Pokhran II not fully successful: Scientist - Part-3

[NRao]

OPed From NY times:
Just Say NO

Comments are more interesting rather than the article itself.

So true. Also note the number of recommendations next to each!!!

NYT should withdraw that editorial, ........... I think.

[Gagan]

Of the 97 comments in that NYT article, not more than 5 comments supported that article. At least 18 comments called the NYT to withdraw that article because it was immature. 92 of the 97 comments supported India as being free to make its own choices.
Although the overwhelming majority of the respondents were indians or people of indian origin, there were also people from other nationalities who again were supportive of the Indian position.

All in all, this is a shallow article, which superficially screens the subject and passes a preconceived judgement.

Me for one is very happy at the response the article got.

PS: My 1000th post.

[NRao]

PS: My 1000th post.

What the Gods of BR giwth, the Gods of BR can taketh.

[shiv]

Like many other people I have followed the fizzle/sizzle debate with great interest and have been doing a lot of reading of publicly available material on the side. I have also archived as many of the recent news items related to this topic as possible.

I am thinking of attempting to do a neutral BRM/SRR article on the fizzle-sizzle debate without attempting to take any particular side. Need to work on that. But I have some comments to make below that are not necessarily neutral - they are my take based on my current reading and I am posting FWIW.

It appears that the desire to tap fusion energy for bombs pre-dated even the first fission test in the US, but a lot of theoretical and practical hurdles had to be crossed. Ultimately it turned out that

1) Fission explosions were essential to create conditions for fusion
2) Even very small amounts of fusion were sufficient to greatly increase yields of fission bombs
3) To make bombs of "unlimited power" it still required a fusion trigger and and additional fission spark plug to cause fission. But even this would perhaps only yield 1:1 fusion fission yield.
4) From this point onwards the ways to increase yield offered two routes.

• Either he power of fusion could be enhanced by adding "third stage" of fusion to get Tsar Bomba type yields or
  The fusion fuel could be surrounded by fissile tamper which would provide a huge yield by fission that was caused by the neutrons that the fusion part conveniently provided.

Several possibilities were then opened up
1) It was possible to use "boosted fission" with a little fusion fuel to greatly increase the yield of fission bombs - good at least up to 100 kt
2) Small- artillery shell size bombs would require a small fission trigger and a secondary fusion fuel for a small, efficient "hydrogen" bomb
3) Large yield megaton bombs were typically of the design boosted fission trigger causing fusion causing fission of the tamper.
4) Tsar Bomba type multimegaton bombs using a third (or even a theoretical fourth) fusion stage to cause unlimited yield are not deployed by anyone.

When one looks at the question of thermonuclear bombs alone - several problems crop up (apart from design) for an entity that wants to make such bombs. I will try and list them as I (essentially a layman) understand them:

1) All thermonuclear bombs require Tritium. Failing that they require Lithium Deuteride.
2) All require a fission trigger
3) If you use Uranium for the fission trigger you need Uranium, which can fortunaely be mined and enriched
4) if you use Plutonium, you can have a more compact fission trigger, but Plutonium is created in nuclear reactors and you need to have reactors running for years to create that Plutonium
5) As regards Tritium it is an "either-or" situation with Plutonium. That means that in order to create Tritium in you reactor you have to stop creating Plutonium.
6) Two factors make this worse. First, for every atom of Tritium you create, you are "losing" 10 atoms of Plutonium that could have been created. Secondly, Tritium itself degenerates by spontaneous fission (it has a half-life of just 12 point something years). So you cannot store Tritium for long without fighting your nuclear war. You need to keep on renewing your Tritium and therefore losing out on Plutonium. So you need to have lots and lots of reactors running for decades if you want to do both.
7)Using Lithium Deuteride seems like a great alternative to Tritium. I don't know how LiD is produced - but India is apparently the world's second largest (or largest?) producer of heavy water which has the D component of LiD. But
8)Finally - the yield of thermonuclear weapons comes mainly from fission of the tamper around the fusion fuel. Fissionable tamper can be spent Uranium fuel, enriched Uranium or Thorium. I don't suppose India has too much to spare of spent fuel or enriched Uranium.

All in all it appears that "boosted fission" gives you the best fission bang per buck up to maybe 100 kt (my guess).

If you are looking at 500 kt plus devices - two stage TN is the way to go, but since most of the yield is from fission of tamper you need to have that extra material for the tamper.

