Bharat Rakshak

Shiv ji: You cannot really go by hospital beds in peace time and say this is enough to overwhelm and "destroy" a large state. Destruction is incapacitation. At war time, all types of preventive measures are in place, Triage would be undertaken to prioritize, war time field hospitals, civil defense and emergency response systems will be in place. Even 20 KT will create havoc no doubt. The question here is what will it take to incapacitate a state. A state with impending nuclear war and the will to fight it out can do a lot more with preparation, blood and sweat.

3 feet underground, and you have built adequate protection for yourself. Not 100% but adequate. Can be done for $2500-$10,000 for a family of 4. Enough warning time is possible for most missile flights. The folks who have most invested in nuclear war have also invested the most in civil defense systems to "survive" nuclear war. My simple point, it is not a simple binary on a simple metric like hospital beds. To incapacitate large states it takes a lot and that is what the war planners of yesteryears were gaming on, leading to over 60,000+ war heads, ready to be unleashed. In today's time, you bet, there will be an app for folks to download and tell them what to do, where to go, etc with idiot proof directions.

shiv wrote:
I think too many people underestimate (or simply do not know/have not read) what happens to a city if 100,000 die suddenly leaving 200,000 with burns.

Right, like the war planners of yesteryears. They simple did not realize this aspect. When we play nuclear war, it is a game of the insane. A game where the count is based on millions and then to calculate, who come out on top. If one is not willing to play this game, then best to accept defeat for you cannot win this game based on 20 KT bombs, especially against large states.

sudeepj wrote:1. A casualty model that ignores thermal radiation and takes only blast effects into account will not be accurate.

Read the links and then pass judgement on the casualty model. The idea that thermal injuries have not been taken into account is an assumption you are making. Since you do bother to read unlike many others - I will not argue - I will simply ask you to do your reading

ShauryaT wrote:

shiv wrote:
I think too many people underestimate (or simply do not know/have not read) what happens to a city if 100,000 die suddenly leaving 200,000 with burns.

Right, like the war planners of yesteryears. They simple did not realize this aspect. When we play nuclear war, it is a game of the insane. A game where the count is based on millions and then to calculate, who come out on top. If one is not willing to play this game, then best to accept defeat for you cannot win this game based on 20 KT bombs, especially against large states.

Shaurya - just ask yourself what will happen to the US (not NoKo) if NoKo takes out 20 US cities with one 20 kiloton bomb on each.

We hear too much about what the US will do and who will prevail, or how NoKo cannot do that. That is not the question.

But what will happen in the US to those 20 cities? Include the 20 largest US economic centers in that

The answer is neither "civilizational collapse" nor "no sweat".

^Any nuclear attack of any yield will collapse the "normal" functioning of that location for an X period of time. There is no doubt in this.

ShauryaT wrote:Shiv ji: You cannot really go by hospital beds in peace time and say this is enough to overwhelm and "destroy" a large state. Destruction is incapacitation

Shaurya. You are jumping the gun. No one is talking about the whole state.

ONE 20 kt bomb on one city will incapacitate that city - even if it is LA or New York

Imagine 20 such bombs on 20 cities.

ShauryaT wrote:^Any nuclear attack of any yield will collapse the "normal" functioning of that location for an X period of time. There is no doubt in this.

This is what deterrence is based on. If normal functioning of a nation state can be disrupted for several years or decades by means of say 100 nuclear bombs on 100 different cities, that state is never going to be a "winner"

Even after world war 2 - other than the US there were no winners. The colonial powers Britain and France lost all their clout and were deep in debt despite being "victors"

The US will never win a war after getting 100 cities nuked by small or big nukes. Neither is China. Greatness of big powers is in understanding what can hurt them and what they need to do to not get hurt in the first place. Deterrence is that game.

TSPians being well versed in the ways of the dark side, will not start with delhi,mumbai,blr BUT end with it.

they will start with tactical nukes on smaller military targets first - jabalpur, chandigarh cantt, jaisalmer, pathankot
then on to industrial target cities - jamnagar, large power plants, mathura refinery , ludhiana, ...
then finally large cities

the aim at each level of the ladder is to STRIKE FIRST and then wail loudly enough to have the "world community" aka UK,USA,China,desi MSM lean hard on india to conduct a token retaliatory credible minimum apologetic strike or better yet, display statesmanship by not retaliating and signing a ceasefire deal that freezes the status quo and lets them get away unscathed from the fight.

in that sense its a moot point and total defeat we are already arguing here over whether or not we can survive a few 20KT strikes, sure we probably can....but our entire doctrine of deterrence as proposed breaks down if a massive country wiping retaliation is not ordered right after the 1st nuke explodes on our heads.

