Current Nuclear Weapons Development

No offense to anyone here, but I suspect the head of the Strategic Command is probably in a better position to know the relative size of the PRC nuclear stockpile.
 
Forest Green said:
They already have at least 1,000 deliverable warheads now IMO.
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There was a 2014 or 2015 article in Los Alamos Lab’s magazine that detailed China’s (along with Russia/US) nuclear weapons infrastructure.

China’s is larger in area and personnel than both others combined AND we know very little about it.

I’ve written for years, since at least New Start, that we made it very cheap for China to match our arsenal. I also used to think they’d be satisfied with that. Now I’m not so sure they might build to match both our and Russia’s arsenals.
 
Josh_TN said:
No offense to anyone here, but I suspect the head of the Strategic Command is probably in a better position to know the relative size of the PRC nuclear stockpile.
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You'd expect him to but from the wording I think he's guessing too TBH.

Ploughshares has it at 350, but they have only 3 warheads on the DF-41s and only 1 warhead on all DF-31 variants including AG and none on DF-5Cs, DF-15s and DF-17s, and only 1 warhead for every 5 DF-26 launchers.


If we assume the missile count is right and fully load them and assume 1 warhead per launcher for MRBMs/IRBMs etc.

DF-41s 18x10 = 180
DF-31A 36x5 = 180
DF-31AG 36x8 = 288
DF-15 ???
DF-17 18x1 = 18
DF-26 100x1 = 100
JL-2 72x3 = 244

TOTAL = 1010 (That's really a minimum calculated from a 2 year old missile count - assumed to be correct at time - and ignores all aircraft bombs, cruise missiles, and weapons of less than 1000km range.)
 
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bobbymike said:
There was a 2014 or 2015 article in Los Alamos Lab’s magazine that detailed China’s (along with Russia/US) nuclear weapons infrastructure.

China’s is larger in area and personnel than both others combined AND we know very little about it.

I’ve written for years, since at least New Start, that we made it very cheap for China to match our arsenal. I also used to think they’d be satisfied with that. Now I’m not so sure they might build to match both our and Russia’s arsenals.
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We have the confirmed rumors of endless tunnels of mobile ICBMs, underground nuclear weapons testing, and of course possible testing of PRC designs in North Korea. I doubt the Chinese would have stolen the W-88 in the late 80s and not tested it in a live shot at some point. The US Government has had a long history of looking the other way when it comes to China.
 
I can confirm that the head of STRATCOM absolutely has a much better understanding of China's nuclear arsenal. What the US can state in an unclassified arena is not the same as what they know at a classified level.

You also cant just count missiles. Warhead loadouts can be wrong and a significant portion of them are likely loaded with conventional warheads. Also counting MRBMs/IRBMs is disingenuous as those are not covered by New START and can't reach the US (and are more analogous to B61 which is also not covered by treaties).
 
In any case, the US can nearly double its deployed warheads post NewSTART, which should allow the PRC threat to be paced medium term. Long term the ICBM, bomber, ALCM, and SLBM forces are all being recapitalized, so it doesn't seem like there will be a major capability gap so long as all of those programs continue to move forward. It seems unlikely either party would have any reason to stop any of these programs in the current strategic environment.

It will be far more interesting to see what choices Russia makes with regards to its post NewSTART deterrent. From what I can tell they have a significantly lower capability to upload missiles, as they have fewer launchers to begin with (IIRC ~550 deployed currently) which are already carrying a larger percentage of their payloads compared to US missiles. The US SLBMs are around half full and the MMIIIs are at a third of their capacity (though apparently the Mk21 RV mod will preclude the uploading of those 200 missiles). They also likely are going to need to invest a lot in conventional capability, likely at the expense of some strategic programs.
 
Josh_TN said:
In any case, the US can nearly double its deployed warheads post NewSTART, which should allow the PRC threat to be paced medium term. Long term the ICBM, bomber, ALCM, and SLBM forces are all being recapitalized, so it doesn't seem like there will be a major capability gap so long as all of those programs continue to move forward. It seems unlikely either party would have any reason to stop any of these programs in the current strategic environment.

