Nuclear Modernisation - Rearmament, ageing stockpiles and why Russia's nukes work (probably)
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- čas přidán 19. 05. 2024
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Why are nations building nukes again? And do the ones they have actually work?
The final years of the Cold War and the post-Soviet era that followed were a period of successive victories for efforts at nuclear stockpile reduction and disarmament.
But in 2023, efforts at new arms control agreements appear dead in the water, and many nations are now either looking to replace old systems or, like China, expanding their arsenals beyond their present levels.
In this episode, I look at nuclear modernisation, new delivery systems, and the industrial and financial challenges involved.
Patreon:
/ perunau
Relevant Reading/sourcing (to be expanded)
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Nuclear notebook for national inventories:
thebulletin.org/#navbar-brand
thebulletin.org/nuclear-noteb...
fas.org/publication/nuclear-n...
thebulletin.org/premium/2023-...
RAND - US China military scorecard (featuring counter-force modelling)
www.rand.org/pubs/research_re...
NNSA on Plutonium Pit Production
www.energy.gov/nnsa/plutonium...
Government Accountability Office on US Nuclear Research and Production
www.gao.gov/blog/over-budget-...
GAO on nuclear forces sustainment and modernisation
www.gao.gov/nuclear-weapons-a...
GAO - “NNSA Does Not Have a Comprehensive Schedule or Cost Estimate for Pit Production Capability”
www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-1...
Congressional Budget Office Projected Costs of US nuclear forces 2021 - 2030
www.cbo.gov/publication/57130
CBO Projected costs of US nuclear forces 2023-2032
www.cbo.gov/publication/59365
USAF Nuclear Weapon Centre Sentinel factsheet
www.afgsc.af.mil/Portals/51/D...
Mattis and the nuclear sponge
www.defensenews.com/space/201...
NNSA warhead activities factsheet
www.energy.gov/sites/prod/fil...
NNSA W76-1 Fact sheet
www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/13...
CSIS Brief on US Nuclear Modernisation (Hersman, Rodgers & Farabaugh)
csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaw...
US 2022 National Defence Strategy
media.defense.gov/2022/Oct/27...
CRS on the 2022 Nuclear Posture Review
crsreports.congress.gov/produ...
CRS on Nuclear Triad
crsreports.congress.gov/produ...
Reporting on claimed failed test of Sarmat
www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-t...
First Strike IMDb entry
www.imdb.com/title/tt2429312/
Kristensen, McKinzie & Postol - How US nuclear force modernization is undermining strategic stability: The burst-height compensating super-fuze
thebulletin.org/2017/03/how-u...
Reporting on production of Pits at Los Alamos
time.com/6296743/los-alamos-l...
Report on Sarmat going “on duty”
www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/9...
Wired - on Russian nukes not working
www.wired.com/story/nuclear-w...
UK House of Commons Library - Nuclear weapons at a glance: UK
commonslibrary.parliament.uk/...
Caveats & Comments:
All normal caveats and comments apply and please see the pinned comment for corrections.
In particular - I would like to note as always that this material has been created for entertainment purposes and should not be relied upon to inform financial or other similar decisions.
Timestamps
00:00:00 - Nuclear Weapon Modernisation
00:01:08 - What Am I Talking About
00:03:57 - Cold War Proliferation
00:08:47 - Nuclear Legacy And Renewal Decision
00:12:07 - How And Why Of Building A Bomb
00:21:45 - United States
00:34:54 - Russia
00:54:27 - China
01:02:22 - France
01:07:08 - United Kingdom
01:10:55 - Conclusion
01:11:48 - Channel Update
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This is a video that's been in the works for a long time - and it was great to see it finally place in a poll and get tagged for finalisation and release. I do however have an Edit for a correction - Early on I describe the Manhattan Project and B-29 as the first and second most expensive US development programs of WW2. The B-29 program was in fact the more expensive of the two, with the Manhattan project coming in second. I also at one point credit a Bulletin of the Atomics Scientists source to the Federation of American Scientists - the source list in description is correct but the audio is not.
I hope you're all happy with the presentation and, as always, I wish you all the very best.
❤❤
Uranian... 17:28.. a slip of the tongue hehe
Hi Perun, Nuclear Winter VS Global Warming.
Place your bets now. 🎲
is it just me or is there a audio issue around 29:40 ?
One thing to keep in mind is the goal for a post-nuclear strike environment. While civilians believe that nuclear war is the end of humanity, the truth is that most people - even in cities - would survive. Therefore the issue that needs to be addressed is what do countries intend to do after the strike in order to have an advantage in the geopolitics and warfare that would follow. For instance, if Monaco somehow had tens of thousands of working ICBMs that were 100% effective and immune from first strike, the country wouldn't ever use them since they would be worse off after nuclear war if they ever did. They don't have the population to take over any nation. The United States of the Babyboomer era and the Soviet Union both had massive numbers of young men of fighting age capable of occupying rival states after the mushroom clouds weakened them. Russia and China today can barely occupy their own countries. The atrocious abortion rate in Russia and the effects of the 1 child policy in China means that neither of those countries could stand a chance after a nuclear war started no matter how well they battered their rivals. Heck, if Russia somehow magically launched all their missiles at the United States and Europe and somehow magically never got hit back, they'd still be doomed in a post-strike world since they don't have enough young men to occupy Europe and America. The United States, India, and maybe Pakistan are the only countries that could hold territory, both at home and abroad, after a nuclear war due to demographics.
So who cares if Russia wants to act tough. They're doomed if they press the button and they won't be the ones writing the history books afterwards. The only real danger is if Russia starts nuking neighboring states as a means of subduing them. Any resistance Belarus might have to becoming part of Russia would fade away if Minsk became a Russian nuclear test site. Besides, the Belarusian people would just repeat Russian propaganda claiming it was an American missile that struck their crapital.
I once attended a presentation from the guy, who at the time, was in charge of the maintenance and reliability of our nuclear weapons. He described the difficulty of testing and maintenance under the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty roughly as follows. Imagine you are in charge of a vast collection of old classic cars and it’s your responsibility to make sure each and every one of them will actually start the first time you turn the key, but while you can test and repair or replace individual components such as the battery, fuel pump, starter motor etc., you can’t ever actually turn the key and start one. I found that quite thought provoking.
