United States and Russia
At the end of the 1980s, the Soviet Union was getting more and more tired on the road to hegemony, and the pressure of domestic and foreign contradictions forced the Soviet Union and the United States to sign a treaty on the reduction of strategic nuclear weapons, stipulating that both sides should reduce the number of nuclear warheads to 6,000 and missiles to 1,600, of which intercontinental ballistic missiles carry warheads were limited to 4,900, and the Soviet Union suffered losses, because the Soviet Union's SS-18 land-based ballistic missiles were limited to 154, and nuclear warheads were limited to 1540 nuclear warheads. Russia and the United States signed the second phase of the Treaty on the Limitation of Strategic Nuclear Weapons, stipulating that by 2003 the United States and the Soviet Union will reduce the total number of nuclear warheads to less than 3,000-3,500, and the treaty stipulates that the SS-18 intercontinental ballistic missile will be scrapped, and of the 3,000-3,500 nuclear warheads that can be retained, the strategic nuclear warheads launched by sea-based launches will be 1,700-1,750.
Beginning in 1999, the United States and Russia conducted the third strategic nuclear weapons reduction treaty negotiations, stipulating that the nuclear warheads of both sides should be further reduced to 2000-2500, because the first phase of the treaty on the limitation of strategic nuclear weapons was not fulfilled, in December 2001 the strategic nuclear warheads owned by the United States and Russia were reduced to 5949 and 5518 respectively, and on May 24, 2002, the United States and Russia signed a nuclear disarmament treaty in Moscow. It is stipulated that the number of strategic nuclear warheads on both sides will be reduced to 1700-2200 rounds in 2012. The Moscow Treaty is rather loose, with only a symbolic reduction in active nuclear warheads, which do not need to be destroyed and can be stockpiled and redeployed at any time. On March 26, 2010, the United States and Russia signed the "New Treaty on The Reduction of Strategic Nuclear Weapons in Prague", which stipulates that the number of strategic nuclear warheads will be reduced to 1550 within 7 years, of which intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched strategic nuclear missiles, and strategic bombers are limited to 700 pieces/aircraft, and the number of other vehicles is limited to 800/aircraft, and the number of the two is 1500/aircraft.
The United States only needs to reduce 30 missile silos, 34 bombers, 56 submarine-launch tubes, each of the 18 strategic missile nuclear submarines, 4 of which are no longer equipped with missiles in the future, the retired land-based, sea-based, and space-based strategic missiles have not been required to be destroyed, the United States and Russia do not want to completely destroy the decommissioned nuclear missiles, but neither side has enough budget to destroy, in the real stage, Russia has 383 land-based strategic nuclear missiles, 1335 nuclear warheads, and the United States has 450 land-based strategic missiles. However, the number of warheads is only 550, and the Russian side has the advantage of land-based strike forces, and Russia's strategic nuclear forces are less viable because they mainly rely on land-based missile warheads. In terms of sea-based strategic missiles, the United States has the advantage. The Russian Navy has 10 strategic missile nuclear submarines, 160 launch tubes, 176 nuclear warheads, the United States has 288 launch tubes and 1152 nuclear warheads, which is significantly better than Russia, Russia has 77 strategic bombers, 856 nuclear warheads, the United States has 113 strategic bombers, 500 nuclear warheads, and the United States B2 stealth bomber penetration capability is above the Russian strategic bomber
Fourth: The mutual destruction capability of U.S.-Russian nuclear weapons
Nuclear missiles are different from conventional weapons, usually can not be used on a large scale in training, its credibility is the lowest of all kinds of weapons, so both sides have set up 2 or 3 nuclear warheads to attack a target to ensure absolute destruction, when a nuclear warhead explodes at an altitude of 30 kilometers, the lethal effect includes 50% shock wave, 35% optical radiation, 10% radioactive contamination and 5% electromagnetic pulse, etc., the shock wave consists of a compression zone with a pressure above atmospheric pressure and a sparse area below atmospheric pressure. The pressure exceeding the normal atmospheric pressure in the compression area is called overpressure, the pressure of air flow is called dynamic pressure, the front of the compression area is the shock wave array, the maximum overpressure and dynamic pressure on the array, the peak of the shock wave is calculated as "1 square centimeter per kilogram", 0.3 kg / square centimeter can make the open area personnel incapacitated, 0.6 kg / square centimeter can make the open area personnel completely incapacitated, 2 kg / square centimeter can destroy the load-bearing structure of the building to produce cracks or deformation, or even collapse,
The industrial center of the United States has three major industrial zones in the northeast industrial zone, the western industrial zone and the southern industrial zone, the three industrial zones have 13 large cities, of which Los Angeles, Chicago and other cities are almost rectangular in plan, and the large-yield single warhead can hit the core area of the city as long as it hits the core area, assuming that a 1 million-ton equivalent nuclear warhead explodes at an altitude of 2,000 meters above New York's Central Park, the shock wave will instantly kill 1.25 million people, injuring 2.65 million people, and radioactive deposition will cause 4.39 million deaths. San Francisco and Seattle and other urban planes are long strips, and the invalid damage of large-yield warheads is high, which is suitable for small-yield distributed warheads to be dropped along the long axis, such as calculated according to the 0.3 kg/cm2 damage standard, 120 million ton-equivalent nuclear warheads are needed to strike 13 U.S. cities, that is, 24 5-ton-equivalent warheads, or 76 1-ton-equivalent warheads, or 282 200,000-ton-equivalent warheads, and if 20 4-million-ton nuclear warheads explode on the ground on the U.S. mainland, it would be enough to cause the death of 50 million Americans.