It will be far more interesting to see what choices Russia makes with regards to its post NewSTART deterrent. From what I can tell they have a significantly lower capability to upload missiles, as they have fewer launchers to begin with (IIRC ~550 deployed currently) which are already carrying a larger percentage of their payloads compared to US missiles. The US SLBMs are around half full and the MMIIIs are at a third of their capacity (though apparently the Mk21 RV mod will preclude the uploading of those 200 missiles). They also likely are going to need to invest a lot in conventional capability, likely at the expense of some strategic programs.
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Imagine if the US cancelled the Sentinel program.
 
www.telegraph.co.uk

Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin tests intercontinental ballistic missile that carries multiple nuclear warheads

Russia has test-fired its new nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile just days after the Kremlin insisted that using nuclear weapons in Ukraine was out of the question.
www.telegraph.co.uk www.telegraph.co.uk

Russia has test-fired its new nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile just days after the Kremlin insisted that using nuclear weapons in Ukraine was out of the question.

Col Gen Sergey Karakaev, the commander of Russia’s strategic missile forces, said at a military conference on Friday that Russia had recently successfully tested its Sarmat missile, also known as Satan II.

Vladimir Putin tuned in by video link to watch Satan II take flight for the first time during a test in northern Russia in April and said the new ballistic missile will make Russia’s enemies “think twice” before threatening it.

Each massive Satan II is capable of carrying at least 10 warheads as well as decoys and can strike targets thousands of miles away in Europe and the United States.

Russian defence sources have hailed the missile’s ability to evade interception.

Col Gen Karakaev also said on Friday that Russian missile forces were ready to receive a second batch of the Avangard hypersonic glide missiles.
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science.slashdot.org

The Surprising Afterlife of Unwanted Atom Bombs - Slashdot

What happens when old atomic bombs are retired? Last month, the Biden administration announced its intention to withdraw the nation's most powerful weapon from the U.S. nuclear arsenal. From a report: The bomb is called the B83. It is a hydrogen bomb that debuted in 1983 -- a time when President...
science.slashdot.org
 
What target set would an unguided megaton bomb be used against? I would think a B-61-12 would be preferable for most any situation. We are also talking about a weapon that realistically would only be delivered by a dozen combat coded airframes.
 
Even in the present day there are plenty of large and/or hardened targets that a B-16-12 would have trouble dealing with. And that situation is likely to only get even worse as this new Cold War progresses.

In other news:
www.telegraph.co.uk

China's new submarine-launched missiles capable of reaching US from its own waters

The weapons have been built to 'threaten the United States', the commander of Washington's Pacific Fleet has said
www.telegraph.co.uk www.telegraph.co.uk
 
Grey Havoc said:
Even in the present day there are plenty of large and/or hardened targets that a B-16-12 would have trouble dealing with. And that situation is likely to only get even worse as this new Cold War progresses.

In other news:
www.telegraph.co.uk

China's new submarine-launched missiles capable of reaching US from its own waters

The weapons have been built to 'threaten the United States', the commander of Washington's Pacific Fleet has said
www.telegraph.co.uk www.telegraph.co.uk
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Does the B-83 actually have a greater hard target capability than a B-61-12? I rather doubt it given a CEP measured in hundreds of meters. Reducing aim point accuracy has a logarithmic effect on peak pressure on the target. About the only thing I think it would be useful for is a very wide area target.
 
Josh_TN said:
Does the B-83 actually have a greater hard target capability than a B-61-12? I rather doubt it given a CEP measured in hundreds of meters. Reducing aim point accuracy has a logarithmic effect on peak pressure on the target. About the only thing I think it would be useful for is a very wide area target.
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No matter how accurate it is, a 50 kiloton weapon will have major shortcomings when used in a strategic role. Not to mention that the B-61-12 is rather heavily reliant on GPS for its accuracy in the first place.
 
Grey Havoc said:
Josh_TN said:
Does the B-83 actually have a greater hard target capability than a B-61-12? I rather doubt it given a CEP measured in hundreds of meters. Reducing aim point accuracy has a logarithmic effect on peak pressure on the target. About the only thing I think it would be useful for is a very wide area target.
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No matter how accurate it is, a 50 kiloton weapon will have major shortcomings when used in a strategic role. Not to mention that the B-61-12 is rather heavily reliant on GPS for its accuracy in the first place.
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50kT with a 30 meter CEP is probably going to have a greater effect on a hard point target then a megaton bomb at a couple hundred meters, which I think is all the accuracy you're going to get out of any delivery that isn't a low altitude lay down. The mod 12 is almost a full order of magnitude more accurate (30 vs ~200 meters) which is going to translate to a couple orders of magnitude more energy being delivered to the aim point (I didn't do the math but I think it would involve the surface area of an expanding sphere - square of the distance and 4 * pi multiplier). On top of that it is believed (though not confirmed) that the mod 12 has the delayed fuse/penetration capability of the Mod 61 mod 11. This helps the energy of the explosion more efficiently couple with the solid substrate and increases the energy transmission several times. The mod 12 might technically be a "tactical" weapon but it is easily far more capable of destroying a hardened target than a W76 or W78, so the "tactical" nomenclature would rather depend on what target it was being delivered against IMO.

