Pokhran II not fully successful: Scientist - Part-2

[SSridhar]

That is why it is important to hit China with all we have even if a tactical nuke is used. Once nuclear war is started we must not hope to win by assuming that Allah will come and stop the war if you use tactical nukes in return. We just have to launch every nuke we have at China.

I agree with you that we should not expect anybody to come to our rescue. The Indian Nuclear Doctrine itself, in spite of its pacifist declarations, made a subtle change later on which gave India the right to target with nuclear weapons even non-nuclear nations that may ally with a nuclear nation that attacks us. This was a deviation from the original articulation that India will never target non-nuclear countries.

In the case of China, TNWs may not be of much use because there is no eyeball-to-eyeball deployment of soldiers unlike on the Pakistani border. The Chinese forces will be well outside the range of TNWs. Strategic nukes will have to be employed to take out such counterforce (or countermilitary) targets. Pakistan will be a different case altogether.

[NRao]

sudeep - do you know why a major, a MARCOS man and two soldiers got killed in Kashmir yesterday and you and I are alive. It is because they are trained to do and not think.

Our nuclear forces have to be trained to do, and not think

India gets nuked. We nuke back. Period. That is the law that has been spelt out.

Hope that is not true.

Besides the PM should have one "key" - a code. Without that the nukes should not get armed.

[Prem]

Noticed the mistrust of politicians is the "Core" issue and rightly so. Armed forces, scientists and others wont be found wanted in case of Mega conflict but fortunately or unfortunately Old Britindian politcians holds the more power than the rest. India needs Political Pokhran1 more than TN Pokhran3.

[shiv]

Until the political leadership is alive, they have the button,

True.

It is quite easy for me to build up various scenarios, but have you read Indian "draft nuclear doctrine"? I have not read it myself - and will do so now. But it is very simple AFAIK. If anything Indian gets nuked - the nation that nukes us gets nuked back to inflict unacceptable damage.

Let us first read that doctrine and then discuss how much leeway politicians will get to sway from that.

With respect I think the significance of a nuclear attack on India/Indian forces is being underestimated. Once anyone nukes us it means the nuke attacker is not deterred by the possibility of getting nuked back, and may even be encouraged if we do not punish him with all we have got. There is no scope for doubting Thomases, shivering Shivshankars, or yellow Yusufs. He must be punished instantly with everything we have.

It is another matter that we all want to have more to inflict that punishment.

[NRao]

NRao - not true. In 2002 the armed forces were fully appraised of the limitations. General Padmanabhan asked and was told TN were not weaponised. Nobody counted on the TN except in nice books. However, he was told that fission and FBF were weaponised...

Sanjay,

Sorry for the delayed response.

That is even worse I would think.

Does that mean that there are TN devices (as in S1), but no weapons?

Or, are "we" (including the good General, or may be I should kepp him out but in my post) to understand that there are no devices either(?)(.)

The worst part is what is a war planner to do? Count on a TN, plan on a TN, hope on a TN? ??????

(Not expecting a response.)

However, the very good news is FBF is there. Now, it begs the question, how big is THIS bang and IF possible, how much does this baby weigh at birth? Actually outside of TN, iy really does not look that bad.

BTW, is all this is some paper/book/coming_out_book/etc?

As Shiv posted, we have a very urgent need to put out stuff without asterisks.

[NRao]

I have not read it myself - and will do so now. But it is very simple AFAIK. If anything Indian gets nuked - the nation that nukes us gets nuked back to inflict unacceptable damage.

Neither have I, but I recall it reads "Indian anywhere gets nuked". Not just on Indian soil.

[shiv]

sudeep - do you know why a major, a MARCOS man and two soldiers got killed in Kashmir yesterday and you and I are alive. It is because they are trained to do and not think.

Our nuclear forces have to be trained to do, and not think

India gets nuked. We nuke back. Period. That is the law that has been spelt out.

Hope that is not true.

Besides the PM should have one "key" - a code. Without that the nukes should not get armed.

Well yes - my statement is technically wrong - but the NFU mechanism is supposed to kick in to nuke anyone who nukes us - via the political leadership.

What would you want to see as an Indian:

Scenario A
1) China nukes an advancing column and waits for us to nuke them, daring us
2) We do nothing or nuke an airfield
3) China nukes 2 cities and waits for us to nuke them
4) We do nothing, or nuke 2 cities back
5) China kicks the hell out of all Indian cities and military infrastructure
6) We do nothing - or try and use the little we have left

China comes out with far less damage that we could have inflicted if we had not been a bunch of shivering Shivshankars

Scenario B
1) China nukes an advancing column and waits for us to nuke them, daring us
2) We nuke them back with all we have got- having lost nothing in a counter force strike
3) A badly injured China hits us back

We are royally screwed - but we have hit China with everything we have got.

