Current Nuclear Weapons Development

bobbymike said:
www.heritage.org

Russia and China Are Running in a Nuclear Arms Race While the United States Is Jogging in Place

The expansion of nuclear arsenals in Russia and China, coupled with the increasing number of threats against their neighbors, points to an uncertain security future. Indeed, given this expansion, and the slow pace of U.S. nuclear modernization, the incentives for Chinese or Russian nuclear...
www.heritage.org www.heritage.org
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Hazard of going from a Bipolar world to Unipolar to Multipolar. Compare the amount of conflicts between nations from 1870-1950 (Multipolar) and 1950-present (Bipolar up through 1990, Unipolar 1990-2015ish, Multipolar since).
 
Not for the US perhaps but for Russia it absolutely matters. If they believe only 50% of their nukes will work, now they have to double up on targets and require twice as many to maintain a suitable deterrent.
 
Desertfox said:
Not for the US perhaps but for Russia it absolutely matters. If they believe only 50% of their nukes will work, now they have to double up on targets and require twice as many to maintain a suitable deterrent.
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True, but for defensive planning purposes, everyone on the wrong end of those nukes need to assume that all will work.
 
I didn't see any specifics. When it comes to nuclear weapons the US is pretty much having its ass handed to it by both Russia and China. And there is little sign to indicate that isn't going to get worse.
 
sferrin said:
I didn't see any specifics. When it comes to nuclear weapons the US is pretty much having its ass handed to it by both Russia and China. And there is little sign to indicate that isn't going to get worse.
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China is desperately trying to catch up and making huge progress. That isn't the same as kicking ass. The US still has superiority in numbers, early warning, and command and control, even assuming some of the stockpile needs to be hedged for Russia. Once New START expires, the US can almost double its warhead count just using refurbished stored warheads and empty silos.

Russia...how exactly? Because they have a couple examples of a liquid fueled missile that happens to be extremely large? Because they might have a second strike UUV weapon that would be limited to coastal targets days or weeks after a nuclear exchange? Or perhaps the as yet unsuccessful nuclear powered cruise missile?
 
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Personally I don’t think testing “increases the danger of war” and strongly believe the US needs to completely modernize its warhead production AND testing enterprise to face two peer threats for the foreseeable future.
 
I don’t think it is a threshold the US should cross first, but it is an outcome that should be prepared for.
 
Josh_TN said:
Russia...how exactly? Because they have a couple examples of a liquid fueled missile that happens to be extremely large? Because they might have a second strike UUV weapon that would be limited to coastal targets days or weeks after a nuclear exchange? Or perhaps the as yet unsuccessful nuclear powered cruise missile?
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Well...

* Because all Russian nuclear arsenal is composed of modern, last-generation missiles, with minimal reaction time and improved hardening.

* Because more than a half of Russian ICBM are road-mobile rather than silo-based, and thus far less vulnerable to pre-emptive strikes.

* Because our last-generation road-mobile missiles are MIRV'ed.

* Because Russia still have heavy ICBM with significant payload, capable of deploying a large number of warheads, pen-aids and decoys (including heavy decoys, capable of fooling terminal defenses), and capable of using complex trajectories (including - if needed - semi-orbital ones).

* Because Russia have hypersonic glide warheads.

With all respect, but all US ballistic missile forces are relics of Cold War, with outdated and limited just about everything. Your land-based ICBM's are essentially a joke; they are not mobile, depend on limited number of battery control centers, could throw no more than 3 warheads (at the cost of not having any heavy pen-aids).
 
Dilandu said:
Well...

* Because all Russian nuclear arsenal is composed of modern, last-generation missiles, with minimal reaction time and improved hardening.

* Because more than a half of Russian ICBM are road-mobile rather than silo-based, and thus far less vulnerable to pre-emptive strikes.

* Because our last-generation road-mobile missiles are MIRV'ed.

* Because Russia still have heavy ICBM with significant payload, capable of deploying a large number of warheads, pen-aids and decoys (including heavy decoys, capable of fooling terminal defenses), and capable of using complex trajectories (including - if needed - semi-orbital ones).

* Because Russia have hypersonic glide warheads.

