>>98540847This
>>98541357Getting to the point of having the go authority is the big thing and was doubtless handled off screen. Worse yet they were specifically waiting till they pulled the giant into a given position so even if things had gone as planned they were specifically waiting for the General to give the word to fire and would need to do so imidiately since the success of the whole operation hinged on fireing at the right time. There's a point at which you can't protect against human error, especially since things escalated so quickly that the flag officer had been literally shooting at the enemy with his sidearm ten minutes prior.
Also if they didn't have a sub launch missile the battleships also likely had MK23 Nuclear shells on them. If Hogarth didn't make the Giant miss when he shot at one of them I'd imagine the other one would have loaded those up next as well. So even without the Submarine Launch missile they still would have had Nukes. Just not ones that go up first so the Giant can save the town.
We're also talking about 1950s nuclear weapons, mighty, yes. But vastly inferior to the ones we think about these days. It'd level Rockport, but depending on wind direction even the battleships in the harbor and their crews could probably survive.
