Strategic nuclear weapon

Fat Man was a strategic nuclear weapon dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki during the final stages of World War II. It was the second and the last nuclear weapon to be used in combat. This nuclear strike killed an estimated 35,000-40,000 people outright, including 150 Japanese combatants and 23,200-28,200 Japanese civilians who were engaged in arms production.

A strategic nuclear weapon refers to a nuclear weapon which is designed to be used on targets often in settled territory far from the war front as part of a strategic plan, such as counterforce against enemy nuclear missile, bomber, and submarine bases, military command centers, national aerospace defense infrastructure, transportation, economic, and energy infrastructure, and heavily populated areas such as cities and important towns.[1]

They are in contrast to tactical nuclear weapons, which are designed for use in battle, as part of an attack with and often in close proximity to friendly conventional forces possibly on contested friendly territory. Strategic nuclear weapons generally have significantly larger yields, and typically starting from 100 kilotons up to destructive yields in the low megaton range for use especially in the enemy nations interior far from friendly forces to maximize damage especially to buried hard targets like a missile silo or wide area targets like a large bomber or naval base. However, yields can overlap, and many weapons such as the variable yield B61 nuclear bomb which could be used at low power by a fighter-bomber in an interdiction strike or at high yield dropped by a strategic bomber against a enemy submatrine pen. The W89 200 kiloton(1/5Mt) warhead which armed both the tactical Sea Lance area effect anti-submarine weapon for use far out at sea and the strategic bomber launched SRAM II stand off missile designed for use in the Soviet Union's interior. Indeed, the strategic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki utilized weapons of between 10 and 20 kilotons in the yet uninvaded Japanese home islands, though this was because the "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" bombs were the most destructive (and indeed only) nuclear weapons available at the time. There is no precise definition of the "strategic" category, neither considering range nor yield of the nuclear weapon.[2][3] The yield of tactical nuclear weapons is generally lower than that of strategic nuclear weapons, but larger ones are still very powerful, and some variable-yield warheads serve in both roles, Modern tactical nuclear warheads have yields up to the tens of kilotons, or potentially hundreds, several times that of the weapons used in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Strategic missiles and bombers are assigned preplanned targets including enemy airfields, radars, and surface to air defenses; but this strategic mission was to eliminate the enemy nation's national defenses to allow following strategic bombers and missiles to more realistically penetrate and threaten in force the enemy nation's strategic forces, command, population, and economy rather than targeting military assets in near real time using tactical weapons wtih range and yield optimized for this type of time sensitive attack mission often in close proximity to friendly forces. [4]

Early ICBMs had an unfavorable circular error probable(CEP); meaning the strategic missiles, and in some conditions bombers; had low targeting accuracy. Additionally much early cold war strategic asset construction was above ground soft targets or minimally hardened such as airfields, pre-nuclear command and control installations, defensive infrastructure, even ICBM bases. When every missile carried only one poorly guided warhead designing systems with massive warhead yields in order to cause a huge damage footprint, with the possibility of potentially destroying several nearby soft targets of opportunity, while also increasing the likelihood that the primary target was within the overlap of CEP and destruction circle the highest possible yield warhead for the missile was considered an advantage.[5] The enemy being targeted a continent away there was a low ratio of side effects to friendly areas when contrasted to potential damage to enemy assets. As navigation technology improved accuracy or CEP and many missiles and nearly all bombers were equipped with multiple nuclear warheads the trend was to reduce warhead yield both for weight as well as to give more flexibility in targeting with respect to collateral damage, target hardening also created a situation where even a very large warhead with excellent targeting would still only destroy one target gaining no advantage to its large weight and expense vs several smaller MIRVs.[6]

A feature of strategic nuclear weapons, especially in the transcontinental nature of the US-USSR cold war with continent spanning superpower enemies that are oceans apart, is the greater range of their delivery apparatus (e.g. ICBMs), giving them the ability to threaten the enemy's command and control structure and national infrastructure, even though they are based many thousands of miles away in friendly territory. Intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads are the primary strategic nuclear weapons, while short-range missiles are tactical. In addition, while tactical weapons are designed to meet battlefield objectives without destroying nearby friendly forces, one main purpose of strategic weapons is in the deterrence role, under the theory of mutually assured destruction. In the case of two small bordering nations, a strategic weapon could have a quite short range and still be designed or intended for strategic targeting.

After the Cold War, the tactical nuclear weapon stockpiles of NATO and Russia were greatly reduced. Highly accurate strategic missiles like the Trident II can also be used in substrategic, tactical strikes.

References

  1. ↑ https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb538-Cold-War-Nuclear-Target-List-Declassified-First-Ever/
  2. ↑ Brian Alexander, Alistair Millar, ed. (2003). Tactical nuclear weapons : emergent threats in an evolving security environment. (1. ed.). Washington DC: Brassey's. p. 7. ISBN 978-1-57488-585-9. Retrieved 22 March 2011.
  3. ↑ Some weapons could be tactical or strategic at the same time, depending only on the potential enemy. For example India nuclear missile with 500 km range is tactical when evaluated by Russian side, but understandably would be considered strategic if evaluated by Pakistan.
  4. ↑ https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb538-Cold-War-Nuclear-Target-List-Declassified-First-Ever/
  5. ↑ http://www.un.org/disarmament/publications/studyseries/en/SS-1.pdf p-29
  6. ↑ http://www.un.org/disarmament/publications/studyseries/en/SS-1.pdf p-9

Strategic nuclear weapons

Strategic/tactical nuclear weapons


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