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Common pet peeve with this site: Most people trying to share a scary screenshot will choose the largest one (Tsar Bomba 100t), of which 1 operation one was ever

Common pet peeve with this site: Most people trying to share a scary screenshot will choose the largest one (Tsar Bomba 100t), of which 1 operation one was ever created, and that one has already been detonated. It's also not at all a practical bomb that would be used in practice.

eatonphil 5y ago
Unless the site broke there wasn't much smaller a radius when I selected that one vs. a 5t one.
- seszett 5y ago
  The difference when dropping it on Brussels is 3rd degree burns over half of Belgium (26000 km²) vs. just a bit further than Brussels' suburbs (2000 km²). That's something like 8 million people directly affected vs. 2 million people, which seems quite significant.
BiteCode_dev 5y ago
On the other hand, the RS-28 is the Russian state of the art now, and is probably as deadly as the Tsar, but very practical. However, it is yet to see if it will work as advertised.
- sterlind 5y ago
  Because I looked it up, you are correct: 50Mt total yield (across all the MIRVs), which is indeed the same as the Tsar, with benefit of carpeting an area rather than a single big ka-boom. It was supposed to be test launched (hopefully not with real warheads!) in 2022. So it's unlikely it will matter if there's nuclear war this year. I'm really not sure this gives Russia any advantage over the US though, or over what it's replacing. There's already enough nukes to obliterate both sides, no? Just launch more of the existing ones.
- ben_w 5y ago
  I’m not a weapons expert so I DuckDucked RS-28, and apparently it’s a missile not a warhead? Wikipedia says it can have a payload of: > 10–15 MIRVs[3] Unspecified number of Avangard HGVs I don’t know how to make use of this information.
  - geenew 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targetable_reentry_vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targeta... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targetable_reentry_vehicle#/media/File:W87_MIRV.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targeta... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avangard_(hypersonic_glide_vehicle) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avangard_(hypersonic_glide_veh...
    - ben_w 5y ago
      Not what I meant, those were linked directly by the bit of Wikipedia I quoted. I don’t know the implications of having these as a payload. What size warheads can be mounted in this particular missile’s MIRV option? Are they typically all warheads or are most decoys? If multiple, are they likely to be redundantly targeting the same location, or is this used to target multiple locations from a single launch? The Wikipedia page on MIRVs basically answers “yes” rather than expanding my intuition for how these are likely to be configured. The Avangard article specifies warhead payload range, but I have no idea how it’s intended to be used even if the maximum count per missile was not unspecified.
      - geenew 5y ago
        IANANWEONWP, but: For the number of decoys vs warheads, I /think/ the only real design limit is the throw-weight of the missile and volume of the fairing. This[0] has slightly more information on decoys. The 'it depends' remark is based on the fact that, AFAIK, the choice of decoy:bomb ratio depends on what the attacker thinks they need. Since the US ABM stuff is currently just for very limited strikes, I would guess they wouldn't waste too much space on that. But, they have an option to increase the ratio of decoys:bombs if the US ABM gets denser. The SS-28 missile has a high throw-weight, in either case; it's replacing the SS-18, which had the record.[1] The wiki page on Russian warheads is mostly filled with 'Unknown model XX megaton warhead', so there's not much detailed info on mass for that side of the equation. For the Avangard, the advantage that hypersonic vehicles give over a bog-standard ICBM warhread (which themselves travel at hypersonic speeds) is that they're manoeuvrable, so that they can approach a target from an unexpected trajectory . They don't have to fly on a simple arc, and they can change direction, for example, launch from North Korea, fly over the ocean, then attack South Korea from the west. A couple places I heard them discussed was on The Diplomat's podcast[2], and a CFR podcast[3]. One last thing, if you need more things to not think about: FOBS, which poses a similar threat as hypersonics. Edit: one last last thing: One way to think about decoys/hypersonics/etc is that they are, in a backwards way, a good thing, since they /re establish/ mutually assured destruction. Without MAD, the whole situation becomes more unstable. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penetration_aid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penetration_aid [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-36_(missile)#R-36M_(SS-18) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-36_(missile)#R-36M_(SS-18) [2] https://thediplomat.com/2021/10/the-inter-korean-missile-race-picks-up-the-pace/ https://thediplomat.com/2021/10/the-inter-korean-missile-rac... [3] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hyperventilating-over-hypersonics/id1482132871?i=1000541645818 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hyperventilating-over-... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_Orbital_Bombardment_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_Orbital_Bombardment... * I am not a nuclear weapons engineer or nuclear war planner

eatonphil 5y ago

Unless the site broke there wasn't much smaller a radius when I selected that one vs. a 5t one.

seszett 5y ago
The difference when dropping it on Brussels is 3rd degree burns over half of Belgium (26000 km²) vs. just a bit further than Brussels' suburbs (2000 km²). That's something like 8 million people directly affected vs. 2 million people, which seems quite significant.