I prefer B

[RamaY]

Thats the stupidest thing I ever heard.. What have you gained? You loose your victim status, you loose all your cities in the bargain and all those mothers with babies - they will all become statistics, I guarantee it.

My point is, that its a really difficult decision. Our goal should not be to trust the army wallahs and kurta wallahs to make the right decision, but to obviate the possibility of this difficult decision being thrust upon us.

This is the most logical post in this thread. The poster brings the name-less mothers and unborn babies to cover his own fears.

The logic that India shouldn't build TNs because the current leadership didn't have the mojo to use is nonsensical. No one builds TNs for a specific administration.

[SSridhar]

this why I said long back that India might need minimum of 750 to 800 weapons in stock.

Correct, especially going by the 20 ~ 25 kT weapons only that we assuredly possess at this point. Calculations (by G.Balachandran) show that we need at least 4 such nukes to take out with 90% assurance of a Pakistani site. Our targetting of Pakistan may demand that in order to destroy Pakistan, we need to take out their important military sites (like cantonments, airforce bases, naval bases, military-industrial complexes like Wah & Taxila, political and military leadership) apart from their top 5 cities with heavy demographic concentrations. If there are 50 such sites, we need 200 weapons for Pakistan alone plus some more. As for China, it will be mind-boggling. We need therefore TN (Thermonuclear) weapons for China.

[shiv]

This is the most logical post in this thread. The poster brings the name-less mothers and unborn babies to cover his own fears..

Yes but RamaY jee the "poster's fears" are shared by a lot of other Indians who are SDRE shivering Shivshankars like the poster himself and brave people are in a minority.

That is the problem with an eliteman not being aware of life in India and imagining some Rama RajYa

tough no?

[NRao]

Shiv,

Perhaps this topic is OT here, but, in a conflict that goes nuclear, the one who decides to use nuclear weapons first, in my understanding, will always prefer to act in a way in which he prevails. Normally "prevails" means he uses nukes but does not get nuked. For a single nuke in retaliation could actually mean unacceptable pain for him.

In the case of China, since they know Indian doctrine, I very much doubt they will use nukes unless they are either very certain of knocking India out in the very first strike. Or, are willing to take a hit some place. Now, some place? Which place? I doubt that after all this effort they are willing to accept a few nukes on any of their major cities or food production areas and the like.

I think there are two groups in China, and, the one that is more risk oriented and careless (the PLA group) will be tempted to take more risks. The other (eco group) will take much less risks.

Personally, I think China is willing to make a racket, but will not engage in a military adventure - the risk is just too high.

JMT.

[NRao]

Have we run out of Santhanam stories?

We seem to be going badly OT here.

[SSridhar]

. . . but, in a conflict that goes nuclear, the one who decides to use nuclear weapons first, in my understanding, will always prefer to act in a way in which he prevails. Normally "prevails" means he uses nukes but does not get nuked. For a single nuke in retaliation could actually mean unacceptable pain for him.

NRao, I think we may need to open a separate thread to discuss Nuclear Doctrine where we can discuss in depth all these issues.

The country that does the first strike can only fall into one of the two categories: either completely reckless like Pakistan (possibly the only nuclear power in that category discounting North Korea) or far superior to the nuclear adversary it is striking against where it feels confident that it can take out most of the adversary's weapons and yet deter him with a retalition with whatever survived because the adversary fears even more punishing and unacceptable countervalue attacks. It may also be that the first striker is willing to take some punishment because it knows that whatever survives in the 'attacked' country may cause only minimal damage to it.

Unlike the P-5, we do not have assembled arsenal ready to fire and on hair trigger. That situation will change when Arihant is deployed.

[ShibaPJ]

..Unlike the P-5, we do not have assembled arsenal ready to fire and on hair trigger. That situation will change when Arihant is deployed.

Is this correct? From all open sources, we have weaponized and mated A2s in rail-mobile platforms. Or did you mean 2nd strike from SSBNs only?

[Masaru]

I think, by eight tests, he means 8 different measurements. Obviously, it could be Seismic. Anything else ?

Or is he mistakenly referring to the 5 (PoK2) + 1 (PoK1) tests of which S-1 had questionable yield?