I don't get that. I mean you can't test a normal bomb either. Once it is used for the frist time it's used for the only time.
You can test the trigger, safety's, arming mechanism, test chemical compositions and make sure the case isnt rusty or that bits aren't falling off.
That's all you are ever going to be able to do with anything like a bomb.
As for not starting a car but being able to test all the components. That IS testing the car. If you can test that the engine runs, the gearbox selects, the diff turns and all the bits that connect them work and that the bolts are tight. Then it works. You don't need to drive it to know it works.
We aren't talking about shrodingers bomb 😂.
The test ban treaty would stop you testing new designs. But not stop you making sure what you already know how to make works. So I don't get that analogy at all.
@@AdamMGTFsettle down nerd
@@AdamMGTF
Even in software, you can discover issue when doing system test that are not revealed during component test.
To take the car example.
Maybe each individual component from the fuel tank to the engine works individually.
But when turning on the key and roll it on the asphalt, turns out the real world vibration will make this hose disconnect, that bolt loose, etc.
@@jintsuubest9331that only makes sense if you have never built a car before or don't know the compatibility of parts in the system.
I believe what the person using the car analogy in the speech is pointing out is only that it takes more time and resources to maintain something in an operational state if you can't test run it, using a car because often the best way to test operability is to start it.
@@jintsuubest9331that is why they fire off a missile every now and then too see if they are still reliable. Without the warhead of course.
"If it has to be horrifying, it might as well be funny too" one of the few times I'm truly proud to be Australian
Definitely a fan of that Australian viewpoint, namely that seriousness should always include some humor!
Amen. I’m using Perun videos for instructional purposes for my 6m/o daughter. I fully expect that, by the time 4y/o kinder rolls around, she’ll have a full grasp of the procurement requirements to stage an afternoon nap rebellion & have some cracking 1-liners while she’s at it 😂
If you want a dark lol, I'm pretty sure the pic at about 17:47 is Slotkin mucking around with the neutron reflectors, the demon core, and a screwdriver. Talk about a blue screen error.
@@TheGaymo ruh roh
few times?
No the most expensive WWII weapons program was the B-29, which cost $3 billion. The Manhattan Project only cost $2 Billion.
yep. I inverted those and I'm kicking myself over it. I'll put a very prominent correction up.
Funny to think that the delivery vehicle cost more than the weapon.
@@jamesgornall5731not that strange, look at the B2 and B21.
@@PerunAU..looks like you’re only human after all ..💙💛💙
Curious how much would these projects cost today, readjusted by inflation.
I like the French nuclear doctrine, so frank and straight forward with no BS. Topped off even with an appetizer nuke to spice your palate.
French tend to be Frankish. 😅
i know it's not covered here but I always found the Israeli version funny, in a morbid sort of way. "Look, if you seriously threaten to beat us, we will turn all your most precious monuments to glass. If we have them. We will never allow ourselves to quietly go into the dark. You know, unless we aren't nuclear equiped. Here's a list of our priority targets. For the missiles we aren't confirming we have."
Still smell though
@@Joural0401The Samson Option
@@DarkrunnI see what you did there
Let me put it this way: my AP chemistry teacher had worked as a nuclear physicist for the DoE. He could not be issued a passport as one of the terms of employment because he designed, built, upgraded and generally serviced nukes.
By 2006 he was teaching high school. Academic Physics was so crammed with other people like him that AP Chem in a 5th rate Midwestern school lab was all he could get.
We were not maintaining that industry. Private sector didn't care and the government kinda let it go. Pure military jobs had some numbers but most scientists resist the uniform. I get it, they're academics at heart and most are part-time philosophers. Hard to herd.
I'll bet he's busy now. Hopefully he was smart enough to remember to insist he only be a consultant. Get paid Dr lavoy
In fairness, I would be kinda concerned if private industry was caring about making nuclear weapons.
There’s something terrifying about people who designed the most powerful weapons on earth being rendered obsolete, however temporary, by the forces of capitalism and the sheer naked greed/stupidity of bean counters.
@@ahettinger525Who do you think made most of the components in the US nuclear arsenal in the first place?
@@jpc347that's not the point; the point is that if there's ever a profitable market for nukes then proliferation controls have failed dramatically
@@jpc347Nobody in the last 30 years. That's the problem.
Ah yes, nuclear rearmament, exactly the thing I needed to see while eating my breakfast. Keep up the great videos!
Pepe avatar emote checks out.
now that you point that out, yeah, it actually does lmao@@ChineseKiwi
Too bad my lunch lasted much shorter than the video.
Perfect thing for me to watch before I go to bed
Really? I was watching this before going to sleep, it's like 11 pm where I live (totally not an aussie btw)
I believe that micro nuclear weapons that can be fired out of a 20mm autocannon should be available to the public. Its a good idea, trust me.
Muh stopping power!
Probably not possible at the 20mm profile without a major advancement in non-nuclear power density, such as practical antimatter. Or mature superconducting batteries, maybe.
i don't think antimatter would be considered nuclear? Since there's no massive radiation threat.@@noecarrier5035
@noecarrier5035 why do you think THEY won't let you stockpile massive helium reserves to generate your own high energy particle collisions? THEY don't want WE THE PEOPLE to generate our own anti-protons!
when ben franklin beheaded the english king and wrote the constitution in his blood, he clearly stated in the 2nd amendment that "the right to turn your neighbour's plot into a nuclear wasteland should not be infringed upon by sissies or soyboys".
Millennials grew up being taught "thank God that's over, that was really dumb" about so many things lol
and then they immediately happened again, before we even hit 30.
Hey, at least we got a couple of decades of hope. 😅
When I was in elementary school, we would do air raid drills. The nuns would lead us into the hallway, away from the windows. Then we would sit down, pray an act of contrition and then say a rosary while we waited for the Russians to kill us or the all clear sounded.
We grew up thinking that is normal.
@@markkelly6259 and then you voted for our children to experience that
The history of American really does seem to be “At last, the end of history!” Going to “oh shit, we forgot somthing, now we have to live with the consequences of our actions!” Over and over in a loop
@@Delmworks it's the adage of "you're always fighting your last war" with the wholly original concept that this one will be the last war. Though it feels like we've more or less resigned to an infinite cold war now that victory is made impossible through nuclear weapons.
