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US Modernizes Nuclear Arsenal With Smaller, Precision-Guided Atomic Weapons (nytimes.com)
HughPickens.com writes: The NY Times reports that the Pentagon has been developing the B61 Model 12, the nation's first precision-guided atom bomb. Adapted from an older weapon, the Model 12 was designed with problems like North Korea in mind: Its computer brain and four maneuverable fins let it zero in on deeply buried targets like testing tunnels and weapon sites and its yield can be dialed up or down depending on the target, to minimize collateral damage. The B61 Model 12 flight-tested last year in Nevada and is the first of five new warhead types planned as part of an atomic revitalization estimated to cost up to $1 trillion over three decades. As a family, the weapons and their delivery systems move toward the small, the stealthy and the precise.
And some say that's the problem. The Federation of American Scientists argues that the high accuracy and low destructive settings means military commanders might press to use the bomb in an attack, knowing the radioactive fallout and collateral damage would be limited. Increasing the accuracy also broadens the type of targets that the B61 can be used to attack. Some say that a new nuclear tipped cruise missile under development might sway a future president to contemplate "limited nuclear war." Worse yet, because the missile comes in nuclear and non-nuclear varieties, a foe under attack might assume the worst and overreact, initiating nuclear war. In a recent interview, General James Cartwright, a retired four-star general who last served as the eighth Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says the overall modernization plan might change how military commanders looked at the risks of using nuclear weapons. "What if I bring real precision to these weapons?" says Cartwright. "Does it make them more usable? It could be."
And some say that's the problem. The Federation of American Scientists argues that the high accuracy and low destructive settings means military commanders might press to use the bomb in an attack, knowing the radioactive fallout and collateral damage would be limited. Increasing the accuracy also broadens the type of targets that the B61 can be used to attack. Some say that a new nuclear tipped cruise missile under development might sway a future president to contemplate "limited nuclear war." Worse yet, because the missile comes in nuclear and non-nuclear varieties, a foe under attack might assume the worst and overreact, initiating nuclear war. In a recent interview, General James Cartwright, a retired four-star general who last served as the eighth Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says the overall modernization plan might change how military commanders looked at the risks of using nuclear weapons. "What if I bring real precision to these weapons?" says Cartwright. "Does it make them more usable? It could be."
Minimal collateral damage with atom bomb?
Wouldn't this destroy the old adage: "Almost only counts with horse shoes, hand grenades, and nuclear weapons?"
Aren't fallout and collateral damage the main problems people have with nuclear weapons? Without those factors The Bomb wouldn't have that enormous stigma attached to it, it would be just another bomb, albeit larger. Since the Cold War is over, and since everyone involved knows that smaller tactical nukes exist, there's no reason that the response to any and all non-testing nuclear explosion has to be full-on empty the silos.
1) China and Russia are likely to do the same thing eventually. Russia in particular is pumping a lot of money into modernizing their nukes. Do we really want to end up having to catch up here?
2) This might make China and Russia less likely to start some crap if they fear that the US might nuke them in retaliation. There are a lot of countries that would be really happy if both China and Russia would calm down right now.
I'm not so sure I'm comfortable with a precision modernization program for a nuclear arsenal. For better or worse, our MAD deterrent seems to have worked. No country has used nuclear weapons since WWII. They are doomsday weapons and any use of them would escalate a conflict well into a total-warfare situation regardless of their precision. A nuclear weapon applied even on the most restricted and limited of targets is the most destabilizing thing you can probably do. Worse yet, it encourages other countries to consider 'usable' nuclear weapons of their own. As much as I hate our current situation I would hope we would work towards disarmament rather than finding more palatable means to deploy nuclear weapons.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
The FAS also claimed that more-precise weapons back in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s would cause nuclear war.
And that a missile defense system would cause nuclear war (except for the one the Soviets built and still use, of course).
Oddly enough, over the last half-century, none of the things the FAS said would increase the chances of a nuclear war actually caused a nuclear war. The things that nearly caused WWIII were things they never actually mentioned...
isnt the point of a nuke that its a big bomb? Why nuke for a small boom? we have conventional weapons without the added bad PR of dropping a nuke. We made the MOAB because we wanted a big boom without it being a nuke. Why go the other way?
" and its yield can be dialed up or down depending on the target, to minimize collateral damage."
But... does it go to 11?
Adapted from an older weapon, the Model 12 was designed with problems like North Korea in mind...
It seems unlikely the Supreme Leader will quit these saber-rattling stunts as long as he is getting this type of response.