[Masaru]

After that 1/4 return however, India won't exist as we know it.

So Samuelji 1/4th of some cities vs the above scenario is a fair trade off and contributes to deterrence?

China will never use a nuclear weapon against India because then it will face massive retaliation and lose 1/4 of every major city (which is unmentionable damage) and lose face in the world. Its economy will collapse because the world will come to the support of beleaguered India. They won't allow such a thing to happen to the largest democracy.

Really, did world came to the rescue during '62? Was there any sanctions or threat issued to China to withdraw or else. Even the so called NAM was hesitant to issue a statement of support, forget about any material aid. This was back in '62 when China was almost a pariah country, now with they being the top trading partner of all major countries and holding the largest portion of debt from unkil you expect world to come to aid of India!

[ramana]

Where will people get all these weapons from? If quality was like at POKII how can one be sure of quantity? How to know if those were already capped in anticipation of grand bargain or spare parts?

[Kanson]

I think, by eight tests, he means 8 different measurements. Obviously, it could be Seismic. Anything else ?

Or is he mistakenly referring to the 5 (PoK2) + 1 (PoK1) tests of which S-1 had questionable yield?

First thing, both POK-1 and POK-2 were and are contested. Whatever disputes happened during POK-I happened during POK-II. PKI casted doubts both on POK - I and POK - II. So that didnt match what the govt official is saying.

In India, colloqiually the word 'test' is used sometimes for 'measurement'. Like 'Blood test' - where you are only measuring the amount of various components of blood.

[ramana]

Hey Ram! If thats the mind set of senior official then its an uphill battle. No wonder he is un-named.

Remember there is still the matter about why he expected a 72m crater? KS and his backers have some more disclosures to make.

[ShauryaT]

Hey Ram! If thats the mind set of senior official then its an uphill battle. No wonder he is un-named.

Remember there is still the matter about why he expected a 72m crater? KS and his backers have some more disclosures to make.

The 200 kt theory?

[Kanson]

Remember there is still the matter about why he expected a 72m crater? KS and his backers have some more disclosures to make.

Ramana ji, there is no point in making this as cat and mouse game. All the signals from the atomic establishment and govt are pointing to the fact that they wont budge. I dont know what for KS is waiting to release those data. If i'm in communication with KS i will just ask this.

[ramana]

If I were, I would ask whats the end game too! I am responding to what the unnamed official said with regard to KS. The game is between them not us.

[sudeepj]

sudeep - do you know why a major, a MARCOS man and two soldiers got killed in Kashmir yesterday and you and I are alive. It is because they are trained to do and not think.

Our nuclear forces have to be trained to do, and not think

India gets nuked. We nuke back. Period. That is the law that has been spelt out.

Shiv, but that is a political decision. The Strategic Forces Command may never get a green signal from Delhi. They might have been wiped out in a decapitating first strike and the only ggod thing that may come out of such an eventuality (pardon me for saying this), is that a younger leader in the hierarchy of succession replaces the geriatric leader incapable of taking a tough decision.

Sridhar

The decision will be a difficult one no matter who is in charge, a geriatric or a young turk. The probability of a counterattack will be non-zero (actually it will be close to 1) and if you cant deal with 75000 casualties, how will you deal with 10 or 20 times that number?

That is the point I was trying to make.

If the leader of a country has to make this decision, that country has already lost. Regardless of what that loosing country does to the other country.

[samuel]

But Masaru,
62 was just a limited border skirmish not a nuclear war. If China had nuked us then, definitely a feeling in the heart arises that all the good in the world will come to help us. The world can't sit by such a tragedy yaar, what are you saying.

/why can't I do pisko nicely like the shaking shivshankar does. not working. back to my hawk self next

[SanjibGhosh]

I have just watched the press conference by Anil Kakodkar and Dr. Chidambaram on NDtv.

The summery is:

1. The controversy is unnecessary.
2. The success of the test is beyond doubt.
3. India has reviled the data to the international
science community within it's limit in 2002 and all
acknowledged the success of the test.
4. India has capability to make TN device of 200kt.
(Couldn't reveled whether already we have it or not).

[Neela]

The game begins

UN to give big boost to nuclear free world

Obama aides see the resolution that will be adopted at the meeting as an endorsement of the president's entire nuclear agenda, as laid out in his April speech in Prague in which he declared his commitment to "a world without nuclear weapons."

