[milwank] Considerations on the use of nuclear howitzers

[Rabid]

Is there, today, any designs that exist of nuclear tipped 155mm shells able to be fired by any howitzer of this caliber (OTAN, Warsaw or other ?).

If not :

- What are the biggest technical obstacle to such a thing ?


If so :

- How many cost one, if this information is available ? Can they be easily mass-produced, distributed and stocked (3-5 ordnance for each howitzer at the Army scale) ? This is the Logistical consideration.
- Considering the introduction of low or sub-kiloton nuclear devices allowing the use of nuclear artillery barrage on any advancing enemy force at the tactical scale on a battlefield ; would the force equilibrium between Nuclear Powers be too disturbed that it would be counter-productive to the goal of achieving a better nuclear and conventional deterrent ? This is the Strategical consideration.



In my mind, the strategic goal of equipping your forces with nuclear howitzer would be to say :

" No conventional assault you can launch against us has any chance of succeeding ; if you launch nukes against us your country will be annihilated : let us be friends. "

With such a policy, the only mean for one country to wage war against another would be, even more than today, by the use of asymmetrical strategies, like for example by the use of infiltration/special operation teams on sabotage missions deep inside the enemy territory, or by the use of terror attacks - in short, inherently limiting the amount of "harm" one country is reasonably able to directly inflict to another with any chance of not being blown up to radioactive dust.




Is there any glaring flaw in my reasoning ?

[phongn]

Is there, today, any designs that exist of nuclear tipped 155mm shells able to be fired by any howitzer of this caliber (OTAN, Warsaw or other ?).

While there are none remaining in service, the US W48 was one such device. The USSR had 152mm rounds, too.

- What are the biggest technical obstacle to such a thing ?

Small, robust nuclear weapons are hard.

- How many cost one, if this information is available ? Can they be easily mass-produced, distributed and stocked (3-5 ordnance for each howitzer at the Army scale) ? This is the Logistical consideration.

The main trouble is ensuring that nukes don't get accidentally fired. Both side stockpiled plenty of tactical nuclear weapons.

- Considering the introduction of low or sub-kiloton nuclear devices allowing the use of nuclear artillery barrage on any advancing enemy force at the tactical scale on a battlefield ; would the force equilibrium between Nuclear Powers be too disturbed that it would be counter-productive to the goal of achieving a better nuclear and conventional deterrent ? This is the Strategical consideration.

It depends on the relative economies of the nuclear powers and a host of other factors.

" No conventional assault you can launch against us has any chance of succeeding ; if you launch nukes against us your country will be annihilated : let us be friends. "

If you modify that to be "any assault on our forces will be met with nuclear weapons and your country will be destroyed; with nuclear weapons we can match any conventional buildup far more cheaply and your economy will be ruined," you more or less get the Eisenhower Doctrine.

With such a policy, the only mean for one country to wage war against another would be, even more than today, by the use of asymmetrical strategies, like for example by the use of infiltration/special operation teams on sabotage missions deep inside the enemy territory, or by the use of terror attacks - in short, inherently limiting the amount of "harm" one country is reasonably able to directly inflict to another with any chance of not being blown up to radioactive dust.

You could also launch proxy wars (see: Vietnam, Afghanistan).

[Rabid]

- Considering the introduction of low or sub-kiloton nuclear devices allowing the use of nuclear artillery barrage on any advancing enemy force at the tactical scale on a battlefield ; would the force equilibrium between Nuclear Powers be too disturbed that it would be counter-productive to the goal of achieving a better nuclear and conventional deterrent ? This is the Strategical consideration.

It depends on the relative economies of the nuclear powers and a host of other factors.

Let's say, as unlikely as it can be, that France were to adopt as a policy that any menace on her sovereignty or those of its designated allies (those under its "nuclear umbrella") would be met with overwhelming force, including the use of nuclear devices if necessary (including nuclear howitzer).

Would this violate the Non-Proliferation treaty or any UN guideline to the nuclear powers (if any exist) ?

- What are the biggest technical obstacle to such a thing ?

Small, robust nuclear weapons are hard.

- How many cost one, if this information is available ? Can they be easily mass-produced, distributed and stocked (3-5 ordnance for each howitzer at the Army scale) ? This is the Logistical consideration.

The main trouble is ensuring that nukes don't get accidentally fired. Both side stockpiled plenty of tactical nuclear weapons.

From some quick research I just made, it seems that a W48 nuclear device would cost more than $1.25 Million a piece, and would require proportionally more fissile material (~10 kg of military grade plutonium) than a standard multi-kiloton nuclear device. And such a warhead produce an explosion of "only" 75 tonnes-of-TNT. This mean it would be very dirty AND consume a large amount of very precious fissile material.

It seems it would be more cost effective to put a 1 KT warhead on a Short-Range Ballistic Missile (or a Cruise Missile, for that matter).

[Simon_Jester]

Let's say, as unlikely as it can be, that France were to adopt as a policy that any menace on her sovereignty or those of its designated allies (those under its "nuclear umbrella") would be met with overwhelming force, including the use of nuclear devices if necessary (including nuclear howitzer).

Would this violate the Non-Proliferation treaty or any UN guideline to the nuclear powers (if any exist) ?

Not to my knowledge. The US and Soviets did exactly that during the Cold War. The French already have a nuclear arsenal, so the Non-Proliferation Treaty is irrelevant; the French may have signed specific arms control treaties I don't know about, though.

