i'd believe it.
there's an element of 'gotta respect his dogged determination to keep flying that flag' to it, i think.
and it was fun hunting it down.
>missile
2324543 is authority to launch a Nuke.
This is my analysis of Q's references to the event.
We are looking for a comped Fleet Flag Officer, Admiral, Rear Admiral, Vice Admiral
(point is the "nuke CoC" is a red herring. if they fired a NUKE from a sub or from land at AF1, we would know it in all sorts of other ways. it had to have been some other non-nuke missile. gut says tomahawk, but really want navyfags to weigh in)
from what i've found (and posted) it appears that the launch auth can only be bypassed by a fleet flag officer (admiral, vice admiral, rear admiral, rear admiral lower-half) because they make the call once the strike has been 'authorized'.
if the auth came from DC, it would still be 'authorized' because their orders are defacto authorized.
(this is my basic understanding, not an expert)
ah, so thinking about this more - two scenarios are possible, because fleet flag officer doesn't make the "decision", they just pass it along.
either:
1) someone spoofed auth from DC, in which case we have no idea who could create the order
or
2) one of the fleet flag officers made the decision on their own.
if someone was removed, per Q, then they must have known instantly who generated the order, which still makes me think #2 is the scenario (but open for disagreement)