A warhead survival rate of 70% seems to be optimistic. I think more than 50% of all nuclear missiles may be disabled during a first strike. Better have more just to be safe.
China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread
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Again China is known to have 18 tons of HEU and 1.8-2.9 tons of Pu-239. This is enough for at least 2000 weapons.
It is much easier to make a nuclear bomb with plutonium than with uranium.
For example, if North Korea wanted to manufacture significant amounts of plutonium to make a nuclear bomb, the North Koreans could easily use Pu-239 to create nuclear weapons.
North Koreans could make the bomb the easy way, using the chemical element Pu-239 instead of U-235. The most common uranium in nature as you already know is U-238, and it is not suitable for the bomb. The solution is to "enrich" the mixture by increasing the proportion of U-235.
To make the bomb faster, you can convert U-238 into plutonium. This is done with the help of a nuclear reactor. Neutrons emitted by the reactor are used to "bomb" atoms of U-238. The atom captures a particle for its nucleus, which transforms into unstable U-239, then Np-239, and finally Pu-239.
If there is no inspection, the nuclear fuel of a power plant can be converted in this way into the raw material of the nuclear bomb in an easier way than enriching to 90%. Exactly for these reasons Japan manages to be a latent nuclear state and capable of quickly producing nuclear bombs through reprocessed plutonium.
Also, answering your question, yes, "one is less dense for equivalent yield (warhead weight savings)". Plutonium bombs like Trinity, Fat Man and Rufus used the implosion principle, in which the plutonium sphere is compressed by a shock wave (this increases its density, which goes into a supercritical state). Therefore, the uranium nuclear bomb is less powerful than a plutonium one.
For example -
Trinity:
Weight: 6.2 kg of plutonium
Yield: 22 kT
Fat Man:
Weight: 6.4 kg of plutonium
Yield: 21 kT
Rufus:
Weight: 6 kg of plutonium
Yield: 15 kT
Little Boy:
Weight: 65 kg of uranium
Yield: 15 kT
I disagree with your analysis. A thermonuclear primary can be produced with around 1.5-2 kg of Pu-239. To further save weight on modern warheads, the US opted for HEU tamper instead of DU tamper. This increases the yield of the warhead and decreases the weight. Think of it this way, since U-238 may undergo fission when impacted by neutrons, the tamper itself actually contribute to the total yield of the warhead. However, HEU is fissile instead of fissionable. Thus, it will be able to sustain a chain reaction if there is a neutron source. The thermonuclear primary in this case is the neutron source. So when it is detonated, the tamper is also detonated.
What does this have to do with China? While firstly, China did not use HEU tamper in their earlier nuclear warheads (506/535 warheads). Newer Chinese warheads (575) are lighter and smaller, suggesting that now the HEU tamper is being used as a part of the weapon design. Thus, 2 tons of Pu-239 is enough for 1000 weapons already. Much of the HEU can also be saved for further warhead production.
Little Boy was a gun type nuclear weapon, it's not comparable to implosion devices. Also, civilian reactors can't produce weapons grade plutonium without giving the game away because Pu-239 has a tendency to further absorb neutrons and become Pu-240. If enough of that builds up the plutonium becomes unsuitable for a weapon. To get around this, the fuel has to be cycled into and out of the core fairly quickly (which is what dedicated reactors do), whereas in a civilian reactor the fuel is kept in the core much longer.
You are right. But I still have reservations about the statement that 2 tons of plutonium is enough for 1000 nuclear warheads, I would expect something around 1/5 of this production ratio. Do you have any source for this? I would like to analyze.
Rather obviously the ground based missiles of either the US or the Soviet Union would travel the same distance to hit their targets. Both used polar paths. I will grant you that the Soviets could more easily operate submarines close to the pole than the US could. Soviet approaches to the pole had a lot less obstructions.
The initial Polaris missiles were crap. Polaris A-1 had 2600 km range in 1958. It was also highly unreliable. The first Polaris A-3 missiles with 4600 km range were put into service in 1964. But yes the Soviets were behind in SLBM and naval nuclear reactor technology. It was also much easier to scale up a land based missile than an SLBM even if your warhead was larger.
The Soviets started falling behind in engine technology and electronics. The Soviets had access to crashed F-111s in Vietnam. It clearly made some sort of an impression since the MiG-23 was supposed to be a stopgap answer to both the F-111 and the F-4 in terms of technology. But the MiG-23 was kind of a failure in retrospect. It used highly advanced turbojets because they did not have viable turbofan engine technology. The engines had a short lifetime when you used peak power. The use of variable geometry increased airframe weight a lot and bogged down performance. Only really late on did they get a radar on it. I would not consider the MiG-25 an equivalent to teen series technology. The MiG-25 was a stopgap solution which used engine technology from supersonic drones. The MiG-25 was developed in response to the threat of the Mach 3 bombers like the XB-70 that never entered service.
Well, I would say that China was busy upgrading the nuclear arsenal with the DF-31 and DF-41 series. Relying on a limited amount of liquid ICBMs for the deterrent was a really dangerous proposition by then.
Yelp. The whole point of the fast reactors is to better use U-238 that would otherwise go unburned. This way the U-238 gets transmuted into plutonium and then gets burned. The difference is current known uranium reserves worldwide only allow for powering nuclear reactors for like 100-200 years. If you use fast reactors the fuel supply would easily last over 2000 years. This is particularly critical given China wants to massively ramp up nuclear energy production to replace coal. China alone is expected to build more reactors in China proper than are currently available worldwide. Just let that sink in for a moment. It is impossible to generate that much nuclear energy on a country the scale of China long term without a closed fuel cycle.
Because plutonium is much, much cheaper than U-235. U-235 was also supposedly not possible to use on an implosion type bomb back when that design was considered. An implosion type bomb requires less material than a gun type.
antiterror13
Brigadier
with dummy silos, TEL and SLBM, even 70% is quiet pessimistic low in my opinion
I agree that these measures will help a lot but we should always plan for the worst case scenario. Afterall, nuclear missiles are not that expensive (comparing to a massive conventional force). Building more is better than building less.
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