The president called in that speech for the slashing of U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, adoption of the treaty banning all nuclear tests, an international fuel bank to better safeguard nuclear material, and negotiations on a new treaty that "verifiably" ends the production of fissile materials used to make atomic weapons.

He also strongly backed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, or NPT, which requires signatory nations not to pursue nuclear weapons in exchange for a commitment by the five nuclear powers to move toward nuclear disarmament. States without nuclear weapons are guaranteed access to peaceful nuclear technology to produce nuclear power

[Gagan]

I think KS will likely back out at this point. Releasing any further info will be detrimental. He has made his point and India's TN nuke noodity is there for all to see.

The one thing that has come out in the open which no one knew about is the fact that India still does not have even one deployed TN weapon, and the two possible devices that India has are the :
1. 20KT fission
2. 60-80KT fission or FBF.
The fact that TN hasn't been delivered in spite of 10 years since a 'successful' test as per GoI is damning enough.

Here the problem is that both the congress and BJP are protecting each other's arse. They both bowed to international pressure when the push came to shove. Also the fact that ABV hasn't spoken yet means that the octogenerian is unwilling to lie to the nation, since he is painfully aware of the compromise he was forced into. He gave BARC the one chance and RC + SKS + AK blew it. They then all hushed it up after ABV had claimed they had tested the TN. To the scientists credit, I think they did ask GoI for another round of testing, which the BJP should have allowed. But by then, India was just about coming out of the sanctions.

Now who do you blame for all of this? The scientists? The netas then? The netas now? India's fate it seems was decided by that immensely myopic JLN, who refused to become P-5 and held back Homi Bhabha from going along the nuclear weapons route. Those two decisions have stymed India's growth for much of its history, has resulted in incalculable damage to india.

Today what can you expect MMS to do? His generation of people are gene mutated into an inferiority complex with the gora sahibs. The difference between India and the west was HUGE when they were in those videshi universities. Their world view is tempered by those realities. He is a little more recalcitrant than is needed to be on the issue of testing.

If India is waiting for breakout of testing, I think India should forget it. The P-5 will not test because they have mutual MAD in place and are winking each other. Their aim is to prevent P6-11 from emerging at all costs since it degrades their authority and hold. The P-5 instead will instead test covertly as Pakistan - NK took the fall for Chinese weapons testing. NK will test its third nuke not too far ahead in the future.

India can twiddle its thumbs.

[harbans]

The response to any nuclear strike on India must be an irrational one. It's being discussed too rationally. One is wounded and one is irrational. Everyone fears that sort of animal, country. Look at how quick Gaddafi gave up nukes when GWB pretended he's going to invade every AAbdul, Ahmed and Hussain of a dictator in the ME. Look at how Amritraj armtwisted the Paki's. Because at that juncture, the US response to 911 seemed capable to be based on irrationality. Hence all the sucking up.

When we get hit. We scare the crap out of ALL our opponents. Maoists, Islamists, Hurriyats, Prachandas, Huji's..everyone. To possess a deterrent one must be capable of acting irrationally. Be thus consequently capable of committing genocide. There is no other meaning to having a deterrent. The minimum credible component for a credible minimum deterrent is thus

1. The will and ability to act irrationally against all against us.
2. The will to commit genocide

It's for that reason an Iran or NK or Pak (with a few nukes) possess a true deterrent. Naturally irrational and compulsive ability to commit genocide. India possesses neither of these required skills for a minimum credible deterrent.

BTW what about places like 3 gorges, destroying them would require what sort of bombs. What would happen if it were taken off in a strike? How many cities go with that?

[Gagan]

To prevent a nuclear strike, India must display:
1. Irrationality, jingoism, the ability to demonstrate that it is not bothered by world opinion.
2. Have the necessary weapons
3. Have the necessary delivery vehicle to be able to carry out that threat.

India today lacks all three - convincingly.

1. By demonstrating to the world that India is developing cold feet to test, and defending the indefensible (ability to design anything on the basis of ONE test !!!), conveys and reinforces the cowering in the dhoti image of the indian bania. It is clear to the adversary:

The nation that does not have the cajons to test, will not have to cajons to respond with nuclear weapons in response to a first strike

2. NO TN NO TRUE DETERRENCE with China. We are talking equitable here; == all the way. Having 20kt bombs might make china stop and think, but will not send shivers down its spine to deter any misadventure. It might make china take its chances in using tactical nukes in the battlefield even if not an all out attack against indian cities.
3. Agni 2 is fine, but with the puny weapons india has, an A-3 and 5 need to be deployed.
Finally, APJAK's words ring true - India missiles will indeed be dropping flower petals, instead of TN weapons.
Fools and a lot of fools.

