Posted on 02/04/2020 3:32:29 PM PST by Berlin_Freeper
The U.S. Defense Department said on Tuesday the Navy had fielded a low-yield, submarine-launched ballistic missile warhead, something the Pentagon believes is needed to deter adversaries like Russia but which critics say lowers the threshold for using nuclear weapons.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
‘more survivable’ means people around the target can survive.
For how long? /
I guess this depends on your target?
They may have been out there, but I never saw these critics when China and Russia were heralding new weapons, of the same variety.
Orange man bad...
As opposed to the neutron bomb which would kill the people but leave the buildings intact. Plus it only had a 7 year half-life.
Thanks Jimmah Cahtah
Those are still large enough yields to cause terrible destruction, but that may be an aspect of the survivability.
Another would be the supersonic speeds they may travel at, and thus have a better chance of surviving to the target.
But, but - Trump is colluding with Russia. It’s true - if collusion means increasing the number of ways he can fry the Russians extra crispy.
Russia already has 2,000 low yield “tactical” nuclear warheads, but as soon as we deploy them, it is the USA that is somehow “lowering the threshold” of nuclear war. SMH.
Its almost like the mindset is saying We're going to mouse-click the enemy to death!!" Meanwhile the Russians are building some of the most powerful nuclear strategic subs with the most powerful nukes ever seen or deployed and has more than twice the explosives delivery than our subs!
We are going SMALLER while our enemies are going many times bigger!!
I'm convinced that our military leadership are really gone bonkers a long time ago.
“Russia already has 2,000 low yield “tactical” nuclear warheads, but as soon as we deploy them, it is the USA that is somehow “lowering the threshold” of nuclear war. SMH.”
Some crap as during the Cold War. In fact, if you remember, at the beginning of Trump’s term, the Russians said they were going to build more nukes. Trump said we’ll build even more, and bigger! The IMMEDIATE reaction was to Trump...no one had a problem with Putin’s statement, only Trump’s.
That’s who they are, have always been, and will always be. They need to REMOVED from political power, once and for all.
5kt will certainly do some damage, but a fraction of the yield of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
They were 20kt?
I’ve forgotten
more survivable means that it is launched from a submarine, unlike a bomb dropped from say an F-16 which has a likelihood of being shot down.
I remember someone claiming during the late 90’s that Israel had designed and deployed neutron bomb land mines to deter an attack over the Golan Heights, but it could have been a rumor.
Nuke-Lite.
We aren't. This is just a handful of weapons to give STRATCOM some flexibility in potential limited scenarios, where we have no counter to the use of a small tactical weapon except to blow up the planet, which isn't necessarily a convincing deterrent.
Ballpark, yes. Fatman was about 20kt, Little Boy somewhat less, about 15kt.
Nearly every paragraph supports my post while zero paragraphs supports your erroneous assertion.
Thanks.
Even half to one quarter of that, is still a heck of a wallop.
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