Unless I have misunderstood things - a small efficient Thermonuclear bomb that gives just 40 or 50 kt with at least 50% yield from fusion is the same as a neutron bomb. If those same escaped neutrons were used to hit a tamper - that tamper would produce hundreds of kilotons by fission.

[vera_k]

If you are looking at 500 kt plus devices - two stage TN is the way to go

What is the upper bound for the yield of a two stage TN? At what point does a TN device need more than 2 stages to increase the yield obtained? One thing I've been mulling about is if the current brouhaha is more about the uncertain ability to scale up the TN device beyond 2 stages.

[Gagan]

Are the requirements of Tritium seperate from that of LiD?
Tritium is needed for FBF where it is compressed and attacked by neutrons at the center of the Fission bomb. It decays and therefore will need to be replaced.

LiD is more stable, and as part of secondary needs massive battering by X rays and Neutrons to fuse.

I am sure that the two are not so easily interchangable, each has a suitability for a certain application.

I have made a diagram of the British TN weapon that Greenpeace released, It is a teller ulam design, with some interesting features.
will post it soon.

[Gagan]

Adm Arun Prakash has said that India has 500Kt deployed.
Gen Malik has spoken of Megaton weapons.

I think both are untested TNs. Both clearly said that they needed proof that these would work as advertised. These revelations by both came out only in the wake of KS's statement that the initial TN test was a fizzle, thereby putting a question mark on these (this) TN(s).

[Gagan]

What RC seems to be saying is that the S1 test gave them the ability to make a 200Kt weapon. Then he adds that research has gone ahead.

Implying that:
1. If S1 failed it was rectified.
2. It is now possible to go much bigger than 200Kt. How big? We have Gen VP Malik, and Adm Arun Prakash's statements to give us the indication.

[shiv]

If you are looking at 500 kt plus devices - two stage TN is the way to go

What is the upper bound for the yield of a two stage TN? At what point does a TN device need more than 2 stages to increase the yield obtained? One thing I've been mulling about is if the current brouhaha is more about the uncertain ability to scale up the TN device beyond 2 stages.

As far as I know the US "Castle Bravo" test was the biggest 2 stage device. It was designed for 6 megatons but yielded 15 megatons because of an unexpected error. It was not a weapon test. Weighing 10 tons the device was not seriously deliverable. The Tsar Bomba had a third fusion stage (apparently)

We know next to nothing about the actual design to explain the current brouhaha. General reading (mainly from Carey Sublette's Nuclearweapons archive) suggest that a 15 kt primary trigger that produces 10 or 15 kt fusion yield is extremely good performance.

And far beyond that is the fact that a 50 or 100 kt boosted fission device needs only something like 0.2 kt of fusion (or some such small amount) to occur although the design is quite different (as per open source)

[shiv]

Are the requirements of Tritium seperate from that of LiD?
Tritium is needed for FBF where it is compressed and attacked by neutrons at the center of the Fission bomb. It decays and therefore will need to be replaced.

LiD is more stable, and as part of secondary needs massive battering by X rays and Neutrons to fuse.

I am sure that

As per Carey Sublette, Tritium gas requires renewal every 17 years or so, but can be injected for boosting just before the explosion.

But for LiD you need to disassemble the entire warhead to renew it. But I don't know how LiD degenerates - although it is apparently very reactive and will end up reacting with the surrounding Plutonium unless it is covered by a non reactive layer.

AFAIK the "battering" by X rays is only on the tamper - to compress it and compress the fusion fuel.

[shiv]

Adm Arun Prakash has said that India has 500Kt deployed.
Gen Malik has spoken of Megaton weapons.

I think both are untested TNs. Both clearly said that they needed proof that these would work as advertised. These revelations by both came out only in the wake of KS's statement that the initial TN test was a fizzle, thereby putting a question mark on these (this) TN(s).

Santhanam is on record as saying that India has proven and reliable 20-30 kt warheads.

[Gagan]

Tritium gas requires renewal every 17 years or so, but can be injected for boosting just before the explosion.

Not possible in the British TN design.
Here they show that there is a layer of vacuum between the explosive lens and the Pu ball. Effectively the Pu ball is "floating" in vacuum. I think the vacuum layer is to ensure that the shock wave from the explosive lens is distributed equitably over the Pu ball from all directions.
I wonder it it would be possible to inject Tritium into the center of the Pu ball if the construction is such.

[shiv]

Gagan - the "rectification of design" of TN has not appeared from any official source. It may have been an ishara on this forum with no public source to back up that claim. We know nothing of the actual design of the TN test device. Nothing has been made public. The "rectified now" IIRC was a comment on this forum.

