India's Second (Nuclear) Strike Capability

L Beeson · Post by **L Beeson** » 18 Aug 1999 07:52

The following appeared in the Pioneer

Second N-strike capability on line

http://www.dailypioneer.com/fpage/STORY2.HTM

Wilson John / New Delhi

India is developing a Second Nuclear Strike (SNS) capability based primarily on mobile, long-range missiles, deep penetration aircraft and submarines. According to current estimates, it has enough fissile material to produce at least 400 nuclear warheads, enough to give it a powerful deterrence. The nuclear strike force, which involve specialised elements from the Army, Air Force and Navy, will have the capability to survive a first strike and launch a quick counter attack. Military officials believe that since India has decided in principle to use nuclear bombs as strategic weapons and not for tactical use, a road-mobile, long-range missile like Agni II will be the mainstay of its nuclear deterrence. Agni II, with a range of 2,500 km, is capable of carrying nuclear warheads. The intermediate range ballistic missile, now under advance development, has an added advantage of mobility and deception. It will shortly be inducted into the armed forces. The reason why a missile like Agni II will form the major nuclear strike force is its economics and effectiveness. Military studies have proved that a reliable, long-range missile can be effectively launched without expensive infrastructure necessary for an aircraft and at the same time remain mobile and difficult to be located by the enemy. Other advantages of Agni II are that it can be instantly launched, is an excellent second strike weapon and has a "certitude of penetration" -- it can dodge conventional systems of detection like radars. Equally important will be the sea-based missile capability. A nuclear-powered submarine is the best bet as a second strike weapon as it is both highly mobile and difficult to track down. A nuclear-powered submarine has a long staying power and a range far higher than that of conventional submarines. Being sea-based, the submarine stands a better chance of escaping the first strike and, therefore, can act as an effective second-strike weapon. India's Advance Technology Vessel (ATV) project is designed to provide an indigenous nuclear-powered submarine. The second line of defence will be the fighter aircraft like the deep penetration Jaguar and long-range bombers like Sukhoi-30 MK. Both can carry the Air Force version of Prithvi surface-to-surface missiles with nuclear warheads. The aircraft, however, suffer from the handicap of being easily detected and neutralised. Nuclear delivery system will only be one segment of the second strike capability. Two other main components will be early warning systems which will primarily rely on a dedicated military satellite. The other component will be the command and control structure directly under the responsibility of the Prime Minister or the designated successors. This command and control structure, to put it simply, will involve a network of communication, computers, intelligence and information. Experts believe that for an effective deterrence, India would require at least 400 nuclear warheads. A preliminary estimate puts the number of potential targets to be close to 60 in case of a nuclear war. Given the circular error of probability, experts believe that at least four missiles would be required for each target for effective deterrence. India, however, has enough fissile material to produce the requisite amount of nuclear warheads. A recent US study revealed that India would have some 1,607 kg of unsafeguarded fissile material by next year - a quantity which can produce about 400 warheads. The cumulative yield of these weapons is estimated to be 3,095 kiloton or 3 megaton. Chinese People's Liberation Army's Second Artillery Corps has a weapon capability of 3.3 megaton. Various other figures have put the number of warheads at 600.

Anybody have reactions/thoughts?

Regards,

Laurie

Peeyoosh · Post by **Peeyoosh** » 18 Aug 1999 08:12

LaurieThese numbers seem too high to me. I doubt that the Agni will have a MIRV configuration and even if we deploy between 50-75 of these animals that is a 50-75 warheads. The budegtary load to make and maintain a mix of 75 Agni II and IIIs will not be very mild either. It actually makes little sense to deploy the Agni II - the range is too much for Pakistan and too little for "others" - Agni III with a 5000 km. range is the weapon we need.Road vs. Rail in the present level of infrastructure will be in the favour of rail, but that could change 10 year from now.On a SSBN - IMHO a bad idea - will actually lead to too much potential denaibility. It makes the whole nuke scenario unbelievably dangerous. These things are the most vicious form of proliferation desperately need to be outlawed globally.Peeyoosh

