Who has the most nukes?

[Milchshake]

A neat visualization of nuclear weapon stockpiles from a reddit user. Dunno if we are more or less safe since peak warhead at 1986.
The arms race.

[Super Friendly Kitty Cat]

I like pictures with words, especially when the image is too small and you can't read them.

[Slant]

I like pictures with words, especially when the image is too small and you can't read them.

Clicking dat link too complicated?

[The Casualty]

Dunno if we are more or less safe since peak warhead at 1986.

If somebody starts actually using them, it's not going to matter.

Neat graphic.

[May90]

I think, rather than counting the raw number of nukes, one should count the total energy released if all those nukes are used. Just like comparing the army sizes means nothing without considering those armies' training level, tech, etc.

[LiiLoSNK]

Who smokes the most cigarettes.

[Slant]

I think, rather than counting the raw number of nukes, one should count the total energy released if all those nukes are used. Just like comparing the army sizes means nothing without considering those armies' training level, tech, etc.

Considering that only a fraction of the nukes is enough to blanket the entire globe with nuclear radiation and fallout... do you think this thread is in any way relevant? Who cares about energy output... although I can dig your question from an academic point of view. :P

[May90]

Considering that only a fraction of the nukes is enough to blanket the entire globe with nuclear radiation and fallout... do you think this thread is in any way relevant? Who cares about energy output... although I can dig your question from an academic point of view. :P

That claim - about nuclear apocalypse - is very questionable, at best, and, as far as I know, no scientific researches have been made that have proven this hypothesis. So, likely, yes, it it relevant.

[Slant]

That claim - about nuclear apocalypse - is very questionable, at best, and, as far as I know, no scientific researches have been made that have proven this hypothesis. So, likely, yes, it it relevant.

Ok, show me! I am open... because I think, we could totally blast and radiate and dump in fallout the entire planet with at most half of the current nuclear arsenal. :P

[Gheld]

The "Nuclear Winter" hypothesis was proposed by Carl Sagan; non physicist, non climatologist. And it was debunked shortly after (torn to pieces and derided by the scientific community). But the media took it and ran with it. And back then there was no internet. So people didn't know any better.

But you can pretty much look up the whole thing now.

Yes, a nuclear war would fuck up a lot of shit. And kill a lot of people, but there would be swaths of area that are relatively safe. And there would be no winter. The dust being kicked up and blocking the sun part assumes ground detonations. However tactical nuclear weapons are detonated in the air because that is more effective.

All in all, it caused a lot of unnecessary fear and apprehension.

EDIT: Also as far as blanketing the entire earth with mushroom clouds, that's pretty lol too.

EDIT2: The blast radius of the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated (52 megatons, so ridiculously impractical such a device would never exist as an actual usable weapon) was about 1.43 miles

So that's an area of 6.42 square miles.

And there's 57,000,000 square miles of land on the planet.

EDIT3: I also did the math once. If you took the entire worlds nuclear arsenal, and aimed it at Antarctica, and was somehow able to direct every single joule of energy toward heating up the ice. You still wouldn't even come close to deglaciating it.

[BatteredSausage]

This guy....

[May90]

Ok, show me! I am open... because I think, we could totally blast and radiate and dump in fallout the entire planet with at most half of the current nuclear arsenal. :P

I doubt there are trustworthy studies answering this question. The materials I can see in the open sources study only certain isolated effects of nuclear explosions and come to mutually contradictory conclusions. Scientists do not have a general stance on this, and the best we can say right now is that the theory of nuclear winter / nuclear apocalypse is only a hypothesis. Likely incorrect, since the total nuclear yield right now in the world is around 2000 MT, while the largest bomb ever detonated - Tsar Bomba - was 50 MT, merely 40 times less than that, and didn't cause any noticeable long term effects on the scope of the entire atmosphere, leading only to certain negative local effects.

The major problem people interested in these topics encounter is that the information on the results of previous nuclear explosions, on the nuclear weapon construction, etc. is strongly classified - for obvious reasons.

