>would be a strategic game changer on a global scale as soon as they're used.
Irrelevant to the distinction. A tactical nuke is for use on the battlefield, a strategic nuke is for use outside the battlefield
Some schizo neo nazis got in trouble with the feds for trying to build a dirty bomb
Dumbasses
Meanwhile, you have guys like Demolition Ranch who obey the law and do everything by the book, and they get to produce a cool show full of actual NFA destructive devices.
>Sometimes I wonder if you could obtain a tactical nuke and defend your right in the Supreme Court under the 2A.
2A doesn't even cover the ability to own a hand grenade. It definitely wouldn't cover a nuke.
>2A doesn't even cover the ability to own a hand grenade
Yes it does. >nuke
Nuisance laws would probably stop you at the local level since you couldn't use that item without its effects inevtivably leaving your property.
a more cogent answer would be a guaranteed way to have Russia become entirely diplomatically isolated and see at bare minimum NATO and UN peacekeepers enter Ukraine (which might actually be something the Kremlin would want, gives an immediate easy offramp for the conflict that is clearly spiralling out of their control)
>a more cogent answer would be a guaranteed way to have Russia become entirely diplomatically isolated and see at bare minimum NATO and UN peacekeepers enter Ukraine (which might actually be something the Kremlin would want, gives an immediate easy offramp for the conflict that is clearly spiralling out of their control)
*guaranteed way to have Russia hit with a First Strike because if they're willing to use nuclear weapons in an unprovoked war of aggression, then they'll use them on Americans at the drop of a hat and the only remaining options are to destroy Russia's nuclear arsenal, now, while it's still on the ground, or die
>much smaller yield, less radiation impact
The bigger the bomb, the "cleaner" the detonation, as more of the energy comes from fusion rather than fission, and the fusion products are not as radioactive as the fission products.
And it's even worse with proposed suitcase-nukes. You still need the full critical mass ( e.g. 6kg plutonium ring + shit ) to make it go off. But you shit the construction up on purpose so as soon as it starts releasing first energy it breaks apart. This means a lot of mass isn't converted into energy. So you get 6kg of insanely radioactive material + that shit you irradiate around.
>Low yield
No such thing. You're still looking at Hiroshima on the lower end of spectrum. Only thing that really matters is what you hit. People don't really grasp the size of nukes. Its KILO tons. Even 1 kT is 100x more than mega bombs like FOAB or MOAB. But "tacticals" are most comonly in at least 5..50kt range. There isn't information Soviets even developed anything below tens of kT.
It is theoretically possible to just use a little nuke and not cause MAD but we have not tried it because it might just cause MAD anyways
I think they are underutilized. They could be deployed in the field, and never fired, to resolve proxy conflicts. Just a theory, like actually firing a tactical nuke without destroying humanity.
>It is theoretically possible to just use a little nuke and not cause MAD
It's a theory only because once you start using nukes as an I-win button, it behooves your enemies to attempt a strategic ambush to provide a final solution to the stupid cunt question.
So I guess you just have total conventional war instead, which are these proxy conflicts since the end of WWII.
We always talk about if Russians or North Koreans or Pakistan launched nukes, but the only nation to actually use them in war is the USA. So we are the nation most likely to use them, or to use them strategically or tactically.
>It is theoretically possible to just use a little nuke and not cause MAD but we have not tried it because it might just cause MAD anyways
You're talking about Respond in Kind and the war-games on that also usually result in escalation to a full-scale exchange, just at a slightly slower pace.
>It is theoretically possible to just use a little nuke and not cause MAD but we have not tried it because it might just cause MAD anyways
The only two ways you are ever going to be able to use nuclear weapons without provoking nuclear retaliation in kind are
A. Purely defensive use (ex. Ukrainian troops cross into Russia proper and the Russians nuke them at the gates of Belgorad because their conventional army is simply too weak to stop them)
B. Response to some other WMD usage (ex. Ukrainians deploy poison gas against Russian troops and it's very clearly obvious that they were responsible)
>And then pretend we did not get the idea from Metal Gear.
It depends on if anime is based or cringe according to normies by that point, but everyone would know anyways.