B-61 mod 12 does not use GPS, at least not directly. The launching platform might be using it but the bomb itself is INS only guidance, which is why the CEP is "only" 30 meters as compared to JDAM. The B-2 (the only bomber equipped for free fall nuclear delivery at this point AFAIK) would have a celestial star tracker as a back up navigation device to its INS, on top of GPS.
 
Josh_TN said:
Grey Havoc said:
Josh_TN said:
Does the B-83 actually have a greater hard target capability than a B-61-12? I rather doubt it given a CEP measured in hundreds of meters. Reducing aim point accuracy has a logarithmic effect on peak pressure on the target. About the only thing I think it would be useful for is a very wide area target.
Click to expand...
No matter how accurate it is, a 50 kiloton weapon will have major shortcomings when used in a strategic role. Not to mention that the B-61-12 is rather heavily reliant on GPS for its accuracy in the first place.
Click to expand...

50kT with a 30 meter CEP is probably going to have a greater effect on a hard point target then a megaton bomb at a couple hundred meters, which I think is all the accuracy you're going to get out of any delivery that isn't a low altitude lay down. The mod 12 is almost a full order of magnitude more accurate (30 vs ~200 meters) which is going to translate to a couple orders of magnitude more energy being delivered to the aim point (I didn't do the math but I think it would involve the surface area of an expanding sphere - square of the distance and 4 * pi multiplier). On top of that it is believed (though not confirmed) that the mod 12 has the delayed fuse/penetration capability of the Mod 61 mod 11. This helps the energy of the explosion more efficiently couple with the solid substrate and increases the energy transmission several times. The mod 12 might technically be a "tactical" weapon but it is easily far more capable of destroying a hardened target than a W76 or W78, so the "tactical" nomenclature would rather depend on what target it was being delivered against IMO.

B-61 mod 12 does not use GPS, at least not directly. The launching platform might be using it but the bomb itself is INS only guidance, which is why the CEP is "only" 30 meters as compared to JDAM. The B-2 (the only bomber equipped for free fall nuclear delivery at this point AFAIK) would have a celestial star tracker as a back up navigation device to its INS, on top of GPS.
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Then update the B83 to 30 meter accuracy.

KABLAMMO BABY!!
 
Josh_TN said:
Grey Havoc said:
Even in the present day there are plenty of large and/or hardened targets that a B-16-12 would have trouble dealing with. And that situation is likely to only get even worse as this new Cold War progresses.

In other news:
www.telegraph.co.uk

China's new submarine-launched missiles capable of reaching US from its own waters

The weapons have been built to 'threaten the United States', the commander of Washington's Pacific Fleet has said
www.telegraph.co.uk www.telegraph.co.uk
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Does the B-83 actually have a greater hard target capability than a B-61-12? I rather doubt it given a CEP measured in hundreds of meters. Reducing aim point accuracy has a logarithmic effect on peak pressure on the target. About the only thing I think it would be useful for is a very wide area target.
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RNEP B83 would have combined a penetrating nosecap like MOP with a INS kit like -12.

The B83 is a LLNL design and the B61 is a LANL design, so they were two bureaus working in competition for the same specification, rather than separate specifications. It was just footdragged through multiple admins. Since LLNL lost and LANL won I suppose -12 was considered adequate for a good swathe of the classes of targets RNEP was supposed to kill. As for -12 itself, I'm pretty sure it's designed explicitly to slap launch control centers in Dobarovskiy, as a replacement for the GBU-28, more than anything, but it probably has little to no hard target penetration. Good luck knocking out the Iranian super silos or the Yamantau bunker, hope you brought enough bombs to literally excavate those targets.

For a long time the favored contender was the B83, I think because it was on the way out and it was seen as a way to "preserve" the tactical/battlefield use warheads of the B61s, rather than any true merit to the design. Since the -12's are converted from older B61s, that means fewer tactical warheads for DRF Strike Eagles to use, which is bad. However AFAIK the money that was supposed to be used for the B83 impact test was used to help develop MOP instead, because there was some controversy as to whether or not the B83 constituted an arms regulated weapon.

