Limited use of tactical nuclear weapons

Nick P

Donor
Except the US is supposed to have destroyed its chemical and biological weapons stockpiles decades earlier.

Says who? The US signed up to the Geneva Protocol in 1975. They agreed with the USSR to destroy their stockpiles in the 1990s. They still have a stockpile to get rid of today with a goal of 2024.
They didn't ban the use of chemical weapons until 1993.
 

Khanzeer

Banned
recall, a 'tactical' sized device destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The joke heard in West Gwermany while I was there, was that the villages were spaced two kilotons apart.

that said, about the only nukes that could be banged off without immediately getting WWIII going would be nuke tipped SAMs and AAMs
what about a nuke tipped ASM that takes out 3 or so destroyer /frigate sized warships ? while they are at sea

which nations had nuke tipped SAMs ? USSR did ?
 
what about a nuke tipped ASM that takes out 3 or so destroyer /frigate sized warships ? while they are at sea

which nations had nuke tipped SAMs ? USSR did ?

The USN and Army all had nuclear armed SAM's into the 70's early 80's, there were Genie nuclear armed AAM's in service with the US and Canada until the 1970's. The Germans had Nike Hercules which in US service had an option for being nuclear armed, I have no idea if there were similar arrangements for the sharing of nuclear tipped SAM warheads as the US had with various NATO allies for deployment of US freefall bombs and munitions for offensive purposes.
 
Bush did not renounce the US' right to retaliate with chemical weapons until May of 1991, after Desert Storm had wrapped up. While the destruction of the US chemical weapons arsenal began two years earlier, it hasn't even been completed today. Plenty of VX & Sarin remained available, as did the munitions nescessary to deploy them by air. Not sure about on the ground though. The CWC wasn't ratified until 1993 regardless.

But the Nerve gas was pulled out of theater, fast, like all the Nerve gas was gone from Japan and Okinawa by 1971 from Operation Red Hat
and the later Steel Box, where artillery shells and missiles were removed, after RR promised the W.Germans the Nerve Gas would be gone by 1990. The MLRS that replaced Lance, never had a deployed binary chemical warhead, that didn't have one either.

Carter didn't fund the Binary BIGEYE Binary bomb. Reagan wanted to, but the Senate killed it.
It was to have replaced the WETEYE sarin bomb, that were emptied in 1977.
The cases remained in Colorado, though during the GulfWar,some thought was given to filling them with firefighting chemicals to help with the oilfires in Kuwait.
The M43 cluster Bomb, they were all destroyed by 1989. The M139 Bomblet for the Pershing, were all destroyed by 1976
The M34 cluster bomb had the M125 Sarin filled bomblets were destroyed in Colorado in 1976
By 1990, the MC-1 Sarin bomb, were at Johnston Atoll and a Depot in Oregon, awaiting incineration. These would be the only possible bombs that might have been redeployed.

By the Gulf War, the US just didn't have chemical weapons that were ready for fast deployment.

That's why by the '70s, the US made clear that Chem or Bio attacks would be replied to with Nukes, that were still very plentiful, even after the Wall came down
 
what about a nuke tipped ASM that takes out 3 or so destroyer /frigate sized warships ? while they are at sea

which nations had nuke tipped SAMs ? USSR did ?

Pretty rare for a TF to have DDs that close together, other than at harbor to where a single nuke could get that many

USN Terrier and Talos had nuclear warheads as well as HE, and the Army had Nike-Hercules, also had ground attack mode in W.Germany and South Korea for its nuclear warhead

Soviets had the Shaddock cruise missile with a 350kt warhead, and as the USSR started to crumble they were replacing those with the Sandbox cruise missile, faster with same size warhead

The Sunburn was faster yet, but 'only' 120kt warhead
 
Is it really just tactical to use a nuclear ASM or depth bomb to destroy a CV or SSBN? CVBGs were so important to NATO that I think they’d rather have lost a quarter of Bavaria than the Nimitz. Destroying an SSBN is a counterforce strike. Maybe a nuclear ASROC fired in self-defence against an SSN shadowing a carrier would be okay. But nukes at sea causing unacceptable losses of high-value assets could cause escalation as a sort of ‘firebreak’: too much has been lost, so desperate measures must be taken to preserve what’s left, before it’s too late.