A cope term used by retards. >it's only 120kt, it's a tactical weapon
Nuclear weapons are bad at military objectives because no targets actually justify the energy release presented by even modest nuclear warheads.
>t. retard
Nuclear weapons were the only way to guarantee that tactical fighters can destroy their targets in a pre-PGM environment, nuclear payload means SEAD can thoroughly DEAD any SAM battery they come across, interdiction can destroy entire divisions if they get lucky, anti-shipping weapons can deliver guaranteed one shot kills. Never mind all the bridges, supply depots, airfields and so forth that there are to be destroyed.
And on the battlefield, hours worth of shellfire can be replaced by a handful of nuclear shells.
Of course, this general war exists in a state where all major strategic targets have been hit by ICBMs and strategic bombers, but there are still millions of communist soldiers alive, angry, and on the battlefield. It might be the end of the world but you still need to win on the ground.
Real schizo hours on PrepHole apparently. I didn't get the revised schedule. Nobody tell this brainlet that modern SAM systems can have launchers, radars and command facilities tens of miles apart.
something you dug a oil barrel sized hole in the ground to be filled with a nuclear mine that will stop a company sized unit area of operation when triggered. Aftermath such a nothing burger you could walk through ground zero after a day doing clean up duty. Tested out in practice in the nuclear testing areas in Kazakhstan. irl wombat were actually deployed during the vatnik union and ccp war in the border regions.
>t.had a relative in the vatnik union equivalent of the engineer corps tasked with prepping and deploying said shit barrels
Vatnik union propaganda ops using the nook boogie man really did a number on you westerners with the help of fifth column useful idiots
Short-ranged nuclear weapons (usually air delivered or ballistic missiles such as SCUDs) that are intended for battlefield use such as destroying supply depots, field camps, division-level headquarters, or in a pinch, entire formations of enemy troops.
In terms of the escalation ladder, they're indisguishable from strategic nuclear weapons (this has been demonstrated by numerous war-games where attempts to use nuclear weapons at the tactical level simply escalated to a full-scale exchange almost immediately) which is why the concept was largely abandoned after the mid-1980s.
pic related, the last intact Nike Hercules missile launch site in existence
>the last intact Nike Hercules missile launch site in existence
Operative or decommissioned? IIRC the last Nike Hercules was fired by Italy in a commemorative test when they decommissioned the thing like in 2003. There one decommissioned launch site that's been repurposed to a museum about the cold war and the Nike Hercules system. I've been there, it's a cool place, it's called Base Tuono, and that doesn't look like it (unless it's a part of the complex that you don't see, as the museum occupies only one launch pad out of four IIRC).
Simply a relatively low yielding nuke designed to hit troop formations rather than strategic assets.
That said the bombs used on hiroshima and nagasaki would likely be low yielding enough to be considered to be tactical by today's standards, even though their deployment was very much strategic. In that sense you could argue that whether a nuke is strategic or tactical should be defined more by how it is actually deployed than by it's yield. So if russia were to use a 50 kt "tactical" nuke on Kiev it would be a strategic nuclear strike.
Low yield weapons meant to shift things tactically rather than strategically. They would be used to do things like deny areas of the battlefield, destroy enemy troop formations, and neutralize local command and logistics nodes.
The idea was that the enemy would be unwilling to continue escalation and would match you only on the battlefield.
The line between strategic and tactical is a bit blurred when it comes to land combat (Is shelling a division hq in a town with a pre-war population of 10k a tactical move? Does using nuclear artillery make it strategic?).
However, I don't think many would deny a destroyer annihilating an attack submarine with a nuclear torpedo leans more to the tactical side when it comes to deploying nuclear weapons.
Destroying bomber formations with air to air nukes might also qualify, but in most of those early cold war scenarios it was assumed the bombers would be carrying strategic nuclear weapons.
weapons no sane state can afford to use due to the millitary and political repercussions that such use would entail; use of such weapons is limited to saying you have them and using that as a threat or deterrent.
quick response nuclear weapons, designed to prevent a "Beheading" attack on the command structure that could, in theory, prevent strategic counters to a conventional attack.
