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Comment by apo | Hacker News Reader

Not all of the blasts were supposed to be big. This one yielded about 80 times less energy than the bomb that exploded over Hiroshima.

https://gfycat.com/gifs/detail/possibleinborndogwoodclubgall

That may be the most provocative of them all today.

What would be the response to a nuclear power using one of these in combat? Escalation? Retaliation in kind? The damage to the surrounding environment could be small, especially if used to target submarines and ships.

Escalation to the level of H-bombs would mean WWIII. No response demonstrates "weakness." Tit-for-tat seems the most likely outcome, with gradual escalation along the way.

It's far from clear how long that gradual escalation phase could last, but it could be a long time indeed. The first use of low-yield nuclear weapons in combat lays the groundwork for their use in the next conflict.

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You might be interested in reading more about "Davy Crockett" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_%28nuclear_devic...) and the Fulda Gap (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulda_Gap).

In short, for much of the Cold War the USSR had such a numbers advantage over NATO when it came to tank forces that the only chance NATO had to hold off a full-scale tank invasion by the USSR would have been the use of tactical nukes.

As you rightly point out, MAD strategy doesn't quite apply here. Yes, the Davy Crockett is a nuclear weapon. However, the fact that it only would've leveled the playing field probably means that the USSR wouldn't have immediately responded in kind. That said, a world of tactical nukes is definitely a scary one (Frank Herbert was rather prescient in this regard), and I'm glad we've never had to find out what it would look like.

> In short, for much of the Cold War the USSR had such a numbers advantage over NATO when it came to tank forces that the only chance NATO had to hold off a full-scale tank invasion by the USSR would have been the use of tactical nukes.

Would it be effective against a tank invasion? I would have thought tanks were solid enough that you'd almost need a direct strike to destroy them, if the tanks were spread out it wouldn't be more effective than conventional weapons. I'm not sure about the soviet era one's but the current Russian ones are designed to operate on an irradiated battlefield.

The Davy Crockett was deployed from 1961 to 1971, so we're talking '60s era tanks. There's a reason that modern tanks are radiation shielded, and similarly why tactical nukes are no longer considered part of tank warfare.

https://www.quora.com/How-effective-would-a-tactical-nuclear...

Thanks, I didn't know about these ones:

> The second category, no longer in use, were low-yield weapons that produced high doses of radiation that would incapacitate the crews of the tanks. The Enhanced Radiation (ER) warheads, commonly referred to as ‘neutron bombs’ were a sub-category. Four 1 kt ER warheads would incapacitate the crews of the battalion.

It's scary that humanity ever actually produced devices like that.

> "What would be the response to a nuclear power using one of these in combat? Escalation? Retaliation in kind? The damage to the surrounding environment could be small, especially if used to target submarines and ships."

Look up "Escalate to De-Escalate." The apparent Russian nuclear doctrine involves small-scale nuclear devices (escalation) used in a regional capacity. Their theory, supposedly, is that if only a small nuclear weapon is used in a limited capacity against a military target, a full-scale nuclear response against civilian populations (aka nuclear Armageddon) would be completely unreasonable and consequently the other side would choose to back down (de-escalation).

Now, whether or not Russia actually believes this or merely wants America to believe that Russia believes this is something of an open question. It could be the case that Russia wouldn't actually dare put Escalate to De-Escalate into practice, but merely claim they think it's a good idea as part of their deterrent strategy.

I believe a few times the US has also alluded to low yeild strikes as a possible action to take to against rouge states if they felt a nuclear strike against an ally or the us was about to happen.

At least before the things deteriorated between the US and Russia, Russia was silent in response.

I suspect both sides are pretty pragmatic as far as a strike on regarding non NATO or non Russian targets goes, at least in terms of weighing the outcome rather than going full MAD... or even responding at all.

Granted the US scenarios IIRC were hypothetical posed by reporters (or off the record policy talk) involving N. Korea and Iran and they were obviously military targets and the goal was prevent their use of nukes. Facing a nightmare scenery I suspect both nations expect the other would act to defend their people, and while not approve, wouldn't feel the need to respond with military action. Those situations seem tailor made to a limited smaller scale nuclear strikes.

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