What advantages does a tactical nuke have in comparison to a conventional warhead? Does a tactical nuke have a higher explosive power compared to a conventional bomb of the same size?
Or is the radiation after the explosion the important factor here?
The yield of nuclear warheads is literally measured in (kilo)tons of TNT. How are you unable to grasp this concept? Just compare it with the amount of explosives in a conventional warhead
But what if a nuke yields the equivalent of 5kt TNT. Will the explosion be more powerful than 5kt of TNT?
which weighs more, a kilogram of steel or a kilogram of feathers?
Depends on the force of gravity
jeez really
Your mums fat ass
diamond is the strongest metal
it's pretty heavy though, 1 gram of diamond weighs something like 10-15 grams
the kilogram of steel, because steel is heavier than feathers
Kilo means 1000. A ton is 1000kg that means a kilo ton of tnt is 1000000kg of tnt. So 10kt tnt are 10 000 000 kg.
Let's do some math, shall we?
B-52 payload: 35 tons
Number in service: 58
B-1 payload: 37.5 tons
Number in service: 45
B-2 payload: 20 tons
Number in service: 20
--------------------
Total payload deliverable by the entire United States strategic bomber fleet: 4117.5 tons
One single 5kt nuclear weapon can deliver ~20 percent more explosive power in a single bomb THAN EVERY SINGLE BOMBER IN THE UNITED STATES COMBINED. Fricking moron.
No. A 5 kiloton nuke is equivalent by definition to 5,000 tons of TNT. The Beirut port explosion is a good example of a nuclear-sized conventional detonation.
The difference is that a 50 kiloton nuclear bomb (50,000 tons of TNT) only weighs a couple hundred kilograms.
>The Beirut port explosion is a good example of a nuclear-sized conventional detonation.
Though a really, really small nuke it should probably be added, estimated yield seems to be about 0,5 to 1 kt.
>The Beirut port explosion
Thanks for reminding me of that
Are you ok
are you dense? have you ever seen footage of a nuclear detonation? that's like asking if a stick of dynamite has anything over a firecracker
The explosion is huge, but it's generally energetically wasteful.
>pros
Big boom (of no tactical/strategic value)
>cons
Instantly turns its user into an international pariah state
You can destroy a large area without aiming, and poison your own troops in the process.
Perfect Soviet Union weapon.
>Does a tactical nuke have a higher explosive power compared to a conventional bomb of the same size?
Yes.
When they talk about "kiloton" warheads for tactical nukes, that means equivalency to 1000s of tons of TNT.
Conventional explosives usually have a pretty close TNT equivalency to their explosive mass.
200kg. is the explosive mass of a 1000lb Mk.83 bomb and the Tritonal filler is roughly 20% more explosive than TNT so equivalent to ~240kg or 0.24 ton, 0.00024 kiloton of TNT
The smallest yield of the B61 nuke is 0.3 kiloton i.e. 300,000 kg of TNT
>The MOAB is the most powerful conventional bomb ever used in combat as measured by the weight of its explosive material. The explosive yield is comparable to that of the smallest tactical nuclear weapons, such as the Cold War-era American M-388 projectile fired by the portable Davy Crockett recoilless gun. The M-388, a W54 nuclear warhead variant, weighed less than 60 pounds (27 kg). At the projectile's lowest yield setting of 10 tons, roughly equivalent to a single MOAB, its explosive force was only 1/144,000th (0.0007%) that of the Air Force's 1.44-megaton W49 warhead, a nuclear weapon commonly found on American ICBMs from the early 1960s.
>Smool
A su34 could carry several whike you'd need a tu-95 for one FOAB or FAB-7500 at much smaller explosion
>Definite destruction
If nuke an airfield, noone is left to take off. Equal amount of droped bombs may or may not hit critical structures, airplanes or personel (see sumi airfield, azovstal)
>Area denial / shaping
Not only you can destroy enemy but deny them of e.g. important staging area ( like good pontooning location). One hit and you can forget about area and move to next objective
>Multiple modes
Heat, blast wave, radiation, debris. Very good if you have location with random enemy forces, trenches and what not where you'd need several conventional methods
Most other advantages come from size / blast - easier logistics, simpler guidance, option to penetrate AD with conventional shell barrage etc.
>FAB-7500
Sorry, was thinking FAB-9000. And that's 9 metric tons for for 4.3 tons of TNT. A puny 0.004kT compared to 10-250kT yield of smallest nuke. You'd have to drop 2500 FAB-9000 to achieve just the minimum yield of one nuke.
Now keep in mind that explosions don't scale linearly, because most of blast goes up into air, but even if the nuke was just equal it would still be difference between carrying a 23kg mortar shell and 9 ton cistern. You can actually fire a nuke from standard artillery. good luck trying that with MOAB, FOAB or FAB-5000...
So many advantages... damn i hate the stigma.
Let's make this simple for you OP.
B61 tactical nuclear weapon yield: 400000000 kg TNT
B61 tactical nuclear weapon weight: 324kg
BLU 117 conventional bomb yield: 429 kg TNT
BLU 117 conventional bomb weight: 925kg
Before the autists start screeching yes - that assumes that the BLU 117 is only filled with TNT, rather than an actual modern military explosive. So, yes, the yield will be higher than that total number, but I can't be bothered to look up the exact TNT equivalent for whatever weird form of HE they use for that as it's not going to be significant enough to overcome the colossal difference with the yield of the tactical nuke.
>What advantages does a tactical nuke have in comparison to a conventional warhead
you die if you use one