In essence they are the most defensive way to use a nuclear weapon - Either to blunt an attack or to cripple their front line logistics
Please ignore all the stupid fucks talking about yield and targets; tactical nuclear weapons simply means a nuclear weapon where the decision and authority to use it has been delegated to a military field commander as an asset they're free to use. This is different to strategic where its the president only who can make the decision and authorise their use. That's it. All the discussion about yield and target set is secondary.
Nuclear weapons designed for tactical use on the battlefield rather than the strategic destruction of the enemy's entire homeland. Next.
An oxymoron in one way as any use of them in a tactical sense as described in
would be a strategic game changer on a global scale as soon as they're used.
>would be a strategic game changer on a global scale as soon as they're used.
Irrelevant to the distinction. A tactical nuke is for use on the battlefield, a strategic nuke is for use outside the battlefield
That line wasn't there to be crossed in the theoretical conflict in which tac nukes would be used.
It's like an ICBM but you strap it on a jet or some other delivery system.
It's a proper fusion/fission nuke, not a dirty bomb, but it's just a small one.
Sometimes I wonder if you could obtain a tactical nuke and defend your right in the Supreme Court under the 2A.
Some schizo neo nazis got in trouble with the feds for trying to build a dirty bomb
Dumbasses
Meanwhile, you have guys like Demolition Ranch who obey the law and do everything by the book, and they get to produce a cool show full of actual NFA destructive devices.
>Some schizo neo nazis got in trouble with the feds for trying to build a dirty bomb
What the fuck? You got a link on that anon?
>Meanwhile, you have guys like
>FPS Russian who get setup
>Sometimes I wonder if you could obtain a tactical nuke and defend your right in the Supreme Court under the 2A.
2A doesn't even cover the ability to own a hand grenade. It definitely wouldn't cover a nuke.
>2A doesn't even cover the ability to own a hand grenade
Yes it does.
>nuke
Nuisance laws would probably stop you at the local level since you couldn't use that item without its effects inevtivably leaving your property.
https://www.atf.gov/explosives/illegal-explosives
The anon is correct, it does cover grenades, you've just linked to an unconstitutional organization of fat retards who shoot dogs. Not an argument.
Something the Russians are too scared to use.
much smaller yield, less radiation impact
a more cogent answer would be a guaranteed way to have Russia become entirely diplomatically isolated and see at bare minimum NATO and UN peacekeepers enter Ukraine (which might actually be something the Kremlin would want, gives an immediate easy offramp for the conflict that is clearly spiralling out of their control)
>a more cogent answer would be a guaranteed way to have Russia become entirely diplomatically isolated and see at bare minimum NATO and UN peacekeepers enter Ukraine (which might actually be something the Kremlin would want, gives an immediate easy offramp for the conflict that is clearly spiralling out of their control)
*guaranteed way to have Russia hit with a First Strike because if they're willing to use nuclear weapons in an unprovoked war of aggression, then they'll use them on Americans at the drop of a hat and the only remaining options are to destroy Russia's nuclear arsenal, now, while it's still on the ground, or die
ftfy
>much smaller yield, less radiation impact
The bigger the bomb, the "cleaner" the detonation, as more of the energy comes from fusion rather than fission, and the fusion products are not as radioactive as the fission products.
And it's even worse with proposed suitcase-nukes. You still need the full critical mass ( e.g. 6kg plutonium ring + shit ) to make it go off. But you shit the construction up on purpose so as soon as it starts releasing first energy it breaks apart. This means a lot of mass isn't converted into energy. So you get 6kg of insanely radioactive material + that shit you irradiate around.
>Low yield
No such thing. You're still looking at Hiroshima on the lower end of spectrum. Only thing that really matters is what you hit. People don't really grasp the size of nukes. Its KILO tons. Even 1 kT is 100x more than mega bombs like FOAB or MOAB. But "tacticals" are most comonly in at least 5..50kt range. There isn't information Soviets even developed anything below tens of kT.
