-24:00 Hours Before Launch- (have this be an independent title screen and make it a ticking clock, so as we start the episode the 24:00 slowly flips over to 23:59) Russia has threatened NATO to cease providing Ukraine with weapons and ammunition for weeks, and at last it's made good on its promise to take military action against any NATO convoys bringing such aid into the country. Just inside the Ukrainian border, a convoy of NATO vehicles is strafed by two Russian Su-25s. The unarmed transports are decimated by gunfire and rockets deployed by the Russian jets; there is no survivors.-23:00 Hours before Launch-Verification of the destroyed convoy has finally reached the desk of the President of the United States. The convoy was being manned by Polish soldiers, who had helped their Ukrainian counterparts unload from American C-130s and pack up the much needed war supplies inside of Polish territory. The shipment of modern weapons was safe as long as it remained outside of Ukraine, but immediately upon crossing the border Russia declared it a legal military target. Now the President of the United States has a very difficult decision to make, and he immediately sets up a secure call with the heads of several NATO nations.-19:24 Hours Before Launch-Earlier in the war, NATO warned Russia that an attack on any of its convoys would constitute an Article 5 response. After a lengthy and heated discussion, the United States, Great Britain, France, Spain, Norway, Germany, and Poland all invoke Article 5 of the alliance- an attack on one is an attack on all. Other NATO members are being brought up to date as their leadership is being informed of the attack. Because the attack was not directly inside of NATO territory, some members of the alliance, like Turkey, are having serious reservations.-02:00 Hours Before Launch-The United States, Great Britain, France, Poland, and Germany have all been prepared for the possibility of an attack by Russia either into Poland or on Polish transports and logistics personnel assisting the Ukrainians. The five states decide to send Russia a strong message, and combat planes kept on alert for just such an eventuality have been taking to the skies already for the last half hour. A massive lightning strike force of NATO planes is approaching various Russian military targets in Kaliningrad, Ukraine, and even along the Russian border itself.-01:18 Hours Before Launch-NATO planes overwhelm Russian defenses, who are completely unprepared for NATO's massive response. The attack purposely avoids striking Russian troop concentrations, and instead lays waste to supply and fuel depots, runways, logistics hubs, and air defense sites. The Russian military giant has proven itself to be clumsy and inept in modern combat, and while a few NATO jets are lost to Russian air defenses, the attack is an overwhelming success. .It is hoped that the attack will be enough to deter Russia from further aggression, and the targets were specifically picked in order to avoid large casualties for just this reason. NATO is still hoping to avoid all-out war with Russia, but the attack against a Polish convoy carrying NATO weapons simply can’t be ignored.-00:19 Hours before Launch-Reports of NATO air strikes have been rolling into Russia's General Staff for the last hour and eight minutes. The attack was a complete and total humiliation for Russia, as its much-vaunted air defense network was easily suppressed by a massive quantity of highly capable NATO planes. The resulting chaos has produced few military casualties, but opened up serious vulnerability gaps along the Russian border inviting further incursion of NATO airpower. Perhaps worst of all, it's shown that the nation simply can't match the overpowering technological and doctrinal superiority of NATO's professional militaries. But the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, has been prepared for this. He has one last card left to play, the only thing keeping NATO from absolutely steamrolling his forces in Ukraine and relegating Russia to a third-rate world power for the next century- nuclear weapons. Putin will send a message of his own. If he fails to, NATO will understand that it has near complete impunity to attack Russia from the air by exploiting the gaps its first assault created along the Russian air defense network. An aide rushes over to President Putin carrying the Chalet- Russia's equivalent to the nuclear football. Much like the American version, the Chalet carries inside of it sealed authorization codes that relay President Putin’s orders to his General Staff. Putin selects his desired option and transmits the code to the General Staff. The signal is uplinked directly to the Kavkaz secret communications network that links the senior most Russian leadership together. Verified as authentic by the General Staff, which had already been gathered beforehand, the signal is then relayed directly to local weapons commanders. This is one of two ways for Russia to launch its nuclear arsenal, the second being its Dead Hand, or Perimeter system. This command system allows Russia to launch its nukes even if its entire senior leadership is eliminated in one sudden decapitation strike. Dead Hand was developed in response to US advances in submarine-launched nuclear weapons, which in the 1980s became capable of the precision required for a decapitation strike with only a 3 minute warning thanks to the Trident D5. Using a network of seismic, light, radioactivity, and pressure sensors, Dead Hand can trigger a full-scale retaliatory response even if the entire senior Russian leadership is annihilated in one strike. To get the alert out, a specially modified ICBM is launched which carries a powerful transmitter instead of a nuke, and relays a mass launch order across the entire Russian nuclear triad.-00:13 Hours Before Launch--A single launch order has been relayed to an RS-12M1 Toprol-M ICBM unit. The road-mobile launcher is harder to destroy in a first strike than ICBMS based on static missile fields, and this particular missile is based far in Russia's east inside the Kamchatka peninsula. The missile is already resting in an erected launch configuration, so it only takes the crew a few minutes to authenticate the order and make last-minute preparations for launching. When everything is ready to go, the launch order is given by the senior launch officer as the crew seeks shelter behind a rocky outcropping in case the aging missile experiences a launch failure. Russia's nuclear arsenal is getting into ever worsening disrepair as the years go by and the Russian Federation tries to live up to the old glory of the Soviet Union.