Thread: North Korea

What I have always wanted to know is why are the countries with the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons the ones to decide who can or who cannot have nuclear weapons? another question you may want to ask yourself, how many political leaders have north Korea assassinated and how many countries as it invaded? none, now ask yourself how many invasions and political assassinations have Britain and America been involved in, I think you are starting to see the true picture.

Jamie

Well, for the better part of a century there were two super powers and you were on one side or the other. Now one is gone and we have it's wacky cousin called N Korea. No telling what they will do at the park -piss on the salad, walk around naked or drop a bomb on someone.

Originally Posted by Bruno

+And many of the nukes being decommissioned will be the older types. And there are 2 issues with those older nukes. Firstly, there are still several that need to be airdropped. In this day and age, flying a bomb to its destination is not a good idea anymore, because of the risk of interception. And secondly, there are still a large amount of insanely powerful city busters left. Things in the 10 to 20 megaton yield range. These are much too powerful to deploy usefully. The reason they are so strong is that when they were made, delivery was still hit and miss. Even if you missed the city by many miles, you still had to be able to count on the city being gone. A 20 megaton nuke will do that. However, these days they can easily deliver those nukes within an inch of precision. The US will probably still maintain a good number of those, just in case, but you no longer need to maintain enough of them to carpet bomb Russia.

I'd also like to point out that those large bombs would only be good for a target the size of russia or china. If they are dropped on small countries, the neighboring countries are gone as well. With 20 megaton devices, you can do exactly do nothing in the NK issue. Because > 30 million south koreans live close enough the the NK border that they will be wiped out together with whatever it is you are targetting in NK. These are cold war relics that have outlived their purpose, and these days they are only kept around because of the political fallout on the president that got rid of them.

Most of the US "High Yeild" nukes were decomissioned Decades ago.. They were actually designed for Hard Target (Military) destruction as opposed to Soft Targets (Cities) Also our B1 and B2 bombers can hit just about anything they want anytime they want, even our B-52'a have pretty much flown where they wanted with impunity, the real advantage of manned bombers is that they are a viable threat that can be recalled at will...

All this info is avaliable now online, and still available in multiple books on Nuclear Weapons and their uses..

If you hear it on TV be suspect of the accuracy of the report, and the agenda of the source...

Unfortunately you have to be suspect of any source be it online, book, news paper or TV. There are at least two sides to any issue and often more.

Bob

Originally Posted by gssixgun

Most of the US "High Yeild" nukes were decomissioned Decades ago.. They were actually designed for Hard Target (Military) destruction as opposed to Soft Targets (Cities) Also our B1 and B2 bombers can hit just about anything they want anytime they want, even our B-52'a have pretty much flown where they wanted with impunity, the real advantage of manned bombers is that they are a viable threat that can be recalled at will...

All this info is avaliable now online, and still available in multiple books on Nuclear Weapons and their uses..

If you hear it on TV be suspect of the accuracy of the report, and the agenda of the source...

The problem with bombers are several.
1) Bombs get lost. Flying the things back and forth is risky. An ICBM either arrives or self destructs.
2) An ICBM flies at mach 10. Planes don't.
3) Strategic nuclear subs are far more dangerous and effective than planes. They too can be recalled or used to threaten.
4) From a psychological pov, dropping a nuke is a lot more difficult than launching a missile. It would not be the first time that pilots refuse to fire or deliberately crash their plane. Getting a missile launched is less confronting, and if the person refuses to launch, they are easily enough replaced.

I am definitely not saying that bombers are useless or won't work.
But for various reasons, missiles (or missile platforms like strategic subs) are preferable imo.

EDIT:
The highest yield bomb I could find in a quick wiki search was 1.2 Megatons in current active service. That a plane bomb. Also, with modern technology what it is, scenarios with multiple warheads per missile are probably on the wild side of overkill.

and finally, while older, more powerful devices are already 'retired', there are probably still a lot of them in the enduring stockpile. Perhaps a number of the ones slated to be effectively dismantled are in that list.

Yep, bring back the sword. Nothing like a bit of eyeball to eyeball with the person you intend (or is intending to) Kill (you) to put a bit of reality and realisation into a serious situation.


Mick

I think it would be safe to say that the US DOD does not put a lot of effort in keeping the public wiki about the nuclear arsenal up to date
My guess is that the US has more than what we know, and that the status of each of them is probably a guess on our part. And just because a warhead is taken apart and stops being a warhead, does not mean it cannot be put back together again on short notice.

What IS reasonable to assume, is that even with 1000 warheads less, the US still has enough overkill to turn most major cities and target on this planet to a glass plate.

Trivia: our own Belgium is host to a small stockpile of US nukes. This has been a public secret for decades
Belgium is some sort of strategic hub / refueling station. The base where they are located gets protested every year, with a couple dozen bomb spotters climbing the fence 'looking for nukes.' A friend of mine is now an officer in charge of base security in that place, and already looking forward to it

Of course, the bomb spotters stay away from the part of the base that is under US control, because they'd get shot on sight if they stepped on the wrong side of the inner perimeter. The job of base security is more to protect the bombspotters from the US forces, than protecting the bases from the spotters.

The last couple of years, bombspotting has become less popular. Last time it happened on a large scale, there were a couple of politicians and movers and shakers from the peace movements who went inside. As it happens, MPs don't like being called facists and murderers When they were finally collected after having been tied to trees or lying in mud for a couple of hours after a rather rough 'takedown', they also got sued for damage to the fence (at government rates). Since then there has been much less enthusiasm for being an asshole on the wrong side of the fence.

Federation of American Scientists :: Status of World Nuclear Forces


This is just one source but if you do some searching you will find the numbers hold pretty true though a majority of sources



Read at the very bottom

The information available for each country varies greatly, ranging from the most transparent nuclear weapons state (United States) to the most opaque (North Korea). Accordingly, while the estimate for the United States is based on "real" numbers, the estimates for several of the other nuclear weapon states are highly uncertain.


Again only a single source if you want to learn more read more...


Another informative search is to find what were considered Primary, Secondary and Tertiary targets, and what weapon systems were designed to be used for each or those.. Keep in mind that much of this was Strategic planning during the Cold War and was changed years ago...

With the advent of Smart Bombs and Missles that are capable of flying through a certain window in a targeted building the need to obliterate an entire city or even a city block is no longer really needed... Tactical thinking is the wave of the future...

Also keep in mind that Bombs no longer need to be "Dropped" on a target they can be "Flown" to a target much more accurately, search JDAM which also means that even when tossing Nukes around less yeild with more accuracy works better