Originally posted by The_Investor

As for "nuclear fall out" doesn't really exist in above ground tests. More radioactive material was left over after Fat Man and Little Boy because their yields were at best 17% - yet Nagasaki and Hiroshima are thriving.

Airbursts by efficient bombs 95% or greater are not going to leave much residue at all.

This is factually untrue. Most of the dangerous fallout occurs due to the actual fission products of uranium and neutron activation of transuranics. Modern thermonuclear weapons get a large fraction of their yield from fission, including fast fission of the pusher in the thermonuclear secondary, so fallout is roughly proportional to yield.

Modern weapons are very powerful and dirty, far worse than Hiroshima on both aspects.


Efficiency (probably topping at 90%) is useful metric for conserving fissile material and maximizing yield to mass.

They have enough to destroy us. We have enough to destroy them. Whose going to want to live on Earth after we are finished.

The Answer is Who Cares.

The nuke status is old news.
Russia has had the quantity.
USA has had the quality.

If you want I'll upload the "Forbidden Book": "You will survive doomsday"
Which also explains how to survive a Nuclear bomb explosion from even as little as 1km away from you.

Addressing general themes:

Quantity vs. Quality - why do Americans or Westerners believe Russia's Nukes are "low quality" WHEN Russia deems Nuclear weapons THE essential warfighting asset and devote CONSIDERABLE money to their Nuclear Industry and has an education system that has a large bend towards physics, mathematics, modern geometrics, and Chemistry which are the sciences most essential for building a bomb?

I find the argument that Russian bombs are "lower quality" or even "out of date" to be wholly unsubstantiated.

Russia still actively repairs and rennovates their warheads - the US is only about to in after 20 years of no activity.

Another theme is that Nuclear Weapons are "emmensly destructive".

WW2 saw more fire power dropped on cities than all the Nuclear Bombs in the world could ever produce. The difference is two-fold. The myth that Nuclear Bombs are "Super powerful" (as an individual bomb they are but when modern nations drop millions of bombs Nuclear weapons are still pale in comparison) and the myth that Nuclear bombs generate substantial fall-out.

Fall-out is in fact due to irradiation - think Chernobyl. Chernobyl is a waste land because it is irradiated. Irradiation requires close proximity - thus air-bursts do not generate fall-out because it does not irradiate ground material then kick it straight into the air as with ground-bursts.

However, a bomb still scatters unused nuclear fuel...that is why the yield (efficiency is a better more precise less confusing term) is so important when talking about BMD because what ever does not get fissioned//fused will be blown to the winds as radioactive particles.

Hundreds of above ground tests of far larger bombs than what will be used in actual nuclear war has not changed the state of reality of humans on the Earth, it has had a barely measurable effect on the environment, and this is all from ground bursts.

Underground testing continued after some minimal signatures of radioactive material, but none of us are in danger because of this.

A nuclear exchange is not going to occur often.

Nuclear war would doubtfully kill a country the size of Germany - let alone the whole world.

I disregard about anything The Bulletin says ever since they proved to me they do not have an expert Russian translator working for them (I had an argument with one of their editors over what a specific Russian General was saying and eventually had to give-up because the editor frankly knew nothing about Russia).

So it's nice you can find information on the internet, but in the future, becareful where it comes from.

Chernobyl


You cannot compare the events in 1986 at Chernobyl power station to a bomb


the type of radiation released from the explosion at the power station either isn`t found in a bomb or is in much smaller amounts - its simple - a bomb doesn`t have tons and tons of uranium fuel rods in the middle ! thats the reason why the land is poisone - the amount of fuel burnt over the few days which was alot , in comparison to teh rather small amount of uranium in a bomb.

The_Invester: Are you talking about Quality Vs. Quantity in response to my post?

If yes.
With that I meant that (based on the reports I had seen last):
America has less nukes, but more "seekers" (as in, homing) "seeking"
Russia has had more nukes, but more "non-seeking" than "seeking"

Those reports didn't go into seperate types of nuclear warheads, just into targeting or not.