Calvin · Post by **Calvin** » 18 Aug 1999 08:49

This is the FIRST time anyone has suggested that India has enough material for 400 warheads. The consensus, less than 6 months ago was in the 100-150 range. What has happened since then? The last I had heard, India had around 1000kg of unsafeguarded "reactor grade" material. And it seems as though the author is including this in the calculations. (http://www.warewulf.com/nuke/Nwfaq/Nfaq7.html) The same estimate would suggest that India has around 450 kg of weapons grade material for warheads.In any case, with weapons grade material inventory of 450 kg, and an average cost of 6kg/warhead, we are looking at around 75-80 warheads. I don't know how much reactor grade material is required for a warhead.If we assume that we have the ability to make very high efficiency warheads, down to 4kg/warhead, then we are still looking at around 120 warheads (from the 450 kg inventory) -- which is the number most commoly quoted. I think we can safely discount the "material for 400 warheads" claim.Next: Given the circular error of probability, experts believe that at least four missiles would be required for each target for effective deterrence. The author suggests that you need 2 missiles to HIT the target for "assured destruction" -- see my estimate in the earlier thread.However, my estimate for the number of targets was 40 (10 in Pak, 30 in China), this author suggests that there are 60.A preliminary estimate puts the number of potential targets to be close to 60 in case of a nuclear war. The calculation seems to be as follows: 2 missiles to HIT target 4 missiles to be launched at target With 60 targets, we need: 240 missiles.Now assume that 40% of our arsenal will be destroyed in a first strike, this gives us a requirement of 400 warheads.I wonder why they picked 40% instead of 50% -- just to "gell" with their figure of 400 warheads?

Anurag · Post by **Anurag** » 18 Aug 1999 09:58

I Can't wait for Agni III to be tested. If it gets tested it should atleast have a range of 5000KM. Lets see what happens. Does anyone know when is Agni III to be tested? Also what news about the GSLV launch!------------------ Jai Hind Anurag

swarup · Post by **swarup** » 18 Aug 1999 10:03

I have heard figures of India having anywhere between 1000-2000 kg of reactor grade plutonium depending on the source ( SIPRI, Janes etc) .The reactor grade plutonium has a high Pu-240 content (25% or more) making it unsuitable for simple nuclear weapon designs. The high spontaneous fission rate will lead to predetonation.However, weapons grade content of Pu-239 can be enhanced if the uranium fuel rods in India's heavy water reactors are(were) changed frequently. In addition, even without enhancement, reactor grade plutonium can be utilized for nuclear weapons, albeit with significant but not insurmountable difficulties. If fusion boosting with tritium is used, these difficulties can be much more easily overcome. The British have done it.That is why Janes has stated that India's potential nuclear arsenal is in the range of up to 500 warheads not just the 60-100 estimated from pure weapons grade stocks produced by India research Pu reactors.It really depends on how clever the designs are, Has India secretly been cycling uranium in reactors to enhance to weapons grade Pu? And how much tritium does India have for boosting (need about 2-3 gms per weapon)?

Vikram Rathore · Post by **Vikram Rathore** » 18 Aug 1999 10:40

As is usual with Indian defence journalism, I'm not sure how much is junk and how much is sensible analysis. Notice the part about Jaguars carrying the Prithvi!! Now that is JUNK..400 is way too much...only a paranoid madman would lob 4 warheads per target. Also 60 as potential targets for deterrance seem way too many. I mean for the Pukis...how many targets would we need to be able to neutralise for an effective deterrance- 3/4 major cities, maybe a dozen key economic targets. That should be it shouldn't it. Not sure for China.

Sam · Post by **Sam** » 18 Aug 1999 10:47

It's a shame to see so much time, money and energy needed to "waste" worthless vermins!

Kumar · Post by **Kumar** » 18 Aug 1999 10:52

The vermin may be worthless alive, but they become quite worthwhile dead! This is what drives the expenditure on pesticides!Although nukes can be thought of some sort of "pesticides", but I would rather keep them to deter the vermin rathar than having to actually use them.

Calvin · Post by **Calvin** » 18 Aug 1999 19:30

The 60 target list is for both India and Pakistan.Also, if you look at the megatonnage/warhead, you will get a figure as low as 7 kT/warhead -- this suggests that the authors must be including small tactical nukes in their calculation of # of warheads.I don't think we will have any warheads smaller than 20 kT.

