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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

#11

Post by transcriptase »

Every time I’ve seen nuclear stockpiles and the reduction thereof discussed, I’ve wondered: Assuming for some reason the United States needed to ramp back up to an absurd number of warheads (ignore the MAD/political practicalities), how quickly could they do so? What’s the lead time or rate limiting factors in production?

Because if they could start churning out a dozen or a hundred a week within a short period of time, why does the standing arsenal really matter? Does it really make a difference in global safety or geopolitics? I don’t know the first thing about the topic so this is all genuine curiosity, and I feel like the googling required to get an answer would put me on lists I don’t really feel like being on.

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

#12

Post by PoignardAzur »

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.

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

#13

Post by philipkglass »

Loughla wrote: post #10
philipkglass wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes quite a bit of work to maintain nuclear warheads. All active US weapons contain plutonium 239, which has a half life of 24,100 years. It's radioactive by alpha decay, which leads to changes in the material properties due to energetic collisions and the buildup of microscopic helium bubbles (alpha particles are merely ionized helium nuclei, so stopped alpha particles become helium). Since the US stopped testi…

How do you know all this? Is that a hobby or a job?

It's a hobby. I read a lot and I have enough formal education to digest primary sources (mostly; my highest qualification is auditing a neutronics course while in grad school).

If you too would like to know way more about nuclear weapons than is useful in civilian life, I'd recommend reading:

Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb

The nuclear weapons FAQ, authored by Carey Sublette, a hobbyist researcher who is extraordinarily dedicated to understanding nuclear weapons from declassified documents and physical principles: https://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq0.html

Anne C. Fitzpatrick's dissertation Igniting the Light Elements: The Los Alamos Thermonuclear Weapon Project, 1942-1952: https://www.osti.gov/biblio/10596

The Arms Control Wonk blog/podcast: https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/

Nuclear historian Alex Wellerstein's blog Restricted Data: https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/

The nuclear weapons subreddit, particularly posts on it authored by Alex Wellerstein, Carey Sublette, and a few others whose names currently escape me: https://old.reddit.com/r/nuclearweapons/

Chuck Hansen's book "U.S Nuclear Weapons: The Secret History" (out of print, sadly; will have to pay $$$ or find a scanned pirate copy) and his massive book/PDF "The Swords of Armageddon" available for purchase here: http://www.uscoldwar.com/

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

#14

Post by jmyeet »

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.

So this varies depending on what kind of nuclear weapon is and the delivery system.

The major deterrant is the LGM-30G Minuteman III [1]. Most of our rockets use liquid propellants. Since the alert window is under 10 minutes, you can't keep a liquid-fuelled rocket permanently fueled so the Minuteman was developed as a solid rocket fuel booster.

There's a whole team responsible for maintaining the boosters and warheads of this first line of defense [2].

But there are a variety of other systems. Some dropped by strategic bombers, others on mobile launchers, shorter range missiles deployed in Europe (eg MRBMs in Turkey), nuclear weapons deployed on submarines and so on. Also you have a mix of types. AFAIK the US was moved away from highly-enriched uranium weapons in favor of plutonium. Or at least, HEU reactors have shut down. Maybe there's a sufficient stockpile? Also, a lot of these weapons will be thernonuclear so you have to worry about the production and storage of tritium. IIRC a lot of tritium is a byproduct of plutonium production.

Maintaining a significant nuclear arsenal is actually really complex and expensive.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGM-30_Minuteman

[2]: https://minutemanmissile.com/missilemaintenance.html

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

#15

Post by skellington »

transcriptase wrote: post #11

Every time I’ve seen nuclear stockpiles and the reduction thereof discussed, I’ve wondered: Assuming for some reason the United States needed to ramp back up to an absurd number of warheads (ignore the MAD/political practicalities), how quickly could they do so? What’s the lead time or rate limiting factors in production? Because if they could start churning out a dozen or a hundred a week within a short period of ti…

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

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

#17

Post by JumpCrisscross »

skellington wrote: post #15
transcriptase wrote: post #11

Every time I’ve seen nuclear stockpiles and the reduction thereof discussed, I’ve wondered: Assuming for some reason the United States needed to ramp back up to an absurd number of warheads (ignore the MAD/political practicalities), how quickly could they do so? What’s the lead time or rate limiting factors in production? Because if they could start churning out a dozen or a hundred a week within a short period of ti…

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

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

Where full nuclear war means a full exchange of strategic fire, yes. For tactical nukes or bombardment of a non-retaliating state, less so.

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

#18

Post by slg »

skellington wrote: post #15
transcriptase wrote: post #11

Every time I’ve seen nuclear stockpiles and the reduction thereof discussed, I’ve wondered: Assuming for some reason the United States needed to ramp back up to an absurd number of warheads (ignore the MAD/political practicalities), how quickly could they do so? What’s the lead time or rate limiting factors in production? Because if they could start churning out a dozen or a hundred a week within a short period of ti…

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.

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

#19

Post by lmm »

jmyeet wrote: post #14
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.

So this varies depending on what kind of nuclear weapon is and the delivery system. The major deterrant is the LGM-30G Minuteman III [1]. Most of our rockets use liquid propellants. Since the alert window is under 10 minutes, you can't keep a liquid-fuelled rocket permanently fueled so the Minuteman was developed as a solid rocket fuel booster. There's a whole team responsible for maintaining the boosters and warhead…

> Since the alert window is under 10 minutes, you can't keep a liquid-fuelled rocket permanently fueled so the Minuteman was developed as a solid rocket fuel booster.

Huh? The Titan II was developed to do precisely that and worked that way for decades, they were liquid-fuelled and kept fuelled in their silos.

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

#20

Post by JumpCrisscross »

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.

> it's still massive overkill

The bombs are there because “the only way to avoid being the victim of a nuclear first strike (that having the enemy hit you with their nukes) was being able to credibly deliver a second strike.”

“Thus the absurd-sounding conclusion to fairly solid chain of logic: to avoid the use of nuclear weapons, you have to build so many nuclear weapons that it is impossible for a nuclear-armed opponent to destroy them all in a first strike, ensuring your second-strike lands. You build extra missiles for the purpose of not having to fire them.”

https://acoup.blog/2022/03/11/collections-nuclear-deterrence...

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