Partially correct. Strategic nuclear warfare typically dictates ~30%+ of nuclear weapons kept in reserve. They take so long to produce and be deliverable, that countries want to keep them around, even if flinging nukes.

Kinda like why you keep a spare magazine in a gun fight...who knows if you have multiple assailants...."don't want to blow your whole wad" as to speak.

Once you are out, you're out and then you're in a world of hurt.

DIA thinks 10% of ICBMS wont make it out of silo, 10% will fail upon leaving silo, 10% will fail in first or second boost phase, 10% failed MIRV separation and targeting, etc. On top of that, they'll always keep 30%+ as reserve. SRBMS even more abysmal firing rate.

So, basically we’ll all suffer before perishing? A lifetime ago, in my “Cold Warrior days”, I used to know all the facts and figures. I know enough now to believe it wouldn’t take many getting through to turn the US into a cannibalistic hellscape.

Serviceability = whether an icbm is obviously ready to fire or not. Reliability = blow up, wildly miss or something else goes wrong so they don’t detonate within @ 50 miles of their targets. CEP = half detonate within their estimated accuracy distance from their targets and the other half detonate “someplace else” as Anthony Cordesman put it.