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Comment by gumby | Hacker News Reader

Looks like only about half of them have been deployed. The rest are mostly retired but not yet dismantled, or in inventory (https://thebulletin.org/premium/2024-05/united-states-nuclea...)

Apart from the absolute number, is the collection of current weapons "more effective" (whatever that would mean -- some sort of fit for purpose) than the ~23K warheads at the end of the cold war? Or is it simply a subset of the devices in 1989, with some maintenance since then?

I believe the US is designing a new warhead, maybe the first since the end of the cold war (source, discussion at the nuclear testing museum in Las Vegas last month, perhaps not the most reliable source). What about delivery?

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The US plan for new warheads- the Reliable Replacement Warhead- was killed by Obama in 2009. (There are minor improvements like the Mod 12 version of the B61 is under production, which is really a remaking of the Mod 4 version, stuff like that.)

However, most of the delivery mechanisms are reaching block obsolescence and will need new replacements soon: the Columbia class ballistic missile submarine to replace the Ohios, the B-21 Raider to replace the B-2, the GBSD to replace the Minuteman III, and the LRSO to replace the ALCM from the same B-52s that flew in 1963 (literally the last year of production for a B-52). It's probably going to be something like a trillion dollars over 30 years, is what outside analysts figure. Because basically Stratcom has been saying "we'll just keep doing what we did in 1989, but smaller" since 1991, and the service lives of all the equipment has run out, and so everything needs to replaced at the same time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renovation_of_the_nuclear_weap... for the price tag.

Do you need to do delivery? If nuclear winter is going to end humanity as we know it, then couldn't you blow up an uninhabited wasteland part of your own country and still hurt everyone?

"In Search of a Bigger Boom"

https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2012/09/12/in-search-of-a-bi...

The scientist Edward Teller, according to one account, kept a blackboard in his office at Los Alamos during World War II with a list of hypothetical nuclear weapons on it. The last item on his list was the largest one he could imagine. The method of “delivery” — weapon-designer jargon for how you get your bomb from here to there, the target — was listed as “Backyard.” As the scientist who related this anecdote explained, “since that particular design would probably kill everyone on Earth, there was no use carting it anywhere.”

"Hurt everyone" is not most people's ideal strategy. Maybe North Korea would go for that, but it's really preferred to hurt the enemy more than yourself.

Isn't this the plot of Dr. Strangelove? If they do decide on that strategy, let's hope they don't keep the news for a special occasion...

It's not nuclear winter in strangelove, but a dirty 'cobalt bomb' which contaminates the atmosphere with a huge amount of radionuclides.

My understanding is that the theory behind nuclear winter is that all of the nuked cities will ignite, and the massive firestorms will eject ash into the upper atmosphere where it will persist for years. Aka you still need to blow up some cities to cause the winter.

Also nuclear winter is somewhat controversial, I don’t know what the latest model results are.

Yes. It looks like the new warhead will be the W93, to be deployed on the new Columbia class SSBNs. I assume they'd deploy on some sort of upgraded/refurbished Trident missile.

~$20 Billion requested for fiscal 2025.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...

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