[Austin]

I have just watched the press conference by Anil Kakodkar and Dr. Chidambaram on NDtv.

The summery is:

1. The controversy is unnecessary.
2. The success of the test is beyond doubt.
3. India has reviled the data to the international
science community within it's limit in 2002 and all
acknowledged the success of the test.
4. India has capability to make TN device of 200kt.
(Couldn't reveled whether already we have it or not).

What is new in what they say , which they have not said before ?

This is the same rhetoric "I know I am right , rest cannot be reveled "

They should be willing to do a peer review by group of scientist and military.

[Gagan]

Apparantly it is still a developing story, since NDTV is updating its story. I can see more paragraphs added to this article over the last half hour or so.
Pokhran II a success, says Kakodkar

Faced with the charge that the Pokhran II nuclear test in 1998 was a failure, India's top scientists on Thursday came out strongly to defend the test, saying "rhetoric cannot be a substitute for good science."

They added that "unnecessary doubts had been created by ex-colleagues" referring to former defence scientist Dr K Santhanam, who continues to question whether the hydrogen bomb failed.

Dr Anil Kakodkar, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, refuted Santhanam's claims saying after Pokhran II, India now had the capability to build a deterrent.

It had "given us capability to build deterrent ...India has shown transparency over Pokhran-II results...There should be no doubt over yield of bomb tests," said Dr Kakodkar.

Defending the test, Dr R Chidambaram said that it was a perfect success and the doubts raised over it were unjustified.

"Rhetoric is not a substitute for good science. No other nuclear state has published more test data," said Dr Chidambaram, adding that there was limit to information that could be revealed.

Dr Santhanam had created a storm a few weeks ago when he claimed that the 1998 tests were not a complete success. Now, a day after the National Security Advisor M. K. Narayanan called his statements incorrect and horrific, Dr Sathanam stuck to his assertions.

[Sanku]

To prevent a nuclear strike, India must display:
1. Irrationality, jingoism, the ability to demonstrate that it is not bothered by world opinion.
2. Have the necessary weapons
3. Have the necessary delivery vehicle to be able to carry out that threat.

India today lacks all three - convincingly.

Indeed the rational thing is to be irrational. Test now.

Have enough to make sure we can be MAD with China.

As simple as that. (As folks said, a lot of people have already found out that MAD is the only equilibrium, probably a Nash equ. we are good, but we still live under the same rules of maths and sciences the rest of the world does)

Rest is BS.

[csharma]

Link to the AK, RC press conference video. Who is the third guy?

Can someone get hold of the ppt? Also the video is only 18 minutes long. It will be great if some people who have contacts can post the whole video.

http://www.ndtv.com/news/videos/video_p ... id=1160255

[Austin]

RC looks very old and tired man , whats his age any idea ?

[Gagan]

Kakodkar was born on November 11, 1943. Age: 68 yrs.

R Chidambram was born on Born November 12, 1936. Age: 72 years.

No retirement for these gentlemen?

[csharma]

I thought Chidambaram sounded normal and energetic.

[dinesha]

Can build nuke deterrence upto 200 kilotons: Kakodkar
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/new ... 050409.cms

[Raj Malhotra]

Samuel and Raj Malhotra, Another indirect method is from the 3-D simulation of POK I paper in Current Science. It says that the cavity (not crater is 30m-page 6 of the pdf) for value of 12kt in shale. From this we can compute the expected cavity radius for the ~ 43 kt and adjust for hardness of "pink granite" to shale. We then compare this to measured value in the Radio-chem paper. Both these are BARC data and so on one can say corrupted data. One hitch is that the 3-D paper doesnt say if its diameter or radius. So we need to calculate for both. per Terhune the Radius of cavity = k*(Y]^1/3
K= 12 - 16 with 12 for granite. Assume shale is 14 or a reasonable value between these two.
Therefor RC2/RC1= (Y2/Y1)^1/3
RC2 = RC1*(Y2/Y1)^1/3
As granite is stiffer than shale by not much the cavity will be smaller than that calculated for shale by small percentage.
Lets see what this results in?

Pls give the conclusions also

I think Santhanam left 3 clues in his paper. The first was that fission bomb was 25kt which lot of people are coming around to. The second clue was about the designed yield of TN which I am trying to unravel and third clue I have discussed below.