[Gagan]

Santhanam is on record as saying that India has proven and reliable 20-30 kt warheads.

Those must be the only field proven and deployed weapons India has.

[shiv]

I wonder it it would be possible to inject Tritium into the center of the Pu ball if the construction is such.

Well all my public source refs (Wiki and family) speak of Tritium injection for US designs.

[Gagan]

Gagan - the "rectification of design" of TN has not appeared from any official source. It may have been an ishara on this forum with no public source to back up that claim. We know nothing of the actual design of the TN test device. Nothing has been made public. The "rectified now" IIRC was a comment on this forum.

The official source still maintains that S1 was a triumphant success, so where is the question of rectification hain ji?
But I see further hope in RC's statement that research has gone on.

Well all my public source refs (Wiki and family) speak of Tritium injection for US designs.

It seems sensible to keep that Tritium in a cannister which soldiers with minimum technical training can replace while servicing the device from the outside, without any 'cher chaar' into the core of the weapon. The green peace design shows a different config.

[shiv]

Santhanam is on record as saying that India has proven and reliable 20-30 kt warheads.

Those must be the only field proven and deployed weapons India has.

Well they have not been "field tested", and the comment assumes that Santhanam's words are the only reliable and credible words that we must go by.

Recall that Pokhran 1974 was 8 to 12 kt depending on whom you believe

The fission test of 1998 (S2 ) was 15 kt (as per BARC) and 25 kt as per Santhanam

[Gagan]

The British TN from Green peace's website.


My rendition of the British TN from the Greenpeace's design.

[shiv]

The official source still maintains that S1 was a triumphant success, so where is the question of rectification hain ji?

If I remove the emotion and hints of cheating from the S1 (TN) question there remains the possibility that India tested a 15 kt primary that yielded 5 to 15 kt fusion - which is very good.

If you believe what PKI said - he suggested 20 kt fusion and only 10% "burn". But still it means that it was 25 kt fission plus 20 kt fusion which again is extremely good.

From my reading it appears to me that a particular design (call it design RC) of nuke was tested as S1. It was possibly tested to see how much fusion it would yield. It yielded some fusion. That some fusion translate into some number (say X) of neutrons. That could mean that design RC is good enough to produce X neutrons. It will not produce multiples of X neutrons. X neutrons should be enough to fission Y amount of tamper to produce up to 200 kt yield.

However X neutrons is not sufficient to produce 500 kt or 1 megaton. For that a new design (designPKI/KS) needs to be tested.

[arnab]

Gagan - the "rectification of design" of TN has not appeared from any official source. It may have been an ishara on this forum with no public source to back up that claim. We know nothing of the actual design of the TN test device. Nothing has been made public. The "rectified now" IIRC was a comment on this forum.

The official source still maintains that S1 was a triumphant success, so where is the question of rectification hain ji?
But I see further hope in RC's statement that research has gone on.

Well all my public source refs (Wiki and family) speak of Tritium injection for US designs.

It seems sensible to keep that Tritium in a cannister which soldiers with minimum technical training can replace while servicing the device from the outside, without any 'cher chaar' into the core of the weapon. The green peace design shows a different config.

Sorry - but why is so much being read into 'rectification'? I'm sure the ford model T was a triumphant success in its time - so does that mean no improvements ought to be considered (even theoretical / simulated ones?)

[Gagan]

Yes I was wondering why RC would stop at the 200 figure. He stopped at 200 11 years ago too.
This explanation was what occurred to me too. The trick lies in some good engineering and maths.

If you look at the primary as just a light source (just like a bulb) because for a successful TN it is only the EM waves that the primary produces that are needed, not the shock wave.
Now you have to have the Bulb at the focal point of a reflector 'mirror' which will direct its x rays and neutrons to a certain point depending on the curvature of the mirror. The LiD has to be at that certain point to start fusing when bombarded by the X-rays, Fast neutrons from the spark plug. The plasma also plays a role.

The theory seems simple engineering and lots of maths only. I believe that the main constraint to N weapons and TN weapons are the materials in the required quantities and purity. Once that is acquired, almost any reasonable nuclear physicist can fabricate a successful bomb.

[shiv]

The theory seems simple engineering and lots of maths only. I believe that the main constraint to N weapons and TN weapons are the materials in the required quantities and purity. Once that is acquired, almost any reasonable nuclear physicist can fabricate a successful bomb.

Yes but you need to hot test different designs to play with yields, size and weight.

