A handful of Trident could collapse the entire country's electrical grid, transportation network and information infrastructure of even the largest countries.
So why would the United States need such a fearsome weapon? The answer comes down to this: if you can't defend your homeland against a large-scale nuclear attack then the next-best option is to threaten adversaries with devastating retaliation if they launch one. In other words, you have to convince the enemy that attacking America would be suicidal. The strategy is called deterrence, and it is the main reason why no foreign nation has seriously threatened the U.S. with nuclear aggression since the Navy built out its undersea missile force.
The U.S. actually maintains a "triad" of nuclear systems -- Trident D5s on submarines, land-based ballistic missiles, and long-range bombers -- so enemies can harbor no illusions about their ability to disarm America in a surprise attack. But countries like Russia know precisely where U.S. land-based missile silos and bomber bases are located, so they could hypothetically be targeted in a crisis. The submarines can't be. Once they are on station under the Atlantic or Pacific oceans, they are essentially impossible to find, and thus highly survivable.
That's why the Pentagon plans to deploy over two-thirds of the warheads in the U.S. strategic arsenal on submarines in the years ahead. A single Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarine has two dozen missile tubes, and each of the D5s in those tubes carries at least several nuclear warheads that can be directed at separate targets. The missiles can carry up to 14 warheads, although the max per missile today is probably eight due to arms control limitations.

Each warhead has a yield of 100 or 475 kilotons, and can hit within 300 feet of intended targets. At those yields -- 5 to 25 times the explosive power of the weapon that leveled Hiroshima in 1945 -- the warheads carried by a D5 can destroy pretty much anything, including a hardened command bunker. So even an erratic foreign leader like Kim Jong Un would have to think long and hard before attacking the U.S. Chances are, such leaders would not survive the first wave of U.S. retaliation, which would arrive from Navy submarines less than 30 minutes after the attack was detected.



1. There are 14 Ohio class submarine housing American Trident II D5 Missiles

2. Each of the Submarine carries atleast 24 Trident II D5 missiles

3. The Total number of Trident II D5 is ( 24 x 14) 336


4. Trident II D5 weigh 130,000lb or 58,500kg

5. Each of the Trident D5 carries up to 8 - 14 Mark-4/W76 or Mark-5/W88

Each warhead can yield up to 100(Mark-4) - 455(Mark-5 TNT

6. The total Number of all warheads in all 336 Trident-D5 is ( 336 x is 2688 [img]http://americanhistory.si.edu/subs/const/anatomy/boomers/images/cutaway.jpg[/img]

7. The total number of kiloton per Trident-D5 (if we fit in Mark-4 warhead) is ( 8 x 100) 800TNT WHICH IS 53 times POWERFUL THAN HIROSHIMA DEVASTATION and a single Trident D5 will yield 3,640TNT which is 243 times powerful than Hiroshima if Mark-5 is fitted

8. If all the Trident Missiles were used in an event of war, then we should be expecting 268,000 TNT of energy for Mark-4 and 1,223,040 of energy TNT for Mark-5

9.150,000 is Number of people killed by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima with 15 TNT of energy, then a single Trident will kill about 120,000,000 people

10. $66,000,000: Price of ONE Trident D5 missile, which is N23,100,000,000 naira

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Naval Submarine Base Kitsap-Bangor is located 20 miles west of Seattle on the deep waters of Hood Canal in Washington State. It is the home to the largest single stockpile of nuclear warheads in the U.S. arsenal, housing more than 2,000 nuclear warheads. This is approximately 24% of the entire U.S. arsenal. The Bangor Base presently houses more nuclear warheads than the countries of England, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea combined.

There are eight Tridents based at the Bangor Base; six operate out of Kings Bay, GA. The Trident submarines at Bangor are likely to be used first in any nuclear attack, either as an isolated tactical assault on a specific site, bunker, or weapons location, or in a larger strategic nuclear attack. The D5 missile is capable of traveling over 1,370 miles in less than 13 minutes, allowing for a US nuclear strike anywhere on planet earth within 15 minutes.

Hmmn.. All these scary WMDs developed by humans just to kill fellow humans in gazillionfolds... How sick can humans be?

itsRhamzy:
Hmmn.. All these scary WMDs developed by humans just to kill fellow humans in gazillionfolds... How sick can humans be?

Its intended to scare other humans and keep them in check.