From some quick research I just made, it seems that a W48 nuclear device would cost more than $1.25 Million a piece, and would require proportionally more fissile material (~10 kg of military grade plutonium) than a standard multi-kiloton nuclear device. And such a warhead produce an explosion of "only" 75 tonnes-of-TNT. This mean it would be very dirty AND consume a large amount of very precious fissile material.

It seems it would be more cost effective to put a 1 KT warhead on a Short-Range Ballistic Missile (or a Cruise Missile, for that matter).

You get more bang for your buck, and longer effective range, but there's a cost. Ballistic missiles aren't really that hard to intercept, especially the short range types, and with the proliferation of more advanced air defense missiles the risk of your nuclear IRBMs being shot down before reaching their target is significant.

Also, holding nuclear missiles in a central location removes the 'tripwire' aspect of a force equipped with tactical nuclear weapons. If an artillery battery has nuclear shells, then you can predict that the battery will fire those shells before allowing itself to be overrun, which means that any war which overruns that battery will predictably go nuclear.

If the artillery battery has only conventional shells, and the nuclear weapons are kept at a central location hundreds of kilometers away, your enemy may be more willing to gamble that you will allow your front line forces to be overrun without choosing to go nuclear.

Another obvious possibility is to simply scale up the howitzer. A 203mm gun can fire a much more powerful nuclear warhead than a 155mm gun, after all. 203mm guns aren't as mobile, but if your reasons for deploying tactical nukes are defensive (try to overrun these troops and they will launch nuclear attacks on your forces), it doesn't matter so much.

It's entirely practical to build artillery in that caliber, plenty of people did during the World Wars even though it was mostly used as siege artillery. The US had such guns for most of the Cold War, and developed nuclear shells for them which were a lot more powerful than the smaller 155mm version.

[Rabid]

You get more bang for your buck, and longer effective range, but there's a cost. Ballistic missiles aren't really that hard to intercept, especially the short range types, and with the proliferation of more advanced air defense missiles the risk of your nuclear IRBMs being shot down before reaching their target is significant.

Also, holding nuclear missiles in a central location removes the 'tripwire' aspect of a force equipped with tactical nuclear weapons. If an artillery battery has nuclear shells, then you can predict that the battery will fire those shells before allowing itself to be overrun, which means that any war which overruns that battery will predictably go nuclear.

If the artillery battery has only conventional shells, and the nuclear weapons are kept at a central location hundreds of kilometers away, your enemy may be more willing to gamble that you will allow your front line forces to be overrun without choosing to go nuclear.

Yes, I was concerned about that. You could always use Cruise Missiles, but when you look at the numbers and see how much one cost, and the size of the warhead you'd put on one... Let's just say that you loose the whole "equipping your troops on the ground with 'cheap and weak' nuclear weapons" aspect.

Another obvious possibility is to simply scale up the howitzer. A 203mm gun can fire a much more powerful nuclear warhead than a 155mm gun, after all. 203mm guns aren't as mobile, but if your reasons for deploying tactical nukes are defensive (try to overrun these troops and they will launch nuclear attacks on your forces), it doesn't matter so much.

It's entirely practical to build artillery in that caliber, plenty of people did during the World Wars even though it was mostly used as siege artillery. The US had such guns for most of the Cold War, and developed nuclear shells for them which were a lot more powerful than the smaller 155mm version.

Hmm, yes, I hadn't put too much thought in this direction, but if those big-caliber guns can be reasonnably used for other things than lobbing nuclear munition in a conventional scenario, why not.

Here we have the M110, a 203mm self-propelled howitzer, and here we have the W33 device (yield unknown), and the W79, with a variable yield, from 0.1 to ~1 KT.

The M110's rate of fire can reach 3 rounds per two minutes when at maximum, and 1 round per 2 minutes with sustained fire. Its range varies from 16,800 m to 30,000 m when equipped with a rocket-assisted projectile.

So, if you want to fry an area of roughly 4 square kilometer, with, say, three 1 KT projectiles by square kilometer (is that overkill against an armored column ?), and if you want all your shells to land in less than a minute, you'd need a dozen of M110 at less than roughly 20 kilometers of ground-zero.

... Yeah, I hope your front isn't too broad, or else you'll have to field quite a number of those monsters to be efficient.


Quick calc' :

It seems that a W79 device could cost $1.25 million per unit. I'll take a conservative approach, and assume that the thing in fact cost four time more, so $5 million per unit.
In the precedent scenario, I have have thrown 12 shells in the face of those dirty godless communists invaders. $60 Million. This is the cost of this operation, in shell alone (not counting the price of the M110s, and all the surrounding logistic).

An M1A2 Abrams cost $6.21 million, if Wikipedia is to be trusted. So, that makes roughly 10 M1A2.
Also, Wikipedia says that an A-10 cost $11.8 million in 1994 dollar. So, let's say $15 million in 2011 dollar. That makes 4 A-10.


Against a "column" of 50 T-90, which seems to be more effective :

(1) Twelve 1 KT devices
(2) Ten M1A2
(3) Four A-10 Thunderbolt II




My gut feeling tells me that the nuclear option is the most cost-effective, but I don't know, with those NBC protected tanks...

[beat]

Wikipedia seems to suggest that three 1 KT devices per square-kilometer against an armored formation might, might I say, be a bit on the overkill side of things. Depending on the topography of the kill-zone, you could reduce the "load" to only one shell per square kilometer. At least, every unprotected enemy personnel will be severely irradiated, as will be the hardware...