Amitabh · Post by **Amitabh** » 18 Aug 1999 21:18

Wilson John isn't a particularly reliable writer IMHO, as the Prithvi on Su-30 and Jaguar claim makes obvious!But so far as the 400 nuclear warheads claim goes, apart from the Jane's Intelligence Review article (which was written IIRC by WPS Sidhu) I believe that one of the Pokhran II tests included a "dirty plutonium" warhead. If so, the claim of 400 potential warheads seems more credible.

Calvin · Post by **Calvin** » 18 Aug 1999 21:59

Could anyone post a copy/reference for Sidhu's article. I too remember his claim, but IIRC, he only noted that India *could* use its reactor grade plutonium as the Brits and Americans had proven. He did not assert that India *intended* to.I have not seen any report suggesting that one of the PokII tests were a "dirty plutonium" device. Perhaps you have a reference?Even if we could use reactor grade plutonium, we would need close to 2000kgs of it, to have enough for 280 warheads (the remaining 120 would be weapons grade fuel).In addition to this question is how fast can we produce the missiles? I understand we have a bunch of Prithvis, but any deterrent must be primarily AgniII based, not Prithvi based.

Calvin · Post by **Calvin** » 19 Aug 1999 01:28

From the other thread, ramana says:For others, dont trash Wilson John. He may have been wrong on other counts but pay attention to the figures he is giving. 1607/400 = 4 kg. This ball park number matches Goa Herald article and the Balachandran article in Hindu. I think it means the low numbers(~60 # from Sidhu, Kampani etc.) are out of the window. I also dont think they are talking about reactor grade stuff. Lets see what the poodles now say!Ramana: Do you have the references to the Goa Herald/Hindu articles -- I don't think I've seen them yet.Even if we go with the 4kg/warhead calculation, that means that you believe we have 1600 kg of WEAPONS GRADE material -- I don't think there has been ANY article that suggests that we have anywhere near that much weapons grade material -- the highest I've seen is around 500kg, IIRC. Sipri and some of the others are even lower.So what gives? Are independent observers off by THREE TIMES, as to the size of India's weapons grade inventory? Or are they counting reactor grade as weapons grade?I don't have any doubt that they are mixing up the numbers.In any case, given the size of a deterrent we must have to fit the stated doctrine, we must be looking at 200-400 warhead inventory, which means (a) We will not be a signatory to FMCT (b) We have much more weapons grade material than previously believed; or (c) We have the capability and INTENTION of building "dirty" bombs.It seems to me that (c) is the most likely possibility -- so, does this mean that we have a "proven" design for a "Dirty" bomb as others have suggested in this thread? If so, I would love to see any, even oblique, references to this.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 19 Aug 1999 01:44

