Current Nuclear Weapons Development

I want something beyond an ICBM. The missileers are treated as the red-headed step-children of the triad-and asteroid defense using an SRB derived Athena 3/OMEGA in some silos with perhaps new-build Orion pulse-nukes would be just what is needed. If some other transient event like Ouamuamua shows up-switch-out the nuke for a probe also kept at the ready for launch on warning.
 
Desertfox said:
It is nowhere near that simple. You do realize that a KEV is basically a bus? You still need the whole entire warhead/RV. And its not just about the propulsion system, you also need a robust guidance system that preferably dies not need external signals (ie no GPS).
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You can put DACT on the RVs and guidance, electronics has shrunk massively since 1990, look at the range improvements of AMRAAM, most of that is down to shrinking electronics.
 
thehill.com

Iran: Nuclear talks doomed without Biden guarantee

Iran’s top national security official said that talks to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal are doomed without “guarantees” from President Biden. “The U.S. president, lacking authority, is not ready…
thehill.com thehill.com

EDIT:

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Forest Green said:
Desertfox said:
It is nowhere near that simple. You do realize that a KEV is basically a bus? You still need the whole entire warhead/RV. And its not just about the propulsion system, you also need a robust guidance system that preferably dies not need external signals (ie no GPS).
Click to expand...
You can put DACT on the RVs and guidance, electronics has shrunk massively since 1990, look at the range improvements of AMRAAM, most of that is down to shrinking electronics.
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RVs are NOT AMRAAMs. Proper internal guidance systems are not small, and we are talking ICBM systems, not FOBS ones that have even more guidance issues. Sure you can use GPS, but then you have to deal with possibly losing your guidance entirely or it being spoofed.

The DACT you are talking about only has to move itself and its only conducting small terminal targeting maneuvers. It does not have a 600 lb RV attached or a proper internal guidance system. It also does not need enough fuel for a proper deorbit maneuver. Much less a frikin HGV.
 
Desertfox said:
RVs are NOT AMRAAMs. Proper internal guidance systems are not small, and we are talking ICBM systems, not FOBS ones that have even more guidance issues. Sure you can use GPS, but then you have to deal with possibly losing your guidance entirely or it being spoofed.

The DACT you are talking about only has to move itself and its only conducting small terminal targeting maneuvers. It does not have a 600 lb RV attached or a proper internal guidance system. It also does not need enough fuel for a proper deorbit maneuver. Much less a frikin HGV.
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Yeah, they're bigger so the electronics takes up less space relative to the overall size. LRGs are pretty damn small and as are modern astro-inertial referencing systems. Heck, they had RADAC on RVs in the early '80s.

The deorbit fuel would be in an axial thruster, that would require more power, 10g for 10s would be adequate, then eject the motor. Pif-paf control requirements are merely to spin the RV for a correct re-entry angle. Aero-controls would takeover inside the atmosphere.
 
Forest Green said:
Desertfox said:
RVs are NOT AMRAAMs. Proper internal guidance systems are not small, and we are talking ICBM systems, not FOBS ones that have even more guidance issues. Sure you can use GPS, but then you have to deal with possibly losing your guidance entirely or it being spoofed.

The DACT you are talking about only has to move itself and its only conducting small terminal targeting maneuvers. It does not have a 600 lb RV attached or a proper internal guidance system. It also does not need enough fuel for a proper deorbit maneuver. Much less a frikin HGV.
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Yeah, they're bigger so the electronics takes up less space relative to the overall size. LRGs are pretty damn small and as are modern astro-inertial referencing systems. Heck, they had RADAC on RVs in the early '80s.

The deorbit fuel would be in an axial thruster, that would require more power, 10g for 10s would be adequate, then eject the motor. Pif-paf control requirements are merely to spin the RV for a correct re-entry angle. Aero-controls would takeover inside the atmosphere.
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LRGs do not have the necessary capability for strategic systems like ICBMs much less FOBS with its higher guidance demands. Have you seen the difference between a Pershing II MARV and say a Mk21? Pershing II was anything but small.

You are greatly oversimplifying reentry mechanics and orbital changes. It is not simply about deorbiting the RV, it is all about deorbiting it in the correct reentry angle in a very short amount of time. You can't just strap on a rocket booster and call it good. And now you are adding aero-controls to the overall package. We are not talking about a small 200lb RV here, you want to deorbit something ten times as heavy.
 
Desertfox said:
LRGs do not have the necessary capability for strategic systems like ICBMs much less FOBS with its higher guidance demands. Have you seen the difference between a Pershing II MARV and say a Mk21? Pershing II was anything but small.