The only victory left is economic or cultural, but that is not exactly decisive or permanent, and it comes at the cost of massive resources (that are finite), and climate catastrophy
Learned more about UK nuclear capabilities in this public internet video hosted by an Australian, than I ever got from my friends working at AWE. They won’t even admit if they had a good day at work or not…
That's a good thing though right? I'm comforted knowing that secrets are kept..
I can neither confirm nor deny that I had a good day.
That's good to hear - there are plenty of jobs in the world for people that love to chat about work. That's probably not one of them.
AWE don't even like to advertise themselves what they do. I remember seeing flyers for an event they were holding at the university I work at, there was no mention of anything nuclear or weapon related. Guess they sensibly assumed the local student CND brigade would show up if they did.
@@PerunAUThe problem there is "how was work today" comprises about 60% of british small talk, the other 40% being about the weather and possibly some sporting event or TV show. So if you can't talk about your job you've got to be prepared for a lot of awkward silences.
20:05 - "The birds, of course, survived."
Easily the most terrifying part of the video, imo. How can Kiwi Land hope to stand against such a fearsome opponent?
You remember a certain little lizard called #Gojira and his origin story?
Do you think #Emuland really wants to find out what fighting a #Kiwizilla would be like after their army's sordid experience with run-of-the-mill Emus?
#IThinkNot.
Hahaha saved me from making this comment ill just like yours. Bloody Emus. Of course they survived. Thankfully they didn't irradiate and mutate the Murder Birds, Cassowaries. They are already nightmare fuel. Can you imagine giant mutant versions of those...
Birds survived the Chicxulub Impact and extinction event...
The trauma of that horrible war is truly generational.
#Neverforget
@@hakichiki Didn't you eat all those?
I’m the wire editor for a chain of U.S. newspapers. Your work helps me select and judge the accuracy and value of stories. I listen every damn Sunday.
Just remember that Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.
@@christopherconard2831 He is indeed, although it seemed in doubt back in the day!
How do tou think I feel?
i was born in 04 and reaised by my grandparents, grandpa was a vet and would tell all sorts of stories but would always end them with "But thank god yoj wont have to go through any of that"
Fun fact: Here in Germany, at least in my area there was never a real fear of nuclear war, because the assumption was that in any kind of nuclear exchange this region would be flattened to such an extent that we would probably not even notice the fact that we just blinked out of existence.
You might not have been actively afraid, no. But when you grow up in an area where school teachers, when they're discussing nuclear technology in class, can say "don't worry, we will be wiped out immediately", that nihilism becomes infectious.
Same ... Most people wont even know nukes are flying so there is no real point in being scared or freaking out
Tell me you are from around fulda without telling me you are from around fulda.
"Hast du etwas Zeit für mich
Dann singe ich ein Lied für dich
Von neunundneunzig Luftballons
Auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont..."
You could probably make an entire video just on nuclear-capable subs, tbh. The logistics of not just working with those things but crewing and maintaining them are immense.
It would be fascinating to have him talk about submarine reactors. The data that you can find on any USN reactor is kind of vague. Like, what steel is the pressure vessel made of?
@@k53847Nice try, agent Ivan, nice try.
These videos need to be permanently archived. We’re living in a new Cold War and these videos are like documenting history as it developed.
Hmm... will the archive be readable after the nuclear apocalypse?
Well, I mean the last Cold War didn’t get everyone nuked, so this one probably won’t too.
@@andrewharrison8436Hey, have some faith! MAD worked once, why not twice?
_begins stockpiling ammo_
With whom?
@@tyler1107, lol, good luck stockpiling ammo at today's prices!!!
Perun: Dark humor is going to be heavy
Me: YAY!!!
Dark humor is like a geiger counter, not everyone is gonna get it.
I think it's funny how Perun evolved from being a video game channel to one of the best in-depth military analysis channels on youtube
Puberty IS a real thing, is what you implying?? GOOD!!
It's definitely "funny", but not in a good way. I am not sure what this is, but it is NOT "the best in-depth military analysis..."
@@roumenandreev6386point me at better?
@@roumenandreev6386what it comes to publicly avialable, free to use stuff, what is better?
@@roumenandreev6386 What is the best according to you? I'm sure a US 4-star general has access to more in-depth information, but us regular civilians have to resort to publicly available stuff. And in the case of this channel the content is really good and IMO the best on youtube.
Perun, please never stop making these amazing videos. They really have permanently changed my perspective on a variety of issues.
Ditto, some of the best discussions on defense matters anywhere.
"The human consequences were dire... and the birds of course, survived..." Bravo Perun, you had me laughing so hard I spilled my chocolate milk 😂
Even if half of Russia's strategic nuclear arsenal didn't work, for whatever reason, they would still have the third largest such arsenal in the world.
The reason is Vodka.
I suspect the proportion of working warheads will be lower than that, but I'd still rather not have them used in anger.
@@MartynWilkinson45kee believing propaganda. Almost all russias missiles work and it’s ignorant to think they don’t.
Would it not still be the second? I may only be thinking of ICBMs but I'm sure china actually has very few warheads (low hundreds tops) (again I could be thinking just those on missiles.). I'm sure we in the UK have a couple of hundred. The USA and Russia have them in the thousands?
@@AdamMGTFliterally 9 out of every 10 could fail and they'd still be second. China has under 500, France and UK 200-300 each but their actual deployable numbers are low double digits at any one time.
Only one Royal Navy SSBN is on station at any given time, and they carry 16 missiles with likely only a single warhead fitted to each. Though a Trident is capable of carrying up to 8 MIRVs you don't have to be a mathematical genius to realise they clearly don't, since that would involve an at-sea game of Pass The Parcel with nuclear ordinance...
Love my Sunday morning coffee, accompanied by a dose of geopolitical apocalyptic truths. Thank you!
I wish I could find the footage, but it was either the History Channel or Discovery channel back in the late 1990s/early 2000s had a segment on nuclear weapons and the refurbishment of them.
One of the things I thought was fascinating is that in order to test the viability of United States nuclear weapons and to make sure the fissile core was still good, they *_shot wax at the core at very high velocities and measured the impact emanating from the core and/or wax (can't remember)._* With this they could determine if the nuclear fissile material was still viable for detonation or not.
Crazy stuff. Hope it was very soft; I guess it must have been !