Singha wrote:.but our entire doctrine of deterrence as proposed breaks down if a massive country wiping retaliation is not ordered right after the 1st nuke explodes on our heads.

There is a logical fallacy here. Deterrence breaks down the minute Pakis launch a nuke at us - not after we fail to retaliate.

Deterrence is about preventing that first strike. Not the response or failure of response.

People have argued that Chinese will not be deterred by our 20kt fizzles. I am asking "Why not?" Are they stupid?

for the Pakis, I am sure a section of them are willing to take their chances lobbing a few tactical nukes on battlefield targets and then hide behind sponsors

they know past track record of delhi in caving in under external pressure

Singha wrote:TSPians being well versed in the ways of the dark side, will not start with delhi,mumbai,blr BUT end with it.

they will start with tactical nukes on smaller military targets first - jabalpur, chandigarh cantt, jaisalmer, pathankot
then on to industrial target cities - jamnagar, large power plants, mathura refinery , ludhiana, ...
then finally large cities

the aim at each level of the ladder is to STRIKE FIRST and then wail loudly enough to have the "world community" aka UK,USA,China,desi MSM lean hard on india to conduct a token retaliatory credible minimum apologetic strike or better yet, display statesmanship by not retaliating and signing a ceasefire deal that freezes the status quo and lets them get away unscathed from the fight.

in that sense its a moot point and total defeat we are already arguing here over whether or not we can survive a few 20KT strikes, sure we probably can....but our entire doctrine of deterrence as proposed breaks down if a massive country wiping retaliation is not ordered right after the 1st nuke explodes on our heads.

Boss ..I would take it a bit further . .. finish off Pakistan even before a nuclear missile enters Indian airspace .. a published doctrine and a deployed capacity for full out strike .. no full stops. That" state "must be wiped off clean.

Pakistan: Test of Submarine Launched Cruise Missile - Brigadier Kuldip Singh (retd)

While it is not fully con rmed whether Pakistan has modi ed the Agosta 90B for the Babur-3 cruise missile launch, the fact remains that Pakistan will de nitely have a sea-based nuclear weapons capability after the receipt of the rst lot of the contracted conventional submarines (eight) from China, if not much earlier.

Singha wrote: the aim at each level of the ladder is to STRIKE FIRST and then wail loudly enough to have the "world community" aka UK,USA,China,desi MSM lean hard on india to conduct a token retaliatory credible minimum apologetic strike or better yet, display statesmanship by not retaliating and signing a ceasefire deal that freezes the status quo and lets them get away unscathed from the fight.

.

This is where sounding like a crazy man helps.

Let the "world community" be informed that if Pakis nuke us, all bets are off & we will be crazy enough to fire our nukes at any of the "world community" capitals. So it is better for the world community to spend effort to prevent a Paki nuke attack than lecture us after.

In reality, I see action by US & Russia to denuke India & Pak either on confirmation of Pak nuke movement or post Paki nuke attack.

They don't care about problems of sub-continent and they don't want a radio active cloud around.

That is the Israeli Sampson approach. I think it would be prudent to proceed on that assumption. All do. 10 000 warheads are not necessary to destroy Russia but they are handy to sterilise the planet.

India should let it publicly be known that 90% of their megatonqge is targeted at the Chinese seaboard between Hong Kong and Beijing in case Pakistan develops worsening Islamic fantasies. China can either shi t bricks or take back their stuff.

The fact that India is invested in ABM defence only makes sense if they full well plan to take out Pakistan before the islami bukhaar rises further. They ABM is for mopping up operations.

Nukes are for core deterrence
- To prevent nuke attack by assured retaliation
Expanded deterrence
- To prevent chemical and biological attacks

Assured massive retaliation.
No escalatory ladder.
Above is Indian doctrine.
Minimum qty to deter maximum.
Strategic triad to assure retaliation.
ABM etc to reduce incoming damage.

Ramana Garu, this is all well but it needs a mention about dirty bombs by non state actors will also invite MR to country they operate out of

ABM etc to reduce incoming damage.


Yes I believe so, by definition. The question is of efficacy, if it is 100% effective, there can never be a nuclear attack. If it is 10% effective one needs to destroy 90% warheads by other means and then only one warhead will get through, out of one hundred potentially deliverable warheads.

