Seeing the lives we lost cleaning out the Al Queda scum in Afghanistan, it seems to me that small tactical nuclear bombs are the answer. We used to have such a waepon-it was called the “Davy Crockett”, and it had about a 0.5 kiloton yield. It seems to me that such weapons would be perfect for flushing out and destroying the guerillas in the hills-why don’t we use them?
Yeah, that sounds like a perfect sollution for an already extremely unstable area.
I bet Pakistan would -love- having nukes set off next door. And all those other nations that are already wavering a bit about the US offensive would probably swing completely away from US support if the US started slinging battlefield nukes around. And then there’s the civilian casualties, which already number several hundred (By credible sources, I’m sure the Taliban would love to claim a few tens of thousands by now), and that’s which extremely precice and relatively contained destruction of laser and sattalite guided bombs, as opposed to the very wide-ranging destruction of even a 0.5KT nuke. Oh, and fallout. Their neighbors will be even -less- happy about that, even if it’s really not that high of a thread (I don’t know how much fallout those “davy crocket” bombs would cause, but if I recall correctly those were in service when my -dad- was, so I can’t imagine they’re too terribly “clean”). And just to top it off, pakistan and india are a bit too close to the area, a bit too unstable, and both carrying nuclear arms. I doubt battlefield use of tac-nukes would really start anything between them, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to push them.
With all that, I can’t see how a tactical nuke would have any advantages over loading a buff with a full load of bombs and carpet-bombing the area. And to top it off, I don’t think that 0.5kt nuke would really have much edge on the destructive power of a “daisy cutter” bomb…
Well, considering that the US is the only country ever to have used nukes in war, and that we are now pursuing “National Missile Defense” (regardless of its efficacy), it calls into question the idea of American nobility. If it were the Russians you know the US would not be pleased, but since we are the Good Guys it’s ok. Remember the nuclear deterrant? Mutually assured destruction? It would seem the Pentagon doesn’t. Oh sure, they’re only talking about small warheads, but even anti-tank shells with depleted uranium have residual effects.
It basically makes me think Bill Maher was on to something when he asked what cowardice is.
Hey you ever think maybe if the us uses ‘tactical nukes’ - aka weapons of mass destruction, anyone else with a (legitimate or not) beef against america, and the capability, won’t respond in kind? Your country already has enough enemies. You want more? If the answer is yes, then by all means use your nukes. Fuck up the world. Your world. My world. Our only world. Go right ahead. ARE YOU FUCKING SUICIDAL? {please forward this message to his fraudulency, george the lesser.}
Well. Isn’t this nice. I seem to have found one of the dozens of ‘hate America’ threads already.
First of all, it’s pretty hard to say that using a tactical nuke is going to ‘fuck up the world’ when countries routinely test nuclear bombs hundreds of times bigger than the weapon we are talking about. A W54 “Davey Crockett” type bomb wouldn’t create a giant mushroom cloud into the stratosphere like H-Bombs do. It would look like a big mother of a conventional bomb blast, and the fallout would be controllable and land not more than probably 1/2 mile downrange or so.
Second, HOW DARE the rest of the world criticise the U.S. You America bashers frankly make me sick. The U.S. has been incredibly restrained so far in this ‘war’. The number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan is measured in the hundreds, and on the low end of that scale. That is unheard of in a military operation of this size, and it’s testament to the great care in which the U.S. has been fighting.
I don’t support the use of Nukes, for the simple reason that it gives ammunition to America-bashers like the people in this thread.
As for American morality, I would like to point out that the U.S. could have annexed half the bleemin’ world at the end of WWII, but it not only chose to give the countries back to the people who had been trying to destroy it, but spent billions of dollars reconstructing those nations. America has NEVER been an expansionist country. It has a history of treating prisoners of war better than anyone else, and of fighting ‘fairer’ than just about anyone else.
And the reason the world lives in relative peace today (and why my country can blow all its money on social programs instead of a huge military) is because the entire world is the benefactor of a 350 billion dollar a year military budget, much of which goes to defending other countries against external agressors as it did in Bosnia and Kuwait.
The American military is the world’s biggest aid program, and should be considered as such when trying to determine which countries are more ‘generous’ than others.
I’m not American, but the United States has my eternal gratitude.
I thank you for your support. However, for the purposes of this post, “Frankly, I don’t give a damn . . .”