An oxymoron. Literally any and all nuclear weapons usage is strategic by default.
tactical != strategic
It is theoretically possible to just use a little nuke and not cause MAD but we have not tried it because it might just cause MAD anyways
I think they are underutilized. They could be deployed in the field, and never fired, to resolve proxy conflicts. Just a theory, like actually firing a tactical nuke without destroying humanity.
>Just a theory, like actually firing a tactical nuke without destroying humanity.
History is often written by men with weapons
And this is a chapter we do not need to write
>It is theoretically possible to just use a little nuke and not cause MAD
It's a theory only because once you start using nukes as an I-win button, it behooves your enemies to attempt a strategic ambush to provide a final solution to the stupid cunt question.
So I guess you just have total conventional war instead, which are these proxy conflicts since the end of WWII.
We always talk about if Russians or North Koreans or Pakistan launched nukes, but the only nation to actually use them in war is the USA. So we are the nation most likely to use them, or to use them strategically or tactically.
>It is theoretically possible to just use a little nuke and not cause MAD but we have not tried it because it might just cause MAD anyways
You're talking about Respond in Kind and the war-games on that also usually result in escalation to a full-scale exchange, just at a slightly slower pace.
>It is theoretically possible to just use a little nuke and not cause MAD but we have not tried it because it might just cause MAD anyways
The only two ways you are ever going to be able to use nuclear weapons without provoking nuclear retaliation in kind are
A. Purely defensive use (ex. Ukrainian troops cross into Russia proper and the Russians nuke them at the gates of Belgorad because their conventional army is simply too weak to stop them)
B. Response to some other WMD usage (ex. Ukrainians deploy poison gas against Russian troops and it's very clearly obvious that they were responsible)
>blast an enemy position with a nuclear artillery shell
>strategic
ok retard
Like regular nukes but mostly peaceful.
that wheeled vehicle seems very slow and not very practical... a big walking mech would be so much better
That is what Metal Gear is.
It could feasibly be a real technology, but it's just sci-fi.
Yet our chief could decide we need a battle mechs with tactical nukes.
But they would hire Northrup or Raytheon or Lockheed to develop it.
And they would call it something innocuous and boring like TM-1.
Laser weapons are now a reality. It's not a stretch.
But do we really need one? We have jets.
Idk, seems like you could blow it up.
But then it would self-detonate.
Interesting concept for sure.
can it swim under water?
Yeah, we have jets and submarines.
We have the Davy Corkett, it's a tactical artillery nuke, only need to fire it one time.
Can destroy cities, like jet missile nukes or ground launched nukes.
I think the real question is, why not built a tactical nuke mech?
And then pretend we did not get the idea from Metal Gear.
>And then pretend we did not get the idea from Metal Gear.
It depends on if anime is based or cringe according to normies by that point, but everyone would know anyways.
A cope term used by retards.
>it's only 120kt, it's a tactical weapon
Nuclear weapons are bad at military objectives because no targets actually justify the energy release presented by even modest nuclear warheads.
> no targets actually justify the energy release presented by even modest nuclear warheads.
>600k yanks dead
That seems pretty justifiable.
Now try 20k on Bakhmut.
Incinerating half-a-million garden gnome Yorkers is absolutely worth 120kt
>t. retard
Nuclear weapons were the only way to guarantee that tactical fighters can destroy their targets in a pre-PGM environment, nuclear payload means SEAD can thoroughly DEAD any SAM battery they come across, interdiction can destroy entire divisions if they get lucky, anti-shipping weapons can deliver guaranteed one shot kills. Never mind all the bridges, supply depots, airfields and so forth that there are to be destroyed.
And on the battlefield, hours worth of shellfire can be replaced by a handful of nuclear shells.
Of course, this general war exists in a state where all major strategic targets have been hit by ICBMs and strategic bombers, but there are still millions of communist soldiers alive, angry, and on the battlefield. It might be the end of the world but you still need to win on the ground.
Real schizo hours on PrepHole apparently. I didn't get the revised schedule. Nobody tell this brainlet that modern SAM systems can have launchers, radars and command facilities tens of miles apart.
