A counterforce strike is an attack which targets these elements whilst leaving the civilian infrastructure & ndash; the countervalue targets & ndash; as undamaged as possible.
12.
However, as the US Navy was quick to point out, their Polaris fleet, which was essentially invulnerable, would maintain a countervalue force under any circumstances.
13.
While still pressing for development of newer bombers, like the supersonic B-70, it appeared the countervalue role was served by the Navy's UGM-27 Polaris.
14.
A counterforce weapon requires a much more accurate warhead than a countervalue weapon, as it must be guaranteed to detonate very close to its target, which drastically increases relative costs.
15.
In some ways this helped the Air Force, as it meant they could concentrate on the counterforce scenarios, knowing that a countervalue attack would always be available from the Navy.
16.
These were speculated to be a result of any large scale employment of countervalue city-solar radiation reaching the surface of the planet in the first few years, gradually clearing over several decades.
17.
It was also devised before Robert McNamara and President Kennedy changed the US Nuclear War plan from the'city killing'countervalue strike plan to " counterforce " ( targeted more at military forces ).
18.
Firing early might mean striking civilian targets ( countervalue ) when the Soviets had only targeted military installations, something US politicians considered to be a serious problem ( part of the flexible response doctrine ).
19.
Early ICBMs and bombers were relatively inaccurate, which led to the concept of countervalue strikes attacks directly on the enemy population, which would theoretically lead to a collapse of the enemy's will to fight.
20.
The line of reasoning is that if an aggressor strikes first with nuclear weapons against an opponent's countervalue targets, then, by definition, such an attack does not degrade the opponent's military capacity to retaliate.
