Long-term robustness of Soviet and Russian nuclear armaments

[james_s]

If I found myself in a position where I was expect6ed to lunch an atomic missile, I wouldnt do it.  I view warfare as best as some kind of mental illness.

You would very likely find yourself facing a firing squad, and someone else would launch the missile.

[BravoV]

So how credible are they given that issue?

If the source is from Western world, especially when it comes to adversaries weaponry information, take with a grain of salt.

Remember this ? ... 

[Bicurico]

I have zero information about nuclear weapons, apart from what I read on available documents online.

Putin said that he ordered to "prepare" nuclear weapons (or something similar). At the time I did not really understand what was meant by this. Now I imagine this:

Most nuclear weapons are probably not assembled.

I now believe this is because some components require maintenance and/or have an expiry date: as already mentioned here, Tritium has a half-life of 12 years. Plutonium has a half-life, which may reduce the available mass to less than critical, the foam used to produce the plasma may deteriorate, etc.

So my guess is that they have a maintained stock of components and materials, which gets updated, but the bomb itself is not fully assembled.

Only a few bombs will probably be ready to use and those require a more expensive maintenance. Probably they actually rotate them, so that end of expiry bombs are disassembled, it's permanent components go back to stock, while the worn out components get tossed away. The expired bomb is then replaced by a newly assembled.

I think such a maintenance plan would be cheaper. If required, many bombs could be assembled in a short period of time.

Also, since the goal of nuclear weapons is MAD (Mutual assured destruction), the bombs do not actually be in working order, except for a few.

[Cerebus]

So how credible are they given that issue?

If the source is from Western world, especially when it comes to adversaries weaponry information, take with a grain of salt.

Remember this ? ... 

The credentials of the "Bulletin" are as close to impeccable as you're likely to find. Look at some of their past contributors:

The founder and first editor of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was biophysicist Eugene Rabinowitch (1901–1973). He founded the magazine with physicist Hyman Goldsmith. Rabinowitch was a professor of botany and biophysics at the University of Illinois and was also a founding member of the Continuing Committee for the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs.[10] In addition to Rabinowitch and Goldsmith, contributors have included: Morton Grodzins, Hans Bethe, Anatoli Blagonravov, Max Born, Harrison Brown, Stuart Chase, Brock Chisholm, E.U. Condon, Albert Einstein, E.K. Fedorov, Bernard T. Feld, James Franck, Ralph E. Lapp, Richard S. Leghorn, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Lord Boyd Orr, Michael Polanyi, Louis Ridenour, Bertrand Russell, Nikolay Semyonov, Leó Szilárd, Edward Teller, A.V. Topchiev, Harold C. Urey, Paul Weiss, James L. Tuck, among many others.

I don't know about you, but I'd have a lot of confidence that an organ with J. Robert Oppenheimer ("father of the atomic bomb"),  Edward Teller ("father of the hydrogen bomb"), and Albert Einstein (if I have to give Einstein a pithy by-name there's no hope for you) as contributors knew what it was saying when it comes to nuclear weapons.

[cheater]

The credentials of the "Bulletin" are as close to impeccable as you're likely to find. Look at some of their past contributors:

So then why do they report a missile as announced as completed in 2022 where clearly, verifiably, there are reports of it being announced as completed in 2016?

[EEVblog]

The credentials of the "Bulletin" are as close to impeccable as you're likely to find. Look at some of their past contributors:

So then why do they report a missile as announced as completed in 2022 where clearly, verifiably, there are reports of it being announced as completed in 2016?

Because maybe the latest ones were delivered in 2022? Or the scheduled shipment order was completed then?
They'd have their reasons.

[Cerebus]

The credentials of the "Bulletin" are as close to impeccable as you're likely to find. Look at some of their past contributors:

So then why do they report a missile as announced as completed in 2022 where clearly, verifiably, there are reports of it being announced as completed in 2016?

Because maybe the latest ones were delivered in 2022? Or the scheduled shipment order was completed then?
They'd have their reasons.

Marketing said "It's delivered!" in 2016, the engineers said "Job's a good un!" in 2022. 

[EEVblog]

The credentials of the "Bulletin" are as close to impeccable as you're likely to find. Look at some of their past contributors:

So then why do they report a missile as announced as completed in 2022 where clearly, verifiably, there are reports of it being announced as completed in 2016?

Because maybe the latest ones were delivered in 2022? Or the scheduled shipment order was completed then?
They'd have their reasons.

Marketing said "It's delivered!" in 2016, the engineers said "Job's a good un!" in 2022. 

 
They probably have a standard for verification that was only met in 2022. Could be a host of reasons.

[Cerebus]

The credentials of the "Bulletin" are as close to impeccable as you're likely to find. Look at some of their past contributors:

So then why do they report a missile as announced as completed in 2022 where clearly, verifiably, there are reports of it being announced as completed in 2016?