You are greatly oversimplifying reentry mechanics and orbital changes. It is not simply about deorbiting the RV, it is all about deorbiting it in the correct reentry angle in a very short amount of time. You can't just strap on a rocket booster and call it good. And now you are adding aero-controls to the overall package. We are not talking about a small 200lb RV here, you want to deorbit something ten times as heavy.
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Pershing II was early '80s tech, in fact probably built with '70s tech, so compare CUDA with an AIM-7E. You back up the LRGs with AIRS.

I've already explained how that would be done several times, axial booster plus DACT. A Pershing II warhead alone, minus RV, weighed 400kg, which is much heavier than an ICBM warhead.
 
You know what an axial booster + DACT + guidance is called? A bus...

Why would you even have LRGs if you have AIRS? AIRS is significantly more accurate than LRGs, and also significantly bigger/heavier. But even with AIRS the guidance problem becomes much more significant with FOBS due to drift, because your guidance has to work for a significantly longer distance/time, and thats if you do a single orbit, multiple orbitsprobably can't be done with inertial systems if you want any sort of accuracy.
 
Desertfox said:
You know what an axial booster + DACT + guidance is called? A bus...

Why would you even have LRGs if you have AIRS? AIRS is significantly more accurate than LRGs, and also significantly bigger/heavier. But even with AIRS the guidance problem becomes much more significant with FOBS due to drift, because your guidance has to work for a significantly longer distance/time, and thats if you do a single orbit, multiple orbitsprobably can't be done with inertial systems if you want any sort of accuracy.
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Not if you put it on each RV. Last I looked you could launch 100t satellites, and a few RVs with some propulsion would be a small fraction of that weight.

For cross-referencing. In peacetime the bus could use GPS safely, the other systems only have to take over from the point where that fails. Aside from that, the points in a stable orbit are well known.
 
ICBM boosters have significantly less payload capability to LEO than SLVs, the very best one (Dnepr) can do 4 tons to LEO.

If the guidance system can receive external signals (ie GPS) then it is vulnerable to being hacked, especially since it will be (according to you) hanging out in space for quite a while. Also you better hope the GPS fails fairly close to reentry, since anything more than 1 orbit and INS starts degrading fast.
 
Arjen said:
Which makes those orbital points a target rich environment.
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If you know what the satellite is and assuming it has no self-preservations techniques.

Desertfox said:
ICBM boosters have significantly less payload capability to LEO than SLVs, the very best one (Dnepr) can do 4 tons to LEO.

If the guidance system can receive external signals (ie GPS) then it is vulnerable to being hacked, especially since it will be (according to you) hanging out in space for quite a while. Also you better hope the GPS fails fairly close to reentry, since anything more than 1 orbit and INS starts degrading fast.
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But you keep forgetting ground we've already covered. A FOBS bus could be launched on any commercial booster disguised as a civilian satellite. Which is why you would cross-reference the GPS signals (receive only) with the LRG and AIRs data. And again, you have to know it's military to make it a hacking target.
 
And again you are ignoring the fact that anything the Chinese launch on an SLV is going to get investigated by the US to hell and back, and if its any sort of HGV its going to be damn near impossible to hide in anything short a of space station. HGVs aint small. Every single kg of mass on a satellite is critical, even trying to hide a small RV + bus on a satellite, will take quite a bit of resources. Its going to stand out.
 
Desertfox said:
And again you are ignoring the fact that anything the Chinese launch on an SLV is going to get investigated by the US to hell and back, and if its any sort of HGV its going to be damn near impossible to hide in anything short a of space station. HGVs aint small. Every single kg of mass on a satellite is critical, even trying to hide a small RV + bus on a satellite, will take quite a bit of resources. Its going to stand out.
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You can investigate something but proving what's on a disguised satellite is damn near impossible and taking one out is a major decision that could start a war regardless of what's on it. Hiding it completely would be difficult but simply making it look like it may have a non-military purpose is simple.
 
thebulletin.org

China’s silence on nuclear arms buildup fuels speculation on motives

China has not elaborated on its recent, rapid nuclear modernization efforts. To understand the security implications and prospects for future arms control cooperation with China, analysts speculate on the military rationale behind its nuclear expansion.
thebulletin.org thebulletin.org
The motive is to announce to the world we are, in everything, America’s equal. The strong horse theory of foreign affairs
 
bobbymike said:
www.realcleardefense.com

The Math Is Bad for MAD

America's current nuclear deterrent is based on the 1960s Cold-War relic known as MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction), which assumed the U.S. could absorb a surprise first strike against our nuclear forc
www.realcleardefense.com www.realcleardefense.com
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If one invokes math for one's argument, one might want to make sure the math actually supports the point.