BiteCode_dev 5y ago

On the other hand, the RS-28 is the Russian state of the art now, and is probably as deadly as the Tsar, but very practical. However, it is yet to see if it will work as advertised.

sterlind 5y ago
Because I looked it up, you are correct: 50Mt total yield (across all the MIRVs), which is indeed the same as the Tsar, with benefit of carpeting an area rather than a single big ka-boom. It was supposed to be test launched (hopefully not with real warheads!) in 2022. So it's unlikely it will matter if there's nuclear war this year. I'm really not sure this gives Russia any advantage over the US though, or over what it's replacing. There's already enough nukes to obliterate both sides, no? Just launch more of the existing ones.
ben_w 5y ago
I’m not a weapons expert so I DuckDucked RS-28, and apparently it’s a missile not a warhead? Wikipedia says it can have a payload of: > 10–15 MIRVs[3] Unspecified number of Avangard HGVs I don’t know how to make use of this information.
- geenew 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targetable_reentry_vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targeta... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targetable_reentry_vehicle#/media/File:W87_MIRV.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targeta... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avangard_(hypersonic_glide_vehicle) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avangard_(hypersonic_glide_veh...
  - ben_w 5y ago
    Not what I meant, those were linked directly by the bit of Wikipedia I quoted. I don’t know the implications of having these as a payload. What size warheads can be mounted in this particular missile’s MIRV option? Are they typically all warheads or are most decoys? If multiple, are they likely to be redundantly targeting the same location, or is this used to target multiple locations from a single launch? The Wikipedia page on MIRVs basically answers “yes” rather than expanding my intuition for how these are likely to be configured. The Avangard article specifies warhead payload range, but I have no idea how it’s intended to be used even if the maximum count per missile was not unspecified.
    - geenew 5y ago
      IANANWEONWP, but: For the number of decoys vs warheads, I /think/ the only real design limit is the throw-weight of the missile and volume of the fairing. This[0] has slightly more information on decoys. The 'it depends' remark is based on the fact that, AFAIK, the choice of decoy:bomb ratio depends on what the attacker thinks they need. Since the US ABM stuff is currently just for very limited strikes, I would guess they wouldn't waste too much space on that. But, they have an option to increase the ratio of decoys:bombs if the US ABM gets denser. The SS-28 missile has a high throw-weight, in either case; it's replacing the SS-18, which had the record.[1] The wiki page on Russian warheads is mostly filled with 'Unknown model XX megaton warhead', so there's not much detailed info on mass for that side of the equation. For the Avangard, the advantage that hypersonic vehicles give over a bog-standard ICBM warhread (which themselves travel at hypersonic speeds) is that they're manoeuvrable, so that they can approach a target from an unexpected trajectory . They don't have to fly on a simple arc, and they can change direction, for example, launch from North Korea, fly over the ocean, then attack South Korea from the west. A couple places I heard them discussed was on The Diplomat's podcast[2], and a CFR podcast[3]. One last thing, if you need more things to not think about: FOBS, which poses a similar threat as hypersonics. Edit: one last last thing: One way to think about decoys/hypersonics/etc is that they are, in a backwards way, a good thing, since they /re establish/ mutually assured destruction. Without MAD, the whole situation becomes more unstable. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penetration_aid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penetration_aid [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-36_(missile)#R-36M_(SS-18) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-36_(missile)#R-36M_(SS-18) [2] https://thediplomat.com/2021/10/the-inter-korean-missile-race-picks-up-the-pace/ https://thediplomat.com/2021/10/the-inter-korean-missile-rac... [3] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hyperventilating-over-hypersonics/id1482132871?i=1000541645818 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hyperventilating-over-... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_Orbital_Bombardment_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_Orbital_Bombardment... * I am not a nuclear weapons engineer or nuclear war planner