EDIT :

Also... $60 million is the price for only ONE salvo of 12 nuclear devices. The advantage of A-10 or M1A2 is that they can be reused. So, in the long run (IF the conflict is ever allowed to go into the long run), logistic seems to dictate that planes and tanks will be favored - only if the warning of you frying the enemy forces with nuclear weapons isn't taken seriously.


... Did I just prove that a conflict fought with nuclear weapons can be kept limited without leading to WWIII and a nuclear holocaust or what ?

[phongn]

... Did I just prove that a conflict fought with nuclear weapons can be kept limited without leading to WWIII and a nuclear holocaust or what ?

No. You're looking at things in a vacuum - once the nukes start flying, longer-ranged weapons will begin reaching further and behind the front lines, possibly in as little time as a few hours.

[Simon_Jester]

Another obvious possibility is to simply scale up the howitzer. A 203mm gun can fire a much more powerful nuclear warhead than a 155mm gun, after all. 203mm guns aren't as mobile, but if your reasons for deploying tactical nukes are defensive (try to overrun these troops and they will launch nuclear attacks on your forces), it doesn't matter so much.

It's entirely practical to build artillery in that caliber, plenty of people did during the World Wars even though it was mostly used as siege artillery. The US had such guns for most of the Cold War, and developed nuclear shells for them which were a lot more powerful than the smaller 155mm version.

Hmm, yes, I hadn't put too much thought in this direction, but if those big-caliber guns can be reasonnably used for other things than lobbing nuclear munition in a conventional scenario, why not.

It might be to your advantage to have special heavy guns used for nothing but nuclear shells in some conditions- because as Skimmer says, one of the biggest issues you need to keep in mind is that you do not ever, EVER want one of your 'conventional' batteries accidentally firing a nuclear round.

If you do issue nuclear rounds to your artillery, best to issue them to only some of your batteries, so that the nuclear artillery can be held in reserve for when they're desperately and specifically needed, probably for a fire mission authorized at a higher level than would normally be necessary since you don't want lieutenants calling in nuclear strikes on their own authority.

Hmmm. In the conventional role, one good application for the 203mm heavy gun would be the ability to fire exceptionally long-ranged and effective guided shells- guided rounds seem to be the wave of the future for artillery, and the advantage of having a 200mm shell casing to fit the guidance package and warhead into instead of a 150mm casing could make it a lot easier to get the thing working properly.

The M110's rate of fire can reach 3 rounds per two minutes when at maximum, and 1 round per 2 minutes with sustained fire. Its range varies from 16,800 m to 30,000 m when equipped with a rocket-assisted projectile.

So, if you want to fry an area of roughly 4 square kilometer, with, say, three 1 KT projectiles by square kilometer (is that overkill against an armored column ?), and if you want all your shells to land in less than a minute, you'd need a dozen of M110 at less than roughly 20 kilometers of ground-zero.

Hardly unreasonable, I'd think. Space one six-gun battery every ten kilometers or so, you get good overlapping coverage across the front. Three guns per five kilometers of front is nothing compared to the requirements for intense conventional warfare during the World Wars. If you've got enough manpower and logistics to maintain a continuous line of infantry and armor along such a broad front, the extra artillery requirement is fairly minor.

Quick calc' :

It seems that a W79 device could cost $1.25 million per unit. I'll take a conservative approach, and assume that the thing in fact cost four time more, so $5 million per unit.
In the precedent scenario, I have have thrown 12 shells in the face of those dirty godless communists invaders. $60 Million. This is the cost of this operation, in shell alone (not counting the price of the M110s, and all the surrounding logistic).

An M1A2 Abrams cost $6.21 million, if Wikipedia is to be trusted. So, that makes roughly 10 M1A2.
Also, Wikipedia says that an A-10 cost $11.8 million in 1994 dollar. So, let's say $15 million in 2011 dollar. That makes 4 A-10.

Against a "column" of 50 T-90, which seems to be more effective :

(1) Twelve 1 KT devices
(2) Ten M1A2
(3) Four A-10 Thunderbolt II

Good question. Have to check that with Skimmer or Phong.

EDIT :

Also... $60 million is the price for only ONE salvo of 12 nuclear devices. The advantage of A-10 or M1A2 is that they can be reused. So, in the long run (IF the conflict is ever allowed to go into the long run), logistic seems to dictate that planes and tanks will be favored - only if the warning of you frying the enemy forces with nuclear weapons isn't taken seriously.

... Did I just prove that a conflict fought with nuclear weapons can be kept limited without leading to WWIII and a nuclear holocaust or what ?

No. Because once you start slinging tactical nukes, the enemy's frontline aviation will start dropping similar devices (and much, much larger ones in the 10-100 kT range, for greater area effect), and tossing missiles tipped with similar devices, and possibly doing counterbattery fire with their own nuclear artillery.

It will escalate, you'd be a fool not to assume it would.

EDIT: Look at it the other way around. Your army is trying to hold the Rhine against overwhelming numbers of Godless Commie Hordes. They start dropping nuclear artillery shells along the west bank of the Rhine to break up your defenses. Do you seriously believe the Force de Frappe won't start replying in kind, both against the attacker's frontline forces and key targets in their rear. Like airbases and road and rail junctions needed to supply their forces for the offensive they're obviously softening you up for?

