Bade wrote:Is there any open source information on actual efficiency of western weapons, fully verified independently ?
The one post by shiv on the joint us-russia test is interesting. Had not heard of it before.
Bade the overall impression I get is that a Western nuke that is stated to yield 200 kt will reliably yield something close to that figure most of the time - maybe +/- 20 % which is still very good.
I am reminded of the recent news that one in three (or some such figure) of Indian grenades does not explode. But even if you take similar weapons from any other country - I suspect that the best guarantee anyone can get after storage etc would be over 90% and not 100%. I see no reason why anyone's nuclear warheads would be guaranteed to work reliably 100 percent of the time. But 95% would be a great figure IMO.
Now when it comes to warheads and reliability the last nuclear tests for US/Russia were in 1992 (IIRC) that is nearly 18 years ago. Only China and France tested in 1996 and they hardly tested all their designs. They tested (as far as I can tell) only what they needed to get enough data to carry on maintaining and improving their existing arsenals).
If you were to go to a nuclear scientist in France and ask him if he can give a cast iron guarantee if the weapons will work what can he say?
Every country in the world hat started testing in the 40s or 50s has regularly tested and updated until 1992. But after that the testing has been virtually zero. OK it is possible to say that a country that tested a design in 1975 could have tested a stored warhead of the same design in 1990 proving that it still works after 15 years. But what about 15 years later? Materials and methods have changed in 30 years. What sorts of guarantees are possible. Obviously - in order to maintain reliability the materials and purity must remain exactly the same after 30 years and not be changed, even if old time sensitive bomb components are changed for new ones (such as the conventional explosive).
If anything is changed - what does that say about reliability guarantees in the absence of testing? The problem for the scientists in every country is the same - and my own LCA-F 16 analogy is a straw man because aircraft can be tested, but not nukes.
When I think about things in this way it appears to me that the biggest burden regarding nukes and their ability to work falls on the scientists.
To use an analogy imagine asking a medical researcher to refine and produce new antibiotics and give him the following conditions
1) You may research anything, but test on animals only. No testing on humans
2) I may or may not use the antibiotic. I need the antibiotic to reassure some people that I have an antibiotic. But your job is to make it available for me to brandish or use as I please.
3) I want a 100 percent guarantee that it will work safely and well on humans despite not testing on them for the last 15 years or more
Under the circumstances all that the researcher can do is to maintain stocks of whatever had been proven earlier. Anything new that he comes up with cannot be accompanied by any guarantees.
A nuclear scientist faces these same dilemmas and cannot ROTFL them off and say "go fck yourself" as any medical researcher facing such conditions would do. Under the circumstances changing some Venn diagrams would seem a good idea for people facing the same dilemmas. That is happening with NoKo/Iran etc. Don't know about India
JMT