I think that we should simply take technical data from Sikka new paper. Feed data in it such that for 43kt shot at 230m, we get a gentle retarc. Then replace the retarc with 70m subsistence crater to get design yield of TN.

Now what is the dispute between BARC & DRDO. We are reading that dispute as dispute about yield. I don’t think that is the dispute. It would be idiotic to assume that Santhanam was not told about the “design yield”. Note-GoI & BARC are saying that he was not aware of “design” (not yield). The dispute (my guess) is about fusion Burn. That is why Santhanam says that BARC & DRDO agreed on S2 in which the actual yield was 25kt but reported as 10-15kt. And the reason he says that they disagreed were (my guess) that DRDO (probably) said that (almost) nil fusion burn took place in S1 and the test is not adequate for weaponization and BARC said that (some) fusion burn did take place and hence test was adequate for generating data for FBF and TN. I think that is why BARC is saying that DRDO-Santhanam has no data (from instrumentation) and they have held drilled – radioisotope data close to their heart. Santhanam is saying that he has adequate data from his own instrumentation and hence (almost nil) fusion burn took place.


Hence my conclusion, till refuted. BARC tested a 500kt to 1MT TN as S1 which failed and produced only 25kt. The 6th test was pulled as it was 100-350kt and would have produced only 5-10kt on fizzle which would have been difficult to disguise. India does not have FBF Or TN. BARC thinks that it can design FBF or TN on this data and Santhanam says NO!!!!!!!!!

I am reproducing my last post again, to encourage somebody to give some answers. I will be glad to be proved wrong.

So if an expected crater radius of 72m and DOB of 230 m is for what yield?
K Santhanam gives the crater radius for the S-2 in his op-eds.

This is the multi-million dollar question, which i think will reveal the difference between three yields of S-1 "design yield" vs "claimed yield =43kt" vs "actual yield =20kt". I think that Sanathanam has already given info that part of yield of Fission bomb was used to save H&D of TN. Now the only reason he & PKI could be so sure of failure is that "design yield was way higher". So what was the yield that could be contained in 230m depth shaft in hard rock pink granite with 72m subsistence crater (my guess would be anything between 200kt-1mt)

Guys waiting for the answer to Ramana's question!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The resident experts are ignoring my queries therefore I will try to connect some dots in my own limited way:-

1. PKI said that if 10% fusion fuel burned then it would lead to 20kt fusion yield. It meant that PKI was talking about 200kt fusion yield which means something like 500kt to 1MT yield of the TN. My assumption is that TN nuke design started during PKI time and he knew that the TN was supposed to yield 500kt to 1MT and hence was not even satisfied with “then” reported 50kt yield.

2. Santhanam talked about 350kt to 1MT yield TNs, why ??.

3. SBM has referred to weight of 400kg for S1, it is too much for chotu 43kt TN, as I said before that even in 1960s the TN of this yield weight around 50kg.

4. Arun_S talks about boosted primary, boosted spark plug and tertiary, hence 50kt design yield is way toooooooo less for such a configuration.

5. Why would a team of scientists testing a TN for the first & perhaps the last time test a 43kt chotu TN? I think village thing is a red herring.

6. My take is that 230m shaft in “pink granite hard rock” could take a 500kt-1MT TN explosion

7. My (revised guess) is that S1 was meant to be 500kt-1MT device in which even the boosted primary fizzled leading to FBF yield of 17kt instead of 40-50kt and 2-4kt fusion yield instead of 200kt fusion yield with minor yields from spark plug and tertiary.

8. Ashely Tellis also said that primary failed to boost, this observation may have been based on intelligence reports.

9. My guess is that the 6th test was pulled as it was the lighter smaller, say 150kg-350kt yield TN whose fizzle would have given 4-5kt yield and would have been difficult to disguise as chotu TN.

10. Sanathanam (through Arun_S?) has stated that FBF was 17kt but this NOT equivalent of stating that it burned properly.

[Sanku]

What is new in what they say , which they have not said before ?

This is the same rhetoric "I know I am right , rest cannot be reveled "

They should be willing to do a peer review by group of scientist and military.

No they are not saying that "I know I am right , rest cannot be reveled " they are saying "I always knew I am right, and have said so from 1998, what I wanted I have said, rest cannot be reveled"

Total "KS is bullshitting" approach to justification of yields.

[ShauryaT]

Raj Malhotra:

What happens when at a depth of 230 meters, you assume that it is not Granite but Sand Stone. What is the yield you get for a 70 m crater? Is there anyone else, except for BARC to claim Granite like rocks at that depth?