[Rabid]

Hmm, yes.

Wasn't there a theory developed by the Soviets that it could be possible to de-escalate a nuclear-hot conflict by only frying enemy troops on the ground (targeting only enemy troops) and then reaching for a cease-fire, or something like that (when you are on the defensive, obviously, not when you are the one attacking in the first place) ?


EDIT :

During the Cold War, France developed the "Pluton" missile launcher, a sol-sol ballistic missile which was to be used as a "last warning", just before the use of ALL our nuclear forces. A sort of line traced in the sand : "Cross this line and all will end"

[Sea Skimmer]

For the standard spiel of what is feasible for nuclear artillery, US tested a 127mm diameter nuke under the name ‘Swift’. Actual 127mm and 105mm nuclear shells were said to be feasible by the US military to congress but were not produced, the former because the Navy wasn’t interested when it already had nuclear SAMs of far greater range for shore bombardment, the latter because it was too expensive and too lacking in range compared to 155mm nuclear shells to have any real point.

The main point of nuclear artillery shells was always to scare the crap out of the enemy, sustaining ground combat in a nuclear environment was a big joke by both sides. The USSR went way further planning then NATO ever did, even fielded some specialist engineering equipment partly to support it (ditching and trenching machines, as well as debris clearers), I have some fascinating translations of Soviet exercise manuals in which they have regiments taking 60-70% losses from tactical nuclear strikes and still being expected to advance, but it’s all clearly futile. At best the battle will go on until each sides tanks are empty of fuel. Plus NATO had ‘tactical’ nuclear at times with yields as high as FOUR MEGATONS! Just look at the Redstone missile. Just the craters and tree blow down from use of tactical nuclear weapons would rapidly make maneuver by large units impossible. Indeed generating obstructions like this was to be one of the main uses of the smaller tactical nukes on the NATO side, especially SADM. SADM was expected to be used to go as far as diverting rivers onto the advancing communist hoards.

]It might be to your advantage to have special heavy guns used for nothing but nuclear shells in some conditions- because as Skimmer says, one of the biggest issues you need to keep in mind is that you do not ever, EVER want one of your 'conventional' batteries accidentally firing a nuclear round.

Another big reason existed you don’t think about so much today in the GPS-INS era. In ordered to fire with any accuracy field artillery in the Cold War required a physically surveyed firing location. A normal field artillery battalion had only one survey section for three batteries. 8in batteries, the prime NATO nuclear artillery unit, had a survey section in every battery. This way anywhere 8in went it could relatively quickly fire an accurate first round shot. That is the only way to use nuclear artillery, because if you fire a ranging shot in a nuclear environment you are likely going to get an enemy nuclear shell in reply as counter battery. So the first shot must count, and it must be accurate. It was also no coincidence that 8in howitzers were the most accurate artillery weapon in the NATO inventory.

155mm nukes seem to have mainly existed in the US arsenal so that people without 8in weapons, like airborne forces and some of our smaller NATO allies had nuclear shells available. Certainly regular US forces would have used them, but it was clearly secondary.

Hmmm. In the conventional role, one good application for the 203mm heavy gun would be the ability to fire exceptionally long-ranged and effective guided shells- guided rounds seem to be the wave of the future for artillery, and the advantage of having a 200mm shell casing to fit the guidance package and warhead into instead of a 150mm casing could make it a lot easier to get the thing working properly.

The best application for 203mm is its ability to destroy heavy buildings and almost all feasible field fortifications that can be constructed in less then several weeks unless you have an excavator and a big pile of railroad track to play with; but now GMLRS has totally dominates those roles with an even larger warhead. The main problem is legacy 203mm platforms just dont have the burst or sustained ROF to support high intensity operations, and the only person who ever felt like building a modern 8in class SP weapon with an enclosed turret was Saddam Hussein who had Bull build him a 210mm version of the G6. Amazingly China churned out a brand new towed 203mm howitzer design in the mid 1990s! But they’d been working on it since the mid 1980s and later did create an SP version that was largely an M110 clone with a longer barrel. The Russian 2S7 has semi automatic loading from the ground, but that’s still pretty limited. The 2S4 240mm mortar makes more sense to keep around since it can carry up to forty rounds on the vehicle in the ready magazines with full power loading of the shells, though not propellant charges. It also already has laser guided mortar bombs.

Guided 8in would be nice, but ultimately it has too many drawbacks and shell design will still be quite difficult. Against anything that doesn’t have heavy overhead cover the difference between a direct hit from 155mm and 203mm isn’t really going to matter and in close support of friendly troops the larger blast and much heavier fragments of 8in become a liability. In addition 8in shells make craters so big that they become a serious hazard to tracked vehicles, meaning areas bombarded with 8in may become impassible to friendly maneuver forces. And I fucking love big guns so it’s not like I don’t dream up ways to justify them, but it’s hard.

Hardly unreasonable, I'd think. Space one six-gun battery every ten kilometers or so, you get good overlapping coverage across the front. Three guns per five kilometers of front is nothing compared to the requirements for intense conventional warfare during the World Wars. If you've got enough manpower and logistics to maintain a continuous line of infantry and armor along such a broad front, the extra artillery requirement is fairly minor.