It's kind of like rewarding a five year old's tantrum with the toy he wanted to begin with, isn't it?
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Um, the more you dial it down, generally the dirtier the explosion. For a given bomb, higher yields equate to more complete fission of the fuel and higher neutron fluxes that are better at transmuting the heavy actinides into lighter, shorter-lived products. Likewise, the bigger the bomb, the smaller the fallout relative to its yield - they're more effective at dispersion and more of the power comes from fusion, less from fission. For example, the Tsar Bomba was a remarkably clean bomb despite its tremendous yield, while the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (low yield, low percentage burn, pure fission) were very dirty.
He's the sort of person who would sell the Red Cross to Dracula.
Putting a nuke on target, even with precision and reason, is fucking stupid. Might as well send a giftwrapped invitation to bomb you first
Personally I think the thresh hold for the US to get involved in global stupidity would be threats great enough that a nuclear response in appropriate. (I do have a much lower requirement for nuclear response. Iran, Saudi, Turkey and other muslim terror supporting countries would already have been hit with one.) Glass a city or two, we could even be nice and give them 24 hours notice, with low yield nukes to show we mean business and then use conventional forces to mop up. Otherwise we should stay out of it.
"Limited nuclear war" doesn't exist. Cold War-era thinking still permeates the military/political culture of all nuclear-armed states so that even a single use of a highly targeted, small yield device means the gloves are off. Most nuclear armed militaries have a "respond in kind" policy, so even though the US might use precision nukes, the opponent might have only higher yield less accurate nukes and if we use them so will they. A nucelar exchange might start on the battlefield but it will quickly work its way back from the frontlines. Even if they did not, the political ramifications could be huge. Nuclear states that already aren't too happy with us such as Russia, Iran, DPRK, and Pakistan will find their trigger fingers to be even more itchy during times of tension or hostility. Actions that have wide reaching political consequences should not be in the hands of local military commanders. Even small yield tactical nukes such as these need to be solely in control of the NCA.
That being said, I am all for having weapons such as these developed and replacing our current stock with them. Anything to make nukes less destructive is useful. We need nukes to keep other people from using nukes just as we need other people to have nukes so we don't use ours. MAD might or might not really exist, but no one really wants to test it and find out.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
As a family, the weapons and their delivery systems move toward the small, the stealthy, the precise...the hackable.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Aren't fallout and collateral damage the main problems people have with nuclear weapons?
No. The main problem is that they are weapons of mass destruction that can vaporize entire cities in an instant. They are weapons that are specifically designed to kill a large number of people over a large area very quickly. THAT is the main problem with them. Let's not lose sight of why nukes are scary. The fallout merely adds the problem.
The term collateral damage when applied to nukes is kind of meaningless. The entire point of a nuke is to destroy everything in a rather large radius. There really is no such thing as collateral damage when using explosions of that size because you are unavoidably and intentionally targeting non-combatants and infrastructure when you make the decision to use one. Yes this remains true for "tactical nukes" too.
As a software developer, the "dial" sounds like something marketing would sell to cover asses later but wouldn't actually be developed. For example, "Oops, we didn't mean to fry [nearby city] when we blew up [target] with our Surgical Nuke (TM). We really did set the dial to 'just kill bad guys' but our engineers must have fucked it up somehow."
For context, we've so far bombed 3 hospitals:
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-us-thought-one-of-its-afghani-hospitals-was-in-the-mediterranean-sea
Our tactical ain't so tactical and our precision ain't always so precise.
Gee, I wonder how "concerned" these scientists were over Obama's deal that effectively paves a path for Iran to have larger, dirtier nukes?
Or are they really "concerned" about something that improves the military of the US?
If it's really precise, you don't need a nuke.
If the aim is murdering people, that's obvious.
And even if you want to take out an entire building (with the consequences it will yield), a nuke is too much.
Actually, watch Iron Man (the scene where he is surround by terrorists). That's all you need.
Any collateral conveys a message: you lost to the terrorists, for they go into these things to die. What they cannot bear is that died and not an innocent was hurt. And before we criticize that thinking, guess they learned that from, who didn't gave a damn to innocents as collaterals...
We've had Neighborhood Nuclear Superiority for decades! It even attaches to your garden hose!
It helped me reinforce my territorial imperative!
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Mini Nukes and a Fat Boy launcher...... PLEASE!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
We've had precision guided nuclear capable weapons systems for years.