I think, it also might really depend on how exactly we detonate those weapons. If we just detonate them high above the ground, and equally distribute them over the Earth's surface, then probably, aside from mild increase in radiation levels, we wouldn't notice any significant effects. If we detonate them all in one spot at once, then who knows; such a concentrated explosion might lead to any unexpected effects. If we detonate them all under water, we might cause a sweeping tsunami that would devour kilometers of coastline areas. If we detonate them all underground near a supervolcano... Better not.

The "Nuclear Winter" hypothesis was proposed by Carl Sagan; non physicist, non climatologist. And it was debunked shortly after (torn to pieces and derided by the scientific community). But the media took it and ran with it. And back then there was no internet. So people didn't know any better.

But you can pretty much look up the whole thing now.

Yes, a nuclear war would fuck up a lot of shit. And kill a lot of people, but there would be swaths of area that are relatively safe. And there would be no winter. The dust being kicked up and blocking the sun part assumes ground detonations. However tactical nuclear weapons are detonated in the air because that is more effective.

All in all, it caused a lot of unnecessary fear and apprehension.

EDIT: Also as far as blanketing the entire earth with mushroom clouds, that's pretty lol too.

EDIT2: The blast radius of the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated (52 megatons, so ridiculously impractical such a device would never exist as an actual usable weapon) was about 1.43 miles

So that's an area of 6.42 square miles.

And there's 57,000,000 square miles of land on the planet.

EDIT3: I also did the math once. If you took the entire worlds nuclear arsenal, and aimed it at Antarctica, and was somehow able to direct every single joule of energy toward heating up the ice. You still wouldn't even come close to deglaciating it.

This hypothesis was largely empirical; indeed, I don't think there are any scientific models nowadays predicting that nuclear winter might happen. Nor there are any disproving it though. However, according to the principles of burden of proof and Occama's razor, it is reasonable to assume the theory is not correct. It is a useful theory in promoting global peace though, even if it is incorrect.

Still, a nuclear war would lead to devastating effects. If all the nukes are exploded in major cities, then the casualty numbers might go into hundreds millions. It would be the largest disaster in human history, that's for sure; probably worse than Black Death - the latter, at least, left infrastructure intact.

[Mihalik]

sip

While the Nuclear Winter question is up for debate, a full scale or even large scale but partial exchange would kill hundreds of millions on a short order. Billions more would follow in the subsequent period of radiation sickness, environmental damage and most importantly infrastructure collapse.

Permanently knock out the US or EU power grid and vast majority of the population living in communities larger than a few thousand would be starving or dying of dysentery in weeks. Same goes for any largely urbanized country.

Agricultural societies and regions would likely fare better.

Either way, a nuclear exchange means The End of the World as we know it, and the collapse of human civilization and the probably death of the majority of people living in the Northern Hemisphere outside Central Asia. The human race has a good chance of surviving, but whatever comes out on the other end would resemble nothing we know today.

[Synadrasa]

Why is China and Russia both white on the legend? Could they not think of a 5th color?

[Forogil]

I think, rather than counting the raw number of nukes, one should count the total energy released if all those nukes are used. Just like comparing the army sizes means nothing without considering those armies' training level, tech, etc.

The energy is not that meaningful - it's more effective (in terms of deaths per kilogram of bomb material or however you measure kill capacity) to use multiple smaller warheads (MIRVs) than one bigger warhead, and also harder to counter.

[Skroe]

No confusing info graphic needed.


NewStARt Limits (essentially reached) by now)

Deployed missiles and bombers: 700
Deployed warheads (Reentry Vehicles and bombers): 1,550
Deployed and Non-deployed Launchers (missile tubes and bombers): 800

Important note: NewSTART has kind of a "cheat" in it in that a "launcher" is one platform, regardless of how many warheads it carries. Per bomber, only one warhead is counted when bombers can carry dozens of warheads.

These are the limits.

As of last month this is what it looks like:

Deployed ICBMs, Deployed SLBMs, and Deployed Heavy Bombers
Russia: 521
US: 741

Russia has fewer nuclear capable bombers and MIRVs large portions of it's arsenal. This is economical to Russia because maintaining launch vehicles is hugely expensive and the Russian arsenal already costs twice as much as a percentage of it's defense budget as the US.