With all respect, but all US ballistic missile forces are relics of Cold War, with outdated and limited just about everything. Your land-based ICBM's are essentially a joke; they are not mobile, depend on limited number of battery control centers, could throw no more than 3 warheads (at the cost of not having any heavy pen-aids).
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The US arsenal is long in tooth but routinely rested and reliable. US delivery systems are still in general more accurate than their Russian equivalents. The Silos and control centers maybe sub optimal but they are low cost, and there are still IIRC 45 separate centers controlling 450 silos. The majority of the allowed New START warheads (~950) are sea based, with over half of those being underwater at any given time. Russian submarines are fewer in number, with fewer missiles, fewer warheads, and significantly lower sortie rates. Russian road mobile missiles nevertheless spend more time in their garrisons than on the move, and as such strikes against those forty or so sites would likely remove the majority of them when not on high alert. The US likely has a greater ability to upload its weapons with additional warheads than Russia as well.

All in all, I don’t see any vulnerabilities despite the age of the systems and lack of road mobility*.



*Prolific satellite reconnaissance will likely make road mobility an unreliable way to conceal an ICBM regiment by the end of the decade. The US Army is already actively experimenting with using AI to analyze commercial satellite data in near real time to identify targets. Russia is already deploying laser dazzlers with some of it road mobile units as a result.

EDIT: the US SLBM force is also has a significantly shorter response time and it’s missiles could approach from most any axis. So IMO, the large numbers of US warheads at sea are not only more secure and more accurate, they also are effectively faster and less predictable.
 
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And if it is true about skyfall, the tech is legit astounding. The power density and duration in such a controlled (somewhat, remember previous explosion...) fashion is incredible. We are seeing multiple compact methods of nuclear delivery that will take a generation and very many tens of billions to try and mitigate. Anyone downplaying this nuclear cruise missile or the canyon UUV or the Chinese and Russian hypersonics is deluded.
 
Functionally how are any of these systems more effective than a simple ballistic missile RV? They can evade an ABM system, but given the small number of those and their dubious effectiveness, bypassing ABM systems doesn’t seem like a useful goal. The nuclear powered cruise missile would take hours to get to its target and the nuclear powered UUV days or weeks. Avagarde is faster, but is it faster than an RV? Aren’t there only a regiment or two of them? Is that strategically significant? Personally I’m not sold that hypersonics are really useful in the strategic role vice simply using more cheaper RVs.

The real power of hypersonic ballistic missiles to my mind is their use as conventional PGMs. I don’t see what they bring to a large scale nuclear exchange that couldn’t be accomplished with just more smaller non maneuvering RVs.
 
TMA1 said:
And if it is true about skyfall, the tech is legit astounding. The power density and duration in such a controlled (somewhat, remember previous explosion...) fashion is incredible. We are seeing multiple compact methods of nuclear delivery that will take a generation and very many tens of billions to try and mitigate. Anyone downplaying this nuclear cruise missile or the canyon UUV or the Chinese and Russian hypersonics is deluded.
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The Avanguard HGV takes the entire throw weight of the missile to lift, thing is like 5 tons. I'll take 1 incoming over 10-20 MIRVs.
 
Josh_TN said:
The US arsenal is long in tooth but routinely rested and reliable.
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Theoretically. There were several failures in recent years (2022, 2021, 2018). Most likely in realistic conditions from 20 to 40 percent of "Minuteman" would fail simply due to age, outdated equipment, ect.

Josh_TN said:
US delivery systems are still in general more accurate than their Russian equivalents.
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Simply not true. "Minuteman-III" have a CEP about 240 meters.

Josh_TN said:
The Silos and control centers maybe sub optimal but they are low cost, and there are still IIRC 45 separate centers controlling 450 silos.
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Yes, 45 centers. So basically you could took them all out with just ten R-36M2 loaded to full 10 warheads capacity (to ensure two attacks per LCC). The "Looking glass" aircraft are essentially the only component of the system that is not hopelessly vulnerable.

Josh_TN said:
Russian road mobile missiles nevertheless spend more time in their garrisons than on the move, and as such strikes against those forty or so sites would likely remove the majority of them when not on high alert.
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It was correct for 2000s; not for now.