So ABMs need to be defined in terms of parameters of Pk and context. Paradoxically they are not defensive systems, they in fact are aggressively destabilising.

Singha wrote:for the Pakis, I am sure a section of them are willing to take their chances lobbing a few tactical nukes on battlefield targets and then hide behind sponsors

they know past track record of delhi in caving in under external pressure

Technically this would be "post deterrence calculations" not deterrence per se.

It means that a section of Pakis (as per this scenario) are thinking about how to break deterrence.

Deterrence can be said to be successful for India until the first nuke lands on India/Indian forces
Deterrence can be said to be successful for Pakistan until the first nuke lands on Pakis
Deterrence can be said to be successful for China until the first nuke lands on the Chinese

If any of these nations wants to "break" this state of being deterred - it means that they are not deterred any more - and that deterrence has failed.

The Indian nuclear doctrine is aimed at a response AFTER deterrence has failed. Deterrence by definition is a warning of consequences of what will happen after deterrence fails. So it is more than just exploding bombs. It is showing and intent and ability to hit back AFTER deterrence fails. That means a plan for the chain of command to survive, ABM ability if possible and second strike capability/strike capability after decapitating strike.

Another interesting paradox is that "If Delhi has a habit of caving in" then the survival of Delhi is an advantage. If Delhi is destroyed, then the people who cave in will also be destroyed leaving others who may not be so charitable. But I do see the statement Delhi caves in" a sort of self flagellation in the genre of "We Indians are useless." It is an attitude that not everyone wears.

krishna_krishna wrote:Ramana Garu, this is all well but it needs a mention about dirty bombs by non state actors will also invite MR to country they operate out of

Indian doctrine is not limited to state actors. But, realistically this is not a concern. Any such "dirty" attempt is a clean attempt only.

krishna_krishna wrote:Ramana Garu, this is all well but it needs a mention about dirty bombs by non state actors will also invite MR to country they operate out of

Non state actors is NPA fiction to provide plausible deniability to Islamist jihadis.

All radioactive materials have isotope signatures.
A dirty bomb will invite retaliation on the states that harbor non state actors.

ultimately what matters for us is the health and safety of india, whether thats covered under deterrence or post-deterrence is only material to if someone wants to talk only about one part of it in this thread.

I suggest we cover all bases including JDAM and not be hung up on what belongs in which bucket. the enemy sure wont be splitting semantic hairs but counting how much buckets of indian blood they can extract.

Singha wrote:ultimately what matters for us is the health and safety of india, whether thats covered under deterrence or post-deterrence is only material to if someone wants to talk only about one part of it in this thread.

I suggest we cover all bases including JDAM and not be hung up on what belongs in which bucket. the enemy sure wont be splitting semantic hairs but counting how much buckets of indian blood they can extract.

It helps to be clear about what one is talking about.

When people speak of an Indian pre-emptive strike on Pakistan, it means that we are not deterred by Pakistan and are willing to hit them. Until we actually hit them, Pakistani deterrence is working. Would the health and safety of India be made better or worse by targeting Pakistan with a pre emptive strike?

Let us say Pakistan understands this and will therefore use every means to survive or avoid an Indian pre emptive strike. One method could be a threat of striking us first, or by hiding nukes in deep underground tunnels, or both. Is Pakistan doing that? If you ask my opinion, yes they are doing exactly that.

We have two choices. One is to say "Yes, we are deterred" and sit back. The other is to be ready to overwhelm anything Pakistan throws at us and still get hit by very few, or no nukes and be as minimally affected by the fallout of our own nukes as possible. To my mind this involves ABMs, and massive counterforce retaliation followed by counter value only if the fighting does not end.

In my own analysis India's subkiloton nukes using reactor fuel are of no use unless they can be used for taking out deep underground nuclear bunkers with pinpoint strikes. So there must be an unstated counterforce doctrine in place and despite denials - a clear "escalatory ladder". Just my views.

Would "jihadis" without the support of a nation state with reactors, engineering, nuclear chemistry, metallurgy and physics be able to make what is in the image below? In my opinion any Pakistani nuke is a JDAM and not he American mythology of truck driven across border.

Enlarge the image and look at that sphere. It is beautiful - with hexagon/pentagon petals (possibly Aluminium) of what appears to be a Plutonium implosion device. Nothing low tech there.

ramana wrote:Nukes are for core deterrence
- To prevent nuke attack by assured retaliation
Expanded deterrence
- To prevent chemical and biological attacks
...

