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I believe thats a very situational question. I would not nuke a civilian city. I would nuke a military target such as an opposing fleet or ground base with missile launch capability, but I don't believe I could bring myself to end millions of lives for any current reason for war.

In WW2 where imperialism and extermination were the enemies agenda than yes. In 2009 where rogue states and economics rule the decisions behind war it would be a much harder decision.

There are several soldiers on Dakka. They are welcome to speak their minds or laugh at us foolish mortals quietly.

Except for malfred. have you seen that latest man-purse...with SPIKES???

Can we change the situation a bit for practicalities sake?

How about you are holding a missile launcher capable of taking out an entire city block, just to kill a handful of terrorists?

You do have the option to actually see what impact your decision might have, and all the people that are involved in it. You see the faces through your binoculars, and you can even hear people in the distance.

There is a serious situation that you can actually debate.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Typeline raises an interesting point in whether there is a choice to drop or not drop.

For sake of argument and the spirit of the thread, the bomb is going to be dropped/launched anyway (The President/King/Prime Minister) has ordered it. It's literally whether you personally could be the one to actually pull the trigger. If you don't, the Nuke is still launched.

If it was the other way, then I don't think many people would.

If I, as an American soldier, refused to fire such a weapon I know a swift and brutal court marshal would await me. There really isn't a choice there, if I want my life to be over I could refuse.

Although I suppose a soldier could have a moment of inspiration and simply request a higher up do the final task of actually pressing the button. Although I'd still bear a heavy heart if I had any hand in the setup and launch of the weapon.

I like entertaining this thought in a macabre and utterly masochistic way.

Funnily enough, I was listening to BBC Radio 4 today, turns out that when the Nuclear Submarine commanders suspect that there has been a Nuclear Attack on home soil, they try and tune in to that station, 92.5 for me. If they can't, they go to the lockbox in the Captain's cabin, containing the unopened envelope handwritten from the Prime Minister -- this is renewed every time a new man comes to power. Simplified it either contains the orders to shoot or not to shoot.

With Gordon Brown I suspect it would be a big fat NO, he would be too concerned in taking moral highground.

But if the orders were YES, and I knew that London lay an irradiated wasteland, I would have no hesitation in sending a few million souls to hell, innocent yes, but what about my countrymen?

sA


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Typeline wrote:If I, as an American soldier, refused to fire such a weapon I know a swift and brutal court marshal would await me. There really isn't a choice there, if I want my life to be over I could refuse.

What's the penalty for insubordination/refusal to carry out orders these days?

sA

I'm guessing the people actually in charge of pressing the nuke button have accepted that they'll do it. I'm sure you don't just get drafted into that job.

My guess would be the punishment for insubordination in that regard would depend a lot on what comes of the situation; if you just have the guy next to you push it instead, there may not be any punishment, or something very minor at most. If you actually stood in the way of deploying a nuclear weapon when it was necessary to do so, there would be steep consequences. I wouldn't think death, but a lot of jail time.

I would think death in the form of summary execution.

Shot on the spot comes to mind for delaying a presidential order.

But you can't execute him unless he has the highest Leadership!

Oh yeah, I think we hit a brick wall there.

What would Gene Hackman do?

More importantly, what would Gwar do?

Is it even possible for one to press a button if one is embarked in a submarine? Does it count as firing a ranged weapon?

You should fire a mortar, and use the multiple barrage rules for the nuclear bomb's scatter.

That is, of course, assuming that your unit has multiple barrage weapons. And what blast template would be used for a nuclear warhead? Small or large? Is it an Apocalypse game? In that case, you may want to consider the Apocalyptic blast marker.

Cheese Elemental wrote:More importantly, what would Gwar do?

Is it even possible for one to press a button if one is embarked in a submarine? Does it count as firing a ranged weapon?

I lol'd

Only being able to fire your ICBM 48" is another drawback. You'd pretty much have to have your submarine touching the city.

What size base is said city on? We don't want anybody using it to abuse template-placing.

