How many nukes does Russia have, really?

[Grendeldef]

One wonders how the same people who just refused to place soldiers as security against attack, now claim they are cool with nuclear war.

Maybe it's the getting bored of winning like Trump promised as there won't be winners - only losers & those who seized to exist. On the other in the US a nuclear war might be easier to sell as it's the fast track for evangelical to meet their maker without the hassle of continuously postponed rapture. Based on youngsters like Pat Robertson still providing his absolute truths the maker isn't too keen on meeting his fans.

Generally I think whatever the number is Russia has enough operational nukes to provoke a response from the more intact US nukes which even without the Chinese interacting with rest in ping-nuke-pong diplomacy would result a world even the hard core MAGA people wouldn't switch with the state of US-Mexico border.
I don't think a nuke swap is likely but if it happens I probably won't have time to change my view. Sorry about another football reference but it's like speculating our line-up in the next WC final - if it happens reality has played a trick on all of us.

 

[Ajidica]

That was my question to everyone in the OP.

How many cities would you consider horrific destruction? The California coast? California and East Coast?

 

[Farm Boy]

It's almost certainly academic. If we lose one to a Russian nuke I put very heavy odds that we intentionally erase every major population center in Russia. So one is Horrific Enough.

 

[Hygro]

How many cities would you consider horrific destruction? The California coast? California and East Coast?

One hydrogen bomb detonation is too high a price for me. On either side.

But not necessarily for any potential war, nor for any potential defense against tyranny.

 

[r16]

russians are out in the Atlantic already . They might very well get Bidon the Barrel .

 

[Kyriakos]

Why use nuclear. You probably can erase entire cities with thermobaric weapons. If radioactivity is the main issue, afaik there won't be any from that - unless nuclear stations are incapacitated and blow up.

 

[r16]

within 500 kilograms of a plane bomb you can wipe out a city . Depending on available distractions , you might really not hear a normal bomb going of on the other side of the city . It is all logistics and carrying heavyweights over distances .

 

[red_elk]

I would guess the percentage of functional warheads for any nuclear power is >99%
May be excluding North Korea, which is supposedly in stage of development.

 

[r16]

am willing to bet they are not letting any qualifying statements for that in Russia .

 

[Zardnaar]

am willing to bet they are not letting any qualifying statements for that in Russia .

As I said they got to examine some in the 90's. They estimated 2/3 were duds/had no fuel.

That still leaves 1/3rd operational. And that was in the 90's kind of a worst case scenario.

 

[Akka]

Even if 95 % of all missiles are decayed or shot in fly, it's still dozens of cities erazed.
Nukes should be restricted to maybe 100 per nuclear nations as a pure way of deterrent from home invasion. Anything more is madness (and even that is still flirting with madness).

 

[r16]

once again , context . Russians calling names about North Korean stuff is wrong , when people believe it is the only one ready to go .

 

[Hygro]

I would guess the percentage of functional warheads for any nuclear power is >99%
May be excluding North Korea, which is supposedly in stage of development.

I suppose you are saying Russia isn't a nuclear power ; )

 

[red_elk]

I suppose you are saying Russia isn't a nuclear power ; )

Thermonuclear )
If I had to pick whatever or whoever is most carefully looked after in Russia, nuclear weapons would be the second.

 

[Kaitzilla]

A video was made over the summer to shine some more light on a modern nuclear war.

Russia sure has a lot of boom in Kaliningrad!

Ugh, everyone died.

 

[r16]

take it from the Starfleet Admiral . Russians have enough nukes to makes all the surviving Americans cry .

 

[Samson]

Rot-gut North Korea has bombs and much of their economy is based on meth cooking and printing fake foreign currency.

That does not sound too bad. At least people what what they are making, unlike the UK and its "service economy" whatever that means.

How many do you need to create horrifying destruction?