The US mostly does 1 warhead per missile as a de-esclatory move, escept for SLBMs. It also provides with defense in depth giving other countries more launchers to target.

That Russia agreed to a limit of 700, rather than 500 or 600, and bombers being counted as they are, is a MAJOR concession to the US under NewSTART. Russian launchers will stay around 500 indefinetly because of expense involved. It is easier and cheaper for them to MIRV more existing launchers (which don't necessarily carry their full warhead capacity) than for them to build new launchers. The downside for them, the US target list has gone down from many thouands during the cold war, to a few hundred.

Current US and Russian doctrine is to hit the other side's launch platforms with multiple warheads in a staged manner, usually two to three. So if you have a launch silo, which counts a a "launcher" the other side would probably send at least two warheads to take it out. The relevancy of this with 521 launchers, many of which are bombers, the disarmament argument that the US could make due with "700 warheads and 700 launchers" comes into view, because sending 2 warheads to about 350 physical locations (keeping in mind, when we're talking bombers, 1 warhead might destroy 20 "bombers / launchers" would still make comprehensive deterrence possible.


Warheads on Deployed ICBMs, Deployed SLBMs, and Nuclear Warheads Counted for Deployed Heavy Bombers
Russia: 1735
US: 1481

The US number is below the 1550 limit because of ongoing warhead refirbishment, particular of the B61 nuclear bomb and the Trident II D5 which are getting big precision guided upgrades. The B61, in the Mod 12 configuration, will be able to have a dial-a-yield from 0.5kt to 250kt. The Trident II D5 is getting a guidance kit that will see accuracy increase from 90 meters to 5m.

Russia's numbers are higher because of the Soviet industrial policy legacy. In the 1980s and 1990s, the US rapidly consolidated it's nuclear arsenal. There was one ICBM and one SLBM. There were three warheads, two bombs. And when there was overlap, old platforms were rapidly retired in favor of new ones. This kept the arsenal affordable. Russia did not do that, and is only doing that now. The problem being you can't put any SLBM or any ICBM on any launcher. The missile, the warhead and the thing carrying it are all one system. The US, when it replaces the Ohio Class submarine with the Ohio-Replacement in coming decades, will just be able to move Trident IIs from retiring Ohios to new Ohio-Replacements. Russia's new Borei subs carry the Bulava (which by the way, is deeply troubled and doesn't really work), but Delta IV's carry the R-29RMU liquid fueled missile. Meanwhile the last Typhoon can only carry the RSM-52.

Each one of these has it's own industrial base... a standing army of maintainers.

And now you understand why Russia has so many deployed missiles and why it's nuclear arsenal is so expensive relative to it's defense expenditure compared to the US.


Deployed and Non-deployed Launchers of ICBMs and SLBMs, and Deployed and Non-deployed Heavy Bombers
Russia: 856
USA: 878

Well on the way from 800 and way down from years ago. Most of the surplus are obsolete and would never be used anyway. The US counts things like B-1B's that are being denuclearized and Trident I ICBMs. The Russian number counts things like retired subs that haven't set sail for years.



China
China is not part of NewSTART or any treaty of that nature with the US. But it's nuclear arsenal is garbage.

China's current stockpile is estimated at 260 warheads (compared with the NewSTART limit of 1550 for the US and Russia). However this is decieving as the vast majority of it's arsenal is on archaic liquid fueled platforms like the DF-5 (20 missiles, 1 big warhead each) or limited range missiles (like the DF-21 CSS-5 and the DF-11A CCS7 Mod2).

The most concerning, modern Chinese Ballistic Missiles are the DF-31 and DF-31A, which together constitute about 30-35 ICBMs, each carrying 1-3 warheads.

In a nuclear conflict, liquid fueled ballistic missiles - which make up most of China's arsenal - are not expected to survive to launch. It takes 30 minutes to 2 hours to fuel a liquid missile, and the US (or Russia) would launch well before that and their missiles would get there, in the US case in as little as 10 minutes.

