Limited use of tactical nuclear weapons

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.
I think you're right that the loss of an SSBN or a carrier group leads to escalation. As you say, both of those are counterforce strikes that directly harm the nation's ability to prosecute a war as well as harming the deterrent capacity. The assets are just too important. That said, I think an SSN/hunter-killer submarine could be lost without necessarily escalating in the same way.

On the subkect of small yield tactical weapons, I can see them being used as glorified demolition charges to block strategic passes or destroy critical infrastructure, like bridges, road junctions, and maybe hardened military facilities that would be useful to an invading force as an army retreats. You could also use them to destroy dams or levees to flood the area you're leaving if you really want to reck it. But in all of these cases the nukes are just a way of saving time and effort on something you could achieve with normal tools and weapons. I don't think escalation is locked in, maybe not even likely, until you start destroying significant and important military and civilian assets because it forces your opponent to escalate to protect their remaining assets and use them before they lose the ability.
 
Generally, a limited nuclear exchange between in some of the 3rd World (like Arab States vs Israel or India vs Pakistan) which leads to superpower intervention to impose a cease-fire between the two combatants before things get further out of hand. That’s a much more plausible scenario then the less likely, if still possible, scenario of a limited exchange between the superpowers followed by a negotiated settlement.
 
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
Interesting. In any case, a first nuclear device done in a hurry would likely be a gun device. While work in the implosion device can be done in parallel with enrichment facilities, I believe a rush job would end up with gun devices rather than the more complex implosion bombs
 
Is there a possible scenario during the cold war in which nuclear armed states can use tactical nuclear weapons and/ or naval nuclear weapons against certain military targets [ naval vessels, air bases etc] and it does NOT escalate into using strategic nuclear weapons by superpowers?
Not talking about wp vs NATO or usa vs USSR or
But something like e.g
India vs pak
South africa nuke Angola
Israel nuke egypt
USSR vs japan
Etc
As doomsday scenarios always claim one use of tactical nuke and it will always end in nuclear armageddon
Maybe nuclear armed air defence weapons are used in response to an accidental air space incursion ?

I like to think that wouldn't have resulted in a full scale nuclear exchange.
 
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?id=kAYAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16&dq=argentina+highly+enriched+uranium&source=bl&ots=57_vVFJZ5E&sig=ACfU3U3y-ciUW6pna6HlUXKCVPD-PQKDtA&hl=es-419&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi55cq45fTjAhWwLLkGHZMRDFs4FBDoATAGegQICRAB#v=onepage&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.
That's interesting. I like to think the response by the UK in this fictional scenario would have been more proportional than a SLBM launch. As far as I know the UK SLBM force didn't have any sub strategic warhead options in that era.
 
That's interesting. I like to think the response by the UK in this fictional scenario would have been more proportional than a SLBM launch. As far as I know the UK SLBM force didn't have any sub strategic warhead options in that era.

The yield for one of the warheads (each missile could carry three) seems to have been 200 kts. However, I guess it is possible to minimize the effects on the target in various ways. The easiest one is to target some point in the ocean off Puerto Belgrano, instead of the very centre of the naval base. How far off depends on how harsh the British want to be.
 
DID ANY nation prior to 1990 have any Substrategic SLBM nuke warheads ?

As far as I know, not really.

The UK did of course have low yield gravity bombs in 1982 which might be a more proportional response.

Edit to add: If the avalaible RN SSBN during the Falklands conflict had the missiles with the then new "Chevaline" upgrade intended to defeat Soviet ABM systems I can also envision some reluctance to use them for this mission if other alternatives existed.
 
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Ramontxo

Donor
Black Buck with a single tactical nuke deployed against one of the Patagonia mainland FAA airbases (the one farther from any civilian center) coupled with a ultimatum asking unconditional surrender
 

Khanzeer

Banned
As far as I know, not really.

The UK did of course have low yield gravity bombs in 1982 which might be a more proportional response.

Edit to add: If the avalaible RN SSBN during the Falklands conflict had the missiles with the then new "Chevaline" upgrade intended to defeat Soviet ABM systems I can also envision some reluctance to use them for this mission if other alternatives existed.
Is 10 KT considered low yield?

Red beard I think was 25 kT
 
Is 10 KT considered low yield?

Red beard I think was 25 kT
By 1982 I suspect the likely tactical weapon used by by the UK in this fictional scenario would have been the WE177A. It reportedly had 10KT and sub KT yield options.

In my oppinion 10KT would be considered low yield in 1982.
 
By 1982 I suspect the likely tactical weapon used by by the UK in this fictional scenario would have been the WE177A. It reportedly had 10KT and sub KT yield options.

