India's 1998 Nuclear Test Failed

Global Post ^ | September 29, 2010 | Jason Overdorf

[artaxerces]

Kasturiranga Santhanam, the coordinator of India's 1998 nuclear tests, went public with allegations that India's much heralded Pokhran II test of a thermonuclear bomb 11 years ago was actually a fizzle.

“We are totally naked vis-a-vis China, which has an inventory of 200 nuclear bombs, the vast majority of which are giant H-bombs of power equal to three million tons of TNT,” Santhanam told reporters in New Delhi this week...."

[artaxerces]

This is very interesting news from the coordinator of India's nuclear tests. It effectively means that India does not have an operational thermonuclear warhead right now.

[Poundstone]

And does this mean that Pakistan’s nuke test just a week after India’s did succeed? And therefore India is “naked” before Pakistan as well as China?

[Cheetahcat]

So what happened is there contamination from this?

[RachelFaith]

This is VERY VERY VERY bad news.

It means the Hindu do not have the Bomb and the Muslims DO.

It means in the religious war to come, one ally is totally defenseless and now neutered.

In the hills and halls of Pakistan, they are doing their “Alah Akbar’s” and giving praise to Alah for taking the fire from their enemies.

Conquest in INEVITABLE.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-3X5hIFXYU

[BullDog108]

From the article: “fizzle is a technical term for detonations that yield 30 percent less concussive force than expected, and Santhanam himself acknowledges that India’s thermonuclear device yielded an explosion equivalent to 15 to 20 kilotons of TNT — the rub is that it was intended to generate 45 kilotons.”

[freedomwarrior998]

"For nuclear scientists, fizzle is a technical term for detonations that yield 30 percent less concussive force than expected, and Santhanam himself acknowledges that India's thermonuclear device yielded an explosion equivalent to 15 to 20 kilotons of TNT — the rub is that it was intended to generate 45 kilotons. "

This is what 20KTs did to Nagasaki.

Hard to call that, "non-functioning."

[PghBaldy]

The bomb worked, just not as well as they would have hoped. The 2nd page of the article mentions this- “fizzle” does NOT mean it didn’t work. Also, I was shocked when the world made a big deal about Inda becoming a nuclear power in 1998- they had been one for 20+ years.

[artaxerces]

Oh definitely they have nukes, but those nukes are crude fission bombs like the ones used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the 1940s.

Thermo-nuclear weapons are orders of magnitudes more powerful. And the rub here is that they don’t have a working design, and can’t test anymore.

[null and void]

And does this mean that Pakistan’s nuke test just a week after India’s did succeed? And therefore India is “naked” before Pakistan as well as China?

It means India wants Pakistan to think it is naked.

[PghBaldy]

Their first test was on 18 May, 1974: http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/India/IndiaSmiling.html

[artaxerces]

Nope, Pakistan is right around where India is in this particular technology.

Giant, crude, low-yield fission bombs.

[Rca2000]

Perhaps...a “fizzle” usually means that something “went wrong” when the bomb was detonated, and for some reason—the “secondary” did NOT fire—or fired with little yield, and the explosion was limited to the “primary” which is needed to trigger the secondary, which then, through a combination of fusion and secondary fission provides nearly all of the yield in an H-bomb....MANY times larger than the primary.

But when the secondary fails to fire properly— such as an insufficient primary burn, improper boosting, or improperly designed reflectors or such— the result is that there CAN be some “fallout” from the “unburned” fissionable components from the secondary in particular—in the small(er) explosion that the primary produces on it's own. Hopefully, the test was underground or underwater— and fallout would be contained. Had it been a “full yield” blast with a WORKING secondary...there would STILL have been some fallout and a MUCH bigger blast— at least 10 times or more—of course.

Keep in mind—at one time—the US had a 25MT bomb(B-41), that had TWO cascaded stages of secondaries—all powered by UNDER 100KT of primary power!!

[Vendome]

I don’t get it. We gave India the Bomb in the 1970’s so they could act as buffer to China.

[artaxerces]

It’s the technology and the industrial base.

Building a thermonuclear weapon(aka Hydrogen bomb) requires extremely exacting reflective geometries. It’s inherently difficult to get the design just right. That’s while most nuclear powers would use software to simulate the effects of a design, and then perform a dozen or more tests to perfect a single warhead design that would then be deployed for several decades.

I think India needs to do the following:

1. Get a working Hydrogen bomb design and test it out thoroughly.

2. Get working Neutron and EMP bomb designs and test it out thoroughly

This will take them about 5-10 years, assuming they were willing to risk international sanctions via more testing.

3. Then get cranking on miniaturizing the warheads. From this, they would get tactical nukes and MIRVs for ICBMs.

Step 3 might take another 10-20 years to realize however.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

From the article:

But for the rest of the world, Santhanam's bombshell amounts to a colossal preemptive strike against Obama's push for the nations of the world to sign a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) by the end of next year — not to mention a potentially debilitating assault on last year's Indo-U.S. civilian nuclear agreement. Already, opponents to the deal have begun echoing Santhanam's call for further testing of India's thermonuclear arsenal, and the lingering doubts about the efficacy of the country's bombs looks likely to tie Manmohan Singh's somewhat fragile coalition government's hands when the time comes to sign Obama's CTBT.

So who knows if it's true or not - the motivation seems to be to raise domestic opposition to any possibility of India signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

[italybub]

Nagasaki: it looks like a few bridges were still standing, amazingly.

[element92]

India’s flood machine seems to be
working OK.

[mvpel]

"...the vast majority of which are giant H-bombs of power equal to three million tons of TNT,” ...

Or 30 lakh tons of TNT, as the case may be.

[Cheetahcat]

“Perhaps...a “fizzle” usually means that something “went wrong” when the bomb was detonated, and for some reason—the “secondary” did NOT fire—or fired with little yield, and the explosion was limited to the “primary” which is needed to trigger the secondary, which then, through a combination of fusion and secondary fission provides nearly all of the yield in an H-bomb....MANY times larger than the primary.

But when the secondary fails to fire properly— such as an insufficient primary burn, improper boosting, or improperly designed reflectors or such— the result is that there CAN be some “fallout” from the “unburned” fissionable components from the secondary in particular—in the small(er) explosion that the primary produces on it's own. Hopefully, the test was underground or underwater— and fallout would be contained. Had it been a “full yield” blast with a WORKING secondary...there would STILL have been some fallout and a MUCH bigger blast— at least 10 times or more—of course.

Keep in mind—at one time—the US had a 25MT bomb(B-41), that had TWO cascaded stages of secondaries—all powered by UNDER 100KT of primary power!!”

Sir thank you for that reply it was good reading and provided insight.

[The Antiyuppie]

I wonder and worry if better computers and algorithms might make it possible to design a working unit without testing. The Indians are pretty good with this stuff...And some unfriendly countries have taken a real liking to Sony videogames even though their kids don’t have a lot to spend on them...!