Like that, the sketch looked similiar to this (Numbers are fictional):
America, 15000 - 10000 homing, 5000 non homing
Russia, 20000, 15000 non homing, 5000 homing

The same graph also showed the nukes that other countries had (eg.: The middle-east & some other european countries).

I wouldn't know about today though.

Harlequin the radiation released from the melt down at Chernobyl was MUCH greater than that released in a bomb.

And I would simply say it's difficult to judge "quality" in this matter Omega, because quality assurance is done by tests and practice...neither of which are going on now and the latter has only 2 examples.

I am not sure how you could claim that. Podvig claims Russia has 3400 strategic warheads. The National Review artical claims the US has or will soon have a clear nuclear superiority, with a first strike capability. ?????????????????????????

Originally posted by Hiphar
I am not sure how you could claim that. Podvig claims Russia has 3400 strategic warheads. The National Review artical claims the US has or will soon have a clear nuclear superiority, with a first strike capability. ?????????????????????????

Both countries have always had a Nuclear Strike capability - and I won't debate Podvig's arguments directly simply saying that the source within the source I gave is the "A Guide to the Nuclear Arms Control treaties" (Los Alamos, N.m.: Los Alamos National Laboratory, LA-UR-99-31-73, July 1999), pp. 316-317.

The dates may be the single most difference, but Podvig claimed only about 5 regiments were being reassigned or folded into other units so that's not enough to count for 3,000 missing deployed warheads.

I think Podvig is off - or something is lost in translation or the Russians are undercutting their figures in public sources not meant for government publishing - all of which are possible the last especially.

Originally posted by The_Investor
FredT you attempt to make an argument but in all instances but one ignore everything I said for information that in turn is irrelevant (but potentially makes an ignorant teenager think you're smart).

After discussing this for many many years and doing far far more reading than you, I concur with what Fred says. No need to attempt to insult him, you are completely wrong about US SLBM's. The D-5 has enough range to reach any target in Russia from the central and southern Pacific and Indian Oceans. You originally quoted a range of 35oo km which is completely wrong. Furthermore the D-5 warhead is the largest warhead on any missile in the US inventory and is more than capable of counter force.

First I'll agree with you about the range issue as I have seen reported ranges as high as 12,000 KM but the US is not keen on reporting actual ranges, suffice to say that operationally an Ohio Class is not going to be within its area of patrol (then again the NAVY is difficult on defining patrol as well) until around 1,000 KM of Russia.

Complete BS, this shows you know very little about what you're talking about.

The accuracy is within about 250 meters which puts it well outside the limits of performing what is referred to as a 2-on-1 cross targeting.

No it is at least twice as accurate as that and probably more with it's GPS upgrades. It had a 120m accuracy using just stellar-inertial navigation. You do know what that is ?

This is consuming resources (that means the complete success of one submarine can only strike a limited number of hardened facilities, and that is about 90. Russia has 93 known hardened facilities and has a mobile launch force anyway).

LOL, do you just make up these supposed facts ? There are hundreds of D-5 warheads in US subs.

The 2-on-1 cross targeting only works on the premise that the D-5 can have an accuracy of 150 meters, without that it may need as many as 10 and none of them may destroy any facility because now the cratering effect is not within range of the facility when the missile misses by more than 150 meters.

Now really this is funny, you really do know nothing. You are talking out of your ass. I see you provide absolutely no facts about what you say

This system is a remotely linked or "soft-lined" communication system to the in-transit missile and can be scrambled easily if not completely hacked and thus the wrong information is given (making your D-5 believe Berlin is Moscow).

Oh yeah tight, got any links. Or is this from the B-grade movies you've been watching ?

Russian cyber warfare will be up to par to deal with this and hence the counter cyber terrorism units etc...that the US are working on.