In my oppinion 10KT would be considered low yield in 1982.
What targets would they pick? The Vulcans would need even more refueling to reach Patagonia, although Buenos Aires was closer to Ascencion than the Falklands. That puts three targets within range: downtown Buenos Aires (political center, significant civilian casualties), the Puerto Belgrano naval base (in Mar del Plata, significant civilian casualties, the base wasn't really used for operations in the Falklands as it was too far away) and the Tandil Air Force base (not so many civilian casualties, it wasn't used in the war as it was too far away). The Harriers could target the air bases in Patagonia, but the carriers would need to sail closer to the Argentine mainland. As for nuclear attacks on the Falkland islands, they'd cause fallout in the islands and, in an attack on Stanley, would cause casualities among the local population
 

Also found were drawings of a turbine-based centrifuge apparently to be used for the study of uranium enrichment. It was dated March 1945. Another blueprint was found of a centrifuge that a Japanese company, Tokyo Keiki, was producing, with a notation indicating the device was scheduled to be completed Aug. 19, 1945 — four days after Japan announced that it was surrendering

The Americans were bombing the shit out of Tokyo and other Japanese cities. They would not have gotten a nuclear bomb before August 1945. There was just no way.

“We can say the blueprint is a monument to the elementary levels the research reached at the early stages,” Masakatsu Yamazaki, an expert on nuclear development history and an emeritus professor at Tokyo Kogyo University told the Sankei

The early stages, so they were just scratching the surface. Just like the Nazis.
 
What targets would they pick? The Vulcans would need even more refueling to reach Patagonia, although Buenos Aires was closer to Ascencion than the Falklands. That puts three targets within range: downtown Buenos Aires (political center, significant civilian casualties), the Puerto Belgrano naval base (in Mar del Plata, significant civilian casualties, the base wasn't really used for operations in the Falklands as it was too far away) and the Tandil Air Force base (not so many civilian casualties, it wasn't used in the war as it was too far away). The Harriers could target the air bases in Patagonia, but the carriers would need to sail closer to the Argentine mainland. As for nuclear attacks on the Falkland islands, they'd cause fallout in the islands and, in an attack on Stanley, would cause casualities among the local population
I really don't know what the target might be in this fictional scenario. Perhaps an isolated military target ? Perhaps the Vulcans might have a bit more range if they only had to carry a single nuke ?

Maybe the UK could also devise a quick way to lower the yield of the Polaris warheads ? I could sort of envision the UK being prepared to use a pre Chevaline Polaris if the yield could be lowered ? Maybe there was an easy way to only fire the primary portions of the three MRV warheads ? That would presumably take time to arrange (if it was even possible ? A nuclear test might also be needed that I expect would need to take place in the U.S. which might also cause political issues ?)
 
For good reasons the world has dodged the global thermonuclear war bullet. A great fear remains the hot regional shooting war involving tactical nukes. Horseshoes, hand grenades and small tactical nukes. You only need to be close. Popping a couple of dozen small nukes would not end the world as we know it but it would set up a very dangerous slippery political slope that could end in very bad things happening. Just me. The year 1914 comes to mind.
 
For good reasons the world has dodged the global thermonuclear war bullet. A great fear remains the hot regional shooting war involving tactical nukes. Horseshoes, hand grenades and small tactical nukes. You only need to be close. Popping a couple of dozen small nukes would not end the world as we know it but it would set up a very dangerous slippery political slope that could end in very bad things happening. Just me. The year 1914 comes to mind.
Considering that there have been over 500 atmospheric nuclear detonations, and over 1000 underground tests a dozen more wouldn't be a major problem.
 

Khanzeer

Banned
What are the lowest Kiloton nukes available to Soviets during the cold war ?
Is it the SAM naval or land based?
Or air to surface launched missiles have low KT value ? Like kh22
 
What are the lowest Kiloton nukes available to Soviets during the cold war ?
Is it the SAM naval or land based?
Or air to surface launched missiles have low KT value ? Like kh22

1 kt., most for nuclear artillery
They developed smaller, but never deployed the sub-kiloton warheads.

They were behind in linear implosion and other miniaturization techniques , so their nukes till 1966 or so were battleship shell diameters. After that, they got the physics package down to 6"
 

Khanzeer

Banned
1 kt., most for nuclear artillery
They developed smaller, but never deployed the sub-kiloton warheads.

They were behind in linear implosion and other miniaturization techniques , so their nukes till 1966 or so were battleship shell diameters. After that, they got the physics package down to 6"
I.e 155mm SP guns can fire too ?
 
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