Since boomers cruise at great depths in stealth mode, I wonder how they would be coordinated to strike in a retaliatory, city-busting mission. Incidentally, this is the only way they should be used, as our final backup in case the enemy has taken out all our second-strike capability. They provide the minimum initial threat and provocation to an adversary but the optimal retaliatory capability if HE goes first. (Remember when the Reagan Administration toyed with the idea of turning them into a first-strike, silo-busting mobile platform, with high-accuracy MIRVed warheads? Man, those idiots were crazy! This is when I realized Conservatives can't be trusted with molding nuclear war-fighting strategy. They were obsessed with the idea of winning a nuclear war, not discouraging one from starting in the first place.)

At any rate, the submarines are our most secure and well-protected launch platform, least vulnerable to attack and most likely to survive a first strike, and they can be held in reserve until we know the attack is real and not a false alarm. But they are also the hardest ones to communicate with and coordinate into any kind of war fighting strategy, even a purely defensive one. I think, even after all these years, that there still is no way to send them a message. My guess is the best thing they could do is periodically surface, drag a wire and see if the war had started yet, by monitoring broadcast communications or testing the atmosphere for radiation. I know there has been some effort to develop ELF radio that can penetrate thousands of feet into the ocean, but I always thought that was a bluff. The physics just doesn't add up.