And the "freezing" at 200 kt may well indicate that this particular design can go that far and no further.

[vina]

5) As regards Tritium it is an "either-or" situation with Plutonium. That means that in order to create Tritium in you reactor you have to stop creating Plutonium.

I am not sure this is really true. As far as India is concerned, that is really not connected at all. There are reports of "a tritium breakthrough", papers published from BARC on how that is so. Evidently, since we use natural uranium, heavy water moderator in our reactors, tritium collects in the heavy water as a pollutant. BARC came up with some osmosis /membrane type separation system called "De-Tritiation" (surely that is Yindian Inglees, if there is a word for it) , and voila , you get huge huge amounts of tritium, safety concerns taken care off and reactors run more efficiently giving more Pu all in one shot. One shot killing multiple birds onree. , and that think keeps cranking out Tritium and Pu all the while!

Unkil meanwhile has I think specialized mutli-gazillion billion dollar facilities, where they have particle accelerators bombarding stuff like Lithium etc to actually make Tritium.. It is rumored that Unkil's tritium stockpile is a couple of 100 gms max.

[Gagan]

And the "freezing" at 200 kt may well indicate that this particular design can go that far and no further.

Exactly.
And yet we have 200-500 mentioned by Adm Arun Prakash and MT mentioned by Gen Malik and sandeep unnithan (Arihant packs a megaton punch) already deployed.

This is the rectified design / Mark-2 TN, deployed without testing.

[shiv]

Sorry - but why is so much being read into 'rectification'? I'm sure the ford model T was a triumphant success in its time - so does that mean no improvements ought to be considered (even theoretical / simulated ones?)

The way I see the "rectification" point is as follows.

What actually happened on May 11 1998 was that the particular S1 design produced some fusion - enough for scaling up to 200 kt. That design has now been tested. Once

But if the design is changed to try and get 500 kt or 1 megaton - it will be a "rectified design" - ie a new design that has not been tested and testing is unlikely.

So there is no question of "rectification". Whatever is rectified has not been tested. What has been tested has been tested at least once and is known to work up to a point. It may not work that way if it is "rectified"

[Gagan]

And the "freezing" at 200 kt may well indicate that this particular design can go that far and no further.

Also the US NPAs were talking about India having the requisite computing power to 'enhance' its weapons.
Perhaps they are referring to the fact that computing power can now enable a more efficient design, once the basics have been worked out.

[Gagan]

There has to be a fine line between making the most efficient TN and putting in more fissile material to give a less efficient though of a similar yield weapon.

Only two nations, the US and Russia have gone to those levels because of the sheer number of tests they did along with computing power at their disposal, where they have approached the limits to which efficiency could be achieved out of a particular design.

The rest have all tried to achieve larger bangs by less efficient, dirtier designs by putting in more maal.

[rakall]

And the "freezing" at 200 kt may well indicate that this particular design can go that far and no further.

Exactly.
And yet we have 200-500 mentioned by Adm Arun Prakash and MT mentioned by Gen Malik and sandeep unnithan (Arihant packs a megaton punch) already deployed.

This is the rectified design / Mark-2 TN, deployed without testing.

Why cant we call it "improved design" instead of 'rectified design' !!!

For ex: 1974device was successul - yet we have S2 which was based on the same device & better.. S2 was an 'improved' design based on 1974device.. not 'rectified'..

[Sanku]

So there is no question of "rectification". Whatever is rectified has not been tested. What has been tested has been tested at least once and is known to work up to a point. It may not work that way if it is "rectified"

Nit pick strictly speaking, what has been tested is known to work ONLY till the point it was tested IFF it worked as expected. (For example if 20% burn was expected and 10% obtained, we can not say that since "something" burned we know how to scale it)

In that sense both the rectified design (same design with scaling) and the improved design (a derivative design) would have the same amount of confidence roughly.

Of course a totally new design would produce even less confidence.

All this assumes that of course that S1 worked fully as expected (not something worked) -- till then this discussion is academic.

[shiv]

Nit pick strictly speaking, what has been tested is known to work ONLY till the point it was tested IFF it worked as expected..

How do you go about resolving whether K Santhanam is right in saying that it did not work as expected, or R..Chidambaram is right in saying that it did work as expected without calling one or the other a liar?

[amit]

Nit pick strictly speaking, what has been tested is known to work ONLY till the point it was tested IFF it worked as expected..

How do you go about resolving whether K Santhanam is right in saying that it did not work as expected, or R..Chidambaram is right in saying that it did work as expected without calling one or the other a liar?