Oh it is, which movie is this fact from ?

This puts ICBMs at the advantage particularly for the Russian ICBMs because they are mobile and thus more survivable, because these ICBMs have a better accuracy (150 meters or less) upon launch. They require no inflight corrections. This command and communication system is governed by hard-line comms and prevents error or corruption.

Oh and how are the Russians missiles more accurate, they don't have nearly the accuracy which could be provided by US GPS ? You are talking completely BS and are just making things up. No wonder no one has really bothered answering your posts. They are BS.

As for "nuclear fall out" doesn't really exist in above ground tests. More radioactive material was left over after Fat Man and Little Boy because their yields were at best 17% - yet Nagasaki and Hiroshima are thriving.[/uote]

This really made me laugh, you are comparing 2 small warheads to the use of thousands. And yes places do become highly radioactive when hit with nuclear weapons. DO some reading.

Airbursts by efficient bombs 95% or greater are not going to leave much residue at all.

Erm right, complete bollocks. Air-burst suck up vast amounts of debris and irradiate it causing radiation to be spread far and wide. Ever heard of fallout ? Obviously not.

Originally posted by The_Investor
I find the argument that Russian bombs are "lower quality" or even "out of date" to be wholly unsubstantiated.

Russia still actively repairs and rennovates their warheads - the US is only about to in after 20 years of no activity.

that is actually incorrect. THe Soviets/Russians just build new warheads, they don't service their old ones. Hence all the huge problems they've had trying to decomossion all these obsolete warheads. So it is tru a large number of their warheads may not even explode if used and certainy no where near the designed yield.
Where do you get your information from, it is for the most part wrong.

WW2 saw more fire power dropped on cities than all the Nuclear Bombs in the world could ever produce. The difference is two-fold. The myth that Nuclear Bombs are "Super powerful" (as an individual bomb they are but when modern nations drop millions of bombs Nuclear weapons are still pale in comparison) and the myth that Nuclear bombs generate substantial fall-out.

Sorry but this is the stupidest argument I've ever heard and COMPLETELY wrong. IN WW2 the combined tonnage of bombs dropped on bothe Germany and Japan was a bout 3 million tons. The equivalent of a SINGLE 3MT warhead. You do the math and think really really hard before your next post.
The stupidity of the above statement is astounding.

Irradiation requires close proximity - thus air-bursts do not generate fall-out because it does not irradiate ground material then kick it straight into the air as with ground-bursts.

Erm right so where ar ethesesirbursts exploding ? 20 000 feet in teh air. If so what is the pint of them they do almost no physical damage to teh gound. An airburst ( as you don't seem to know ) is used to increase the destructive footprint of a nuclear weapon adn sucks up immense amounts of devris. the fireball of a typical airburst will touch teh groud. DO SOME READING !! How old are you by the way ?

Hundreds of above ground tests of far larger bombs than what will be used in actual nuclear war has not changed the state of reality of humans on the Earth, it has had a barely measurable effect on the environment, and this is all from ground bursts.

Erm right and how many of these tests were conducted on a city or near populated areas ? ALso about half of all tests were cinducted underground.

A nuclear exchange is not going to occur often.

Nuclear war would doubtfully kill a country the size of Germany - let alone the whole world.

LMAO, this is your informed opinion. I really can't stop laughing.

Originally posted by The_Investor
I disregard about anything The Bulletin says ever since they proved to me they do not have an expert Russian translator working for them (I had an argument with one of their editors over what a specific Russian General was saying and eventually had to give-up because the editor frankly knew nothing about Russia).

So it's nice you can find information on the internet, but in the future, becareful where it comes from.

LMAO, what a complete load of BS. You have proven in your posts here that you have scant knowledge of nuclear weapons. I hvae found the majority of you posts to be completely wrong. I doubt you had any argument, why would someone argue with you, when it is obvious your are not very learned on this subject. I doubt you even speak Russian.
You seem to be some kid making up things to come across as more self important, nothing more.