Wow, that's crazy
when I was in year 8 in high school, we had a great science teacher. Learnt a lot of stuff, very engaging and inspired a few of us. Turned out he was NOT a teacher, had no qualification's for any teaching. But brilliant inspiration to us young students. He disappeared after 3 terms, yet it wasn't him who blew up our science lab., the next year. That was a real,qualified teacher....
wow...
I’ve been refreshing CZcams for 30 minutes on a graveyard shift. Love the videos
Been doing same snoozing
Please stop shifting all the damm graveyards, I've been searching for grandpa's grave for 3 weeks.
Funny I just started the morning grind at work this will be heavensent...nay perunsent
I've been there. It's kind of nice having so much time to yourself, but it starts to get hard to have any kind of social life.
Please be sure to indicate if a nuclear alert has been triggered in the comments, we’ll get to it eventually.
Russia's ABM paranoia is based (IMO) on two things:
-Nukes are the primary military prop of their regime. If they can be shot down, there goes that stability (to their minds)
-Russian paranoia can never be underestimated. Their history is one of invasions and massacres. To them, it is perfectly reasonable (at a gut level) for the only reason for the US to develop ABMs is to create a shield that will allow Russia to safely be attacked.
Let's be clear: the US was in no way above throwing its weight around in the years it was the sole nuclear power, and when it doesn't believe its counter-party has a nuclear umbrella, that behavior has never stopped. The US doesn't talk much about throwing its nukes around (except for some particularly clueless politicians talking about their own countrymen...) but they don't have to.
No. The dominating factor is it's a lot easier to loot a new program than an old one. If you redirect 5 million from a new program by hiring your own company to do, say, hypersonic lamellar flow anlaysis, then no one can really tell if that was needed or not - r+d *is* expensive. But if the old Soviet factory made 50 of the things a year for known levels of inputs or workers, it's more difficult to skim large chunks of money off the top.
Exactly, Russia thinks the US would invade with intent to exterminate a good part of all Russians and enslave the remainder a nanosecond after their deterrence is gone, because it's exactly what Russia has always done to others if they saw weakness.
Bloody country started 87 wars of agression to steal land and enslave peoples since 1900.
A (much shared) last place in that ranking of wars of agression goes to the US with zero such wars, since their annexation of the Philipines was in 1899.
Lol ! The only countries in the Globe, the US hasn't have any military involvement with (ie invade, bomb, kept military presence, been at war with etc) are Andorra, Bhutan, and Liechtenstein ... but sure the Russians are "crazy" ... lol^2
It’s also just plain old overestimation. People sometimes think the US was the only group that overestimated their adversary, with famous examples like the Mig-25. But the USSR was legitimately worried about relatively fantastical (at the time) projects like SDI, or at least was as worried as the US tended to be. Just like how the US cares a lot about air superiority and is very very careful to ensure dominance in that capacity, the USSR cared a lot about nuclear parity.
The scary part about the B61 mod 12 and mod 13 is its first strike potential. It can appear out of nowhere under a B-2 or B-21 with seconds of warning and bunker busting capability. You are absolutely right that it makes next to no sense for something like an F-35 / F-16 / F-15 to carry the thing. I also think its use in a second strike role is very contrived. The hypothetical goes something like "oh no, they launched their missiles! Scramble the F-16's and fly for Russia!" and somehow getting past the air defenses and dropping it on something significant.
It's a lot more scary in a B-2 or B-21, where it can be delivered in significant quantities (16 per bomber) from a nearly invisible, long range platform, but that seems far more useful for a first strike than for a counterstrike since they would take a dozen hours at least to fly over the North Pole toward Russia.
The point of the B-61 is to be a second strike option against a tactical nuclear attack or even a low-order ICBM attack (ex. by North Korea).
It can also be used in its first strike capacity as a “warning shot” like ASMP-A.
@@GintaPPE1000 Exactly, Trident would be the ideal choice for a first strike rather than dropping B61s from stealth bombers.
Another factor in the reliability of a nuclear deterrent is the degree of confidence in the users of these weapons to actually launch them when ordered to do so. They might be unwilling or unable to launch them at the time. This could be for a variety of reasons such as disruptions in communications, attacks on their platforms, lack of vigilance in readiness, or simple refusal. Both the Soviets and the USA took these factors into consideration when deciding how many nukes to have ready. This is further explanation why they had tens of thousands of warheads and numerous weapons for each target.
This human factor however can be and is regularly tested - the operators usually don't know if they are just training or actually deleting the world.
It's more depending on if the president or whoever is in charge is willing to give the order
@@seagullskunkgod you'd think that kind of stress would induce heart attacks. Or suicides.
@@RangerB66 im sure it does. I do have lots of respect for those guys.
CZcamsr Jake Broe used to do this during his time at the airforce iirc
@@seagullskunk WHAT?!? You mean that mild mannered Mr Nice Guy used to hold the fate of millions with the press of a button?!? (Or turn of a key)
@@RangerB66 I dont remeber what his exact role was but it was something to do with it.
When the media went wild fearing ww3 he made some anecdote about how safe nukes were - during a test he fcked up really bad however even if it hadnt been a test some safeguards wouldve prevented it.
Thats all I can tell without looking his channel up again, been some time since ive watched him.
But I'm pretty sure he made some q and a you can find.
I agree that you certainly don't expect it from him at first.
As expected from Perun, this is a real bunker buster of a video! A possibly interesting side note to the existence of low population target states, is that one of, if not the most powerful, of the US weapons is its great wealth and economic power. It can be argued that the USSR bankrupted itself by trying to equal the US military with a significantly smaller economy. I once suggested to a college class [consisting of international students] that the Interstate System [a.k.a. the National Defense Highway System] was the weapon that killed the USSR. My strategy in saying that, to rile them up and get them to research the matter, was very effective. They objected vociferously, and I challenged them to research the effects [including unexpected consequences] of the Interstate on the US economy, and to compare the economy of the USSR to that of the US before and after operation of the network. The student presentation was a heuristic masterpiece! The students found correlation, but they also found both negative and positive effects in the US. I eventually confessed that my statement was somewhat exaggerated for effect.
I unreservedly approve of Perune's methods, conclusions and the use of levity!
Wasn't there a US Army expedition from West to East Coast before WWII to test the cross country mobility for the military?.