You're fussing over the Bulletin reporting it as "deployed" in (2022) [<- note the brackets, that's exactly how they printed it, all other deployed figures aren't bracketed and the number deployed column is empty], whereas your source, USAtoday, report CNN reporting it as announced in 2016, and report two other sources reporting it tested in 2017 and 2018. "Announced" ≠ "Deployed". And we're not certain if it has even actually been deployed, and the brackets in the Bulletin report and absence of a number would support that they are being cautious about what they print.

I think you have generated a fuss about them (the Bulletin) being inaccurate without justification. In fact you just didn't read things carefully enough. Heck, even the USAToday article does not say that it was "announced as completed in 2016". Nowhere does it say "completed", just "announce[d]" and even goes on to quote a planned deployment date of "late 2022".

Based on our research, we rate MISSING CONTEXT the claim that Russia unveiled a nuclear missile called "Satan 2," because without additional information it may be misleading. The missile was first announced in 2016 – not recently, as the Facebook post makes it seem. The missile reportedly will not be in use until late 2022. None of the three images in the post show "Satan 2."

[cheater]

OK, yeah, that checks out, thanks for correcting me

[David Hess]

Putin said that he ordered to "prepare" nuclear weapons (or something similar). At the time I did not really understand what was meant by this.

Putin's statement was in the context of readying his nuclear forces, which does not have much meaning when nuclear forces exist at a higher state of readiness than conventional forces anyway.  It means command and control functions are manned instead of being on standby.  It had nothing to do with assembling bombs before they can be used.

[not1xor1]

If I found myself in a position where I was expect6ed to lunch an atomic missile, I wouldnt do it.  I view warfare as best as some kind of mental illness.

You would very likely find yourself facing a firing squad, and someone else would launch the missile.

It happened before. Those people deserve more credit. They are real heroes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Arkhipov

[serg-el]

https://goo.gl/maps/cHtQh1mcEZRMNXtx7

Nothing unusual. Just Topol-M in the local history museum. You can come and touch.

[Vovk_Z]

As a Ukrainian, I can add info about actual non-nuclear Russian rockets. I don't have an exact statistic about all types of their rockets (we are bombed by about 4? different types of large-range missiles) but a statistic I have seen says that more than 10% (10%-20%) of them have problems (I mean problems when rockets fail at the start or somewhere on a trip).

[EEVblog]

NOTE: I had to delete half a dozen recent posts because this thread got completely off track into politics. Please don't do it.

[Bicurico]

Another related question:

If there are around 14.000 nuclear warheads, how much plutonium, triterium and other highly unavailable materials were needed? Where did they come from? How much is produced by nuclear centrals producing electricity? Where goes the waste (the plutonium, titerium, etc. after the halflife decimated the required amount)?

I find the technical aspects of this very interesting and the new information I gathered (also from this thread), makes me wonder how stupid and unnecessary atomic weapons are for human kind.

Anyway, I hope this thread can produce technically interesting insights and any political debate is kept out of it.

[cdev]

as an American, I don't feel enough animosity to individual Russians to justify killing them. I see individual Russians as being so far removed from the halls of power and responsibility  its likely similar to the situation for us here, or even worse.  Peace, however is golden.

[T3sl4co1l]

One of the motivations for USSR's largely graphite-moderated fleet of reactors [likely] is plutonium production.

Wait, is that a thing?  I remember that being a thing but I don't actually remember the reason behind it.  Well, further reading then.

Pu239 is bred from U238, though I don't remember what spectrum of neutrons is required, and I don't recall offhand if graphite or water give different spectra.  In any case, fuel needs to be changed frequently, so that the Pu239 doesn't capture additional neutrons up to the dangerously more fissile Pu244 or so.  The heavier isotopes are generally considered unsuitable for bombs, due to the high spontaneous fission (SF) rate -- but I also recall reading that simulations have shown it's possible to make bombs including even heavier actinides e.g. americium, curium, so maybe it's more of a design issue than anything.

Tritium can be extracted from primary loop coolant, particularly of heavy water type reactors.

Plutonium doesn't decay very fast (by itself, when subcritical), so is fine to recycle (melt and recast) for quite a long time.  Once in a while it might have to be dissolved and reprocessed, separating lower elements and byproducts.  Chemical separation is relatively easy.  Over time, the neutron content increases I think (neutrons from SF and short decay chains being absorbed to Pu240, etc.), which may then need to be phased out for new material (since isotopic separation is extremely difficult).

Tim

[Cerebus]

The heavier isotopes are generally considered unsuitable for bombs, due to the high spontaneous fission (SF) rate -- but I also recall reading that simulations have shown it's possible to make bombs including even heavier actinides e.g. americium, curium, so maybe it's more of a design issue than anything.