Just to pick one ( since it was my particular specialty for years ): the Tomahawk Cruise Missile.
The Block III variant came in four fantastic standard flavors that could be ship, air and even sub-surface launched:
109A - Nuclear Tipped with a W-80 Warhead. Dial-a-yield of 5kt or 150kt. ( Google the W-80 for more info )
109B - Anti-ship flavor. Conventional warhead.
109C - Land-attack flavor. Conventional warhead.
109D - Land-attack flavor, sub-munitions dispensing warhead.
This is just the Tomahawk. I haven't kept up with the other cruise missile variants, gravity or guided smart-bombs, or even
the advances ( if any ) in the ballistic missile platforms.
So, I'm not entirely sure what all the fuss is about since we've had selective yield weapons since at least the late 70's.
Personally, since there is no putting the genie back in the bottle, I would prefer a much smaller yield high precision device
over the city-flattening strategic overkill ones that defined the Cold War era.
Folks may argue that the desire to use them would increase since they're not as terrible as their strategic brethren, but some
of these weapons are older than many of the folks reading this and have had this capability the entire time. Yet, we haven't been
tossing them around en-masse during our many, many conflicts around the world over the years. Unlikely we're going to start now.
http://xkcd.com/1626/
Isn't it America that is fighting in the most conflicts all over the world?
Heaven forbid it gets used instead to improve the quality of life within the US for the general population!
However smaller tactical nukes were always going to be the future of nuclear warfare - sadly the less collateral damage they do, the more likely they are to be used.
And will the nuclear retaliation then be just as precise and limited? And the following escalation?
The whole point of nuclear weapons was to act as a deterrent. That does not work once you integrate nuclear weapons in a continuous scale of abhorrence.
You know, the thing Nobel found out about the deterrence value of dynamite. The only thing nuclear peace had going for it was that nuclear weapons were a class entirely of their own.
Hillary will deploy.
Oh the new little nukies are soooo cute!
Table-ized A.I.
For a smaller, more precise nuclear apocalypse.
He will used these gifts from God!
OK, NORKs! You're FIRED! And DEAD! LAUNCH!
It was my understanding that the plowshare program was ended because they weren't able to make them detonate cleanly enough to use they were plenty precise enough for the applications they tried as I recall.
But then again they have been using depleted uranium rounds on the battlefield for years so It may just be considered acceptable now.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
I also worry that they are using super computers (and I *know* they have the fastest computers in the world) to calculate how to win a limited nuclear war. Now, some will say that's a good thing. And maybe it has to be done. But one also has to worry that the computer will came back with a result like "99.5% Success!" And then certain powers might be all to inclined to go for it.
:T:R:A:N:S:
Now all we need is (somehow) Trump getting elected, and he really would destroy the world. Using even ONE of these damn things would start World War 3. Is this just sabre-rattling by the U.S. in light of the DPRK baring their chihuahua-sized teeth and yapping furiously?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
But not nukes. Hmm....
This is exactly what Trump is looking for. More usable nuclear weapons.
People from wanting war. If that did not end this nothing is going to.
By and by I guess sooner or later everyone will have to eat a nuke.
No really, I have to ask, are are we the baddies?
Sometimes I'm not so sure we're the good guys anymore.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I believe there was even a movie about stealing them from a ship staring Steven Siegal... Even the movie is very old now.
I think the opposite is the desired effect. I recall reading that what eventually drove the final nail into the USSR and Communism, was that nuclear weapons (as the summary indicates) are fantastically expensive to develop, build, maintain, and all the infrastructure needed to support them, and that trying to keep up with the US essentially bankrupted the Soviet economy.
Further developments would only do the same I suppose. However the risk however is someone deciding to say screw it, if they are using small scale precise nuclear weapons, we'll just respond with our big burtha's rather than try to keep up our development cycle...
“Instead of building newer and larger weapons of mass destruction, I think mankind should try to get more use out of the ones we have.” Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey
The concern I would have about "strategic" dial-a-yield weapons are the fact that any remotely delivered weapon has the chance of becoming a "dud" for whatever reason.
So perhaps you just set the yield to 5kt and fired it off and it embeds itself into some earth without detonation... Then someone can come along, and provided they know what they are doing, just captured enough material for a 150kt nuclear explosion against you. I'm sure there are countermeasures and everything but still.