B-61-12 doesn't have particularly robust penetration capability anyway, it's just a INS kit and reduced yield weapon. I suspect the B83 based RNEP would have ideally been comparable to MOP in penetration depth, so about 100-200 feet into granite or something like that, but -12 is a sort of halfway house between the two. Better than nothing I guess but it would probably require multiple impacts to disable a truly deeply buried command post like Yamantau.

Some of the potential use cases studied were neutralization of chemical agent storage bunkers in Iraq, to avoid accidentally dousing US forces with nerve agents like in 1991, and destruction of superhard command posts or Iranian-style super-hard launch site/magazine/reloader...things with RNEPs from B-2s.

So yes, had the US actually constructed the RNEP, it would have been vastly superior in destruction of hard targets to the B-61-12. Given that the US has been consistently derating warheads' yields and improving accuracy I suspect -12 is mostly for hardened surface targets rather than deeply buried targets, like the W76-1, so it's an anti-silo or anti-TEL shelter weapon. The derating of the yield is less about the accuracy, and more about the warhead being ancient and unreliable in achieving its design maximum yield, so you have it backwards I think. The accuracy lets older, less reliable warheads achieve similar lethal effects despite a fizzle now and then.

Why else is -12 replacing the -3, -4, and -7, but not the -11, given the latter is a parachute retarded penetrator? Probably because the -3, -4, and -7 are twice the age of the -11s, and their warheads have degraded since then, and can't be trusted to reliably deliver maximum yield. I imagine in about 20 years we'll see a B-61-13 replacing the -11s.

Had RNEP B83 entered service I think the -12 would still exist too, but it would be less advertised as a "hard target penetrator", which is something it's being shoehorned into because MOP isn't sufficient (not unlike how F-35 is being shoehorned in to replace F-22 as a air superiority fighter), and more as a "reduced collateral damage" tactical weapon.

MOP, on the other hand, wouldn't exist if RNEP B83 had been allowed to live.
 
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From a strategic delivery point of view we are talking about only twelve delivery aircraft. So maintaining an entire different type of nuclear weapon for a minority target set (whatever a B-61-12 can't handle) from a tiny aircraft fleet doesn't seem like a good use of funds. Also it is highly likely that retired weapons aren't disassembled and are instead stored as part of the hedge. Retirement from active service would probably just mean pulling them from Whiteman and putting them into storage at Kirkland and discontinuing training for air and ground crews. They would likely be available for future recertification (or even upgrades to guided versions) on B-21s if the strategic situation required such.
 
Josh_TN said:
B-61 mod 12 does not use GPS, at least not directly. The launching platform might be using it but the bomb itself is INS only guidance, which is why the CEP is "only" 30 meters as compared to JDAM. The B-2 (the only bomber equipped for free fall nuclear delivery at this point AFAIK) would have a celestial star tracker as a back up navigation device to its INS, on top of GPS.
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I thought they had gone with a warmed over GPS/INS system for the production models as a 'cost control' measure. A bit of good news there if they went with the original guidance package after all. Unfortunately that still doesn't make a 50kt bomb a strategic weapons system though. You couldn't even call it a sub-strategic weapon, outside possibly of some very specific scenarios such as chained laydown detonation. And as you have pointed out, the US probably doesn't have neither the active inventory nor the delivery systems currently available these days for anything that requires simultaneous deployment of airdropped weapons like that.
 
Grey Havoc said:
Josh_TN said:
B-61 mod 12 does not use GPS, at least not directly. The launching platform might be using it but the bomb itself is INS only guidance, which is why the CEP is "only" 30 meters as compared to JDAM. The B-2 (the only bomber equipped for free fall nuclear delivery at this point AFAIK) would have a celestial star tracker as a back up navigation device to its INS, on top of GPS.
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I thought they had gone with a warmed over GPS/INS system for the production models as a 'cost control' measure. A bit of good news there if they went with the original guidance package after all. Unfortunately that still doesn't make a 50kt bomb a strategic weapons system though. You couldn't even call it a sub-strategic weapon, outside possibly of some very specific scenarios such as chained laydown detonation. And as you have pointed out, the US probably doesn't have neither the active inventory nor the delivery systems currently available these days for anything that requires simultaneous deployment of airdropped weapons like that.
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I believe it is INS only; I had to search through lots of articles since a lot of journos equate guided fins with GPS. Everything I read directly from USAF actually indicated INS without mentioning GPS.