Yes, there's a video about it, if you want to find it. Road conditions away from the East Coast and major cities like Chicago elsewhere ranged from bad to primitive to absent. That's why the name originally included "national defense."
The deterioration of once comprehensive passenger rail was one of the negative outcomes, while the enormous expansion of trucking was one of the greatest unanticipated economic boosts.@@fretted4life
@@fretted4life it was immediately after WWI and a certain commander of the Allied Forces in WW2 Ike later to be president used his experiences in both the trip and his time in Germany with the Autobahn to push for the interstate program
Yes, I've read that. I'v often wondered what the Germans thought about being defeated by a German-American General who then copied their excellent highway system, and for use against foreign enemies😏@@legoeasycompany
Sounds like something I post in the comments to Adam Something's channel every time he posts a video complaining about the urban sprawl of US cities claiming that there is no reason for decentralization and dispersal other than American Culture Sick. Um, American Culture wants to survive a nuclear war.
20:09 ASCI White was a purpose built supercomputer for simulating nuclear explosions, it ran at 12 TFLOPS. A single Nvidia 2080ti does 14.2 TFLOPS.
But can it run Crysis?
@@ChineseKiwiCan any system truly run Cysis? Lol
Things have gotten a lot better.
That said, ASCI White had 6 TB of DRAM. You aren't going to find that on an NVidia graphics card any time soon. And those FLOPS it was running were 64-bit double precision. The 2080ti will do 0.355 DP TFLOPS. Note the decimal.
@@ChineseKiwi Doom*
Forgive me for not being able to remember a lot of specifics, but I remember watching a great video on YT earlier this year about how one of the Obama era weapon extension programs suffered a multi billion $ setback, not because of problems with the pit, or tritium, but because of a synthetic chemical in the trigger system (I think). The story was, this chemical was made for decades in one of those Oppenheimer era labs. The process had essentially become boutique, they had specs and notes, but the machines they did it on and the highly trained people that did it had individual knowledge that just didn't translate into the docs. The lab got spun down after the Cold War, and the people who did the job retired or passed away. Then when time came to try and make more of this chemical, the folks replicating the process came up with a much better refined result using modern equipment... which turned out not to work. It took them tens of millions in analysis to figure out why. Turns out the old school refinement process, while less efficient, ended up with some key electrochemical differences in the product because of complicated stuff like phase transitions and synthesis rates that was essentially unique to the way they were doing stuff in the old lab. So the scientists tried to go back to square one, but learned what I already mentioned about the old equipment and the notes and the former workers. There just wasn't enough pieces of that specialized knowledge left to replicate it the old way. So they had to spend even more tens of millions on a 'new' 'old' fabrication system, that got a product with the old properties but using current equipment.
Wish I could remember where/when I saw it because it was fascinating.
Fogbank was the material.
Channel was half as intresting (most likely)
Yup - now I'm really curious! ;^[}
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fogbank#:~:text=Fogbank%20(stylized%20as%20FOGBANK)%20is,the%20refurbishment%20of%20old%20warheads.
As Emil mentioned, the material was codenamed FOGBANK which was used a channel filler to occupy the space occupy the space around the primary and secondary stages of the device. It had to be a "low-Z" (low atomic mass) material in order to be as transparent to x-rays as possible as this would allow it to reach thermal equilibrium when the primary was detonated and flooded the interior of the bomb with x-rays. This energy is re-radiated by the channel filler which is now plasma, heating up the surface of the tamper around the secondary stage and causing it to rapidly ablate. The vaporised material rockets away from the surface of the tamper at several hundred km/s, causing an inward force on the tamper estimated to be as high as 64 billion atmospheres in some modern devices. This rapidly crushes the secondary stage and triggers the fusion reaction. The channel filler continues to play a key role during this part as it stops the vaporised high-Z material from the tamper from filling the bomb casing and blocking the x-rays from the primary which could result in only partial heating of the tamper surface, resulting in a fizzle.
Having grown up in a highly ranked Soviet target (think Nike, without the swoosh). It pains me that we are once again required to "hope the Russians love their children too'. Fantastic work my friend!
Now it feels like Sunday. Thanks Perun, your content is great.
Honestly it can't be overstated how important fixed base ICBMs in the US states is. As Mattis said, whoever uses nukes against the US is either gonna have to use their own nukes against them, or risk having them coming at them. That really already can save other military bases and cities because of the sponge.
Cold comfort to Wyoming....
@MM22966 who wants to survive a nuclear apocalypse anyways?
and even with that sponge soaking up strikes, ye never know where the subs are.
@@MM22966 our heart goes to all 50 residents of that beautiful state
@doomedwit1010
It’ll be fine.
"If something is going to be horrifying it should be funny too. So understand if the dark humor gets a bit heavy in this one it's not that this isn't a serious topic but rather it couldn't be more serious." -- Perun
Gotta love how the B-29 is closer in design to a veritable spacecraft than it was the to B-17; it really shows in the development budget.
Thank you for another clear view of the military world
However as someone born within 3 months of the start of the nuclear age, I can't say that this weeks presentation fills me with great optimism
Yo Perun bro I've been a huge fan since the first Ukraine vids, and you've inspired me professionally! I find myself emulating your pacing & general slide layouts for work powerpoints, they've become much more enjoyable for myself and my audiences. THANKS A TON, KEEP IT UP!!!
the perun powerpoint meta is the best lol. glad to hear it's been effective where you are too!
I agree, he sets the standard of simple non nonsense PowerPoint with a healthy dose of sarcasm
Thanks for the kind words. Obviously professional formats are going to be a bit different ( e.g. cut the slide count a put a lot more emphasis on the 'why do I care and what do we do about it' parts) but if I can move the PPT meta in any way I count that as a win!
His Ukraine vids haven’t aged well at all. Compare what he said then with what’s actually happening now.
actually they did perun is quite prudent with his words
And here we go! Time to get my Sunday powerpoint fix! Thanks for the great videos you share with the world Perun! We appreciate you here in USA 🇺🇸
I commented and liked my own post! 😂
@@ladeedaa🎉 yank🎉
🎉
As do we, who are unfortunately stuck in Mordor.