>Can't read
He clearly said he was talking about a pre-PGM environment - In other words the early cold war
something you dug a oil barrel sized hole in the ground to be filled with a nuclear mine that will stop a company sized unit area of operation when triggered. Aftermath such a nothing burger you could walk through ground zero after a day doing clean up duty. Tested out in practice in the nuclear testing areas in Kazakhstan. irl wombat were actually deployed during the vatnik union and ccp war in the border regions.
>t.had a relative in the vatnik union equivalent of the engineer corps tasked with prepping and deploying said shit barrels
Vatnik union propaganda ops using the nook boogie man really did a number on you westerners with the help of fifth column useful idiots
>irl wombat were actually deployed during the vatnik union and ccp war in the border regions.
You mean these little guys?
They tested tactical nuclear weapons on them?
Short-ranged nuclear weapons (usually air delivered or ballistic missiles such as SCUDs) that are intended for battlefield use such as destroying supply depots, field camps, division-level headquarters, or in a pinch, entire formations of enemy troops.
In terms of the escalation ladder, they're indisguishable from strategic nuclear weapons (this has been demonstrated by numerous war-games where attempts to use nuclear weapons at the tactical level simply escalated to a full-scale exchange almost immediately) which is why the concept was largely abandoned after the mid-1980s.
pic related, the last intact Nike Hercules missile launch site in existence
>the last intact Nike Hercules missile launch site in existence
Operative or decommissioned? IIRC the last Nike Hercules was fired by Italy in a commemorative test when they decommissioned the thing like in 2003. There one decommissioned launch site that's been repurposed to a museum about the cold war and the Nike Hercules system. I've been there, it's a cool place, it's called Base Tuono, and that doesn't look like it (unless it's a part of the complex that you don't see, as the museum occupies only one launch pad out of four IIRC).
Simply a relatively low yielding nuke designed to hit troop formations rather than strategic assets.
That said the bombs used on hiroshima and nagasaki would likely be low yielding enough to be considered to be tactical by today's standards, even though their deployment was very much strategic. In that sense you could argue that whether a nuke is strategic or tactical should be defined more by how it is actually deployed than by it's yield. So if russia were to use a 50 kt "tactical" nuke on Kiev it would be a strategic nuclear strike.
A myth made from cope
Low yield weapons meant to shift things tactically rather than strategically. They would be used to do things like deny areas of the battlefield, destroy enemy troop formations, and neutralize local command and logistics nodes.
The idea was that the enemy would be unwilling to continue escalation and would match you only on the battlefield.
The line between strategic and tactical is a bit blurred when it comes to land combat (Is shelling a division hq in a town with a pre-war population of 10k a tactical move? Does using nuclear artillery make it strategic?).
However, I don't think many would deny a destroyer annihilating an attack submarine with a nuclear torpedo leans more to the tactical side when it comes to deploying nuclear weapons.
Destroying bomber formations with air to air nukes might also qualify, but in most of those early cold war scenarios it was assumed the bombers would be carrying strategic nuclear weapons.
>What are 'tactical' nuclear weapons?
weapons no sane state can afford to use due to the millitary and political repercussions that such use would entail; use of such weapons is limited to saying you have them and using that as a threat or deterrent.
My shit.
My shit contains dead cells.
Cells contain nucleus.
Therefore, my shit is nuclear weapon.
>Verification not required.
Atchually all matter consists of atoms which contain atomic nuclei, so everything is a nuclear weapon. A sharp stick is a nuclear weapon.
Add a taco bell burrito to your equation then you'll have the equivalent of a cobalt encased nuke.
quick response nuclear weapons, designed to prevent a "Beheading" attack on the command structure that could, in theory, prevent strategic counters to a conventional attack.
In essence they are the most defensive way to use a nuclear weapon - Either to blunt an attack or to cripple their front line logistics
Please ignore all the stupid fucks talking about yield and targets; tactical nuclear weapons simply means a nuclear weapon where the decision and authority to use it has been delegated to a military field commander as an asset they're free to use. This is different to strategic where its the president only who can make the decision and authorise their use. That's it. All the discussion about yield and target set is secondary.
They explode more politely.
the bringer of light