Nuclear operations would most likely see the divisional 8in battery disperse into single gun presurveyed firing positions, while the corps 8in operate as roving guns in depth behind the line. Operating as a full battery is neither necessary nor wise. NATO actually had little presurveyed aiming stakes, often a pair of concrete blocks (line up each track on each block while pointed east) all over West Germany to support mobile nuclear systems, but since the Soviets knew about shitloads of them everyone would have franticly begun to lay out new ones upon mobilization. Doing survey work in the presence of ATOMIC FLASH would not be fun.

Good question. Have to check that with Skimmer or Phong.

The costs are okay, but its all too simplistic to mean anything useful. A TOW missile only costs about 50,000 dollars, but ATGMs have hardly proven the tank obsolete either. Operating armored vehicles or aircraft involves vast supporting forces and all kinds of liabilities the costs of which multiply rapidly. In the 1990s it cost about 5 billion a year to maintain one US armored division in peacetime.

Nuclear shells are rather nice because while expensive, once you have them they are not very expensive to operate at all. You can more or less leave them in a bunker with a security force until needed, and the cost of the user training is fairly limited since you never have to worry about the cost of firing live nuclear training shells. They are a force multiplier rather then a force in and of themselves. However consumption of nuclear ammunition would have been crazy high in a war. Luckily it won’t matter when every railroad marshalling yard and fuel depot between Minsk and Berlin is vaporized placing a very finite limit on how long surviving Soviet tanks can operate. The mere fact that such forces, and NATO defenders would need to become highly dispersed would pretty much cause a complete breakdown of command and control and logistics, even if those supporting assets were not actually destroyed.

No. Because once you start slinging tactical nukes, the enemy's frontline aviation will start dropping similar devices (and much, much larger ones in the 10-100 kT range, for greater area effect), and tossing missiles tipped with similar devices, and possibly doing counterbattery fire with their own nuclear artillery.

It will escalate, you'd be a fool not to assume it would.

For a large portion of the Cold War the standard ‘tactical’ nuclear bomb on NATO strike aircraft was the 1 megaton Mk-43 device, around a thousand of which were produced. Also a large portion of NATO tactical aircraft actually were assigned deep penetration missions, often one way only, well into the USSR to ensure that SAC bombers would rape the USSR heartland with minimal opposition. This role became less common from the 1970s onward.

The lower yield stuff only became popular in the late cold war when the fear became that ever improving Soviet mechanized forces would get deep into Germany before the order to fire all nukes was issued. Small nuclear weapons then became a ‘plausible’ way to defeat those forces spearheads, literally nuking the open ground in-between German towns, while the follow on forces and rear areas were vaporized as normal. Thus any Soviet dream of employing hugging tactics was defeated on paper out of hand, and having a means to counter all Soviet threats with nuclear armaments on paper was what counted. This is also why neutron bombs came into play. But in general, the idea of using ‘low yield’ tactical weapons was more fiction then fact, and completely fiction In the first half of the cold war.

[Sea Skimmer]

Hmm, yes.

Wasn't there a theory developed by the Soviets that it could be possible to de-escalate a nuclear-hot conflict by only frying enemy troops on the ground (targeting only enemy troops) and then reaching for a cease-fire, or something like that (when you are on the defensive, obviously, not when you are the one attacking in the first place) ?

The Soviets generated a lot of nuclear war fighting theory and encouraged discussion of such ideas. However in terms of what they normally trained men for and what they expected it was basically that any and all wars with NATO would be nuclear, and by extension chemical and biological, from the onset. They did believe that a limited nuclear war was possible, but it would be limited geographically more so then only targeting enemy troops, as targeting NATO airfields even in West Germany alone would kill millions of civilians. The hope was that an opening nuclear strike would so disrupt NATO command and control and theater nuclear assets that despite taking massive losses on the approach march, Soviet ground forces would be able to get deep behind NATO lines, become impossible to track let alone sanely target, and bring about a rapid NATO political collapse. All Cold War Soviet Army doctrine was about bringing about a rapidly political collapse of the enemy, conventional or nuclear, the exact military situation was irrelevant to this goal. NATO could have superior surviving forces for all it mattered, if West Germany had surrendered it surrendered and who would dare keep fighting when given a clear chance to stop? Supporting this kind doctrine is why the soviets had so much highly mobile amphibious armor and relatively light tanks with otherwise dubious looking features like auxiliary fuel tanks. Sure shitloads will get exploded, but the survivors can continue the attack longer.

It was implied in this kind of doctrine that the top NATO political command centers would not be destroyed, leaving someone alive to surrender. The hope would be to bring about a collapse of the European members of NATO quicker then the US could ever make a decision to employ strategic nuclear arms, or extend ‘tactical’ nuclear strikes deeply into the USSR. However this all depended on NATO not immediately replying to the invasion (though the USSR was also dead serious on basing many plans on a NATO first strike) with its full range of theater nuclear weapons, which was unlikely at best. Weapons like Pershing II and GLCM then really threw a monkey wrench in Soviet planning because they could be based well outside of West Germany, making any pretext of limited nuclear attacks disrupting or overruning them impossible, and yet still had more then enough firepower to ensure destruction of the support infrastructure of the entire Soviet war machine in the Warsaw Pact states and western USSR. They also came into service at the same time a new generation of relatively nuclear resistant satellite communications systems did, making total disruption of previous NATO backbones like the Ace-High troposcatter system less important. Soviet planning also required Soviet troops to be willing to just keep fighting, citing massive losses in WW2 as the reason why... but WW2 never had radiation making basic operations like refueling near impossible nor did troops suffer such heavy losses in mere seconds. Nor was dispersion a requirement in the Great Patriotic War, and yet WW3 would demand the highly rigid Soviet command system (you have to be an officer just to have a map!) operate dispersed in terrible radio conditions. Nor was dispersion a requirement in the Great Patriotic War, and yet WW3 would demand the highly rigid Soviet command system (you have to be an officer just to have a map!) operate dispersed in terrible radio conditions.