I make the jokes about Russian nukes not working, because I as a single person don't have another option. If ICBMs start flying, I choose to believe that the copper went missing decades ago
And there tends to be a pattern that the less likely those responsible for a Russian system are to think the system will ever be used, the more likely they are to pocket the maintenance funds instead of maintaining something that will never be used. The Moskva as an example possibly only having had the ability to steam at moderate speeds and launch cruise missiles as every other system had been allowed to fail. Also the sheer complexity of nuclear weapons and the need for every part of them to work perfectly, and in comparison the relatively high failure rates of other Russian weapons.
@@j.f.fisher5318however, the bang for every buck in the nuclear weapons program is extreme
@@j.f.fisher5318 then again the severity of robbing nuclear weapons compared to a navy ship can't be under estimated, however I feel that thinking "well if they need to use these the world is over anyway" might be enough to get ivan to go ahead and hock it for money now
"I'll see you all again next week" comes with an element of hope after that topic.
This guys videos are the longest I ever watch on CZcams, all thanks to great analysis
thanks mate. I always get advice to cut my videos to maybe 20 mins, but I'm glad people appreciate the longer format
@@PerunAUYou couldn't possibly give the content the coverage it deserves in 20 minutes stick to your guns mate 👍
@@PerunAUSir, please do not cut your videos shorter than 1 hour +. The topics you cover are very interesting, important and specialized, therefore requiring a lot of time to properly explain and understand. Cutting the videos shorter would be a mistake. And it would not bring in more audience anyway, since the people with an attention span so low will not bring in constant views, if that is what you are after. There is no such thing as a ”wider audience” when it comes to niches things like defense economics. Making to the civilians, whom are interested enough to take their time and listen to these kind of videos, understand the topics covered here is much more important, in my humble opinion.
And with this occasion, I want to congratulate you for your public videos/lectures, it's consistent quality and your academic rigor and presentation. One day I hope to have enough disposable income to become one of the small financial supporters of your content, but until the day comes, if it ever does, I wish you all the best! Keep up the good work, but please try to not burn yourself out.
Hi Perun, everyone knows a simple school desk is enough protection from a Nuclear Attack. 😏
Duck and cover!
I thought the point was to protect yourself from the ceiling collapsing from structural damage caused by the shockwave of a (geographically) nearby strike. Obviously if you get a nuke dropped right on you nothing's going to save you short of a hardened underground bunker. But you can minimize loss of life, since the effects of a nuclear blast are not uniform.
I don't get why some people seem to think that people actually thought a desk would protect from a direct nuclear explosion, it seems very clear to me that that was never the intent.
Common Soviet/Russian jokes are
- in the event of an nuclear explosion the soldier must hold his service weapon away from his body so that the melting metal would not damages his service boots
And
- if you are in the open and there is a nuclear detonation, you should assume prone position with your feet towards the blast, cover yourself with a tarp and crawl towards the nearest cemetery
@@BoraHorzaGobuchul That can't be right.
UK doctrine was prone with head towards blast. Whereupon everything should be fine and you should fill out your report to transmit on your absolutely not fried radio.👍
In 60s and 70s we used to say in multiple West. German located USAF bases that the goal was to get our birds launched and then sit back and die. Ground forces felt much the same. We were designed to be the trip wire and knew we were the trip wire and the goal was to absorb as much of Soviet penetration as possible while behind us things were getting organized.
We had a suicide mission.
I firmly believe that dark humour can be a thinking person's attempt to cope with particularly disturbing subject matter.
Thanks as always for putting out such high-quality videos
20:05 “the birds of course survived”
I can’t stop laughing
Big fan, gonna be a banger of a video. Love from Lithuania.
That long exposure shot of the MIRVs just-relaxes me in some wierd way. It's like all the nihilism I could be inflicting on myself is safely encapsulated in those re-entry vehicles.
I hear Werner Herzog.
There's some video footage of inbound MIRVs on youtube that's worth looking up (I couldn't post a link here for some reason), including some impacts and surface explosions (the conventional part of a nuke only of course).
As a metrologist that did nuclear calibration at Minot AFB for both the land and air corners of the triad I will say I'm very skeptical that anything in Russias nuclear arsenal other than SLBMs would really work properly. Their lack of upkeep and maintenance combined with the incredibly high cost of tritium and it's 12 year half life mean any of their tritium dependent ordnance likely aren't at a point to do a high order detonation and might just end up a really dirty low order.
Would I base my national defense plans on the fact that they won't work? Fuck no, expect them all to work 100% and with perfect aim, but I really don't think they will or do.
It's time for Perunpoint!
Appreciate all the time, effort and passion you put into to each of your videos. My Sunday mornings wouldn’t be the same without a cup of coffee and my weekly Perun dissertation. Keep up the great work! Cheers!!!
Sir, you're doing a gods work.
General population literacy in this domain is in much need in populistic environments.
As someone with family that works in Crit Safety at LANL, i can confidently say the pit is working just fine and the reason we haven't updated the buildings there is because they were built right for the job they do the first time. Maintenance and updates have been installed as time has passed, so to call it Oppenheimer era is silly and misleading.
Also, i grew up between NORAD and Pantex. Seeing missiles by the dozen on their way to get a warhead was one of my favorite things to see growing up.
Well, what can you expect from a gaming CZcamsr who, after reading some articles, suddenly thinks he’s a defense analyst lmao
@@dillan6134Are you malfunctioning? He is literally a defense analyst. He has cooperated and collaborated with other analysts from European militaries (and they did so in official capacity)
Perun, thanks for getting to this topic - it was worth the waiting time, great content. I was voting for the topic in every youtube vote since you started it - but, well: there's no medal for coming-in second. Even more so, it was great to see today's topic.
Perhaps, the video vote in some way reflects the sustainability problem of the nuke problems: it's important to take care of it, but it's a long-running issue and there always seems to be at least one more pressing, immediate issue to supersede it.
I must say i've been on the "russian nucs probably don't work" camp, though i agree it's almost certain that at least some of the system are in working order, i was more thinking of the risk of actually trying to fire them, if you don't know who are usable, you wouldn't want one to catastrophically fail at launch. But yes, even if the decay was much worse than your assessment, russia remains a serious nuclear threat.
Thanks for the deep look into it.