This is why the US and Russia shifted to almost-exclusively solid fueled missiles decades ago. They can launch in about 90 seconds.

The DF-31 and DF-31A constitute China's only modern ICBM, with 30-35 missiles and about 50-60 warheads. China also has the 24 modern JL-2 SLBMs that typically carry one warhead (but can carry 3) on 4 ballistic missile subs. This puts the upper limit of China's worthwhile nuclear arsenal at about 90 out of 260. This is why China isn't included in Arms treaties. With 90 dangerous warheads, under US doctrine you'd only need 180 missile defense interceptors (2 per warhead) to launch at it, which is economically and infra-structurally feasible. With Russia, you'd need at least 3100, which is not.

Furthermore China's terrain is terrible compared to the US and Russia for ballistic missile launch. This is the map of it, the PLA Second Artillery Corps.


Source: http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-PLA-S...ery-Corps.html
(The above link is fantastic... it even says what is deployed where)

Those ones along the northern border of China (with Mongolia)? Those are long ranged missiles aimed at the US over the poles and Russia (the DF-31As of the 812th brigade) and short, medium , intermediate ranged missiles aimed at Russia (DF-21 and DF11).The ones along the South west, by Thailand and Myanmar are intermediate and medium ranged missiles aimed at India (DF-4 and DF-5A). The ones along the coast in the east and north around North Korea are aimed at US forces in South Korea, Japan, Guam, Hawaii, Alaska and the continental US and constitute the long ranged missiles as well as short and medium ranged missiles aimed at Taiwan (DF-11A).

If you look carefully, you see that China's nuclear arsenal, the counter-US portion anyway, is very tightly clustered compared to Russia. It's tough terrain for road mobile ICBMs.

China is just a reminder: solids are hard. China, Brazil and India have had a hell of a time mastering a rocket technology the US and Russia (along with Europe) mastered decades ago.

[Deleted]

What about Pakistan, India, Israel and North Korea? (as in, why are they not in the chart, I don't think they'd win).

Russia has most nukes, followed by USA and then at a huge difference the others.

[Slant]

I doubt there are trustworthy studies answering this question. The materials I can see in the open sources study only certain isolated effects of nuclear explosions and come to mutually contradictory conclusions. Scientists do not have a general stance on this, and the best we can say right now is that the theory of nuclear winter / nuclear apocalypse is only a hypothesis. Likely incorrect, since the total nuclear yield right now in the world is around 2000 MT, while the largest bomb ever detonated - Tsar Bomba - was 50 MT, merely 40 times less than that, and didn't cause any noticeable long term effects on the scope of the entire atmosphere, leading only to certain negative local effects.

The major problem people interested in these topics encounter is that the information on the results of previous nuclear explosions, on the nuclear weapon construction, etc. is strongly classified - for obvious reasons.

I think, it also might really depend on how exactly we detonate those weapons. If we just detonate them high above the ground, and equally distribute them over the Earth's surface, then probably, aside from mild increase in radiation levels, we wouldn't notice any significant effects. If we detonate them all in one spot at once, then who knows; such a concentrated explosion might lead to any unexpected effects. If we detonate them all under water, we might cause a sweeping tsunami that would devour kilometers of coastline areas. If we detonate them all underground near a supervolcano... Better not.

I think Tsar didn't have much impact because it was detonated rather high in the atmosphere. Nothing but the ground directly underneath perhaps got contaminated = little radiation damage. You're probably right, we'll never know for sure. I prefer it that way.

But, that thing about the supervolcano? Perhaps detonating an artificial release vent isn't such a bad idea. A controlled pressure vent, kinda.

[Forogil]

I think Tsar didn't have much impact because it was detonated rather high in the atmosphere.

Oh, it was intended to be detonated at about 4km - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba
Which is less than the optimal height https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect...ear_explosions

[Slant]

I doubt they could lift it from the ground, checking.

They most definitely did lift it from the ground and dropped it off a bomber. There's video footage of it. Although you never know with the Russians... it might be fake. :P