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Re:US Navy destroyer shoots down an ICBM in milestone test by alexpotato on Tuesday November 17, 2020 @09:25PM (#25132489)
With a 1/6 chance of success, you can deploy multiple destroyers with ICMB intercept capabilities to defend a key target and get much better odds.

e.g. Having just three raises your odds to 50/50. (1-((1-1/6)^3) = .51

That essentially halves your opponents nuclear strike capability (at least for that target).

Re:US Navy destroyer shoots down an ICBM in milestone test by alacritas0 on Tuesday November 17, 2020 @09:39PM (#25132589)
Your math is off. The actual chance assuming they're each independent is 42.1%. I'm usure how much the assumption they're independent holds up in this case.
Re:US Navy destroyer shoots down an ICBM in milestone test by SEJeff on Tuesday November 17, 2020 @11:58PM (#25133374)
Modern nuclear missiles (from the US, Russia, and China at least) are all MIRV[1] designs. Each missile might contain, as an example, 10 independent micro-warheads each capable of mass casualties. That means for every single offensive missile fired, the defender has to be 100% effective at countering 10 separate threats.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targeta...

Re:US Navy destroyer shoots down an ICBM in milestone test by inglor_cz on Wednesday November 18, 2020 @02:37AM (#25134111)
This calculation only holds if the failures are random, not if the missiles exploit some weakness in the system to get through.