So maybe 1 kt-range battlefield tacnukes are less likely to cause escalation. They’re devastating in built up areas, but in natural terrain the area denial, morale-reducing and C3I-disrupting effects might’ve been greater than the actual destruction of troops and vehicles.
 

Khanzeer

Banned
Pretty rare for a TF to have DDs that close together, other than at harbor to where a single nuke could get that many

USN Terrier and Talos had nuclear warheads as well as HE, and the Army had Nike-Hercules, also had ground attack mode in W.Germany and South Korea for its nuclear warhead

Soviets had the Shaddock cruise missile with a 350kt warhead, and as the USSR started to crumble they were replacing those with the Sandbox cruise missile, faster with same size warhead

The Sunburn was faster yet, but 'only' 120kt warhead
https://books.google.com/books?id=3...DCgYQ6AEIETAB#v=onepage&q=AAW NUCLEAR&f=false
PG 117
Soviets seem to have nuclear capable SAM too
 
A CVN and her group destroyed in open ocean, yeah that’s just the losses of war. Sucks to be the crew of the TF, but military personnel are expendable.
A tactical strike on an armoured division is very likely to affect a nearby population Center.
 
Did the Soviets also have the "neutron bomb" by the early 80s ?
It seems they tested them, but didn't deploy any.

most all of the US effort of enhanced radiation warheads was for their use in ABMs, finding that neutron heating of the pit was a better way to disable incoming Soviet warheads than x-ray and IR heating of the skin.
in the '70s, it got promoted for the sure thing for taking waves of all those incoming Warsaw Pact T-62s while being a bit easier on the West German plain
 

Khanzeer

Banned
So maybe 1 kt-range battlefield tacnukes are less likely to cause escalation. They’re devastating in built up areas, but in natural terrain the area denial, morale-reducing and C3I-disrupting effects might’ve been greater than the actual destruction of troops and vehicles.
were there any 1 KT weapons before 1990 ?
 
Well, actually Israel planned to use nukes during the Yok Kippur War if its counteroffensive had failed.

Planned? They'd wheeled them out and were about to fit them - they would have used them too if it had gone any worse. Although many think it was all a giant bluff to get Nixon to re-arm the Isrealis.

The Royal Navy had some nuclear depth charges readied for use during the Falklands and there are some reports of WE177s being stored at Ascension.
 
were there any 1 KT weapons before 1990 ?
ord_7-500x404.jpg
0.02kt M388 'Davy Crockett'

The AAM version of that W54 warhead was set for around 1kt

Making small yield fission bombs is a lot harder than 15kt
 
But the Nerve gas was pulled out of theater, fast, like all the Nerve gas was gone from Japan and Okinawa by 1971 from Operation Red Hat
and the later Steel Box, where artillery shells and missiles were removed, after RR promised the W.Germans the Nerve Gas would be gone by 1990. The MLRS that replaced Lance, never had a deployed binary chemical warhead, that didn't have one either.

Carter didn't fund the Binary BIGEYE Binary bomb. Reagan wanted to, but the Senate killed it.
It was to have replaced the WETEYE sarin bomb, that were emptied in 1977.
The cases remained in Colorado, though during the GulfWar,some thought was given to filling them with firefighting chemicals to help with the oilfires in Kuwait.
The M43 cluster Bomb, they were all destroyed by 1989. The M139 Bomblet for the Pershing, were all destroyed by 1976
The M34 cluster bomb had the M125 Sarin filled bomblets were destroyed in Colorado in 1976
By 1990, the MC-1 Sarin bomb, were at Johnston Atoll and a Depot in Oregon, awaiting incineration. These would be the only possible bombs that might have been redeployed.

By the Gulf War, the US just didn't have chemical weapons that were ready for fast deployment.