The issue with isotopes with higher spontaneous fission rates as, or in, bomb materials is their tendency to set the explosion part off before the implosion part has reached the optimum point - predetonation. It's quite easy to forget that the whole explosive chain reaction in a supercritical mass can be set off by a single neutron from SF if it arrives before the deliberate injection of neutrons intended to initiate the weapon at the time of optimum fuel compression. Rather than waffle on, it's probably easier just to quote a chunk of the Nuclear Weapons FAQ about the effects of ²⁴⁰Pu impurities in weapons grade Pu by way of example:

The reason a relatively low concentration of Pu-240 is tolerable in weapon grade plutonium is due to the emission of neutrons through spontaneous fission. A high performance fission weapon is designed to initiate the fission reaction close to the maximum possible compression achievable by the implosion system, and predetonation must be avoided. The fastest achievable insertion rate is probably about 1 microsecond, it was 4.7 microseconds in Fat Man, and many designs will fall somewhere in the middle of this range.

We can calculate the spontaneous fission rate in a mass of plutonium with the following formula:

SF Rate (SF/kg-sec) = (%Pu-238)*1.3x10^4 + (%Pu-239)*1.01x10^-1 +
                      (%Pu-240)*4.52x10^3 + (%Pu-242)*8.1x10^3
For the 6.2 kg of plutonium (about 1% Pu-240) in Fat Man this is about 25,000 fissions/sec (or one every 40 microseconds). A weapon made with 4.5 kg of 6.5% Pu-240 weapon grade plutonium undergoes fission at a rate of 132,000 fission/sec (one every 7.6 microseconds). In an advanced design the window of vulnerability, in which a neutron injection will substantially reduce yield, might be as small as 0.5 microseconds, in this case weapon grade plutonium would produce only a 7% chance of substandard yield.

[T3sl4co1l]

Yeah, something about, if you don't mind suboptimal yields, the other materials can still be used.  Or I suppose, not just suboptimal, but a wide variance thereof.

Tim

[David Hess]

I found this while researching fizzle fission triggers.  It does not cover the subject of fission device design but it has some information.

The Physical Principles of Thermonuclear Explosive Devices - Friedwardt Winterberg

It confirmed to me why tritium is used as a neutron multiplier in boosted fission weapons despite its difficulties.

[DavidKo]

Russians are building the weapons with expectation that there will be poor maintenance. During the discussion about decreasing of amount of nuclear warheads there was an issue that Russian ICBMs had the target locations hard wired inside. Simple, quick and reliable - extremely dangerous if fired incidentally. Some modifications were officially done, but the information that was to it was somehow confusing.

During the storage of tactical warheads in Czech (and probably also in Poland, Hungry and NDR were such bunkers) they were stored in pressurized inert gas, in the temperature controlled environment and regularly checked. In case of the conflict (maybe that is the activation of the nuclear forces about which is Putin talking) the warheads had to be delivered and mounted to the rockets in different place. Now it is there a museum Javor 51. Several information about the USSR's ICBMs are in videos about missile silo in Ukraine.

As mentioned before, the most critical part of the nuclear weapons is the timing of the explosions of the multiple conventional explosives - instead of heated wire for initiation the evaporation of material with high current is used (that is the reason why Krytron exports are embargoed). Rest is not so much critical, since all other components can be redundant.  Yes it is important how high it will explode, but the precision of the ICBMs in the range of km is good enough (and not only for Australia  ).

My expectation is that the Russian ICBMs are build to hit the target with 10-100km precision and sending big amount of them should ensure that it will be hit, all of this in favor of reliability. I know that everyone shows how precise their technology is, but I do not expect that it can be extrapolated to the all rockets (even of the same time).

[LaserSteve]

Does any nation  still have a "lay-down"  delivery device on active inventory?  Those were most impressive, dropped from aircraft, they hit the ground with considerable horizontal  velocity before a delayed  detonation. There is  a drag parachute, but still impressive when you consider this was done with massive thermonuclear devices.

This is one of the test tracks at Sandia. Awe Inspiring:

https://youtu.be/T9xSrnotXxU

Check out one of their Spin Offs, the "Sandia Cooler" if you have time to check out the other videos.  More or Less EE related. Pun Intended.



Steve

[cheater]

A topical conversation just erupted on Twitter, and I think a bunch can be learned with regards to what this topic is about. There are photos of 70s-80s cruise missile PCBs and conversation about maintenance.

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1517437129038647296

[LaserSteve]

Looking at the pictures..

I'm not sure the old IMU module  and a relay decoder driver board are indicative of what the missile can do.   I do know my Dad was helping build TERCOM / DSMAC boards in 1986 that blow that out of the water in terms of size, power consumption,  and functionality. (one every five years open house plant tour)

There are what appear to be western world parts on that driver board as well.   The pinkish brown resistors look very familiar from the 80s. The Tantalum Caps are either western or a very good clone.

Perhaps this is just a good way to expend old stock and harass  from the Russian viewpoint.

Steve