Is Nuclear War Inevitable?

[DogOnPorch]

2 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

I don't find the Tewa physics package to be a dead end per se, it was simply too horrific a weapon for the Americans to use.

I could see other nuclear powers aspiring to fission-fusion-fusion-fission, North Korea comes to mind

 

It was simply too heavy for the ICBMs they were developing. A lighter warhead was demanded...not suggested.

[Dougie93]

But they still had 500 of them in the arsenal to be delivered by B-52 as necessary, until 1976, so it was an option at hand, like cobalt thorium g.

[Dougie93]

Moreover, the North Koreans wouldn't have to go for  25Mt warhead, they don't have to go that big, but they could still seek the fission-fusion-fusion-fission package at 87% fission.

Drop even a small one of those on the CONUS, just one hit, and that would be . . . bad.

That's just the sort of one hit one kill doomsday bomb that the NK's need and surely must be aspiring to.

If you're not accurate, and you don't have throw weight, and you're probably only going to get one shot, then maximum fallout is your lever.

Edited January 23, 2019 by Dougie93

[DogOnPorch]

21 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

But they still had 500 of them in the arsenal to be delivered by B-52 as necessary, until 1976, so it was an option at hand, like cobalt thorium g.

 

Sure...but by 1976, the idea of dropping gravity bombs in the 25 megaton range was suicide on two levels. If done at altitude, you were SAM bait...if done at low altitude..."How fast can this B-52 go again?? Oh...not fast enough. Well that sucks..."

[Dougie93]

1 minute ago, DogOnPorch said:

 

Sure...but by 1976, the idea of dropping gravity bombs in the 25 megaton range was suicide on two levels. If done at altitude, you were SAM bait...if done at low altitude..."How fast can this B-52 go again?? Oh...not fast enough. Well that sucks..."

Right, but only because they scaled the Tewa package up to 25Mt,  that doesn't mean you couldn't employ fission-fusion-fusion-fission now, it's just too horrific for civilized peoples to contemplate, even as they go down swinging.

North Koreans however, are not civilized, and they don't need to be at 25Mt scale to make a thermonuclear  87% fission option work for them.

[DogOnPorch]

Still...it was too heavy for the ICBMs being developed...and unproven in its apparent efficiency at maximum yield. The US went with the equally efficient W56 for its primary ICBM warhead until the mid-90s. A thoroughly tested device. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W56

[Dougie93]

Again, that's the Americans, I'm talking about the NK's here, that sort of bomb, the uranium encased doomsday bomb, is just what they need, and it doesn't need to be that big, and manufacturing has progressed since 1952, you could build a three stage uranium cased which would fit in a PBV now.

[DogOnPorch]

Might as well invest in a set-place cobalt device if destroying the world...or your continent, at least...is the goal.

No need to launch it...just light the fuse and say your goodbyes. On the Beach style...

[Dougie93]

Well I think the NK's are perfectly willing to hunker down in the face of whatever,  it's already Dr. Strangelove world over there.

Also, their proximity and relationship with Moscow and Beijing makes a preemptive counterforce unlikely.

[DogOnPorch]

2 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

Well I think the NK's are perfectly willing to hunker down in the face of whatever,  it's already Dr. Strangelove world over there.

Also, their proximity and relationship with Moscow and Beijing makes a preemptive counterforce unlikely.

 

Meh...they launch right out in the open. One cruise missile and NK is back to 1930 in the rocket dept.

[Dougie93]

They launch right out in the open because they're not worried about America striking first because Pyongyang is holding Seoul hostage and the Russians and Chinese are standing behind them.

If the counterforce was easy, America would have done it by now, but notice that they haven't?

[DogOnPorch]

Notice that NK hasn't dared get real funky since 1953. 

[Dougie93]

Moreover, America's tactics to hit to kill mobile ballistic missiles before they launch, even in a wide open desert, was demonstrated to be ineffective in ME, never mind the mountains of the DPRK

[Dougie93]

Just now, DogOnPorch said:

Notice that NK hasn't dared get real funky since 1953. 