Despite our having ~1,400 deployed strategic nuclear warheads, they are postured such that a surprise attack by approximately 70 – 100 Russian or Chinese missiles—a fraction of their total nuclear forces—could soon undermine our "assured" retaliatory capability. How can that be?
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Easy: It can't. This number of enemy missiles may suffice to take out the airborne and terrestrial legs of the US nuclear triad in a scenario with absolute worst case assumptions. But even that leaves the USN submarine force, by far the most powerful leg, intact for a debilitating retaliatory strike. Job done - MAD works.

Nevermind a consideration of what the same math must look like from the Chinese perspective, if you think the US has cause to worry here. In any case, the US very successfully dealt with a Soviet arsenal larger than its own over the latter quarter to third of the Cold War era.

Most worrisome are the new heavy Russian and Chinese missiles estimated to be armed with 15 and 10 nuclear warheads, each of which can be aimed at individual targets once their launchers boost them into space.
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The R-36M2 at least has been around for more than 30 years. Didn't harm the principle of MAD (and the US voluntarily threw away a golden opportunity to get rid of it by treaty means in 2002).

Russia is ahead right now as it builds toward several 1,000 nuclear warheads, and China is moving rapidly toward a similar end.
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So Russia is in breach of New START, which limits them to <1500 strategic warheads? Evidence? In stark contrast to the longstanding and very public conflict about Russian INF violations, no allegations about New START violations have ever been substantiated. Or have we subtly dropped the "strategic" qualifier now? That makes no sense in the given context of MAD, which is firmly strategic, but even disregarding that, the Russian tactical warhead numbers have in fact been stagnating at best, usually decreasing in recent years.

... assuming that emerging Russian or Chinese technologies have not enabled knowledge of the submarine positions and a way to attack them
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This is a gross distortion. It is the scenario of submarine detection technology making such a quantum leap which is founded on unproven assumptions, not the other way round. A quantum leap more over which eluded the US, and of which the UK and France - which rely entirely on submarines for deterrence - are blithely unaware. Come on :rolleyes:

Whoa! If MAD worked as advertised, there would have been no disarming first strike!
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There has been? I must have managed to miss it... Or is the argument that MAD failed because the author deliberately assumed its failure for argument's sake? Genuinely baffled by this apparent circular logic. Whoa, indeed!

For one thing, significant Russian, and possibly soon Chinese, missile defenses could blunt the effectiveness of such retaliation (~10,000 Russian air- and missile-defense interceptors and demonstrated Chinese “space operations” capabilities).
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"Math", again. There are currently 64 Russian missile defence interceptors available to counter a US SLBM retaliatory strike, and all of them are defending a grand total of one target. One. If that's such a big worry, what's the US BMD shield which defends the entire nation going to look like from a Russian perspective? Aegis Ashore on its doorstep? SM-3 with a proven anti-ICBM capability in potentially thousands of VLS cells on almost a hundred Aegis ships which can freely roam the world's oceans?

Quite apart from that, the US willingly abrogated a treaty which placed very tight limits on Russian strategic missile defences, such that the incipient S-500/550 would not exist. Who is to blame for this problem if not the US itself? Kind of a point to bear in mind when advocating an increase in US missile defences as a solution and disagreeing with the argument that this is destabilizing. Any national and numerically large-scale BMD the US nuclear triad might have to contend with in future, along with heavy Russian MIRVed missiles, can be traced squarely to US policy on missile defence...
 
The US leaving the ABM treaty in 2002 was a strategic fiasco of insane proportions. Every current Russia strategic weapons system and a good portion of Chinese ones can be traced directly back to that point. Had the US stuck to ABM, New START might have dropped limits to 1,000 warheads, INF would likely still be around, and we could be working on a trilateral START IV with China.
 
Agreed, with the possible exception of INF. It's plausible that there was a link between Aegis Ashore in Eastern Europe specifically and deteriorating Russian attitude toward the treaty, but it's by no means a given. The rest though - the relationship is pretty straightforward and unequivocal. Russian government statements even made it plain, and did so again and again and again at every opportunity. There really cannot be any question.

On this point specifically...

Desertfox said:
Every current Russia strategic weapons system and a good portion of Chinese ones can be traced directly back to that point.
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... there is this pervasive misconception that Avangard or this recent Chinese FOBS glider represent a qualitative change to the first strike threat. Well:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1182694851336384512
View: https://twitter.com/masao_dahlgren/status/1182694851336384512


So in response to a comparable perceived threat of a Soviet BMD build-up, the US developed and tested a counter that is likewise comparable to Avangard, specifically to protect its second strike capability. Of course, unlike Avangard it never entered service, but then, unlike the US, the USSR continued to abide by the ABM Treaty. BTW, Avangard can apparently trace its heritage to 1990 tests by the Soviets, then in response to SDI, efforts which were promptly shelved (until 2002) as SDI faded away.

