The article says nine nations have 16,300 nuclear warheads (which I thought was over 20,000 several years ago)
They also have the number 3,970 for deployed war heads among the nine nations as of January 2014.
Some ICBM’s can carry up to 10 individual warheads even FBM submarines with 24 missiles have multiple warheads. Submarines only launch half of their missiles and then boogie down range to relocate and fire again before they get back tracked
I was looking at a map of the USA when I wondered, but I didn’t worry.
I think that’s your answer, 3970. For fairly obvious reasons, if it came to an all out 9 way nuclear war, that’s probably about how many would actually end up going off. The rest of the warheads would probably be destroyed in their bunkers before they were ever used.
I’m pretty sure that none of the nuclear weapons in the US arsenal can accurately be said to be “armed and ready to fire”. To reach that state, a code must be entered.
Undoubtedly (or I at least sure as heck hope), all nuclear devices have safety devices that prevent them from accidentally being launched or detonated.
I think that the OP is asking the question of how many nuclear weapons could be launched immediately if the President (or appropriate command authority in other countries) gave the order to do so.
One issue is that as nuclear deterrence has become way less relevant geopoliticaly, a lot of the worlds’ missile forces have become kind of crap assignments. The levels of readyness in the immediate post-Soviet missile forces was notoriously poor and there were genuine concerns about them even keeping track of all their warheads, let alone keeping them ready to launch at moment’s notice. Recently in the US there’s been a series of scandals with poor discipline, morale, and training standards at the land-based ICBM units.
I suspect this all means that if all the nuclear heads of state picked up the phone and said “go” today, the number of missiles that actually got into the air would be somewhat less than the amount allegedly deployed and ready to go on paper. I’d imagine if there were some sort of buildup, though, things could be fixed up in a hurry.
I wonder what that means in terms of tonnage. A 10KT bomb could ruin your day just as effectively as a 5MT bomb. Most cities would be wasted by a relatively low yield weapon, so I would guess that those are much more common that the high-yield weapons.
It would also be interesting to find out whether “nuclear winter” might be a concern and what threshold of firepower would precipitate it.
All US and Soviet (now Russian) MIRV ICBMs (ground or sub-based) have been limited to only three warheads per missile for decades now. I think it may have been during Carter’s or at the latest Reagan’s administration that this was agreed upon.
I don’t know where you heard the idea that an SSBN (a missile sub) would only launch half its arsenal at a time, but that makes absolutely no sense. Both countries constantly shadow each others missile subs (boomers) with attack subs for this very reason (at least as best they can, which is pretty damn good these days). The moment one side launched even one missile in aggression the order would go out to destroy all the boomers the attack subs were following. They may not even need an actual attack confirmation at that point, if the DEF-CON rating is low enough they may have standing orders to immediately destroy them the moment they detect them attempting to launch (missile subs make a great deal of unique underwater sounds when preparing to launch, missile tubes are flooded, the hatches are opened etc. and this can all be detected & recognized by attack subs).
And I seem to recall that after the USSR fell Clinton & Yeltsin eventually agreed upon the ‘enduring stockpile’ treaty which limits both sides to no more than around 1200 or so active, useable warheads at any given time (maybe it was closer to 1800).
Remember there’s still the ‘two-man’ rule in both the US & Russia, both at the top (the President & the cabinet) and the bottom (the sub, silo & bomber crews).
The answer for SSBNs (ballistic missile submarines) is not easy and probably changes all the time.
If you go to the Bangor or Kings Bay Submarine bases, you will probably notice there are multiple SSBNs sitting next to the pier in repair. There also may be one SSBN on each coast in dry dock. I don’t know, but I assume these are not launch-ready (also assuming they were in range).
There may also be an SSBN in each ocean on its way to its patrol location or on its way back. These may not be in range of the requested target.
I would guess that only a small portion of the many nukes allotted to SSBNs would be “launch-ready” at any one time. This is one of the reasons we have so many warheads, because it takes a lot of them to make a certain number deployable at any one time.
For some periods in the 1960s, the chances are that a lot of the weapons would have been duds. There was a period where the safety mechanism that prevent accidental nukation in the even of a plane crash were faulty and that might have prevented the weapons from exploding during actual use.
That would have been embarrassing! What if they gave a nuclear war and no bombs came? Everyone lived in fear of MAD - I don’t think there was a war plan that considered half or more of the bombs not working. In that event, it might have actually been possible to “win” a nuclear war. Of course, you couldn’t plan for that.
Of course, some of the ones that worked were likely the 9 megaton Titan warheads. Those could really make a mess. Thirty mile diameter zones of destruction!
I didn’t hear it from anyone. I was part of the cold war days of the 70’s. I was on the first nuclear submarine built from the ground up to be a FBM the USS Ethan Allen SSBN 608 blue crew on our first patrol after an extensive refit and refueling back in 66-67 … we did a trip around the Med for three months and then on our way back to Rota, Spain we stopped off the Canary Islands and fired seven Polaris A-2’s with dummy warheads down range to the missile range of around 2,500 miles in those days with todays weapons being able to reach twice that range.
All seven missiles landed within fifty yards of the targets off Puerto Rico. Remember this was before computers even.
So why seven? So we could leave the area in a hurry and fire the rest later. We had a fifteen minute window so to speak, but at 25kts the whole ocean could hear us rattling and squeaking our way to the next launch area.
Yes our SSN’s follow the enemy SSBN’s and they also try to pick us up in all the familiar places which is mostly the Artic Ocean now.
It’s a cat and mouse game for sure, but it would be rare for the USN or the USSR to hear an FBM open her missile hatches or torpedo doors.
The first things to go would be GPS and the satellites in an all out war so it would be hard to find the offending party without data of where the shot came from.
I think a lot of submarines with missiles still onboard will be available for the stand down orders surely to come from any nuclear meltdown of the powers that be deciding they can win a first strike scenario.
[QUOTE=Billido]
Undoubtedly (or I at least sure as heck hope), all nuclear devices have safety devices that prevent them from accidentally being launched or detonated.
I think that the OP is asking the question of how many nuclear weapons could be launched immediately if the President (or appropriate command authority in other countries) gave the order to do so.
[/QUOTE]
True it would be almost impossible to go off all by itself or in heaven forbid a sinking accident.
and finally Yes I was wondering how many on first strike would be used by either side.
You know Russia has reserved the right to reload missile silo’s and the USA does not have this capability, plus the Russians have mobile launchers to contend with.
Lots of options after the first strike, but how many ready to go at the Presidents orders without any big build up of political swords putting everyone on alert.
Bombers, ICBM missiles, submarine launched SSBN’s, mobile launched missiles?
How many would get through right now vs ten years from now with the AMM’s anti missile missiles get better at locating a little warhead. Right now Kauai has AMM’s and a few cruisers.
Any base in America that has a nuclear strike back capability would be ground zero for the first strike.
550 warheads on the first volley sounds about right.
Some countries are still using air-launched nuclear weapons. The US AGM-86 and Russian Kh-55 are still in service. India has (possibly) retrofitted its Su-30MKI fleet to launch the Nirbhay cruise missile, which is widely believed to be capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. When do you count those as “ready to fire”? Only when the aircraft are in the air? When they are on standby for rapid launch?
See the opening pages of William Brinkley’s The Last Ship for a pretty interesting description of a fictional U.S. Navy cruise-missile-equipped destroyer preparing and launching a nuclear strike in late 1988. (The recent TV series of the same name is only loosely inspired by the book).