Among them, New York covers an area of 786 square kilometers, with a population of 8.27 million, Chicago has an area of 588 square kilometers and a population of 2.8 million, San Francisco has an area of 121 square kilometers and a population of 810,000, Seattle has an area of 217 square kilometers and a population of 600,000, the above cities only need 2 5 million tons of nuclear warheads to be completely destroyed, Los Angeles covers an area of 1215 square kilometers, with a population of 4.3 million, it takes 4 nuclear warheads of 5 million tons to be destroyed, Houston has an area of 1544 square kilometers and a population of 2.2 million. Five 5 million tons of nuclear warheads are needed to be destroyed, Philadelphia has an area of 350 square kilometers with a population of 1.6 million, Dallas has an area of 997 square kilometers with a population of 1.24 million, Detroit has an area of 360 square kilometers and a population of 910,000, Boston has an area of 125 square kilometers and a population of 650,000. Lan has a large area of 341 square kilometers, a population of 540,000, Miami has an area of 88 square kilometers, a population of 420,000 areas of 144 square kilometers, Pittsburgh, with a population of 310,000, only needs a 5 million tons of nuclear warheads to be destroyed, as for the United States ally British, French, German cities, the industry is highly concentrated in several core cities, only a few 1 million tons of nuclear warheads can be.
Russia has four major industrial zones, Moscow Industrial Zone is Russia's most developed comprehensive industrial zone, Ural Industrial Zone mainly develops heavy industry, St. Petersburg Industrial Zone mainly develops shipbuilding, aviation, petrochemical, Novosibirsk Industrial Zone mainly develops heavy industry and military industry, these four industrial zones have 9 large cities, the capital Moscow area of 1081 square kilometers, population of 12 million, damage needs 4 nuclear warheads of 5 million tons, St. Petersburg area of 607 square kilometers, population of 5 million, Destruction requires 2 nuclear warheads of 5 million tons, Samara has an area of 330 square kilometers and a population of 1.27 million people, Novosibirsk has an area of 400 square kilometers and a population of 1.4 million, Chelyabinsk, with an area of 376 square kilometers with a population of 1.08 million people, each needs a nuclear warhead of 5 million tons, Yekaterinburg has an area of 490 square kilometers and a population of 1.32 million, Kazan has an area of 425 plane kilometers, a population of 1.1 million, and 5 nuclear warheads of 1 million tons each, and Omsk has an area of 567 square kilometers , the population of 1.16 million, the need for 6 1 million tons of nuclear warheads, Nizhny Novgorod area of 334 square kilometers, the population of 1.41 million, only need 1 1 million tons of nuclear warheads,
The plane shape of Russian cities is generally close to circular, and it takes 70 million tons of nuclear warheads to attack these 9 cities in Russia, that is, 14 5 million tons of warheads, or 49 warheads of 1 million tons of equivalent, or 49 warheads of 200,000 tons of equivalent, assuming that the American "Minuteman" intercontinental missile carries a 5 million tons of equivalent warhead, trident submarine-launched missiles carry a 1 million tons of warheads, a total of 28 "Minuteman" intercontinental missiles and 24 Trident submarine-launched missiles, Assuming that each Ohio-type missile nuclear submarine carries 14 Trident submarine-launched missiles, each missile carries 1 nuclear warhead of 1 million tons, 9-10 missile nuclear submarines are needed, if each missile carries 8 200,000 tons of equivalent sub-warheads, only 4 missile nuclear submarines are needed, the above calculation is only the missile need to attack the city, do not calculate the military target, to hit the city each landing point with 2-3 warheads, after destroying all major cities, The United States and the Soviet Union still had a large number of nuclear warheads left to attack military targets and small and medium-sized cities.
Five: Conclusion
Nuclear war is the most complex war confrontation in the history of human military struggle, its terrible power leads to huge psychological pressure from the commander-in-chief to the civilians, the role of deterring all-out war is obvious, to this day, although the use of nuclear weapons in the war has ceased to exist, but the existing nuclear weapons can still destroy mankind several times, nuclear forces are still an important strategic weight in the contest between major powers, the current Russian conventional military forces are unable to oppose NATO 27 countries, But in case Russia is defeated or hits a red eye, it is difficult to guarantee that it will not swing the big stick of nuclear weapons, which is why the United States and NATO do not dare to go to war directly with Russia, by the way, if China launches a nuclear counterattack against the United States, destroying 13 large cities in the United States only needs 28 5 million tons of single warheads of the East Wind "5A" and 24 1 million tons of single warhead "Dongfeng" 31A ballistic missiles, or 132 "Giant Wave" 2 submarine-launched missiles, 470 200,000 tons of warheads, a new generation of "Giant Wave" 3, "East Wind" The 41A ballistic missile can carry more nuclear warheads and require fewer missiles.