Some aspects of this MAD and arms control thing are complicated, but this one really isn't.
 
Desertfox said:
The US leaving the ABM treaty in 2002 was a strategic fiasco of insane proportions. Every current Russia strategic weapons system and a good portion of Chinese ones can be traced directly back to that point. Had the US stuck to ABM, New START might have dropped limits to 1,000 warheads, INF would likely still be around, and we could be working on a trilateral START IV with China.
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Given China's reluctance to bind itself to any treaty, it's safe to say they've always chosen to do whatever they want and the reasons for that are in line with their China 2050 objective (and independent of the ABM treaty). The US and Russia have a different perspective because both countries were at each others' throats during the height of the Cold War, lessons were learned. China hasn't had its current might checked yet in any meaningful way. That's why another Cold War is developing, and why China will have to go through the process of learning the same things the USSR & US did.
 
Is that really safe to say? US abrogation of the ABM Treaty pre-dates the formulation of China 2050 by many years. It does make a worthwhile counter-factual in my opinion whether a more consistent and amenable US arms control posture toward Russia would not have exerted an influence on Chinese policy and perception of treaties.

I'm ready to credit China with an ability learn from the previous experience of others - being skeptical of US arms control initiatives unfortunately is perfectly in keeping with that, actually.
 
Trident said:
Is that really safe to say? US abrogation of the ABM Treaty pre-dates the formulation of China 2050 by many years. It does make a worthwhile counter-factual in my opinion whether a more consistent and amenable US arms control posture toward Russia would not have exerted an influence on Chinese policy and perception of treaties.

I'm ready to credit China with an ability learn from the previous experience of others - being skeptical of US arms control initiatives unfortunately is perfectly in keeping with that, actually.
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I do think it's safe to say. Strictly speaking regarding China, what China 2050 represents to China is something that's been in development since late in the Cold War when it began taking advantage of its relationship with America. The relationship has allowed them to do what it wants, relatively unabated because of Corporate America's interests in China and the politicians that represent them. We've always been careful not to pressure or prod them too much on sensitive topics because of that relationship.

Do you think in the 90s when Clinton was trying to get China into the WTO, that they wanted to condemn any of their actions or force them into a treaty? No, because the economic relationship they were trying to develop was more important (in lieu of the false expectation that they'd turn into a Democracy). In 2001, China got their wish and was brought into the arms of the WTO. Any concern about arms control stayed well on the backburner because the chains came off and the relationship went into over-drive (they still have developing nation status).

So I don't think the US withdrawing from the ABM treaty had any significant impact as they were always operating under the belief that the US is greedy and money hungry, and that they could use that greed to continue to influence them to let them do whatever they wanted. And now since they're extensive investments are putting them on a quick trajectory to reach a modern parity with the US, the state of the relationship is now rapidly changing.

As for Red Bear, well, that's a different animal with a different relationship with the US.
 
Well, the root cause is spelled out pretty clearly:

Bloomberg said:
While the IAEA isn’t a formal party to the nuclear deal, its inspectors are supposed to provide the guarantees that Iran is abiding by its part of the bargain. That job became more difficult starting in 2018 after then President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S.

Facing new U.S. penalties that choked its economy, Iran retaliated by breaking limits on uranium enrichment and restricting IAEA access to some of its facilities. One of the central features of the JCPOA had been the unprecedented access it gave to international monitors.
Click to expand...
 
I have been following discussions by IAEA officials (retired and current) about enrichment processes and timelines in Iran, and it seems they are no more than a couple of months away from critical breakout (25-30 kg 90% EU). Essentially, enough for 5-6 boosted fission devices. Also, there are now enough I-6 class centrifuges to sustain such production indefinitely.
This is corroborated by stockpile data and enrichment, ancillary production facilities that is currently known to IAEA, and there are a few 'known unknowns' that may pull the timeline closer.

This will hold true, ofcourse, only if nothing unexpected happens like that blast that took place in the underground facility.
 
i believe Iran has announced it has 55lbs of 60% purified Uranium. That’s at least enough for a bomb or three of fairly simple design. A couple months effort would probably get them there.

How much further they take it will be interesting- at some point Israel will step in if the US doesn’t first. Had JCPOA been maintained, things probably would have been fine. As it is I think a war is now inevitable.
 

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