Originally posted by The_Investor
Harlequin the radiation released from the melt down at Chernobyl was MUCH greater than that released in a bomb.

I said type not amount - thats the significant difference in what i said and what you did.

There are isotopes present in the surrounding area that wouldn`t exist in a `bomb`, since at chernobyl the material burnt and didn`t go bang.

It's not as simple to spoof GPS as one of the upthread posts suggests.

Yes, you can drown out a satellite by broadcasting over it, but there's more to the military aspect of GPS than most sources would lead you to believe.

Some of the data frames contain encrypted data, given the current keys and the definition of the data blocks, the sat data and some other bits of info, you can readily make a determination if the satellite sending you position info is legitimate or not.

That info is not available to civilians, so yes, civilian GPS is readily spoofable, but all military sets are anti-spoof. You could keep it from working, but you'd have a tough time faking it.

In addition, the D5's get their initial position from the sub's inertial nav system. That's periodically re-calibrated against GPS, but they have a very slow drift these days. And the kick-ass Sperry electrostatic suspension nav system is on the way to being replaced with something even better, dammit.

We spent/wasted several months coming up with something only to find that DARPA had funded it to a well-known company, and they'd patented it 6 months before we got going. I guess it was a good idea but it's a real letdown to find out you were pre-empted on a design as nice as the one we thought we had invented. So, the local vertical and absolute position info is pretty darned accurate to start with, you don't need continuous GPS for the submarine to pop one off.

The Mk6 guidance package is being replaced by the Mk6 LE, which, while it CAN use GPS, doesn't at all have to. As noted above, it can use stellar guidance, and it has some very new technology accelerometers and rate gyros, and can hit a very non-discussed CPE on stellar nav and the new MEMS inertial nav equipment alone, if the local vertical is correct and the initial position is within a few meters.

Originally posted by Iblis
One. This issue is all-ready being argued in several current threads.

In at least half a dozen in fact and those are just the one's i have posted large volumes of information in!

Two. Russia's nuclear arsenal is largely inflated, as it does not identify how many of its components have the capability to perform as intended: Most-any member here can describe to you why the numbers will have been very exaggerated

Please do start as while this might all be in fact somehow true non of these so called discussions have been observed by me or found to be based on acknowledged credible sources ( that do not tell too many known lies) when i did. The fact that they are deploying entirely new ICBMs should tell you that they must have the funds and resources to maintain their older weapons in the same general way the US seems able to do. To assume anything else is in my opinion quite 'odd' , to say the least.

Further, its actual nuclear forces are in [declining] disarray

By who's measurement?

-- So even if they had such a preposterous number, it would take quite a large amount of time to utilize such an arsenal.

Based on what assumptions?

Further, please research why we no longer perform high-altitude nuclear tests.
I believe fusing several thousand miles of telephone line, and more serious consequences was bad enough, for both respective countries.

There are always underground testing that the USSR continued while US scientist battle to properly test their weapons due to restrictive testing treaties that the Russians never have respected.

Nuclear ABM's are blind-fold safety mechanisms; ie. it creates a [false] sense of security in the populace.

If there are no suitable nuclear shelter spaces with adequate food and water for 2 months it's only useful in the sense that it prevents the destruction of infrastructure even if there wont be enough people left to operate it efficiently. With proper shelter space in the target areas nuclear tipped ABM weapons are perfectly logical and perfectly effective in protecting the infrastructure and the workforce.

They only work to increase the survivability of state-figures, who presumably would all-ready be sheltered.

If you must explode a 10-20 Kt warhead to prevent a 170-350 Kt warhead from exploding then your doing nothing short of acting quite logically. If you manage that intercept at 10 km altitude or above not very people in a few hundred ( if their still outside) will be harmed , unless they look up and get blinded, will be killed or seriously injured by either prompt or long term effects.

Stellar