Not the case,  they simply switched tracks to a nuclear blackmail option 40 years ago, and that program has just broken out and become operationalized.

Takes them more time to get there, but they are getting there in the end.

[Dougie93]

I mean, this is why they starved all those peasants in the 90's, all that matters is the nuclear blackmail program to leverage the Americans off the peninsula and the South Koreans under the jackboot of the "Confederation", at literally any cost,

[DogOnPorch]

It takes FOREVER (in battlefield terms) for the Hwasong-14 to get erected, fueled with dangerous hypergolic fuels and readied for launch. Don't be so sure of its invulnerability in today's battlefield. It's no Topol-M...

[Dougie93]

10 minutes ago, DogOnPorch said:

It takes FOREVER (in battlefield terms) for the Hwasong-14 to get erected, fueled with dangerous hypergolic fuels and readied for launch. Don't be so sure of its invulnerability in today's battlefield. It's no Topol-M...

They don't need Topol-M to achieve their aim.   It's already coming to pass, the Americans are increasingly reticent about defending the peninsula, the Faustian bargain of the Confederation with the complicity of the South Korean left is increasingly de facto.

Edited January 23, 2019 by Dougie93

[Dougie93]

Moreover, Topol is not that hard, they've already mastered the basics, MIRVing would be hard, but they don't need to MIRV because they don't need that many missiles to hold the CONUS at risk of either EMP without PBV, and/or a Redwing Tewa by PBV. 

They already have operational MMRBM, INF in theater.

They have already shot for distance to hit the CONUS, they just shot it straight up to confirm.

They already have single and two-stage operational warheads.

They are already at the threshold of EMP over the CONUS

The only thing they have left to master, is the PBV, and an uranium encased three stage, to be at the threshold of Redwings over the CONUS.

Edited January 23, 2019 by Dougie93

[DogOnPorch]

Topol-M is a solid fuel ICBM...sets-up and fires its missile in a minute. Not many hours later like a NK missile.

[DogOnPorch]

In action...

 

[Dougie93]

17 minutes ago, DogOnPorch said:

Topol-M is a solid fuel ICBM...sets-up and fires its missile in a minute. Not many hours later like a NK missile.

As Moscow has been providing them with tech all along and the NK's are actually moving along rather quickly right now, I'm not assuming the threshold that the NK's are at now, to remain static, arms race in progress, wait out.

[DogOnPorch]

1 minute ago, Dougie93 said:

As Moscow has been providing them with tech all along and the NK's are actually moving along rather quickly right now, I'm not assuming the threshold that the NK's are at now, to remain static, arms race in progress, wait out.

 

Working SRB technology isn't something Russia will just hand over to its potential rivals. They have a hard enough time getting it working right, themselves. It's not just a tube full of gunpowder...

[Dougie93]

8 minutes ago, DogOnPorch said:

 

Working SRB technology isn't something Russia will just hand over to its potential rivals. They have a hard enough time getting it working right, themselves. It's not just a tube full of gunpowder...

I think the NK's have a better crew than the Russians now, the Russians are dining out on a Soviet crew which disbanded some ways back, that Soviet crew already passed all the information to the NK's, the only constraint is money right now.

Edited January 23, 2019 by Dougie93

[Dougie93]

That's why it took them forty years from start to breakout.  They have the knowledge, they just don't have all the money needed on hand at one time.

[DogOnPorch]

24 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

I think the NK's have a better crew than the Russians now, the Russians are dining out on a Soviet crew which disbanded some ways back, that Soviet crew already passed all the information to the NK's, the only constraint is money right now.

 

If that was true, we'd see the Hwasong-14 developed as a solid fuel ICBM. But instead, we see a rather old school machine that relies on...and I can't emphasize this enough...hypergolic fuel to be 'battlefield ready' (non-cryogenic). Do you have any idea how dangerous that is? It screams Scud missile technology clone....another hypergolic antiquity just as likely to kill the crew as its target. 

Meanwhile...no bulky, awkward hazmat suits for Topol-M/Sickle-B operators. Just a special driver's licence since it's so freaking huge.