That Shiv ji,

Is the crux of the problem for which there has been no satisfactory answer. Indeed, why should one believe one over the other?

Those who believe in KS should give a satisfactory reason why his claims, coming 11 years after the event should be viewed as gospel truth and the views of RC and others should be viewed with suspicion.

To use NPA terminology why should we believe one side is indulging in "shitty science" while the other is not?

[amit]

And yet we have 200-500 mentioned by Adm Arun Prakash and MT mentioned by Gen Malik and sandeep unnithan (Arihant packs a megaton punch) already deployed.

Just for record, the former CNS and former COAS have been held up as examples of former armed forces types who do not have faith in the Indian nuclear programme. Yet they tout numbers (yields) which the scientists themselves don't utter? Something gives, nah? (I mean in terms of holding them up as examples of folks who believe that BARC indulged in "shitty science" in 1998).

[Tanaji]

Purely innocent question from one who does not know:

If measuring yield is indeed so difficult with error bars of magnitude 100 or 1000 being considered acceptable (as Amber G said), how do other nations quantify their yields? Supposedly the W-88 are variable yield warheads, so someone must have quantified this somehow. How was that done?

On a related note, if yield determination is so difficult, how is the output controlled in a nuclear reactor? My childish understanding is output is controlled by graphite rods or other moderators that control how many neutrons are available for the chain reaction. But if output is indeterminate, how do they know how much moderator is required?

[Sanku]

Nit pick strictly speaking, what has been tested is known to work ONLY till the point it was tested IFF it worked as expected..

How do you go about resolving whether K Santhanam is right in saying that it did not work as expected, or R..Chidambaram is right in saying that it did work as expected without calling one or the other a liar?

Looking at the publicly available data I can personally make a judgment call about the veracity and correctness of various statements and favor one vs the other, but yes, there would be no proof which will hold up in a court of law if I am taken there.

Also I would not be falling in the trap of calling names (liar etc) and hence letting the debate go into areas of personal discussion such that the import of the actual statements is diluted.

I will at this point of time be content to only say that there is no "proof" that the TN weapon exists by far its not even clear whether its was only a device test (a PNE) and if that worked. And for a declared nuclear power, the burden of proof lies on the one making the declaration in the first place.

In my book the status of TN and the test is exactly the same as that for Fission before 1998. So we are halfway out of the closet but not quite.

[Sanku]

And yet we have 200-500 mentioned by Adm Arun Prakash and MT mentioned by Gen Malik and sandeep unnithan (Arihant packs a megaton punch) already deployed.

Just for record, the former CNS and former COAS have been held up as examples of former armed forces types who do not have faith in the Indian nuclear programme. Yet they tout numbers (yields) which the scientists themselves don't utter? Something gives, nah? (I mean in terms of holding them up as examples of folks who believe that BARC indulged in "shitty science" in 1998).

Whats so difficult to talk about lack of confidence in deployed devices?

Gen Sundarji had similar philosophical doubts in terms of Indian position and capability after the PNE.

[Sanku]

Purely innocent answer from one who knows little and seeks to find out more through discussion.

If measuring yield is indeed so difficult with error bars of magnitude 100 or 1000 being considered acceptable (as Amber G said), how do other nations quantify their yields? Supposedly the W-88 are variable yield warheads, so someone must have quantified this somehow. How was that done?

Tests, tests, and more tests followed by LIF and other such establishment (Bing for Lawrence livermore center their home page has a detailed answer to this question)

Ramana also posted a google book on the yield measurement question.

Finally from a engineering POV, it is achieved by what is called as margin of error. If you want to use a weapon which has a very high probability of giving you 200 KT (say) one is designed for 250 and taken to be actually 200 in use.

On a related note, if yield determination is so difficult, how is the output controlled in a nuclear reactor? My childish understanding is output is controlled by graphite rods or other moderators that control how many neutrons are available for the chain reaction. But if output is indeterminate, how do they know how much moderator is required?

I will attempt to guess the answer, the yield determination for a reactor is different from one in the weapon. For one a reactor is all fission device which as we have discussed is a much better understood phenomena.

Secondly a part of difficulty in measuring yeild for a weapon is because it is tested underground, if it was tested in the open, it would be easier. A nuclear reactor is essentially very small reactions in the open (a completely controlled environment) the environmental control also makes it easier to monitor the actual reaction in real time (neutron counters etc) and thus provide accurate feedback.

[amit]

Whats so difficult to talk about lack of confidence in deployed devices?

