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United States discloses nuclear warhead numbers; restores nuclear transparency

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Re: United States discloses nuclear warhead numbers; restores nuclear transparency

#71

Post by sadhorse »

holowoodman wrote: post #61
GemesAS wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pit production is likely the rate limiting factor. We disassembled a bunch of AFAPs so have a lot of weapons grade plutonium around. But Pu is nasty to work with & Rocky Flats--the previous pit production facility--closed down years ago. Pit production moved to Los Alamos but it is at a much reduced capability. Also, Pantex--where nuclear weapons are assembled--isn't exactly the model for speed & efficiency.

I guess mass produced nukes would rather be enriched uranium based, due to the far easier construction. No fiddly implosive lens assembly. No weird multi-phase cristallization that goes critical if you blink. Metal that is merely as dangerous and nasty as lead, magnesium or arsenic, not plutonium. If you really want to go carpet-bombing with nukes, miniturization isn't as important as having a lot, quickly and reliab…

Enriching uranium is more expensive than making plutonium by a long shot. Modern nukes are two point implosion, not really fiddly. And when was the last criticality incident related to phase transition? Can't remember one.

Re: United States discloses nuclear warhead numbers; restores nuclear transparency

#72

Post by roenxi »

slg wrote: post #18
skellington wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no form of full scale nuclear war where the production apparatus for anything becomes a factor.

That is assuming nuclear war breaks out with zero warning. There is usually a build up to wars that could involve ramping up production of a nuclear arsenal before any nuclear weapons are actually used.

What type of warning do you expect to see? We currently have a war in Ukraine involving between 2-4 of the major nuclear powers depending on how you want to count them (Russia, US, UK, China). Russia is bleeding heavily and it is hard to tell how close they are to some sort of internal crisis or collapse into groupthink by the military leaders. There have probably been Able Archer style near misses and we could have a repeat of the Cuban missile crisis without much changing. China is building up its nuclear arsenal and the political positioning in APAC suggests that a US-China war is on the cards.

If we escalated in to full-scale nuclear war this July that'd be unexpected but we're way past 0 warning. There are lots of warnings. In terms of raw risk the last few years might be the biggest risk of a nuclear war breaking out that the species has ever faced.

Re: United States discloses nuclear warhead numbers; restores nuclear transparency

#73

Post by hollerith »

FredPret wrote: post #2

Max warheads = 31k Current warheads = 3.7k I wonder how long a nuke in storage lasts - ie, how much work does it take to maintain a stockpile of x nukes, and if you can turn those swords into ploughshares relatively easily.

>I wonder how long a nuke in storage lasts

Russia's nuclear stockpile -- at least the strategic warheads -- have all been built anew since the end of the Cold War. The US is also modernizing its stockpile in the same way, but it has not finished yet.

"built anew": made with all new components except that the fissile material is recycled from an old Cold-War-era warhead. (They probably re-cast and re-machine the fissile material.)

The reader might be asking, How can Russia, a poor country, afford that? Well, nukes aren't that expensive once you have the fissile material and the design and manufacturing expertise and infrastructure. The pay for the soldiers to guard the nukes and constantly be on the ready to launch them is more expensive, according to one report I saw recently (and Russia has low personnel costs).

Re: United States discloses nuclear warhead numbers; restores nuclear transparency

#74

Post by ianburrell »

johnohara wrote: post #55
ianburrell wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear warhead is a single nuclear device. Are you thinking MIRV where multiple nuclear warheads are mounted to missile? The US has down rated lots of SLBMs and ICBMs recently. Many of the warheads in storage are from missiles. They could put them back, but then they would show in the active count.

That's insightful because it means it may be strictly an accounting issue versus an actual reduction in the number of warheads i.e. the number of warheads counted == the number mounted, not the total number possessed.