The Goa herald article was scanned by shiv and should be archived. The Balachandran article was from Hindu and yes everyone discussed it to death about how bookish the guy is etc. The gist of it is 4 kg and a bunch of them need to be delivered as his damage assessment was conservative. Anyway here is the Goa Herald article courtsey shiv. ---------------- Hi folks - I'm just back from a holiday in Goa - and here's what I got from the Goa Herald. Sorry about the formatting. . Atomic War and its holocaust - by Prakash Morasker Goa Herald 5 th May 1999 An atomic bomb causes explosion by either splitting (Fission) or by the join ing (fusion)of the Atomic Nuclei. The energy is supplied by the isotopes of Uranium, Plutonium or Hydrogen, and is released when the nucleus of the atom undergoes fission or fusion. The yield of energy from thermonuclear reaction is vastly greater than that from TNT (Trinitrotoluene) explosions. Complete fis- sion of 500gms of Uranium of Plutoniurn would release approximately as much energy as an explosion of 9000 tons of TNT, Fusion of all the nuclei in 500 gms of Deuterium would yield the energy of 3600 tonnes of TNT. TNT explosion destroys by shock only, whereas a nuclear war- head causes damage by intensive heat, releasing lethal radiation and lasting poisonous contami-. nation. The atomic bomb which was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 consisted of Uranium, and the one which was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945 consisted of Plu- tonium. The Hydrogen bomb is a fusion device. A vast amount of energy is released when common hydrogen isotopes like Deutenum or Tritium are fused at extremely high temperatures (millions of de- grees) These reactions are know n as Therrno- nuclear or heat induced reactions hence the weapon is known as a Thermonuclear bomb to serve as a trigger The atom bomb produces neutrons and - the heat that is needed to ignite the hydrogen bomb. The yield or total energy released by a Hydrogen bomb is expressed in rnegatons. About 500 gms of 'Hydrogen can yield power equivalent to about 29 kilotons of TNT needed to produce an explosion of the same intensity. A fission device, which proves the capability to build a quick and crude bomb (already proved in 1974); a low-yield device which can be weaponised as warhead for the Prithvi missiles, and a thermonuclear device of superpower cat- egory which can be converted into bombs of hundreds of kilotons. At present, India has leapfrogged into a po tential megaton superpower from mere nuclear capability. India's thermonuclear device was actually a technological breakthrough achieved by the BARC scientists in extracting Tritium from heavy water available in the country's atomic power reactors. India had chosen heavy water as moderator in its reactors long ago. Heavy water has a high content of highly radio- active isotopes of Hydrogen. BARC scientists, in order to avoid the exposure of the reactor workers for the radiation levels, first attempted to extract the Tritium through water distillation, but they were failed in this process. so they thought of chemical exchange process, followed cryogenic distillation. In this method, Tritium exists in liquid form only during the chemical exchange process. Through cryogenic distillation, it IS converted into a gas which can be stored in reinforced containers. The Tritium thus ob- tained is 90 percent enriched which incidentallv is the requirement for the thermonuclear device. incidentally, another Hydrogen isotope Deute- rium can also be used for the thermonuclear weapon design and this is why thermonuclear bombs are popularly called Hydrogen bombs. Tritium has a half life of 12.3 years, in other words, the stockpile will be reduced to 50 percent in this period and the vanished half would have con- verted into Helium-3. Nuclear weapons that are not pure fission weapons use fusion, the reaction that produces energy in the sun, to enhance their destructive effects. But these weapons require a fission bomb to provide the energy to initiate the fusion reac- tions. In these weapons, a few kilograms of a Deuterium or Tritium gas mixture is included in the centre of the fissionable core. When the bomb core undergoes enough fission, it becomes hot enough to ignite the D-T fusion reaction, which proceeds swiftly. It turns out that I kg of Plutonium suffices. The D-T fusion reaction produces an intense burst or high energy neutrons that causes a correspondingly intense burst of fissions rate in the core. This accelerates the fission rate in the core, and allows a higher percentage of the material in the core to fission before it blows apart. The efficiency of the weapon can be further increased by having a Uranium-238 blanket around the central assembly, because the neutrons produced in the D~T reaction have the right energy to split the U-238 nuclei. However, an interesting method exists that obviates this by the use of a solid fuel in the form of Lithium Deuteride (LiD). When a neutron from an initial fissile trigger strikes LID, it produes Tritium and Helium. The D and T then fuse to produce a lot of energy and lots of neutrons. The device exploded on May 11 last year, had in fact used LiD, but its energy yield was kept down by using a mantle made up of non-fissile material and reducing the amount of D and T. Right in the' beginning the Uranium is mined and milled. India's Uranium mill is in Bihar. Here, the ore js milled and then sent for purification to plants in Hyderabad and Trombay and fabricated into Uranium oxide fuel bundles at Hyderabad' s nuclear fuels complex. Following this, the ura- nium bundles are sent to the Dhruva reactor in' Trombay. Here the Uranium fuel bundles are irradiated to create the kind Plutonium needed for nuclear weapons. Plutonium -239 is' chemi- cally extracted from irradiated fuel, and pressed into a coconut-sized spherical cores. This job is done usually at three main Plutoniom process'ing plants at Trombay , Tarapur and Kalapakkam. One spherical core is weighing around 8 kg which is the core of the nuclear weapon . After this a nuclear device is ready for a test explosion. Nuclear device test-explosion is carried out by two different systems; first is the actual test explosion at the test site. And, second is by means of simulated test-explosion with the help of a supercomputer. Initially, the Plutonium cores and the triggers are carried to the test site separately, and there they are assembled. A nuclear bomb explodes when electri cal switches on each segment of the conventional explosive 'lens' are charged. The explosive implodes simultaneously and symmetrically onto the fissile core and sets off the nuclear chain reaction. With the development of Param- 10,000 by C- DAC (Centre for Development of Advanced Corn- puting) at Pune. Lndia is confident of testing a nuclear device. The 100-gigaftops Param-10,000 has been designed using sun's latest 1 60ultrasparc - II processors. 100-gigaflops means, it can do lOO;000,000,0OO floating point operations per sec ond; a flop is the addition of two large decimal numbers. It works on a principle that if a single computer takes 'X' amount of time to perform a function, 100 computers should take x/l00! Of the same time to perform the same function. A bunch of microprocessors split the task and do "Parallel processing" at lightning speed. It can stimulate nuclear-explosions; help miniaturisation of N-weap- ons and solve storage problems. Besides it can simulatemissile launch , cutting missile development cycles programme by the order of a decade. C-DAC's 'Sabre' software can simulate war games, troop and infrastructure movements ctc. Invariably computer simulation and modelling are meant to reduce the cost of any manufacturing programme. In the nuclear case, it involves the weaponising programme, the design, production, testing and certification of nuclear weapons. Since the weapons are expected to vary, so too will the modelling and computational capabilities. Once a weapon enters a stockpile, opportunities for direct inspection and testing are limited and expensive. Maintaining such high levels of product reliability and safety without direct testing requires computa- tion and modelling at every stage. Still, there are several handicaps behind the com puter simulations of N-explosions. Computer simulations cannot substitute live testing. Any nuclear physicist will vouch that data from nuclear tests arc far more crucial for developing and maintaining an arsenal than the availability of high power computing. No computer in the world, however powerful, can execute nuclear weapons design codes based only on fundamental physics. Extremely physical condi- tions produced in a nuclear explosion, temperatures. pressures, densities, and the very brief time over which it occurs, one-millionth of a second or less, make accurate and detailed physical measurements of a nuclear explosion difftcult and expensive. Modern theononuclear weapons are typically around a metre in length and consist of two stages. These are structurally distinct and produce different effects in terms of temperature, pressure etc. and the numbers of photons and neutrons produced and their energies . During the explosion,energy in the form of Gamma rays ,and neutrons flows from the first stage (primary) to compress and ignite the second stage (secondary) which typically produces 95 per cent or more of the total weapon yield.