The answer lies with these two fine gentlemen. But...

Lack of confidence in what?

500 KT (in the case of the CNS)? Or 1MT (in the case of the COAS)?

Or are you saying a lack of confidence in the 45kt TN and the entire "PNE" (your quote) in terms of deliverable weapons that happened in 1998?

I mean how can you have a lack of confidence in the POK2 TN device - or the 200kt, that RC claimed - and yet talk about bigger bombs even if you had a lack of confidence in the ability of the bigger bombs about which BRAC has made no public statements?

I would think if these two gentlemen had a lack of confidence in the 45kt of POK2 they wouldn't even be uttering words like 500kt or 1 MT?

Doesn't sound logical does it - these are very capable people who rose to the absolute top of their professions and they wouldn't be shooting their mouths off without being sure?

[Sanku]

Whats so difficult to talk about lack of confidence in deployed devices?

The answer lies with these two fine gentlemen. But...

I mean how can you have a lack of confidence in the POK2 TN device - or the 200kt, that RC claimed - and yet talk about bigger bombs even if you had a lack of confidence in the ability of the bigger bombs about which BRAC has made no public statements?

You forget, in terms of credibility our understanding is

fission > FBF >> TN

The COAS talk of different yields, they rarely talk of the nature of device, so for 200 KT
FBF >> TN

and that is the answer to the confusion.

However the questions on
1) FBF credibility
2) Efficiency w.r.t. TN

are open questions too.

The main point in those articles in not simple yield anyway. It is that they are clearly saying that the structure of the Nuclear deterrent needs overhaul, we have not yet met the measures envisaged in the doctrine that was put together for CMD (which has then been watered down even further)

[amit]

You forget, in terms of credibility our understanding is

fission > FBF >> TN

The COAS talk of different yields, they rarely talk of the nature of device, so for 200 KT
FBF >> TN

OK granted.

However, it has also been discussed and there's general consensus, with Shiv pointing to a lot of literature, that going past 200kt through the FBF route is not feasible as there's a scaling problem. I think Arun_S even mentioned that 100kt is not possible.

The the question is, if we assume FBF is the only reasonable (in terms of confidence) route, where did these gentlemen get the 500kt and 1mt figures if they are not TNs? They did not talk about 200kt. They jumped pass that figure.

that is the answer to the confusion.

Indeed the confusion is very simple. IMVHO these two very capable gentlemen would not be publicly talking about half a megaton (in one case) and one megaton in the other if they had doubts about the viability of lower yields like 45kt TN and the scaled up version 200kt (TN).

Incidentally, RC's 200kt is supposed to be TN not a FBF. I think 200kt FBF is a BRF speculation, there is no public sources for that. (However, apologies in advance if I'm wrong on this one - would appreciate a source/link in that case).

It is that they are clearly saying that the structure of the Nuclear deterrent needs overhaul, we have not yet met the measures envisaged in the doctrine that was put together for CMD (which has then been watered down even further)

This is a totally different issue and should not be mixed into the question of the yield claims of POK2. We can muck up even after further tests where we develop huge mega tonnage bombs if our systems and processes fail and we lack political will. Different issue for a different thread.

[Sanku]

...

Ok I am lost whats the question again? Why is the reference to high KT weapons in the Chiefs statement not taken to mean that we have a credible deployed arsenal?

Is that it? Or something else?

Because if it is so -- the answer is already discussed many times which in summary is

Given that Chiefs themselves are saying that they go with what they are told and bemoaning their lack of insight into the system -- we can not take these references are cardinal. In fact the chiefs themselves seem to be saying that they are confused and not sure what is what because of all the muck, hence in such a scenario one or two throw away statements are not very strong indications of what is.

Couple the lack of strength of chiefs statement on yield with the other existing technical discussion (difficulty of scaling and what not).

(So the two HAVE to seen together cant be separated)

The net answer is that we may have something but it is such a mess that no one really can say what it is including the chiefs. That is why NSA chose is words very carefully -- that was a give away -- he was sure we would deliver something as deterrence.

No major power or even a power with pretensions of being big makes that sort of statements.

Mostly the world has been working quite nicely on the concept of tit for tat, and making it clear that it was going to follow that approach.

------------------------------------

As an aside IFF the test had worked, the GoI and all its arms would not be waffling on the capability with all sorts of numbers up in the air.

If this is the Indian way, this is a brand new method, waffling as a tactic to deterrence despite having the capablity. I hope to god we are substantially so ahead of the rest of the world in mind games that the above works.