Why don’t we use ‘tactical nukes’? Two reasons: 1. It violates American SIOP. The US has sworn to never use nuclear weapons in a first strike capability, and the political ramafications of such an event would more than a minimum result in rioting in the streets in major cities around the country. 2. Using nuclear weapons against terrorists lends credibility to their using nuclear weapons against us! God forbid a weapon goes off, and al-Qaeda gets the media onto it. This would be broadcast around the world faster than you can fart! Whatever sleeper cells are out there (and yes, they are out there) would be quick to put together plans to inflict maximum casualties with whatever nuclear capability they have.
Please. The US has enough in its inventory to whack these asswipes wherever they are. We’ve got the ‘Daisy Cutter’. We’ve got the ‘Bunker Buster’. We’ve even got a new ‘Thermobaric device’ that overpressurizes the air in the cave you are in to collapse your lung. All we need is time, and that seems to be something we have now. . .
Tripler
im_a_loser, I could care less about your rhetoric. This is a global problem now. . .
You know Sam, if this is a “hate America” thread, it’s a pretty weak one at best. It’s hardly even criticizing much of anything (And contrary to many people’s thoughts, criticizim is not hate). Relax a bit.
Sidestepping the whole morality bit to avoid completely hijacking the thread, I had already stated that fallout is not likely a very high threat (Though I strongly question your half-mile assertion), but that doesn’t change the -percieved- threat that many nations in the area would see, and regardless, nobody wants nukes going off in their back yard. It would be a VERY legitimate complaint against US policy, not just some unsupported America-bashing.
At the risk of being considered an anti U.S.A
That my dear Sam Stone is actually not correct, after all if you compare the map of the United States prior to the war against Mexico and for that matter the war against Spain with one map after those events you’ll see a much bigger map :). I would also like to know the total number of Afghans casualties. I don’t think they come to “a few hundreds”.
Anyway that is not the object of this thread. It doesn’t matter the size of the bomb if you use a nuclear device you are using a weapon of mass destruction. Consider that even now you are using (pardon my english) “Poor uranium”? in the tips of your weapons which according to all scientific data compromise the enviroment and the health of future generations of Serbs, Afghans, Iraquies, etc.
Political and moral ramifications aside, there are serious practical issues as well. The number of instances where a small nuke would be usefull are very limited in number, and in most of those, an FAE (or thermobaric) weapon is more than suficient. Does anyone remember what the British troops said when the US dropped the first AN/BLU-82 in Kuwait? “Oh my God, they’ve popped a nuke!” I submit that the “Big BLU” is less expensive, and just as efficatious as a TacNuke, without the serious ramifications, expensive controls, and tiresome logistics involved with a nuke, not to mention radiological issues (admittedly minor for TacNukes).
You don’t swat flys with sledgehammers. You use a flyswatter.
Sam Stone:
I was not referring to ecological damage, though that is a concern as well, now that you mention it.
ummm yeah america is perfect, flawless, etc., and criticism is illegal in free countries. I forgot. sooooooooooo sorry. idiot.
No, the number of afghan civilian casualties is already more than that of the wtc. here is a bbc report from jan. that pegs the deathtoll at over 3700 between oct. 7 & dec 7.
Two words: manifest destiny.
Ummmm, what world is that?
Tripler:
If the bushites can refer to an axis of evil, or a war for civilization, or any other propaganda to further a war for (to an extent justified) revenge that is slowly morphing into an (unjustified) unlimited war for hegemony, then I have every right to counter with my own.
I agree that this is a global problem - thats kinda my point. And dropping nukes ain’t gonna make it any better. Most assuredly, use of wmd by the us will result in retalliation by someone. I do not want that, because I do not hate america - I simply disagree with many of her policies.
This is just an uneducated guess here, but why would the US discount the use of nukes now, before the war is over? You don’t play poker by laying your cards on the table.
I assume the US and its allies know full well that dropping a nuke on the region will cause all sorts of major headaches, but it makes perfect sense to remind the enemy that the option remains open.
I think that the use of nukes would be stupid, for the simple reason that we don’t need them. We have conventional weapons to fill most every need (and do it better) we could possibly have in war.
There is really only one thing that nukes could only be used for:
- Massive city wide destruction in one fell swoop.
Since there seems to be little chance of this being needed (and even if we did need to destroy a city, there are still conventional bombs that would do a decent job of it) you do not have much of a threat from nukes.
The only other area that looks like a possibility is in there “bunker buster” nukes. This sounds like a possibility of something that we might see used, but again, in 99% of the cases it would be a huge, stupid, waste. Conventional BB’s could take out all but the deepest and most fortified bunkers.
So to put it simply folks.
You are likely to never see a nuclear bomb used in war because we do not need them.
We have much more efficient ways to kill people.
