Quote:
Originally Posted by GGG
I'd have to dig it out but at one point there was testing done with the minutemen missle silo operator and when given orders to launch compliance was far from 100%
The other option to prevent launch would be the secretary of defensemen attempts to invoke the the 25th amendment to remove the president.
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That's why they use the voting system with the silo crews. you have 5 crews in 5 control centers that can launch the missiles, you just have to have two of the 5 crews voting to launch. Its likely that 40% would vote to fire.
The Russians in the 80's had the dead hand system that could fire all of the missiles in the Russian arsenal with the exception of tactical and sub launched missiles. Basically the system when it was activated checked communication lines to see if there was a military hierarchy, lets call it a census. If it didn't get responses, then it was designed to look for signs of a nuclear war. It looked for elevated radiation and air pressure and higher then normal light levels. If it detected those it has a pre-designed launch cycle that it would fire.
Supposedly this system was turned off, but when the American's asked the Russians if it was still running, the Russian government replied that the American's should mind their own business.
I know that in the early 2000's the American's looked at a way to remove the possible biggest failure point in the nuclear launch scenario which were human beings. But I don't believe it got very far.