The fact that the B-61-11 is going to be replaced by the -12 in the bunker busting mission indicates to me they still envision a limited strategic role for the weapon, IMO.
 
Iran nuclear chief announces enrichment programme expansion (ft.com, registration or subscription may be required)

Iran has announced an expansion of its nuclear enrichment programme, in a provocative response to a rebuke by the UN’s watchdog over the alleged existence of undeclared nuclear sites.

The head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said on Tuesday that it had added the underground Fordow facility to the list of locations where it was enriching uranium to the 60 per cent purity level, just below weapons grade.

This followed a resolution by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board last week calling on Iran to co-operate over uranium traces found at three undeclared sites in the country.

“We had warned before that political pressure and resolutions would not make Iran change its approach,” Iran’s nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami said, referring to the IAEA statement. “For this reason, we started enriching uranium at Fordow.”

The escalation comes as Iran faces international criticism over the crackdown on protesters in the country, and the alleged sale of missiles and drones to Russia that are being used to attack Ukrainian cities.

John Kirby, a top spokesperson for the US National Security Council, said on Tuesday that the White House was watching Iran’s nuclear progress with “great concern”, adding: “We’re going to make sure . . . all options are available to the President [Joe Biden].”

“Nothing has changed about our policy,” Kirby added. “Iran will not be allowed to achieve a nuclear weapons capability.”

Iran has always insisted its nuclear programme is purely for peaceful purposes, although experts say uranium enrichment to 60 per cent is a step away from weapons-grade levels of 90 per cent.

Tehran has also said that old allegations over its nuclear activities were all addressed in the nuclear accord it signed with the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia and China in 2015 and that those issues could not be reopened.

[snip]
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asiatimes.com

China making South China Sea a nuclear missile launchpad - Asia Times

China is one step closer to turning the South China Sea into a sanctuary for its nuclear ballistic missile submarines (SSBN), a move that would put the
asiatimes.com asiatimes.com
The JL-3 has an estimated range of more than 10,000 kilometers, which allows China to target the US “from a protected bastion in the South China Sea,” US Strategic Command commander Admiral Charles Richard told the US Senate Armed Services Committee this March according to a US Congressional Research Service (CRS) report.
———————————————
Time to seriously up our nuclear game.
 
US officials say Russia has postponed nuclear weapons talks (ft.com, subscription or registration may be required)
US officials said Russia had postponed crucial nuclear weapons talks that were due to begin on Tuesday, marking a setback for the last remaining arms treaty between the powers and providing further evidence of fraying diplomatic ties since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

On Monday, John Kirby, a spokesman for the US National Security Council, said: “We haven’t received a real solid answer from the Russians as to why they postponed this. We’d like to see it get back on the schedule as soon as possible.”

A Russian foreign ministry official told the Tass news agency that the talks would be rescheduled, but offered no other details. US officials said they were working to ascertain why Moscow postponed the discussions.

The meeting would have been the first of its kind since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. Since its implementation in 2011, the New Start Treaty has limited Moscow and Washington’s strategic nuclear weapons arsenals and allowed the parties to conduct on-site inspections to verify that those limits are being adhered to. It is set to expire in 2026.

Over the summer, Russian officials had said they would not allow the inspections to resume, citing US sanctions relating to Russia’s war in Ukraine, which Moscow said would make travelling for the inspections difficult.

However, US officials had hoped this week’s meeting would allow them to discuss restarting the inspections.

[snip]
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What treaty? NewSTART doesn’t have a mechanism for renewing AFAIK.

EDIT: Apologies, I misunderstood the above post. I think the treaty will hold more or less in that while the Russian clearly aren’t feeling cooperative with inspections given the current relationship they have with the US, they don’t want to deal with an arms race either. They won’t upload their missiles. The US has more deployed launchers with lighter loads than their Russian counterparts; ending or clearly violating the treaty would disadvantage the Russians at one of their weaker financial moments.
 
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Josh_TN said:
What treaty? NewSTART doesn’t have a mechanism for renewing AFAIK.

EDIT: Apologies, I misunderstood the above post. I think the treaty will hold more or less in that while the Russian clearly aren’t feeling cooperative with inspections given the current relationship they have with the US, they don’t want to deal with an arms race either. They won’t upload their missiles. The US has more deployed launchers with lighter loads than their Russian counterparts; ending or clearly violating the treaty would disadvantage the Russians at one of their weaker financial moments.
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Inspections are part of the treaty, no inspections, no treaty.
 

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