I'm pretty sure there's no real possibility of a nuclear explosion on launch, if you think that might be an issue. Much more likely is that the rocket blows up or malfunctions somehow, and if there's a problem with the warhead it would fail to arm, or detonate with a much lower yield than expected, and none of that would pose a danger to people on the ground that the Russians would worry about.
IMO the real thing Putin has to worry about is if Russia is involved in a small scale nuclear conflict, maybe something like the Wagner mutiny happens again but it goes at Moscow for real this time and they launch several nuclear missiles but 95% of them fail to go off on target, the credibility of Russia's nuclear arsenal would disappear and if NATO has somewhat more reliable ABM defenses in the future it might decide using conventional forces for regime change in Russia was an attractive option.
@perun I really enjoyed this one. As someone who in years past was involved in both the release procedures for these beasts, was actually tested on treaty, compliance, etc. (so I had to know much more than I really wanted to politics of it )and then later was heavily involved in simulation activities, I really enjoyed this overview and wish I could’ve had it back around the late 80s lol it would’ve helped this old man back then…. Keep up the great work.
I was waiting for this video! It wasn't up when I woke up this morning so I stayed in the channel watching old videos until this popped up!
Great video! Very informative and detailed as always. Looking forward to your take on other nations nuclear status.
Always good stuff mate.
It has always disturbed me that so few people understand Deterrence Theory.
Good on yah! 👍
The first half of this video was company to my ears while driving to work this morning and the second half was company to my ears while returning home this evening.
I'm surprised you didn't mention anything about India's nuclear arsenal. I guess they're not doing enough to mention.
I can't wait for the next presentation.
He did say it would be covered in a future video about India and Pakistan
"If something is horrifying, it should be funny too." Best definition of an Australian I have ever heard.
Fun fact: Canada used the former weapons grade uranium in CADU reactors to generate electricity. CANDU reactors produce tritium as well.
Which is why India was a big buyer of the CANDU design in the mid/late 90s…
You gotta love that Canadian #CanDu attitude, hey?
I love that CANDU is designed to eat reprocessed nuclear waste and turn them into far less dangerous daughter products. Although as a side effect of being a breeder reactor and multi fuel, it generates Plutonium.
@@Muljinn Yeah Canada got real pissed off at India for using their reactor design to make weapon grade fuel, and Canada lost a lot face for it too. Granted in defense, international checks for those were a lot lax than today, and the Indians did try to held off from actually making the bomb (their government debated a lot) until relationships degraded with Pakistan, China, and at the time US.
@@rulu1828 The thing is, virtually all solid-fuelled nuclear reactors can produce weapons-grade plutonium (from depleted uranium base stock)
It was Weinberg's advocation of his liquid fuelled design as being virtually impossible to weaponise that resulted in the MSR project being shitcanned by Nixon et al.
Another excellent summary of a scary military topic. Particularly nice to see the nod to the Baruch plan and the 'Duck and Cover' reference; you clearly have a solid background in the military world.
This is an enormous video on an enormous subject, one that I have been paying less attention over time and needed this refresher.
As usual, this is a comprehensive video covering just about every aspect relevant to national policy making and improving the education of any more ordinary person interested in global power brokering and competition.
Regarding the letter from the British PM, do these get updated every time this changes? If so that must have been a real logistical hassle over the last few years!
hah, yeah I didn't even think of that! imagine the one from Liz Truss that lasted less than what, three months?
@@davidshea6272Liz Truss was in power for 49 days. It's likely that her letters never found their way onto a submarine. It could be possible that a submarine went out on patrol with Boris's letter, and returned after she had resigned, with the next submarine going on patrol with Rishi's letter.
I think they talked about this on the "Ukraine - the latest" podcast by The Telegraph after Rishi took over. I dimly remember them talking about those letters and how changing the PM that quickly would be a problem.
my understanding is that they are updated each time and the previous ones are destroyed without being read.
Literally just opened my phone to check your weekly drop.
Thank you for finally covering this! Hope more to come
Amazing video! Thank you and the team for all your hard work!
There was an observation about Soviet ballistic missile targeting systems: the systems were so inaccurate that the safest place was at the target.
standard Russian targetting system
Thank you for your videos. A shining beacon of light/loic/reason/information and thinking withsome irony ,much needed this days
Thank you for this. It's the video I've been waiting for since you mentioned it! ❤
Great Video, Great Topic, THANK YOU for all the work. I'd like to see more on nukes, their delivery systems, and the geopolitics surrounding it all, also the sciences to the reactions and mechanics of the systems too if possible. TY again.
I really look forward to watching your videos every Sunday evening, they brighten up my day. Thank you for your amazing work!
I enjoyed Herman Kanns book On Thormonuclear War, it kept me awake for weeks staring at the ceiling with cold dread in my heart. So i have been looking forward to your CZcams sequel
👍
Thinking About the Unthinkable was equally excellent, totally changed my perspective on nuclear use. More people need to read his works in the modern era.
Herman Kahn of course invented the term "megadeaths" and there's a few nods to him in Doctor Strangelove.
Every week you teach me something new thank you for your work
Nice you finally got your chance to regale us on the topic.
The US had a third plutonium pit on its way to San Diego when the Japanese surrender was announced. There were several complete Fat Man bombs minus pits waiting at Tinian Field and it's likely they could have dropped a third functional weapon on Japan before the end of August 1945. The pit was returned to Oak Ridge TN instead.
As for the UK's current nuclear warhead stockpile, some complete weapons are being stored as test devices, to be used to verify component ageing of deployable and deployed weapons and to troubleshoot any issues that turn up during maintenance. These "shelf queens" are not deployable but they are not counted as decommissioned devices.
Testing don't count if you don't make it go boom.
@@MM22966 A remarkable number of nuclear tests, both aboveground and underground were valiant attempts to make a particular Bucket of Instant Sunshine NOT explode. They were experiments to test safety devices, squib tests where the implosion lens partially failed due to, ahem, "various reasons Nike Hercules cough cough" and the like. The results were often mixed, in both directions (The Pascal-B holeshot yielded 300 tonnes TNT equivalent in a squib when it was supposed to fail completely, for example).
The British shelf queens are reference devices, used to check how components age or degrade over time and environmental abuse (heat, vibration etc.) without actually parking them on the British side of the top ring of a Trident D5 missile floating around in the Bay of Biscay. Having an unrequested fission neutron surplus is not the intention of this sort of test. The Big Boys rely on very good computer modelling these days but it helps that they all fired many actual devices to check their calculations against before they signed up to the Test Ban Treaty.