-Launch- The cone at the top of the Toprol-M container is blown off by a series of small explosive charges, then the massive missile roars to life. The solid-fuel rocket shudders as its engines come online and lift the 104,000 lb. (47,200 kg) missile into the sky. Even as it's lifting off, the missile's guidance computer begins to connect to Russia's GLONASS satellite network. It is guided by both inertial guidance and GLONASS satellite uplink, giving it some of the greatest precision of any missile in the Russian arsenal. Uplink to Gleans is critical, as the Toprol-M isn’t targeting a major city, which it could achieve with fair, but not precision, accuracy with only its own inertial guidance system. Instead, the Russian nuclear missile is targeting an American carrier strike group currently in transit south of Japan. Russia aims to teach the US a lesson with the only weapon it can effectively bring to bear against the military superpower.-00:00:15-Just fifteen seconds after launch, a satellite belonging to the United States' Space-Based Infrared System detects the massive thermal signature of a large rocket lifting off into the sky. US early warning satellites have been made extremely well at detecting missile launches, and have even been used to track the launch of much smaller cruise missiles in Russia's conflicts in Ukraine and Syria. The massive Toprol-M rocket lights up the early warning satellite's thermal sensor like a blow torch in the middle of a blizzard. The satellite immediately links up with multiple American Minstar satellites and sends a flash alert to the 2nd Space Warning Squadron at Buckley Air Force Base in Colorado, as well as other units across the entire web of US missile defense.-00:00:25-Punching through cloud cover, the eyes of multiple American early warning satellites are picking up the tell-tale thermal plume of a massive intercontinental ballistic missile. Internally, the satellites compare the thermal plume and other telemetry such as speed to positively identify the Russian missile as a Topol-M.00:00:30The Russian missile is now entering the upper atmosphere in a highly inclined trajectory. To watching satellites this is indicative of a strike somewhere far closer to Russian shores than the American homeland. The missile is also moving in the wrong direction for a strike in the US, as in that case it should be moving north to fly over the arctic circle.00:01:15The president of the United States has been made aware of the missile launch. America's space-based surveillance network confirms no additional launches. New telemetry also confirms that this missile is not being fired towards the American homeland. There's hope that this is simply a show of strength, an unannounced missile test with a dummy payload. However, the trajectory of the missile leaves Japan and the US base in Guam under threat.00:01:45An emergency alert is broadcast via Minstar satellites to every combat command and deployed carrier strike group around the world. Ballistic missile defenses are activated in Japan and Guam, as the Japanese prime minister is being alerted to the threat. However, the missile's trajectory makes it very unlikely that a strike is incoming towards the Japanese islands. Guam is a suspected target, but so is a transient carrier strike group even now crossing south of Japan towards the South China Sea for routine freedom of navigation exercises. If the strike is against the US carrier, there are only minutes for it to prepare to defend itself against nuclear attack.00:02:33The gravity of the threat has been relayed to the transiting American carrier and her escorts. Orders are immediately given for the ships in the formation to begin to spread out and put even more distance than normal between them. This is so that a strike against the group may damage most of the ships, but only actually sink a few.00:03:00Jets are ordered to be cleared from the deck of the carrier and rushed below. It's a lengthy process to move a combat aircraft from the deck of a carrier to below decks via the massive aircraft elevators, and unlikely that more than one or two planes could be successfully transferred from a busy deck to below, but all attempts to minimize loss of personnel and the all-valuable aircraft must be made. Any non-essential crew to the current threat is ordered to brace. Damage control teams are ordered to begin to assemble. Even a glancing blow will likely still cause significant damage to the ship.00:03:22The carrier's AEGIS equipped missile cruiser begins preparations for ballistic missile defense. Its powerful AN/Spy-1 radar begins sweeping the skies above for the incoming threat, though for now the missile is still far outside of its detection capabilities.00:06:41Nearly seven minutes after launch, the Toprol-M missile separates the warhead delivery vehicle from the tree-stage rocket. This now splits open in a cloud of chaff meant to confuse American radar, and four warheads are jettisoned. Only one of the warheads is real, the other three are cleverly designed decoys meant to lure in interceptors and allow the real warhead to hit its target. The Russian missile has been experiencing some difficulties to date however. American electronic attack against the GLONASS system as well as space-based radar satellites has forced the missile to rely largely on inertial guidance as it makes its way to the last known location of the carrier strike group. Given that the carrier has now increased to its classified top speed, estimated to be well over thirty knots, the missile’s accuracy is decreasing by the minute. 