The only thing the US would stand to gain by the percieved threat of nuclear weapons (Seeing as there is NO need in Afghanistan that can not be done with conventional munitions, neither now or in the forseable future of this conflict) is worrying many nations, some of which are the US’s enemies but many MORE of which are the US’s allies. Relations are already getting a little strained with some nations that have brought (Some legitimate, some overblown) concerns up with the US’s conduct of late, and giving more fuel to that would not be in anyone’s best interest right now. The current US stance is, apparently, to only use nuclear weapons in retribution for nuclear attacks by an enemy. Changing that policy would stir up a lot of trouble.
And Im_a_Loser, thank you for that little bit about the casualties, I’ve seen -very- little published of Afghan casualties anywhere. Still, I wish more sources would give information on it. As we’ve seen recently in the US, casualty counts in even highly developed areas can sway dramatically in relatively short spans of time as more information is found. And if it really -is- 3700+ casualties, it’s definatly something that deserves more attention than it’s getting.
Um, that’s kinda contrary to the purpose of TACTICAL nuclear weapons (as opposed to strategic ones). Tactical nukes are not made for blowing up cities, they are for stuff like decimating whole tank divisions at once. We even have tactical nuclear artillery shells.
Why use nukes? Because a conventional weapon with that much explosive power would be so huge they would have to be delivered one at a time by our biggest (and therefore most vulnerable) bombers. Instead we can just fire a nuclear artillery shell from several miles away and destroy large portions of an enemy army with minimal risk.
Yes, yes, I know. There I was speaking of nukes in general, and to destroy a city in one quick strike is the only thing that nukes alone capable of.
With LGBs and sattalite-guided munitions, you probably don’t -need- that much explosive power. Sure, you could kill a deer with a grenade launcher, but taking the time to aim a rifle would probably be a much more effective means of doing so. Bigger isn’t always better.
If you oppose using a .5 kiloton tac-nuke, but have no qualms about using a 5 kiloton (as in ten times more power) conventional weapon, then I would offer that you’re simply afraid of the word “nuke” and not the results of using said weapon.
Nope, there are other uses for nukes.
The only way you could make an artillery shell capable of taking out dozens of tanks at once is with a nuke.
The only way you can make a missile that you can launch from a fighter that can take out a satellite is with a nuke.
The only way you can make a man-portable bomb capable of destroying an entire underground fortress is with a nuke.
Laser-guided precision weapons and carpet bombing are only useful in certain situations. If you are attacking a much smaller country that you have total air superiority over, you can afford to drop huge bombs from B-52s or take out their tanks one at a time, but if we were ever in a serious war with a nation with a large modern army, tactical nuclear weapons could be extremely important.
Your analogy would only work if said deer was behind a two-foot-thick wall. In that situation, a rifle would do jack. To bust some armored bunkers, the only solution is brute force… hence, (relatively) tiny tac-nukes as opposed to massive conventional weapons.
I don’t know how much penetrating power a nuke would have, but it relies on mostly pulse and shockwave effect to achieve this damage. A GBU-28 or other deep-penetrating conventional bomb would probably be every bit as effective against a deep-burried bunker, seeing as it could potentially penetrate all the way -into- said bunker. Just an estimated guess, but it seems more likely that a 0.5Kt nuke would be less likely to destroy the structure than the 5000-pound conventional bomb in this case (Which can penetrate some 20+ feet of reinforced concrete or 100+ feet of earth before detonating), and with a lot less political and (potentially) environmental issues.
The tank is probably the safest place to be in the modern battlefield when a nuke goes off. If you’re shooting at modern tanks, I doubt you’d get more than a single platoon with a tac-nuke, and that’s not counting for error. You’d slaughter any troops, light vehicles, and support elements in the immediate area, of course.
And you’re obviously not counting MLRS systems, which could possibly gut an armored -battalion- with a single salvo, but I suppose that’s not quite a “shell” 
Unless I’m mistaken, the primary fighter-launched ASAT weapon, designed to be launched from an F-15 fighter, used a conventional warhead…?
Name one large modern army that the US has any chance of going to war with that could/would NOT respond to a US nuclear first-strike with a massive retaliatory strike. I can’t think of any. I think tac-nukes will, if anything, equate more to a smaller scale MAD mentality. Don’t use 'em, or you get nuked back.
If there were a conventional bomb with a yield of a 5kt nuke, I’d be a little uneasy about it’s use, too. Oh, that’s assuming it also spread radiological material and irradiated the area, like a nuke, and was as much of a political hot-topic as a nuclear warhead. Can you name any munitions like that?