Life gets even more interesting though, because for all the doubts we in the west and the soviets themselves had about the feasibility of nuclear war fighting, the Soviets also had serious doubts from the 1970s onward that it was even feasible to fight the purely conventional wars they also planned for. Literally the fighting was just going to be too intensive for resupply to be feasible or for the massed forces to actually move over the road grids in reasonable timescales. Soviet forces may well have strangled themselves with the shear size of the operations being launched. An invasion of West Germany, just in the first echelon forces, would have involved something like 100,000 vehicles.

During the Cold War, France developed the "Pluton" missile launcher, a sol-sol ballistic missile which was to be used as a "last warning", just before the use of ALL our nuclear forces. A sort of line traced in the sand : "Cross this line and all will end"

France had a follow on to Pluto called Hades as well with a truck launcher; it was produced but never deployed. France wanted options independent of NATO because they knew the Soviets had ideas about limited nuclear war, and really thought they might be able to skip out on the whole thing in an ‘ideal’ situation. But one major problem with this thinking was the USSR never really believed France wouldn’t jump right back into NATO if a war occurred.

[Simon_Jester]

Hardly unreasonable, I'd think. Space one six-gun battery every ten kilometers or so, you get good overlapping coverage across the front. Three guns per five kilometers of front is nothing compared to the requirements for intense conventional warfare during the World Wars. If you've got enough manpower and logistics to maintain a continuous line of infantry and armor along such a broad front, the extra artillery requirement is fairly minor.

Nuclear operations would most likely see the divisional 8in battery disperse into single gun presurveyed firing positions, while the corps 8in operate as roving guns in depth behind the line. Operating as a full battery is neither necessary nor wise.

Naturally not- I was thinking more in terms of the spacing, you still need one battery per ten kilometers even if the guns are all operating out of line of sight of each other dispersed over dozens of square kilometers of the rear area.

No. Because once you start slinging tactical nukes, the enemy's frontline aviation will start dropping similar devices (and much, much larger ones in the 10-100 kT range, for greater area effect), and tossing missiles tipped with similar devices, and possibly doing counterbattery fire with their own nuclear artillery.

It will escalate, you'd be a fool not to assume it would.

For a large portion of the Cold War the standard ‘tactical’ nuclear bomb on NATO strike aircraft was the 1 megaton Mk-43 device, around a thousand of which were produced. Also a large portion of NATO tactical aircraft actually were assigned deep penetration missions, often one way only, well into the USSR to ensure that SAC bombers would rape the USSR heartland with minimal opposition. This role became less common from the 1970s onward.

The lower yield stuff only became popular in the late cold war when the fear became that ever improving Soviet mechanized forces would get deep into Germany before the order to fire all nukes was issued. Small nuclear weapons then became a ‘plausible’ way to defeat those forces spearheads, literally nuking the open ground in-between German towns, while the follow on forces and rear areas were vaporized as normal. Thus any Soviet dream of employing hugging tactics was defeated on paper out of hand, and having a means to counter all Soviet threats with nuclear armaments on paper was what counted. This is also why neutron bombs came into play. But in general, the idea of using ‘low yield’ tactical weapons was more fiction then fact, and completely fiction In the first half of the cold war.

Ah. I was thinking in terms of the present situation, where bombs of 1 MT yield and up seem to have fallen out of favor, with the preferred yield of everything, including strategic weapons, being in the kiloton range. Am I wrong?

[[R_H]]

Quick calc' :

It seems that a W79 device could cost $1.25 million per unit. I'll take a conservative approach, and assume that the thing in fact cost four time more, so $5 million per unit.
In the precedent scenario, I have have thrown 12 shells in the face of those dirty godless communists invaders. $60 Million. This is the cost of this operation, in shell alone (not counting the price of the M110s, and all the surrounding logistic).

An M1A2 Abrams cost $6.21 million, if Wikipedia is to be trusted. So, that makes roughly 10 M1A2.
Also, Wikipedia says that an A-10 cost $11.8 million in 1994 dollar. So, let's say $15 million in 2011 dollar. That makes 4 A-10.


Against a "column" of 50 T-90, which seems to be more effective :

(1) Twelve 1 KT devices
(2) Ten M1A2
(3) Four A-10 Thunderbolt II

My gut feeling tells me that the nuclear option is the most cost-effective, but I don't know, with those NBC protected tanks...

[beat]

Wikipedia seems to suggest that three 1 KT devices per square-kilometer against an armored formation might, might I say, be a bit on the overkill side of things. Depending on the topography of the kill-zone, you could reduce the "load" to only one shell per square kilometer. At least, every unprotected enemy personnel will be severely irradiated, as will be the hardware...

EDIT :

Also... $60 million is the price for only ONE salvo of 12 nuclear devices. The advantage of A-10 or M1A2 is that they can be reused. So, in the long run (IF the conflict is ever allowed to go into the long run), logistic seems to dictate that planes and tanks will be favored - only if the warning of you frying the enemy forces with nuclear weapons isn't taken seriously.