Calvin · Post by **Calvin** » 19 Aug 1999 10:14

500g (Pu) equals 9KT. Is this based on idealized scenarios?In this case, 4kg cannot exceed 70KT. That gives an idea of the size of each of the weapon warheads.

P Smith · Post by **P Smith** » 19 Aug 1999 12:14

Calvin>> 500g (Pu) equals 9KT. Is this based on idealized scenarios? In this case, 4kg cannot exceed 70KT. Calvin, is this the kind of info. you are looking for? <A HREF="http://www.ceip.org/programs/npp/pdf/CH11J.PDF" TARGET=_blank>http://www.ceip.org/programs/npp/pdf/CH11J.PDF</A> For a secondary reference to Sidhu's article - <A HREF="http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/1 ... tFRO05.htm" TARGET=_blank>http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/1 ... O05.htm</A> FWIW, like Amitabh, I too recall speculation re. one/both of the tests on May 13 using 'dirty' Pu. Also remember a big shot from AEC/BARC (possibly Kakodkar) vehemently denying it (in either Frontline/Week/IndiaToday). Sorry, no concrete refs.[This message has been edited by psmith (edited 19-08-1999).]

Calvin · Post by **Calvin** » 19 Aug 1999 21:39

PSmith: Thanks for the infoFrom the document:25kg (U) or 8 kg (Pu) is critical mass (will spontaneously fission with a yield upto 20kT)Low Technical Capability: 16kg(U) or 6kg(Pu) will make a 20kT bomb.High Technical Capability: 5kg(U) or 3kg(Pu) will make a 20kT bomb.This is without any type of "boosting".Given this I say 4kg/20KT warhead is a somewhat conservative estimate. And also suggests that the total firepower in 1600kg would be around 8MT, if it were all weapons grade Pu. If we are only talking of the 500kg, then we are around 2.5MT, which is closer to the numbers cited by John.

Bharat Rakshak

India's Second (Nuclear) Strike Capability

India's Second (Nuclear) Strike Capability

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