That's why by the '70s, the US made clear that Chem or Bio attacks would be replied to with Nukes, that were still very plentiful, even after the Wall came down

I wonder what the status of the weapons at the Newport Indiana arsenal were? Actual destruction of the agents there was delayed until after 2000.
 
I wonder what the status of the weapons at the Newport Indiana arsenal were? Actual destruction of the agents there was delayed until after 2000.

My understanding was that no weapons were there, they had received VX from other bases where the chemicals were removed from weapons, then shipped there for storage in flasks
 
I was thinking about a non doomsday and a not entirely farfetched scenario, but I think it would lead to a limited exchange (or "exchange"):
Argentina built a secret uranium enrichment facility in the 1970s https://books.google.com.ar/books?i...e&q=argentina highly enriched uranium&f=false
Something like 42 kg of highly enriched (ie, weapons grade) uranium were given away by Argentina to the USA in 2012 and considering Alfonsin (ruled 1983-1989) ended the Argentine nuclear weapons program, I think it's same to assume that's the amount of weapons grade uranium the Argentine last dictatorship managed to accumulate. As in, not enough to build a single bomb.
But through the 1970s the Argentine nuclear program was hampered as the dictatorship fired, persecuted and kidnapped scientists working in that program. If we have a POD in which they realize not firing, kidnapping and torturing your nuclear scientists is a good thing if you're trying to build nuclear bombs, we may end up in a Falklands war in which Argentina has enough material for one or two bombs, probably hastily assembled in a gun type device. And none would know - the Pilcaniyeu enrichment facility remained a secret until Alfonsin revealed it.

So, let's say the Falklands War start as in OTL. Finally realizing he had a war on his hands and willing to prove that human stupidity is indeed infinite, Galtieri orders the assembly of nuclear weapons (likely just one, maybe two at best). And instead of making an atmospheric test to bluff/announce the world Argentina had developed nuclear weapons and seek an end to hostilities that way, he orders to use them in the battlefield (And none stands up and tells him he's nuts). Maybe he believes Thatcher was called "The Gingerbread Lady" instead of the "Iron lady", or he assumes the USA wouldn't stand for British nuclear retaliation.

Delivery would still be a problem. If the device can be streamlined enough so a Mirage III can carry it, then maybe a Mirage fighter, flying supersonic at its flight ceiling can throw it without getting shot down by Sea Dart SAMs, or it can drop it before it's shot down. If not, a passenger/cargo plane can carry it in a suicide mission. By May 25th three things are happening: the Argentine military had located the Atlantic Conveyor and was about to attack it, the British were finishing unloading at the San Carlos beachhead and it was Argentina's national day.
So either a Mirage lobs a nuclear device in the general direction of the San Carlos beachhead or a C-130 (or a 707, or a Lear Jet) in a suicide mission follow the exocet that hit the Atlantic Conveyor IOTL and detonates the device when the plane comes under fire (would fail if shot down by a missile instead).

The world not only watches a totally unexpected war in a place few people could point in a map before the war. Now one or two nuclear weapons were used by a third world country none expected to have nuclear weapons against a nuclear armed State.

Apparently, Thatcher had ordered one of the British SSBNs to move to the South Atlantic. If so and since she wasn't called The Gingerbread Lady and this is the Cold War and she needs to show the Soviets she would nuke Moscow if the USSR nukes Britain, she orders retaliation.
 
Something like 42 kg of highly enriched (ie, weapons grade) uranium were given away by Argentina to the USA in 2012 and considering Alfonsin (ruled 1983-1989) ended the Argentine nuclear weapons program, I think it's same to assume that's the amount of weapons grade uranium the Argentine last dictatorship managed to accumulate. As in, not enough to build a single bomb.

You need a bit over 50kg for a gun device.
Implosion requires less. 35kg, if the HEU is over 90%. With special core configuration and reflector setup, is under 9kg. US did tests on that in 1948, getting 49 and 18kt yield from all HEU cores
 
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