Do partials count, yes or no? The rules of war keep changing every time!

Frazzled wrote:

BrookM wrote:Well, with modern warfare the whole killing thing has become somewhat industrialized and distant, especially when liberally applying cruise missiles and IR equipment to the enemy.

Respectfully I'll wait until someone comes on who's actually done the above say that before I believe it.

See, we have run into this silly thing called Urban Warfare, where ranged weapons do you damn near no good half the time. Haveing ranged firepower is great, but in todays fighting its pointless at times.

Frazzled wrote:There are several soldiers on Dakka. They are welcome to speak their minds or laugh at us foolish mortals quietly.

Except for malfred. have you seen that latest man-purse...with SPIKES???

Ive Lol'd on a few posts.

Id Press the Button. Then id press it again to make sure the ICBM fired. Id then sit by and watch my screen light up like a christmas tree with impacts and thank god im under the ocean and not on dry land at that moment.

Lets face it, its only a matter of time before somebody nukes somebody else starting/ending WW3. I just hope I dont live to see that day.

I had the privilege of having met a submarine captain from the royal navy, and knew his sons well.

The royal Navy did some things differently, there were no big safety backups the US and Soviets had, just the dual key launch. Ultimately the psychiatric screening was extra strict and the professionalism of the Royal Navy submarine service was then as now second to none.

The Perisher test, the test to become a submarine officer is amongst the hardest in the armed forces, and reputed to be the hardest test in any navy. I heard its easier to get into special forces than becomes a submarine officer and that is saying something allowing for their quality. The test to command a sub is even more stringent.

These people know how to pick good officers, and I expect that amongst the testing is evaluating if they will turn the key or not. They know what you will likely do before you get the job, which is why the RN eschewed the hardware failsafes considered necessary elsewhere.

Have faith in our navy Grotsnik, they know what they are doing.


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smiling Assassin wrote:
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Typeline wrote:If I, as an American soldier, refused to fire such a weapon I know a swift and brutal court marshal would await me. There really isn't a choice there, if I want my life to be over I could refuse.

What's the penalty for insubordination/refusal to carry out orders these days?

sA

In reality you would get court martialled. However under International Law (that doesnt apply to victors) you are more than permitted but actually expected to disobey an order that contravenes the Geneva or Hague conventions.

An annihilatory attack on a city would be a war crime, but noone expects that law to account for anything.

For the fellow that sits in the chair and clicks that button- he's sitting in that chair because he knows that a very difficult decision has been made by people better informed than he.

He trusts his chain of command, just as tehy trust him to push that button when the give the command. Nobody that WANTS to push that button will ever sit in that seat-only those willing to do so if its necessary.

Almost anyone thats used technology to kill in an impersonal manner has qualms about it. Before WWII it was pretty unknown, but as technology advanced it has become more and more a factor.

As many armed forces become more mechanized with drones, this is a question they may become more valid. At least until it becomes so impersonal and dehumanized that it is turned into an automated process and we let robots do it for us.

Typeline wrote:I think a lot of people are going to respond 'Yes' to this for a number of different reasons I won't really get into.

But personally, it's all gray areas. It's all dependent on the situation. What country? What ethnicity? What region? What belief structure?

I could very easily kill people very different from myself and those around me, black Nigerians of the Muslim faith who have a strict caste system. I could nuke them pretty quickly. I don't see them as people living next door to me, I see them as a set of stereotypes mish-mashed together.

If you want me to drop the bomb on a Sweedish city or an Irish town I might hesitate. Is it an option to even not drop this bomb? These people are predominantly white Anglo-Saxons. I'm not certain if I could wipe them off the face of the earth without a little explanation.\

I'm not saying any of this to sound racist, I'm just making a point. It'd definitely be harder for me to fire a weapon like that if I had the feeling people very similar to me that I could put into reality in my head were going to be killed. But people that I can't sympathize with because I don't share anything in common with them would be easier to kill. But even then, it's why I will never let myself be put into that situation. I simply couldn't do it.