... Did I just prove that a conflict fought with nuclear weapons can be kept limited without leading to WWIII and a nuclear holocaust or what ?

Is the enemy force composed of just 50 T-90s, or a unit/collection of units who's order of battle contains a total of 50 T-90s (plus other equipment and personnel like AA assets, mechanised and/or motorised infantry etc)?

Why no conventional artillery option? It seems to me that the scenario you're describing could be addressed using artillery delivered cluster munitions (dumb and/or smart), permitting a high probability of success while not being burdened with the non-monetary costs of using NBC weapons (dud submunitions vs an NBC environment).

For example, consider a battery of 3 M270 MLRS. Each carries 12 rockets.

An M26 rocket has 644 DPCIM submunitions, which while not ideal against T90s, can penetrate up to 4" of armour (don't know what that would be in RHAe)/ personnel within a 4m radius. 3 M270s*(12 rockets/M270)*(644 DPCIMs/rocket) = 23184 DCPIMs per battery. According to Globalsecurity, "The average ground pattern of a 12-round ripple, with some overlapping of warhead patterns, varies from about 120,000 to 200,000 square meters, depending upon the range."

[Sea Skimmer]

Naturally not- I was thinking more in terms of the spacing, you still need one battery per ten kilometers even if the guns are all operating out of line of sight of each other dispersed over dozens of square kilometers of the rear area.

You could get away with one weapon per 10km if you had too, all the more so if anyone ever felt like making a modern 8in nuclear shell that would have at least 30km of range. But that really becomes threat dependent. A tactical nuclear shell can't be counted on to destroy anything bigger then a single enemy tank company, or even less, but merely by existing it renders many enemy operations impossible or absurdly unwise like a river bridging operations.

Ah. I was thinking in terms of the present situation, where bombs of 1 MT yield and up seem to have fallen out of favor, with the preferred yield of everything, including strategic weapons, being in the kiloton range. Am I wrong?

In the present situation I can see no particularly rational reason to stockpile tactical nuclear warheads for the anti armor role at all. Aside from the lack of a massed threat anything like the cold war; Sensor Fused Weapon and similar devices from the air or artillery are now highly competitive with low yield nuclear weapons for inflicting tank kills, and of course are far more useable. Everyone is just going to drop nukes on the rear areas and that is that. The US still stockpiles 1.2 megaton gravity bombs, B-83 for use by tactical fighters and strategic bombers.

[Thanas]

Assuming that the Fulda Gap gets nuked just to prevent the soviets from penetrating, how realistical were the Soviet scenarios that they would manage to advance very far into Nato territory very quickly?

[Simon_Jester]

In the present situation I can see no particularly rational reason to stockpile tactical nuclear warheads for the anti armor role at all. Aside from the lack of a massed threat anything like the cold war; Sensor Fused Weapon and similar devices from the air or artillery are now highly competitive with low yield nuclear weapons for inflicting tank kills, and of course are far more useable. Everyone is just going to drop nukes on the rear areas and that is that.

I don't disagree- the strategic calculations have changed, but Rabid phrased his questions in terms that made me think about the idea of nuclear artillery now. For which purpose the main argument I can see is the tripwire one- our frontline divisions will use nuclear weapons to protect themselves, so don't kid yourself we can and will be fighting a nuclear war the minute one of our frontline regiments is hard enough pressed to feel the need.

I myself started that example as a way of pointing out to Rabid that even if the nuclear combat started with 10 kT or lighter artillery rounds, it wouldn't stay there- it'd be seen very quickly as justification to use heavier weapons more liberally against targets deep in the enemy rear

[Rabid]

Yes, that was in fact my thought. And this leading me to ask this question :


Is it the end of War as we know it ? As every Major Power in this world are now either nuclear ones, or under the protection of a nuclear power, have reached a point in History were War, major war between major powers, has become so highly improbable that it could be assumed to be impossible ?

NATO will never allow one of its member to be conquered. Of the B.R.I.C. powers, only Brazil doesn't have nuclear weapons - yet. Africa will continue to be a powder keg, but these conflict will be asymmetrical ones, militia murdering civilians, mass rape... a war for the poor. Asia ? Burma ? I doubt China would allow any conflict on its turf to reach that point.

The only real hot-spot left in this world seems to be the Korean conflict - and it is very likely that it were to explode, the fallout would mostly remain localized in the Korean peninsula and Manchuria.

Have we reached an era where the only wars to be fought will be peace-keeping, nation-building, failed-state-rescuing operations ?


... Alfred Nobel would be so proud...

[Sea Skimmer]

Assuming that the Fulda Gap gets nuked just to prevent the soviets from penetrating, how realistical were the Soviet scenarios that they would manage to advance very far into Nato territory very quickly?

Fulda would have not have been the number one Soviet attack axis; the main attack using three of five Soviet armies in East Germany and the bulk of East German and Polish forces would come on the open North German plain and the area just south of the hartz mountains. At this same time this would hit generally weaker NATO armies. German forces compared well to US forces in firepower but the British-Belgian-Dutch troops in NORTHAG, not so much. Most people expected NORTHAG to simply collapse if attacked by a large invasion, in that sector Soviet troops might well get pretty deep in one or two days in any situation.