The number mounted matters cause it determines how missiles can be used. With multiple warheads, ICBMs could be used for first strike. First strike won’t work, but opponent still needs to worry about it. With one warhead, ICBMs are only useful for retaliation strike.

Also, the US is still following New START treaty after Russsia pulled out.

Re: United States discloses nuclear warhead numbers; restores nuclear transparency

#75

Post by inquirerGeneral »

roenxi wrote: post #72
slg wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is assuming nuclear war breaks out with zero warning. There is usually a build up to wars that could involve ramping up production of a nuclear arsenal before any nuclear weapons are actually used.

What type of warning do you expect to see? We currently have a war in Ukraine involving between 2-4 of the major nuclear powers depending on how you want to count them (Russia, US, UK, China). Russia is bleeding heavily and it is hard to tell how close they are to some sort of internal crisis or collapse into groupthink by the military leaders. There have probably been Able Archer style near misses and we could have…

[dead]

Re: United States discloses nuclear warhead numbers; restores nuclear transparency

#76

Post by hollerith »

danielodievich wrote: post #58
bamboozled wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wonder what the state of Russia's nuclear arsenal is like then? Better or worse? Maybe that still have a lot of the old Nuclear power stations running to better supply the materials to maintain their warheads ?

This is a frequent topic of discussion in various forums and I am sure by Very Serious People in Charge [TM]. Extrapolating from the general sad state of the weapon systems in use by Russians where they are at this point unpacking tanks made in 1950, the quality of maintenance on their vehicles, and is difficult to plausibly claim that all the ancient rusty USSR stuff across the strategic rocket barrier is in any sor…

>difficult to plausibly claim that all the ancient rusty USSR stuff across the strategic rocket barrier is in any sort of usable shape.

There is no more ancient rusty USSR stuff -- at least in the Kremlin's strategic nuclear arsenal:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41041532

Re: United States discloses nuclear warhead numbers; restores nuclear transparency

#77

Post by jupp0r »

PoignardAzur wrote: post #12

3000 nukes is better than Cold War highs, but it's still massive overkill. Even with a 90% interception rate, 300 nukes would be enough to kill tens of millions of citizens of any country from the blast alone. If an enemy leader isn't deterred by that, 2700 extra nukes aren't going to change their mind.

There is no system in existence that would provide a 90% interception rate. Existing anti ballistic missile systems are designed to intercept smaller attacks with low single digit warheads, no MIRVs and no decoys not a full scale attack.

Re: United States discloses nuclear warhead numbers; restores nuclear transparency

#78

Post by wahern »

pythonguython wrote: post #6

Hans has always been the guy keeping count. Just about anytime you hear someone cite the US stockpile count, it’s his number. Truly impressive how accurate he is able to be with no special accesses. Only 40 off.

The data had already been declassified up to 2020, so they only needed to estimate changes over the past 3-4 years:

> Between 2010 and 2018, the US government publicly disclosed the size of the nuclear weapons stockpile; however, in 2019 and 2020, the Trump administration rejected requests from the Federation of American Scientists to declassify the latest stockpile numbers (Aftergood 2019; Kristensen 2019a, 2020b). In 2021, the Biden administration restored the United States’ previous transparency levels by declassifying both numbers for the entire history of the US nuclear arsenal until September 2020—including the missing years of the Trump administration.

Source: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00963402.2024.2...

Re: United States discloses nuclear warhead numbers; restores nuclear transparency

#79

Post by thaumasiotes »

starik36 wrote: post #16

Why did US disclose this number? Is there a treaty compelling them to? Did other nuclear powers disclose them?

They're scared and they want to intimidate. Talking about them is the first step toward using them.

Re: United States discloses nuclear warhead numbers; restores nuclear transparency

#80

Post by hugh-avherald »

starik36 wrote: post #16

Why did US disclose this number? Is there a treaty compelling them to? Did other nuclear powers disclose them?

While generally it's an advantage to keep information about your true military capability secret, for nuclear weapons it's the opposite.
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