Interesting wording, I would have preffered assured and complete destruction.

abhik wrote:

ramana wrote:Nukes are for core deterrence
- To prevent nuke attack by assured retaliation
Expanded deterrence
- To prevent chemical and biological attacks
...

Interesting wording, I would have preffered assured and complete destrustion.

ramana does not write long posts. But, what he does write are worded carefully and conveys some very well thought out and read views.

Our doctrine does not say complete, and what does complete mean anyway?

abhik wrote: Interesting wording, I would have preffered assured and complete destruction.

I see too many people who speak of "complete destruction".

I see this as a hangover from early cold war American rhetoric and myths about nuclear weapons that were peddled in the 1950s and 60s which became popular culture in America and seeped into the Indian psyche along with all things American - like jeans and Woodstock. That myth itself came from world war 2 bombing raids that were expected to bomb Germany out of existence.We all know how far that went

1. Under normal circumstances "total destruction" of a country the size of Pakistan is not possible even with nuclear weapons
2. The number of weapons needed to destroy Pakistan almost completely is out of reach of most nations currently - but they will actually destroy a large part of the world if not the whole world from fallout, starting from Pakistan's neighbours

Our adversaries who make and wield weapons will dismiss words like "complete destruction" for these reasons and will not get deterred by mythological rhetoric.

I believe that we need to disabuse ourselves of this fancy cold war delusion and move forward 70 years in our thinking.

^Shiv ji: There are some/many who are looking at nuclear weapons as a mechanism to make Pakistan and if they can the entire muslim region disappear. It is like me cursing "God" on why in the world did he have to give oil of all people to the Arabs. God must hate the Hindus to do so? Both these paradigms conveys defeatist logic and unwillingness to work with the issues at hand. Our civilizational ethos neither sought unwanted destruction nor sought for us as some "chosen" peoples or lands. We are a result of our "works" is the message of our teachings. I sometimes wonder, from where do these flights of fantasy come from? Ignorance?

Assured retaliation with nukes means complete destruction as nukes have a degree of destruction way beyond conventional explosives.

ShauryaT wrote:^Shiv ji: There are some/many who are looking at nuclear weapons as a mechanism to make Pakistan and if they can the entire muslim region disappear. It is like me cursing "God" on why in the world did he have to give oil of all people to the Arabs. God must hate the Hindus to do so? Both these paradigms conveys defeatist logic and unwillingness to work with the issues at hand. Our civilizational ethos neither sought unwanted destruction nor sought for us as some "chosen" peoples or lands. We are a result of our "works" is the message of our teachings. I sometimes wonder, from where do these flights of fantasy come from? Ignorance?

Don't want to argue over the semantics of complete destruction - but the surface area of Pakistan is too large to destroy everything if "complete destruction" means "killing everyone".

The little information there is about the effects of nuclear weapons on population centers suggests 90% deaths only in a central zone, maybe 30-50% in an outer zone and even less beyond that. Again these zones correspond to "complete destruction of all structures" in the central zone, severe damage in the next zone and moderate damage outside that. A nuclear explosion is a fireball where over 50% of the ball goes up into the air. Even intense heat follows the inverse square law and gets weaker as one gets further. Fires on the ground and local freak storms after that will throw up even more radioactive material in the air. Any attempt to "kill everyone" will only result in more and more radioactive fallout that will float along with the weather.

I have been trying to find out how long disasters shut down cities as a pointer to what will happen if 4 square miles of a city is nuked killing 100,000

After 9-11 - it appears like normal life over most of New York was paralysed from 2-10 days depending on what one considers "normal"
Mumbai was out for at least 4-5 days after 26/11

The effect of Hurricane Katrina and floods in Chennai are probably more relevant pointers to what would happen after a "small" nuclear strike on one city.

The effects of city bombing on WW2 are not exactly comparable because the destruction was relatively slow and relentless giving time for people to migrate out or take shelter. The firebomb raid on Hamburg over 8 days was somewhat like a nuke attack. Wiki quotes Alber Speer as saying this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_o ... rld_War_II

"It was quite a surprise to us when the first Hamburg raid took place because you used some new device which was preventing the anti-aircraft guns to find your bombers, so you had a great success and you repeated these attacks on Hamburg several times and each time the new success was greater and the depression was larger, and I have said, in those days, in a meeting of the Air Ministry, that if you would repeat this success on four or five other German towns, then we would collapse." – Albert Speer – The Secret War