How realistic anything was would depend heavily on each sides state of mobilization upon the outbreak of war. NATO could become very powerful but only with 7-14 days of warning. The Soviets were much better placed to engage in major operations on only a few days notice. A sudden attack might just prevent any effective NATO defense from ever forming. But that's why NATO nuclear use would have been all out, and why a war never happened.

I don't disagree- the strategic calculations have changed, but Rabid phrased his questions in terms that made me think about the idea of nuclear artillery now. For which purpose the main argument I can see is the tripwire one- our frontline divisions will use nuclear weapons to protect themselves, so don't kid yourself we can and will be fighting a nuclear war the minute one of our frontline regiments is hard enough pressed to feel the need.

I think that is a bit absurd of a simplification. No one is going to employ nuclear weapons over a situation involving only a few thousand men. The US after all DID let units that size get wiped out in Korea without using nukes. If a nuclear war came about it would be over something very big, like a whole tank army making a breakthrough with no reserves left to check it, and by default it would demand striking a wide range of targets deep into the enemy rear in ordered to try to stop such a large scale disaster. Furthermore, while NATO was in the formal era of 'tripwire' defense, NATO forces were in fact deployed well back from the border zone precisely so that nuclear weapons could be used before they became heavily engaged and avoid many problems

It is total insanity to employ nuclear weapons without employing them to destroy as much as possible of enemy nuclear forces. All the more so with tactical nukes when most of them can't be fired on a hair trigger giving a real chance of destroying them with a first strike. Once you start dropping nukes on airfields and ammunition depots its all over.

For small tactical situations tactical nuclear weapons just suck because the targets will move so quickly compared to how fast you can get permission and check friendly locations prior to using them, never mind what the unpredictable wind will do will the fallout. The fact simply is modern conventional weapons have gained firepower they did not have before which provides a new means to resolve smaller scale battles with air and artillery power that just wasn't possible in the 1980s. The above is is yet another reason why SADM was liked so much, since when emplaced as a mine at a fixed point its ready to use and a known risk. But in the current day we don't have SADM, we don't have nuclear shells and its just going to be a hail of high yield warheads so I don't see the point of looking at the situation in such narrow terms.

I myself started that example as a way of pointing out to Rabid that even if the nuclear combat started with 10 kT or lighter artillery rounds, it wouldn't stay there- it'd be seen very quickly as justification to use heavier weapons more liberally against targets deep in the enemy rear

It just wouldn't start limited way, it makes no rational sense. Nuke only front line enemy forces to prevent breakthrough, and those superior enemy forces survive with more surviving forces anyway and then can destroy the inferior defending force with nuclear weapons more quickly all else being equal. So just firing a few nukes changes nothing. The main hope is a complete collapse of the enemy ability to wage war, and that means blowing away everything you can so his hard to target hard to kill front line troops cease to matter. Nuclear artillery is a way of telling the enemy he has no tricks he can pull, other then that it's pretty pointless.

[Sea Skimmer]

Have we reached an era where the only wars to be fought will be peace-keeping, nation-building, failed-state-rescuing operations ?

Unless such proliferation was accompanied by other major social and economic advances you've merely reached in an era in which nuclear weapon becomes a certainty. That's why the existing nuclear powers are almost all heavily in favor of non proliferation. Shitholes like Pakistan may well be the death of us all.

[Simon_Jester]

I don't disagree- the strategic calculations have changed, but Rabid phrased his questions in terms that made me think about the idea of nuclear artillery now. For which purpose the main argument I can see is the tripwire one- our frontline divisions will use nuclear weapons to protect themselves, so don't kid yourself we can and will be fighting a nuclear war the minute one of our frontline regiments is hard enough pressed to feel the need.

I think that is a bit absurd of a simplification. No one is going to employ nuclear weapons over a situation involving only a few thousand men. The US after all DID let units that size get wiped out in Korea without using nukes. If a nuclear war came about it would be over something very big, like a whole tank army making a breakthrough with no reserves left to check it, and by default it would demand striking a wide range of targets deep into the enemy rear in ordered to try to stop such a large scale disaster. Furthermore, while NATO was in the formal era of 'tripwire' defense, NATO forces were in fact deployed well back from the border zone precisely so that nuclear weapons could be used before they became heavily engaged and avoid many problems

That's a question of 'where do you place the tripwire, and at what level of your military.' I shouldn't have said "regiment," though, because that makes the argument overstrong. You could have nuclear-equipped regiments and use them as tripwires, mind, but that doesn't mean you should. Likewise, you could place your nuclear tripwire very close to the border, but that doesn't mean you should.

Either way, the only real function of the nuclear artillery is the tripwire role- it can't do anything a fighter-bomber dropping a nuke can't, except give whatever ground units have nuclear shells their own organic nuclear deterrent, so that there is zero doubt whether those units can be overrun without getting into a nuclear war. Which really isn't enough to justify going to the trouble of developing it and the specialized guns to fire it at a useful yield.

I myself started that example as a way of pointing out to Rabid that even if the nuclear combat started with 10 kT or lighter artillery rounds, it wouldn't stay there- it'd be seen very quickly as justification to use heavier weapons more liberally against targets deep in the enemy rear

It just wouldn't start limited way, it makes no rational sense.

I wouldn't really expect it to- my point was that even if it did, even if somehow the nuke-user was irrational enough to nuke armored battalions but not supply depots, it would never stay that limited. Because once the "shit just went nuclear" line is crossed, even if you're crazy enough to nuke only frontline forces, the enemy won't be.