The surrender of a U-Boat mid-'44 with _a lot_ of refined uranium bound for Japan (officers sudoku'd in protest) jumped up the timescale by many months, nearly half a year at least. If you want to know why _Paperclip_ was 'necessary', that schedule jump was all that prevented a total USSR capture of the Home Islands (this is in the context of FDR recognizing the Bolshevik government, first in the West, only to be so infested with spies the _Manhattan Project_ itself was compromised by _multiple_ agents). That prospective Third Fat Man wouldn't have been in time even if feasible, and this was in the diplomatic calculus of the hard-no surrender faction of the imperial cabinet, no doubt with the information sharing with the Germans on the subject (or the possibility of simulating comparable yields with early thermobarics, as the Germans were using in rocket artillery on the Easter Front, while making them simply very dirty).
@@robertsneddon731 I bow my head to a more knowledgeable Anon.
Concerning F35 and gravity bombs: I heard Ulrike Franke from the European Council on foreign relations make an interesting point on that. Those are not meant to be used, nor is there existence the deterrent. They are designed as political tools.
Basically the idea is, you have a whole bomber squadron at a very much known and very much visible location, so you can send a very strong and easy to confirm signal to an adversary in case we stumble into the 21st century version of the Cuba crisis.
It's basically the nuclear equivalent of cocking the hammer of a gun in an action movie. It doesn't serve a direct practical purpose but with the right amount of added drama it might make a real shot unnecessary.
perun thx for content you put out every week
Thanks for tackling a very fascinating program!
My grandad was an electrical engineer and a contractor for the US DOE from the 60s to the 90s. He manufactured pits. He has great stories. And Cancer unfortunately.
I’m probably one of the few people who wakes up on a Sunday and rushes to check CZcams for the newest video from your channel lol
We have been patient for this one and have been rewarded.
I've been looking forward to this one for a while. Thanks, Perun. Reminds me of a vintage 1980s Aussie playboy my friend got me from an antique shop that had a dense full-page article advocating for Australia getting nukes.
In that vein, do you think we'll ever get hand-me-down tactical nuclear cruise missiles for our SSN AUKUS subs?
It's almost certain there are (or have been) nukes stationed near Pine Gap. The only caveat being that they weren't _Australian_ nukes
Regarding the reliability of the R-36, I'll copy a comment I made elsewhere:
Some Russian nukes probably don't work.
I'm sure that in the last year or so, we've all heard people arguing the case that Russian nuclear weapons must be unreliable, for various reasons such as sanctions or the obviously poorly maintained conventional forces. For the most part, I've dismissed this as baseless speculation. However, there is one system I am reasonably assured to be at risk of suffering reliability problems; The R-36M2 Voidoda (SS-18 Satan II). This is due to the termination of the contract for R-36 maintenance by Ukraine in 2015 following the annexation of Crimea. The R-36 is the only Ukrainian designed, manufactured and maintained ICBM in the Russian arsenal. Early versions of the R-36 had a guaranteed storage life of 5 years, later extended to 7.5 years. I'm not aware of any indication that this was further extended, or that Russia has developed the domestic capability to maintain them since 2015. The latter seems unlikely given the development of the RS-28, which had an originally planned in-service date of 2018, so it's reasonable to conclude all the 34 R-36s currently in service are beyond their guaranteed storage life, and thus are of questionable reliability. From what I've been able to find, it hasn't flown since 2013. The R-36 is the centrepiece of the Russian counterforce capability, and the heaviest ICBM in the world. It represents approximately 7% of the total active Russian ballistic missile arsenal, up to 16% of the active strategic missile warhead count, and about 6% of the entire weapon arsenal. It began formal retirement in 2021, and was slated to begin to be replaced with the RS-28 last Autumn, though there have been significant delays, the precise cause of which isn't publicly known for sure, (though the delays in flight testing were reportedly due to issues with the missile "command module"). It's possible the second flight test in February this year was a failure. Russia claimed to have begun mass production of the RS-28 missile last Summer. The 302nd Missile Regiment has been disarmed of its 6 R-36 missiles, and its Uzhur missile field has been undergoing upgrades to accommodate the RS-28 since 2021, which was still ongoing as of March this year.
As Major Kong once said, “Heck, I reckon you wouldn't even be human bein's if you didn't have some pretty strong personal feelin's about nuclear combat.”
Love it that you added subtitles, keep it up!
Thank you mate, looking forward to this.
a lot of weapons utilize tritium also to boost neutron generation at ignition, and that has a half life of 12 years, another layer of maintenance and upkeep that is not cheap.
Thanks for the detailed analysis, as this is something I've been curious about. I must also admit I'm among the people who start to question the state of Russia's nuclear weapons whenever they rattle that sabre. Given what we've seen of Russia's conventional forces, one may start to wonder if the rot has also reached their nuclear arsenal. Hopefully we won't ever have to find out.
Been looking forward to this for a while. Waiting with baited breath for the space warfare P2.
It is worth pointing out that the failure rate of the Bulava in tests was extremely high, although recent tests do show improvement.
Wouldn't want to roll the dice on that though.
Brilliant! Again! I can’t get enough of your breakdown of modern strategies! Please do also cover the Chinese Navy/ war machine if you can!!
Not even nukes could stop the Emus...
Great information (as always). Very much appreciated. Thank you.
Took me a long time to watch this video but it was certainly worth it and a I feel a lot more informed now, thanks Perun
cheers
Heyyooo I’ve been starving for this one
Hell yeah, new Perun episode dropped!
Been waiting for this one.
I'm old enough to remember living in Daily fear of instant obliteration at the hands of an unseen enemy while being young enough to have never known the benefits of ducking and covering because they had abolished that practice for its uselessness by the time I came around.
I think the B-61 is being kept around to be put on stealth drones in addition to what is mentioned in the video.
Also if it’s smaller than other nukes, perhaps for a semi-tactical role against an opponent with minimal AA capability like North Korea
The B-61 is a 500lb class bomb, comparable in size to the MK-82 conventional bomb carried by US fighters.
"minimal AA capability"
"North Korea"
Great topic, glad it was finally picked by the community.
As always, your work is appreciated.