You don't hate the Irish or the Swedish because there's no chance of fighting them. The Russians look like us, live in houses like us and share our faith, yet for the period of the Cold War we hated them plenty. Once a group threatens your way of life, you'll stereotype them all just enough to make killing them easy. Well, maybe you won't, I don't know you, but not many people had a problem with seeing them as the horrible other when it was the Germans.



Meanwhile, I don't know if I'd press the button. But I know that I'm probably not the guy who'd be in that chair. You don't just get drafted on Monday and put in front of button in a sub on Tuesday. I'm pretty sure they make you're the right kind of guy for the job.

But if you want to talk about nuclear horror stories, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device). It's a nuclear weapons, albeit a small one, mounted on a recoiless rifle fixed on a jeep. If the Russians came over the border this was the first point of delay. Basically, these things would have been handed out to, what, 2nd Lieutenants? 2nd Lieutenants driving around Eastern Europe with nukes with no fire control placed on them...

Especially since they seem to have been made solely for the purpose of spreading nuclear fallout.

Manchu wrote:Gay pilot.

Im so imature

Don't worry Kragura, 2 can play that game...

I dont think I could do it though.

Ahtman wrote:
Does no one on this board know a soldier or been in the military? What is this? The pile insults on soldiers thread?

Oh , in that case yes i know some .

Basically the moment they are in their position they already accept what needed to be done .
if they cant , then they wouldnt be allowed there.

..Let's be honest here.

If things have goten so bad that anyone who hangs here is suddenly in charge of even a single stomic weapon then it's pretty much game over already.

But going with it anyway...

If "we" had already been attacked or the enemy missiles/whatever are already in the air then I'm pretty certain i could and indeed would do it.

If it was an initial pre emptative strike I'm less so sure.

I'm also a bit unsure as to how I'd cope or feel after events calmed down, IF they ever did.

UK Submarine Capts are indeed sterling fellows.

When we elect a new Govt. in the UK amongst the first jobs the new Prime Minister has to do is write a sealed letter for our submarine commanders with orders and instructions on what to do in a war scenario if contact is lost etc. IT's always hand written and is destroyed unopened when we get a new PM.

article here

I'm quite intrigued as the letter may infact tell them NOT to fire....

in the above article Dennis Healey goes on record to state that if, as was possible, he'd be left in charge he wouldn't have ordered the firing of any missiles.

Does the 'push of button' make it easier?
I don't know. I don't think I could. If I knew MY family was at stake there would be little hesitation (but I don't see how luanching a nuke would help them). I really don't think I could do it though, not like that. WTF am I saying?!? Not at all.

Emperors Faithful wrote:Does the 'push of button' make it easier?
I don't know. I don't think I could. If I knew MY family was at stake there would be little hesitation (but I don't see how luanching a nuke would help them). I really don't think I could do it though, not like that. WTF am I saying?!? Not at all.

:Fail on this point.

Doubt is acceptable, someone who knows he sould do it is proably a higher risk than someone who is a probable no, when in a command situation with orders given you are part of a process, abstract thought from the safety of home, or shore, is very different.
However when it becomes 'protecting my family' it clouds issues, personalises the actions. a strong level of detachment is required.

No I dont know all this for a fact, but from observation of the character of those they do choose I would say this is so.

...?
You're point being? All I'm saying is, that if luanching that nuke saved MY family, then i'd do it. But there is unlikely to be scenario where luanching a nuke is going to help ANYONE.

Emperors Faithful wrote:...?
You're point being? All I'm saying is, that if luanching that nuke saved MY family, then i'd do it. But there is unlikely to be scenario where luanching a nuke is going to help ANYONE.

The point being that the person doing it will be someone who has a bigger picture and less emotionally connected. They would understand that it can not be a personal choice based on their emotional connection to a specific individual(s). Of course most soldiers understand this or they wouldn't be in the Military. If you just want to protect your own specific family stay home and buy a shotgun.