Info on height of nuke burst and reasons..
Posting for reference and grisly interest..
http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2012/08/ ... -the-bomb/

Below is such a charming pdf that this guy must have been some relative of mine in a past life
http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/wp-conte ... Gadget.pdf

He deals at length with the burst height for bombs to cause maximum damage and then goes on to say that in a nuclear blast - if all the firefighters of a town are enticed to enter the radioactive zone - a follow-up attack should finish them off also. Lovely. Lovely. This is what the UK and US were doing while ahimsa was being preached in India

During WW2 the first wave of bombers dropped HE to cause facade walls to collapse and expose interiors. They also dropped ordnance to cause cratering of roads and cracking of water mains to impede firefighting. Other waves then dropped incindiary and more HE to set interiors alight and kill the first responders.

It is instructive that the largest weapons deployed by the British are the 100 KT Trident missile warheads. Five or six of these striking a city will maximize damage and paralysis of responders. BK's MT fetish is best ignored.

Another view

I wonder if they will use that window to shove a 10 cm Pu ball inside?

shiv, HOB is also to develop the full fireball. And is higher for higher yield weapons.
And HOB is dependent on target.
Lower to get hardened targets. Higher for flimsy targets.
And to get the right HOB is an exacting science.

Gerard, UK has plans to up them.

Gerard wrote:It is instructive that the largest weapons deployed by the British are the 100 KT Trident missile warheads. Five or six of these striking a city will maximize damage and paralysis of responders. BK's MT fetish is best ignored.

Perfect. Once India signs on to a defense treaty with the US, we can then standardize 100KT 5-6 on a missile to be dropped on a city causing "sufficient" damage and no more, for we are kind only. Heck at that time, we can even disband the arsenal and be like Japan as our previous PM wished for. Unfortunately (for some) that is not likely and at least till then (till US, Russia and China have this MT fetish) we will have to keep this MT fetish going.

ramana wrote:shiv, HOB is also to develop the full fireball. And is higher for higher yield weapons.
And HOB is dependent on target.
Lower to get hardened targets. Higher for flimsy targets.
And to get the right HOB is an exacting science.

You mean "Height of Blast" by HOB.

Yes in fact that paper says exactly that - where "total destruction" is called "damage A" - with lower level blast and moderate destruction is called "damage B". Funny names.

I am guessing that it is both science and guesswork. Guesswork because the exact status of the constructions in the area cannot be predicted and only general considerations about whether structures are RCC or sheds or slums.

But the science part is fascinating and the only reason why I looked into that is simply to illustrate that in any spherical blast - at least 50% of the energy is wasted into the atmosphere. The height of blast is relevant only to the 50% that heads towards the ground and even here only about 60-70% of that energy is effective. But all 100% of the blast is relevant to fallout

ShauryaT wrote:(till US, Russia and China have this MT fetish)

Shaurya other than Karnad whose word I do not trust on this - have you any sources that point to a megaton fetish? Because all the newer references I read suggest that what you term a megaton fetish is gone and the world has moved on. The US openly speaks of newer weapons of lower yield with the remaining megaton weapons being the oldest weapons and oldest designs waiting for end of life. Russia and China are opaque but China tested very few megaton weapons - maybe just one of 4 megatons in the 60s or 70s. Then in the 90s when China and France tested again China just did tests which were in the 90-100 kt range. France to did not do any "megaton validation"

The US will retain some megaton capability but calling it a fetish is rhetoric aimed at convincing the reader that you have facts that he should swallow unverified. I need to see something better than that.

I repeat yet again that the world has actually moved into a "post MAD" era. MAD or mutually assured destruction worked only because everyone in the game understood that fallout would ensure that you die along with your enemy. What is happening now is an emphasis on accurate lower yield weapons that ensure pinpoint, painful damage and less fallout. This is where the world is headed and I stick my neck out on this and am willing to take on any "strategic experts" of the Karnad ilk on this issue.

Source: https://www-ee.stanford.edu/~hellman/st ... dout02.pdf

Unfortunately whether we test or not can only be discussed on "deterrence" thread. So naturally anyone arguing for test can be condemned - labled as Dhoti-shiverer.

Beyond Deterrence there is actually war where nuke bombs will be just like other bombs.

WHETHER YOU CAN SEND THE ENEMY IN PASHAN YUGA WHILE HE CANNOT DO THAT TO YOU MATTERS. MORE TESTING WHICH GIVES MORE WARHEADS IS NEEDED.

Safer warheads for submarine also need testing.