With the Domesday clock now ticking for real, even the well-drilled command and control staff, who have rehearsed such scenarios a thousand times, show signs of panic. They fumble with documents, and think about tipping off loved ones with a phone call (a breach of protocol). So far, so horrifyingly plausible. However, the idea that an ICBM – a rocket as big as an articulated lorry – could launch undetected is unlikely.
“There are all kinds of monitoring systems that would pick this up – infra-red satellites, US sea-based radar, radar in Japan and various other capabilities,” says Professor Andrew Futter, an expert in nuclear politics at the University of Leicester. “There aren’t really many blind spots in the Pacific.”
“The idea that satellites wouldn’t pick it up stretches credibility,” agrees a US expert, who has worked in Washington security circles. “This is clearly just done for plot reasons – at this point, you have just to press the ‘believe’ button and move on.”
Accuracy rating: 1/5
How many people might it kill?
The missile’s trajectory suggests it is headed for Chicago, where it is predicted to kill at least 10 million people – roughly 100 times the figure that perished at Hiroshima. This would indicate the use of a least a megaton nuclear bomb – detonating around a million tonnes of TNT, as opposed to Hiroshima’s Little Boy, which was the equivalent of just 15,000.
According to journalist Annie Jacobsen’s best-selling book Nuclear War: A Scenario, a megaton hit on Washington would leave a 100 square-mile area in cinders, killing around six million and leaving nearly a million more dying of burn injuries. Whether Pyongyang has such a large weapon is unknown, although last week it did unveil its vast new Hwasong-20 ICBM, theoretically capable of carrying multiple such warheads.
Accuracy rating: 3/5
Could it be intercepted?
In the film, all is not yet lost. As the ICBM cruises several hundred miles above the earth, Fort Greely launches two Ground-Based Interceptor missiles – the equivalent of hitting a “bullet with a bullet”. The first fails mid-flight, while the second detonates but fails to halt the ICBM’s progress. Officials then admit to a horrified US Defence Secretary that the interceptors’ average success rate is only 61 per cent – or, as he then puts it, “a f—–g coin toss.”
Thankfully, this is again a moment where viewers must press the “believe” button. According to the US expert, that 61 per cent figure is based on known test averages from the 1990s, since when improvements have been made.
“The Pentagon’s also working on new next-generation interceptors that are significantly more capable than the older ones,” he says. “Again, if the interceptors worked in the film, you wouldn’t have much of a movie.”
Accuracy rating: 1/5
Would America retaliate before it even landed?
The US expert also takes issue with the scenes of Fort Greely staff in disarray after the interceptors fail, with one commander going outside to throw up. “The film’s depiction of the procedures and the staff’s professionalism is generally very accurate, but I know some of them are a bit offended at the suggestion that they’d just give up… they’d stay at their stations and see what else they could do to help.”