Josh_TN said:
The US likely has a greater ability to upload its weapons with additional warheads than Russia as well.
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Simply not true. You could upload "Minutemans" only at the cost of removing a lot of their penetration aids.
 
Dilandu said:
Theoretically. There were several failures in recent years (2022, 2021, 2018). Most likely in realistic conditions from 20 to 40 percent of "Minuteman" would fail simply due to age, outdated equipment, ect.
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Sounds about par for the course for USAF nuclear side. FUBAR.


Dilandu said:
Simply not true. "Minuteman-III" have a CEP about 240 meters.
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Good thing that most of the warheads are on Tridents, then, isn't it? CEP requirement of under 90m.
 
Dilandu said:
Yep, and only due to Trident II, US nuclear deterrence is still credible. But they are aging too, and replacement isn't even planned.
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New rockets are still being made, so there's no great rush on that end. I believe that the D5 replacement is scheduled to start up sometime in the middle of the Columbia class production, like how the first half of the Ohios got Trident 1 instead of Trident 2.
 
Scott Kenny said:
New rockets are still being made, so there's no great rush on that end. I believe that the D5 replacement is scheduled to start up sometime in the middle of the Columbia class production, like how the first half of the Ohios got Trident 1 instead of Trident 2.
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If I recall correctly, D5LE2 program assumed that Trident 2 would be in service till 2080s.
 
Dilandu said:
Theoretically. There were several failures in recent years (2022, 2021, 2018). Most likely in realistic conditions from 20 to 40 percent of "Minuteman" would fail simply due to age, outdated equipment, ect.



Simply not true. "Minuteman-III" have a CEP about 240 meters.


Yes, 45 centers. So basically you could took them all out with just ten R-36M2 loaded to full 10 warheads capacity (to ensure two attacks per LCC). The "Looking glass" aircraft are essentially the only component of the system that is not hopelessly vulnerable.


It was correct for 2000s; not for now.


Simply not true. You could upload "Minutemans" only at the cost of removing a lot of their penetration aids.
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The MM3 force isn’t the backbone of the US nuclear deterrent. Trident is. It is more accurate and can accommodate up to eight warheads, and currently averages about half that. I can’t recall a failure in US usage (the British I believe had some issues).

I would not have thought Russian test failure rates were dramatically better after all the problems with Bulva, though I am motivated to do some research on the issue for both sides. I would appreciate any documentation on the US test failures, as I’m unfamiliar with them. I’d also be fascinated with any documentation describing mobile ICBM deployment rates.
 
Josh_TN said:
The MM3 force isn’t the backbone of the US nuclear deterrent. Trident is. It is more accurate and can accommodate up to eight warheads, and currently averages about half that. I can’t recall a failure in US usage (the British I believe had some issues).
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It's a common missile pool between the two, just the UK Tridents have UK made warheads onboard.

Failures happen, the missiles aren't perfect.

And a cracked solid rocket motor has a very impressive failure mode!
 
NMaude said:
Oh, yes, indeed;):D:

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My introduction to that was watching a video a couple of E7 Missile Techs made when they were at a rocket decommissioning out in the desert.

Safe distance of roughly one mile from the detonation, and the D5 first stage blew a crater some 100m across and 15+m deep into desert hardpan. It was very cool watching the shockwave roll across the desert for 5 seconds from seeing the boom to hearing it.
 
Josh_TN said:
I would not have thought Russian test failure rates were dramatically better after all the problems with Bulva, though I am motivated to do some research on the issue for both sides. I would appreciate any documentation on the US test failures, as I’m unfamiliar with them. I’d also be fascinated with any documentation describing mobile ICBM deployment rates.
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Erm. There is a difference between test failure rate for completely new weapon - which is expected to be high - and test failure rate for refurbished ancient weapon.
 
Dilandu said:
Erm. There is a difference between test failure rate for completely new weapon - which is expected to be high - and test failure rate for refurbished ancient weapon.
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Very much so.

However, as a detonics engineer explained, "If you tell me that the ordnance must not ever detonate unintentionally, I can do that. If you tell me that the ordnance must always detonate when so commanded, I can do that. But if you tell me you want both, we need to have a talk."

And while it is almost certainly unfair of me, I strongly suspect that the Russians went for "Ordnance must always detonate" over "must never detonate unintentionally".
 

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