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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

#51

Post by johnohara »

BMc2020 wrote: post #39
johnohara wrote: post #25

Is it possible that over the years the number of nuclear devices per warhead has increased? 1, 4, 8, etc. per warhead, thereby increasing your capability while claiming a reduction?

What you are thinking of is (or used to be, called a MIRV, a mulitiple independently-targeted re-entry vehicle). There's still only one atom bomb per warhead, but 6 warheads per mirv. Think of the MIRV like a cylinder on a revolver with 6 warheads per MIRV like the bullets in it. The warhead has the minimum amount of hardware necessary to make it blow up, while the MIRV has the computers and rocket engines on it. So…

What I was thinking was that whenever the U.S. enters into any form of weapons reduction agreement there has to be an enormous amount of internal reluctance to actually make those reductions.

Reagan's so-called "trust, but verify" policy.

I find it difficult to accept that any party to those agreements would actually reduce anything without having equivalent plans B, C, and D.

I am not a weapons expert so thank you for your insight.

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

#52

Post by crmd »

hypeatei wrote: post #43
llamaimperative wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not clear there's any such thing as "tactical nukes" given that they're strategically useless, and it's actually not even clear there's such a thing as nuclear exchange that isn't full scale war. At least as told by Ellsberg in the Doomsday Machine, there was literally no mechanism for the US to launch a partial nuclear attack.

> no mechanism for the US to launch a partial nuclear attack Yep, the trajectory to North Korea (from US mainland) has to pass over Russia and the Russians have to trust that it's not coming for them. Not that Russia would be okay with us striking NK in the first place, but you get the point.

You can fire an SLBM from the Pacific or the Sea of Japan without traversing Russia or China.

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

#53

Post by jncfhnb »

llamaimperative wrote: post #32
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It's not clear there's any such thing as "tactical nukes" given that they're strategically useless, and it's actually not even clear there's such a thing as nuclear exchange that isn't full scale war. At least as told by Ellsberg in the Doomsday Machine, there was literally no mechanism for the US to launch a partial nuclear attack.

That doesn’t make any sense. Just drop it by a conventional non ICBM method

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

#54

Post by jncfhnb »

llamaimperative wrote: post #34
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 oppo…

You don't need a huge number of nuclear weapons to achieve this, you need nuclear weapons in secret and ideally changing locations (i.e. submarines)

Which is a lot more fallible than just having a huge number

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

#55

Post by johnohara »

ianburrell wrote: post #27
johnohara wrote: post #25

Is it possible that over the years the number of nuclear devices per warhead has increased? 1, 4, 8, etc. per warhead, thereby increasing your capability while claiming a reduction?

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.

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

#56

Post by corry »

What an odd situation, where we can applaud "the transparency" (and I do, honestly) while the US is also simultaneously cheerfully delivering a public reminder that "we have more than enough to absolutely annihilate anyone and everyone... so don't fuck with us."

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

#57

Post by mr_toad »

openasocket wrote: post #37
lmm wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Liquid propellants are generally less stable than solid fuel. I had read in multiple places (from reputable sources) that you generally couldn’t keep liquid missiles permanently fueled like that. The propellants are extremely corrosive and dangerous. But you are right that the Titan II is liquid fueled and was kept permanently fueled in the silo. I’m not entirely sure how to resolve those two facts. The Wikipedia pag…

The main problem with traditional liquid fuelled rockets is keeping the propellant cold. It’s not feasible to keep a rocket with liquid oxygen fuelled for long periods. The Titan missiles use hypergolic fuel which is more storable, but also extremely toxic and volatile. More than 50 people have been killed in accidents involving this rocket.

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

#58

Post by danielodievich »

bamboozled wrote: post #22
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…

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 sort of usable shape.

Now, if an order to launch is given, some rockets may launch, some of those may actually fly, some of those flying actually get somewhere, and perhaps some of THOSE may actually detonate should they reach the target, and maybe if you're lucky at the designed yield. The percentages in that funnel that aren't known. And nobody [perhaps except some crazies] wants to find them out because even one in the middle of big city is enough.

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

#59

Post by IIAOPSW »

corry wrote: post #56

What an odd situation, where we can applaud "the transparency" (and I do, honestly) while the US is also simultaneously cheerfully delivering a public reminder that "we have more than enough to absolutely annihilate anyone and everyone... so don't fuck with us."

As they said at the end of Dr. Strangelove, these things have absolutely no value as a deterrent if you don't tell anyone you have them!

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

#60

Post by hypeatei »

crmd wrote: post #52
hypeatei wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no mechanism for the US to launch a partial nuclear attack Yep, the trajectory to North Korea (from US mainland) has to pass over Russia and the Russians have to trust that it's not coming for them. Not that Russia would be okay with us striking NK in the first place, but you get the point.

You can fire an SLBM from the Pacific or the Sea of Japan without traversing Russia or China.

Assuming you're striking first, yes. Nuclear subs take ~15 minutes to deploy, though, and that isn't the first option when counter striking. The U.S. president has six minutes to decide/launch a counter attack from the missile silos.

Annie Jacobsen has a book "Nuclear War: A Scenario" on all this where she interviews high ranking officials and pries into government documents related to nuclear war.

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