Ultimately, the point here is if we don't keep working (spending) on nukes, advancing them, new models and all, the people who know about nukes will retire and die off, and no young-uns will learn the trade... which would be all cool, except that Iran and NK and Pakistan and fuck knows who else has started making them, and their politician bosses are going to sabre-rattle to get what they want. Strong first-world deterrent is, unfortunately, the only way to make sure those sabres stay buried in their scabbards, unused. OTOH, if all the expertise in nuclear weapons is overseas, we will be, in the words of Gunnery Sgt. Hartman, in a world of shit.
There are two things to nukes: the warheads, and the delivery system. Turns out, the brass balls are in the latter. The nation with the biggest swinging dick is the one that can deliver nukes quickly, quietly, and precisely enough that the target cannot fire off a response. To maintain this, the U.S. is working on improving precision, and Vlad the Putin is working on stealth.
The Cold War is alive, people. Kim Jong-un may have already smuggled a nuke into a harbor near you, buried in one of a thousand shipping containers sitting around on the lot. The only difference between us and them? Ours are better, smaller, faster, and we got a shitload more of 'em. NK might be capable of taking out Long Beach, but with that he will have blown his wad, whereas our response can dig a crater big enough to permanently separate the South from the Korean peninsula. So, Kimmy keeps careful to keep all the nuke talk to just that.... talk.
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
It's perfect for Death Stars, since they always build them with access tunnels that go right to the core.
Incipiamus, fratres, servire Domino Deo, quia hucusque vix vel parum in nullo profecimus.
Hopefully they don't configure the new nuclear weapons with a distro that contains systemd.
Then it wasn't collateral damage because we MEANT to kill civilians and destroy civil infrastructure because we believed that breaking the enemy's ability and will to fight would aid our war effort and shorten the war.
Some modern "terrorists" feel free to target civilians for a similar reason: In a country with a popular-election-driven governmental form (such as a republic, democracy, or some mix or variant) the whole population are (allegedly) the decision-makers. From the viewpoint of those who believe they are being oppressed by such a country, anyone with a vote, or in a position to influence a vote, is a decision-maker, sharing in responsibility for the government's actions.
(Of course many others could care less who they hurt. But it's easier for the leaders to organize them if they can assuage the consciences of those who have one, switching them into "righteous-wrath" mode.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Wouldn't an aneutronic fusion bomb, such as a H-B bomb, bring with it practically no fallout or radiation at all? Granted, you might need a fissile trigger to initiate the explosion, and controlling the fusion reaction so that you get H-B fusion and not H-H fusion, or He-He fusion from the resulting 3He you get from H-B fusion might be difficult. Regardless, a fusion bomb based on aneutronic fusion could (theoretically) reach extremely high yields without so much as a whiff of radiation or fallout. You could annihilate entire cities without worrying about the fallout clouds (though you might still get nuclear winter from the dust and soot).
y'know like they did with that hellfire missle?
My super worm wasn't so super, it just vomited and died.
Maybe it's worth reminding people that the doomsday clock is currently set at 2 to 12. In 1991 it was much better. That margin has been thoroughly wasted since. I don't know if it's always so well informed but concerning risks of global nuclear war, yeah, things are not good.
A "precision-guided" nuclear munition that leaves a 10-mile crater. THAT'S JUST FUCKING BRILLIANT.
Seriously, all this does is increase the likelihood that one or more of these will be used. It's fucking insane.
I'm generally a strong supporter of the military, but there's nothing good about nuclear weapons, nothing. Using one of these things will be the match that sets the entire world on fire.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
"The Federation of American Scientists argues that the high accuracy and low destructive settings means military commanders might press to use the bomb in an attack, knowing the radioactive fallout and collateral damage would be limited."
Just like MacArthur did during the Korean War, and by various folks during various stages of the Vietnam conflict.
But the President has to authorize any use of nuclear weapons, and will invariably ask "Is that your only option?" And when the answer comes back, "Well, no...." that will end the discussion.
Military commanders do not decide this.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
What happens after Hiroshima is attacked with such a very dirty weapon?
http://thehayride.com/wp-conte...
The Cruise missles have had nuclear and conventional warhead options since it was created. During the Iraq war we ran out of Cruise missles and had to convert the nuke missles to conventional. So this dual warhead type option is not new. If you are sitting on your toilet and get propelled into the sky by said toilet, there is a good chance they shot one through the sewers, glad I'm not on clean-up duty!
Life is in a state of dynamic equilibrium, it both blows and sucks
No need for Nuclear Arsenal;
There are so many fragile points on Earth;
Just drop a "Heat bomb" in Antarctic ice sheets.
You'll REBOOT the planet.
Casteism