Comment by toast0 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by toast0 | Hacker News Reader

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> Because if they could start churning out a dozen or a hundred a week within a short period of time, why does the standing arsenal really matter?

There's probably a declared number where this matters, but the current number of warheads is high enough that's there's no need to make more. 3,000 is plenty to retaliate against an opponent with 30,000. More doesn't provide a benefit.

Nuclear disarmament, as practiced by the US and Russia is a negotiation to reduce the number of warheads in a coordinated fashion so that it's possible to convince warmongers on both sides that it's reasonable. The benefits are primary a reduction in cost to maintain and secure the warheads and a significant reduction in the risk of accidents related to the warheads. Mutual destruction is still assured --- you'd need a lot fewer warheads for that and involvement of other nuclear states; but then your question of production capacity would be more interesting.

> 3,000 is plenty to retaliate against an opponent with 30,000. More doesn't provide a benefit.

I think a big part of this is that the long-distance missiles, when all of this was invented, were not very accurate. Sending 10 to do the job of 1 might have been necessary just to hit the intended targets.

Modern missiles are quite capable of precision strikes.

> Modern missiles are quite capable of precision strikes.

yes, this is also why yields have dropped considerably. I'm not sure if there are any > 5 MT weapons in the US arsenal anymore. I think most are in the 500-750KT range, the missiles and delivery vehicle are accurate enough to produce the same result as the larger warheads and 5-7 (can't remember exactly) warheads can be carried by a single missile. So instead of having one missile launch one giant warhead that may hit 50 miles away from the target you have one missile launch 5-7 smaller warheads that hit within 50 meters of 5-7 different targets.

This is a big part of why the long lines bunkers/sites were abandoned. Once the accuracy increased to more than 1mi the resilience of the bunkers and sites were folly. (built to withstand multiple mt within 1mi)

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