00:06:43American space-based satellites blast the cloud of chaff hiding the three decoys and one real warhead with high power radar, as powerful computers crunch through the data and work to reduce the effect of electronic 'noise' created by the highly reflective chaff. In a few seconds they have the tell-tale signature of at least four warheads. Using classified sensor technologies, the American satellites attempt to discern the real warhead from the fakes by measuring very subtle variations in the four warheads. Luckily the AEGIS missile defense cruiser waiting below has numerous interceptors ready to defend the strike group, but time will be of the essence and the task of intercepting a ballistic missile is still incredibly difficult. In testing under realistic conditions, US missile defenses have had a spotty record to date. Another spot on that record today will mean the death of thousands, and the loss of over $15 billion in military hardware.00:08:33The warheads have only a short flight time in space due to the proximity of the launcher vs its target, which is adding to the difficulty in interception. Data is of the greatest importance in successful missile interception, and gathering data takes time. Time which is officially about to run out. As the warheads begin their terminal descent down into the atmosphere, the AEGIS cruisers powerful Spy-1 radar lights them up from below. On the ship's deck, multiple SM-6 missiles fire off into the pre-dawn sky. A few seconds later, a second volley of missiles lights up, followed a few seconds after that by yet a third. The cruiser is taking zero chances and maximizing its odds of successful interception with multiple volleys. If they fail, thousands of sailors will die.00:09:55The ship's AN-SPG-62 X-band radar illuminates the incoming warheads and helps provide terminal guidance to the SM-6 interceptors. The ability to directly network with both seaborne and space-based sensors allows the AEGIS cruiser to cut through most of the electronic noise caused by the massive cloud of chaff released as a countermeasure. There are still doubts about which warhead is the real target, and thus each warhead is assigned multiple interceptors. This increases the chances of targeting the right warhead, but reduces the chances of successfully intercepting it. The crew holds its breath as the incoming tracks quickly merge with the ship's defenses.00:10:05Closing it at a speed of 1700 meters a second, the first wave of interceptors manage to knock out one of the decoys with a near-hit by the SM-6's explosive fragmentation warhead. The warhead suffers severe structural damage from the shrapnel and explosion and tumbles out of control at thousands of miles an hour, destroying itself in the lower atmosphere.00:10:09The second volley of SM-6 missiles fail to hit a single target.00:10:13The third volley of interceptors knock out a second, dummy warhead.00:10:15Sixty miles below the two incoming warheads, there is no way for the strike group's crews to know if they've knocked out a real warhead or only dummies. Orders have already been given for all to brace for impact, and damage control crews are on standby to immediately pounce on any fires or see to fixing hull breeches and flooding.00:10:20Ten minutes and twenty seconds after launch, a massive fireball explodes 3,000 meters above the sea somewhere south of Japan. The massive explosion sends out a wave of electromagnetic and thermal radiation that temporarily overpowers satellite sensors. Gradually, the noise fades and these electronic eyes in the sky begin to frantically scan for signs of the strike group. The strike has been off by just over a mile, meaning that the carrier strike group has avoided the most lethal part of the nuclear attack. However, a massive pressure wave slams into the strike group and causes moderate structural damage. On the big carrier, most of the planes left on the deck- even those secured by tie-downs- are blown off and into the ocean by the hurricane-gale winds smashing into the strike group. With crews ordered below decks, the initial release of radiation is largely harmless to the strike group's personnel. This is helped by the fact that the strike group was just outside of the most lethal radius of the nuclear explosion. Despite this, numerous crews are killed across the strike group from the effect of the pressure wave. Several of the ships are flooding, but damage control crews are already on their way to enact repairs. Compartments too damaged for effective flood control are simply sealed off to keep the rest of the ship from also flooding. This dooms several sailors to a drowning depth as their comrades make the impossible choice of trapping them inside flooding sections in order to save the ship. The Russian nuclear strike has effectively rendered an entire strike group combat ineffective, as the ships must now limp to the nearest friendly port for immediate repairs. Decontamination must also be undertaken even before the ships arrive at port and damage to the flight deck of the carrier repaired to make air operations impossible. However, things could have been far worse if Russia had used more than one missile, as they would in a serious attempt at sinking an American carrier and her accompanying escorts. The fact that Russian nuclear command and control systems, as well as their space surveillance and guidance, and even the missiles themselves are in great disrepair helped limit possible damage as well. Russian guidance networks such as GLONASS are very vulnerable to disruption, making Russian weapons far from precise. Despite only suffering moderate damage however, Russia has just launched a nuclear weapon against the armed forces of the United States of America. A full NATO Article 5 response is now inevitable, as is a state of war against the greatly outmatched Russian Federation. Faced with the certainty of a losing war against superior NATO forces, President Vladimir Putin must now contemplate expanding the use of nuclear weapons to defend his hold on power inside the Kremlin and fend off NATO attacks. Yet in the American White House, the President of the United States is even now reviewing options for a similar attack against a Russian military facility. The world stands on the brink of full-scale nuclear war in what might be the greatest and final conflict of the human race. Now go check out What If North Korea Launched a Nuclear Weapon, or click this other video instead!