7 ms·

Upshot: Probably still has 2 nukes pointed at it. Better to have a front row seat than be a “survivor”.

greesil 5y ago
That should be in the listing. Pros: immediate painless surprise death in case of nuclear war. Cons: damp, bit of a fixer upper.
- imglorp 5y ago
  If not a direct hit, more likely an extended entombment after the entrance stairwell collapses and blocks the blast door. Maybe that's the second reason missileers carried sidearms.
Aloha 5y ago
Russia knows the sites were decommissioned, so it wouldn't waste a missile on it.
- Iolaum 5y ago
  Even if some people know, are we sure if it was disseminated across all Classified channels up and down and then the people in charge of the lists updated them? :p
- crawl_soever 5y ago
  It also means they could be the one who purchases it!
jonathankoren 5y ago
Doubt it. Decommissioning silos is transparent as part of treaty verifications. I imagine getting it operational again would take years of very obvious work.
kortilla 5y ago
Why would Russia or whoever waste two nukes on a silo purported to be nuke proof in the middle of nowhere?
- michaelt 5y ago
  There are two bits of context you need to understand this. First: Early nuclear missiles weren't very accurate - you don't have to be very accurate when your target is the size of Moscow. A missile silo is a much smaller target! So AIUI missile silos were hardened to survive a nuclear bomb landing 500m away - but they wouldn't survive a direct hit. Second: There was a theory, at one point in the cold war, that one side could launch a surprise attack that struck and disabled the other side's nuclear weapons. Or at least, disabled a large enough fraction that the counterattack was survivable. This was seen as winning. Or as close to winning as you can get, in a nuclear war. And it was seen as relatively more ethical than targeting cities. The jargon for this is "counterforce" or "disarming" strike [1] and it was part of the rationale for having a ridiculous number of bombs - if you have enough bombs to destroy the world 10 times over, you can destroy the world even if 90% of your bombs have been destroyed in a surprise attack. Later in the cold war other technologies were developed - high precision guidance, submarine launched missiles, and missiles with multiple warheads. Between them they made a disarming strike seem unlikely to work. But on the other hand there are still an awful lot of missiles around and they gotta be targeted somewhere. If you'd already sent a dozen at the pentagon and a dozen at the white house, why not send some of the remainder at a few nuclear silos? Of course, you might well say this all seems pretty unlikely. A nuclear war? In this day and age? But people who think that probably aren't in the market for a disused nuclear bunker, except as a historical curiosity. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterforce https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterforce
  - detritus 5y ago
    Another bit of context - some responses on the internet weren't intended to be entirely literal in their nature.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
    Still better to point them at NZ, to get the capitalistic overlords hiding there :-)
LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
Why would that be? Don't you think "they" have better uses for their spare nukes? And intelligence agencies updating the list of target objects?
2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
Probably not but it still beats any large city that likely has about a dozen or more with their name on it.
more_corn 5y ago
Funny that this is a selling point. “How are you preparing for the end?” “I’m prepared to go out in the first wave, you?”

That should be in the listing. Pros: immediate painless surprise death in case of nuclear war. Cons: damp, bit of a fixer upper.

imglorp 5y ago
If not a direct hit, more likely an extended entombment after the entrance stairwell collapses and blocks the blast door. Maybe that's the second reason missileers carried sidearms.

Aloha 5y ago

Russia knows the sites were decommissioned, so it wouldn't waste a missile on it.

Iolaum 5y ago
Even if some people know, are we sure if it was disseminated across all Classified channels up and down and then the people in charge of the lists updated them? :p
crawl_soever 5y ago
It also means they could be the one who purchases it!

jonathankoren 5y ago

Doubt it. Decommissioning silos is transparent as part of treaty verifications. I imagine getting it operational again would take years of very obvious work.

kortilla 5y ago

Why would Russia or whoever waste two nukes on a silo purported to be nuke proof in the middle of nowhere?

michaelt 5y ago
There are two bits of context you need to understand this. First: Early nuclear missiles weren't very accurate - you don't have to be very accurate when your target is the size of Moscow. A missile silo is a much smaller target! So AIUI missile silos were hardened to survive a nuclear bomb landing 500m away - but they wouldn't survive a direct hit. Second: There was a theory, at one point in the cold war, that one side could launch a surprise attack that struck and disabled the other side's nuclear weapons. Or at least, disabled a large enough fraction that the counterattack was survivable. This was seen as winning. Or as close to winning as you can get, in a nuclear war. And it was seen as relatively more ethical than targeting cities. The jargon for this is "counterforce" or "disarming" strike [1] and it was part of the rationale for having a ridiculous number of bombs - if you have enough bombs to destroy the world 10 times over, you can destroy the world even if 90% of your bombs have been destroyed in a surprise attack. Later in the cold war other technologies were developed - high precision guidance, submarine launched missiles, and missiles with multiple warheads. Between them they made a disarming strike seem unlikely to work. But on the other hand there are still an awful lot of missiles around and they gotta be targeted somewhere. If you'd already sent a dozen at the pentagon and a dozen at the white house, why not send some of the remainder at a few nuclear silos? Of course, you might well say this all seems pretty unlikely. A nuclear war? In this day and age? But people who think that probably aren't in the market for a disused nuclear bunker, except as a historical curiosity. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterforce https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterforce
- detritus 5y ago
  Another bit of context - some responses on the internet weren't intended to be entirely literal in their nature.
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
  Still better to point them at NZ, to get the capitalistic overlords hiding there :-)

LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago

Why would that be? Don't you think "they" have better uses for their spare nukes? And intelligence agencies updating the list of target objects?

2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago

Probably not but it still beats any large city that likely has about a dozen or more with their name on it.

more_corn 5y ago

Funny that this is a selling point. “How are you preparing for the end?” “I’m prepared to go out in the first wave, you?”