Russian Navy Luves it's Nukes

[MKSheppard]

Link

Report: Russian navy to rely on tactical nukes

The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Mar 23, 2009 22:23:08 EDT

MOSCOW — The role of tactical nuclear weapons in the Russian navy may grow, a news agency quoted a senior Russian admiral as saying Monday.

Vice Adm. Oleg Burtsev told the state-run RIA-Novosti that the increasing range and precision of tactical nuclear weapons makes them an important asset.

“Probably, tactical nuclear weapons will play a key role in the future,” said Burtsev, the navy’s deputy chief of staff.

He added that the navy may fit new, less powerful nuclear warheads to the existing types of cruise missiles.

“There is no longer any need to equip missiles with powerful nuclear warheads,” Burtsev said. “We can install low-yield warheads on existing cruise missiles.”

Tactical nuclear weapons have a much shorter range compared to strategic nuclear weapons. They are intended for use within a theater of battle.

The United States and the Soviet Union decided in 1991 to eliminate some of their non-strategic nuclear weapons and withdraw others from duty, including those used by navy ships.

But in 2006 Russia signaled it no longer intended to abide by that decision when then-Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said that Russian submarines were carrying tactical nuclear weapons on patrol.

Last December, chief of the Russian military’s general staff, Gen. Nikolai Makarov, said Russia will keep its arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons, which he said were necessary to counter a massive NATO advantage in conventional weapons.

Burtsev said the navy will also build six new nuclear submarines carrying intercontinental ballistic missiles. The first sub in the series, the Yuri Dolgoruky, already has been built and is undergoing tests.

However, the prospective Bulava missile designed to equip the new submarine has failed repeatedly in tests, making prospects of its deployment dim.

[Kanastrous]

That's funny; I thought that NATO's interest in tactical nukes was born out of the Warsaw Pact/Russia's big advantage in conventional weapons systems...

[MKSheppard]

So how do you say "Eisenhower Doctrine" in Russian, Stas?

Last December, chief of the Russian military’s general staff, Gen. Nikolai Makarov, said Russia will keep its arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons, which he said were necessary to counter a massive NATO advantage in conventional weapons.

[Ender]

well, heavily industrialized nations amassing arms in a time of great economic strife and uncertainty isn't ominous in the least.

We need to start having strong, positive talks with Russia right now. Iran can frankly keep, rather shortly climate change is going to become an overwhelming concern for them anyway. But building strong positive ties with Russia is important not only to prevent history from repeating itself, but also because we need their help to maintain logistics in Afghanistan and because in the long game they look to be one of the big boys left standing if things get really bad.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

This is kind of a flip. Back in the Cold War, I recall tactical nukes were touted as the way to offset the Soviet's numerical advantage.

Now the Russians are relying on nukes to offset NATO's technological advantage. But this isn't exactly new, since the Soviets employed nukes in a number of their anti-ship missiles for a long time.

[Mr Bean]

Yeah pretty much this would work and could save them a ton of money. Even if it is inflexible.
However I'd pay good money if Russia dropped down to a dozen divisions all armed with tac-nuke artillery and the Navy being all nuke equiped

[Sea Skimmer]

Maybe this means we can get a nuclear version of SM-6, or better yet a nuclear SM-3 Block IIA, which actually uses the full caliber of the tubes for greatly expanded performance. We could go real crazy and even adapt it to fire from submarine VLS.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Maybe this means we can get a nuclear version of SM-6, or better yet a nuclear SM-3 Block IIA, which actually uses the full caliber of the tubes for greatly expanded performance. We could go real crazy and even adapt it to fire from submarine VLS.

Why not go with AMRAAMs with nukes then? You could fire lots from a single squadron.

[Sea Skimmer]

Why not go with AMRAAMs with nukes then? You could fire lots from a single squadron.

You can't fire AMRAAM from a submarine or surface ship, which was my entire point, and even if we adapted it to that role range would be grossly inadequate. It might not go more then about 20 miles, at which point we are within 5 inch gun range. That means throwing on a bigger booster and making other modifications... not worth the effort at all. ESSM would be a better basis to start from but still not very logical.

Meanwhile and this is the big problem, being a mere 7 inch diameter missile with a 40lb warhead AMRAAM would require an entirely new and incredibly compact and expensive design for a nuclear warhead, smaller then any we have mass produced before. We can’t do that because such compact nukes are very hard to design and unreliable, meaning we would require an extensive series of test shots to validate it. The US may resume nuclear testing some day in the far future to replace its strategic warheads, we sure as shit will not do so merely for a new tactical warhead. Furthermore the yield of such a small warhead would be inadequate for destroying a dispersed enemy task force. We’d have to target each ship individually and have the warhead initiate at very close range, which largely defeats the point of firing a nuke. This all applies to ESSM too.

A nuclear Standard, any version, meanwhile can use the existing validated W-80 warhead with a relatively high 150kt yield. We even have whole piles of surplus W-80s and W-80 components stockpiled, leftover from nuclear Tomahawks and nuclear Air Launched Cruise Missiles removed from service in the 1990s. In fact we had a nuclear version of standard with an older warhead at one point, though its long long gone.

If we wanted a new air launched nuclear weapon, the logical choice would be an adoption of the JASSM-ER missile. It could easily take a W-80, it’s stealthy like the now defunct AGM-129, and it can fly over 600 miles. Indeed W-80 would weigh so much less then its normal 1,000lb high explosive warhead we might well extend its range to over 1,000 miles. The US Navy however has never seen the need for an air launched nuclear weapon other then gravity bombs (which it still has, just not deployed on carriers at the moment), aside from a very brief deployment of a rocket boosted nuke in the 1950s which was only to allow relatively slow jet fighters of the era to escape the blast.