I had a quick look, and I found this:

We present the first study of the global impacts of a regional nuclear war with an Earth system model including atmospheric chemistry, ocean dynamics, and interactive sea ice and land components. A limited, regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan in which each side detonates 50 15 kt weapons could produce about 5 Tg of black carbon (BC). This would self-loft to the stratosphere, where it would spread globally, producing a sudden drop in surface temperatures and intense heating of the stratosphere. Using the Community Earth System Model with the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model, we calculate an e-folding time of 8.7 years for stratospheric BC compared to 4–6.5 years for previous studies. Our calculations show that global ozone losses of 20%–50% over populated areas, levels unprecedented in human history, would accompany the coldest average surface temperatures in the last 1000 years. We calculate summer enhancements in UV indices of 30%–80% over midlatitudes, suggesting widespread damage to human health, agriculture, and terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Killing frosts would reduce growing seasons by 10–40 days per year for 5 years. Surface temperatures would be reduced for more than 25 years due to thermal inertia and albedo effects in the ocean and expanded sea ice. The combined cooling and enhanced UV would put significant pressures on global food supplies and could trigger a global nuclear famine. Knowledge of the impacts of 100 small nuclear weapons should motivate the elimination of more than 17,000 nuclear weapons that exist today.​

Change in frost-free growing season in days for (a) January to December in the Northern Hemisphere and (b) July to June in the Southern Hemisphere. Values are 5 year seasonal ensemble averages for years 2–6, experiment minus control.

If that is one and a half megatonnes, then it will not take many of Russia's 6000 to end civilisation.

 

[Sarin]

That does not sound too bad. At least people what what they are making, unlike the UK and its "service economy" whatever that means.

I had a quick look, and I found this:

We present the first study of the global impacts of a regional nuclear war with an Earth system model including atmospheric chemistry, ocean dynamics, and interactive sea ice and land components. A limited, regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan in which each side detonates 50 15 kt weapons could produce about 5 Tg of black carbon (BC). This would self-loft to the stratosphere, where it would spread globally, producing a sudden drop in surface temperatures and intense heating of the stratosphere. Using the Community Earth System Model with the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model, we calculate an e-folding time of 8.7 years for stratospheric BC compared to 4–6.5 years for previous studies. Our calculations show that global ozone losses of 20%–50% over populated areas, levels unprecedented in human history, would accompany the coldest average surface temperatures in the last 1000 years. We calculate summer enhancements in UV indices of 30%–80% over midlatitudes, suggesting widespread damage to human health, agriculture, and terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Killing frosts would reduce growing seasons by 10–40 days per year for 5 years. Surface temperatures would be reduced for more than 25 years due to thermal inertia and albedo effects in the ocean and expanded sea ice. The combined cooling and enhanced UV would put significant pressures on global food supplies and could trigger a global nuclear famine. Knowledge of the impacts of 100 small nuclear weapons should motivate the elimination of more than 17,000 nuclear weapons that exist today.​

Change in frost-free growing season in days for (a) January to December in the Northern Hemisphere and (b) July to June in the Southern Hemisphere. Values are 5 year seasonal ensemble averages for years 2–6, experiment minus control.

If that is one and a half megatonnes, then it will not take many of Russia's 6000 to end civilisation.

I'd love to see the assumptions behind this, because honestly, it seems incredibly far fetched.

The total yield of all nuclear devices detonated by mankind is approx. 540 megatons. This includes surface, airburst, underground and underwater tests with yields far exceeding the warheads in this scenario, and the ecological impact was nowhere near this. The 1883 Krakatoa eruption was estimated to be around 200 megaton in yield, and while it produced global environmental effects, they were nowhere near this-in fact, another Krakatoa would just about counteract global warming for the next decade or so.

 

[Samson]

I'd love to see the assumptions behind this, because honestly, it seems incredibly far fetched.

The total yield of all nuclear devices detonated by mankind is approx. 540 megatons. This includes surface, airburst, underground and underwater tests with yields far exceeding the warheads in this scenario, and the ecological impact was nowhere near this. The 1883 Krakatoa eruption was estimated to be around 200 megaton in yield, and while it produced global environmental effects, they were nowhere near this-in fact, another Krakatoa would just about counteract global warming for the next decade or so.

The full paper is there for me, and it says open access so I guess you should be able to see it? Of course they are very technical, and I know nothing about this, but I think most of the cooling is caused by the release of Black Carbon (BC), which I guess would be released by nuclear weapons going off near ground with carbon based life forms on it. This is was usually avoided in nuclear testing.

 

[Farm Boy]

Bunker busters for hardened structures make more than anything else would. Those dig into the ground and explode, ejecting (irradiated)dirt into low orbit. Most nuclear winter scenarios revolve around counter force weaponry detonations, which are the bunker busters.