Indian Nuclear Testing

[Yusuf]

More indepth NUCLEAR NOTEBOOK materials

Indian nuclear forces, 2008
Pakistani nuclear forces, 2009

Sir, is there some proliferation still going on that allows Pakistan access to plutonium based design and also technology to miniaturize?
The test they conducted was thought to be a working bomb. Their capabilities to simulate is not known and maybe non existent as they don't have access to super computers.

[n21]

Both points to a role, nuclear warfighting, that I can quite understand but also know that the Pak arsenal is not task. What is revealling is that a Pakistani LGen trying to explain Pak nuke doctrine might as well be in la-la land. The author of the 1st article, LGen (Ret'd) Sardar FS Lodi is no K. Sundarji.

So, Pakistan would be 1st strike ... as a demonstration. In other words, Pakistan would give the Indians the right to strike after they wasted a nuke on a dog-and-pony show. And even after total escalation, Pakistan would not inflict unacceptable damage on India but to blunt her armies.

I don't know if this guy is in la-la land or need a serious course in military axioms of killing the enemy.

The fact that Pakistani has diverted almost all of US aid in the past 8 years tell me that they dont intend to carry out a pre-emptive nuke strike.

Pakistan seems to more concerned about buying German subs despite the fact that they had to borrow from the world bank just to survive!

They are planning to give a fight.

[n21]

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THROWING ANOTHER MONKEY WRENCH INTO MY GEARS!

As if this is not tough enough to think through!

Extremely valid and at least on my part, an unthought of point though. Why should Pak nukes be solely for India? After all, most Pakistanis took an Israeli air strike package heading to attack Pakistani nuke sites to be true.

However, I will repeat

As if this is not tough enough to think through!

There have been consistent reports of Pakistan building extra nuke plants. My query is who is paying for these plants? Pakistan is hardly in a state that it can fund such stuff.

Then who is doing it. Saudis? If yes then some of the warheads are meant for the Saudis.

Add to this Saudi's have Chinese missiles.

[Yusuf]

The Saudis and the libyans funded Pakistan in the initial stages in the quest for an Islamic bomb. So the Saudis funding more reactors cannot be ruled out.

[calass]

Pakistan wants to use her nukes as weapons of war...which means she will need a lot of them of various sizes.

India needs them only for deterrence..which means once she gets nuked, her nukes will only be targeted at population centers.So she does not need that many of them nor does she need tactical nukes or neutron bombs etc.

Ergo..Pakistan has more nukes.There I solved it.

[pChan]

To OOE

Sir,

Rajaraman an Emeritus Professor of Physics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and Co-Chair, International Panel on Fissile Materials seems to agree with you regarding the H-bomb controversy.

Those who worry about the effectiveness of our deterrent should concentrate on ensuring the survivability of the fission weapons in the event of a first strike rather than on building an unnecessary arsenal of H bombs.

The op-ed also touches upon India's nuke policy & the "irrational adversary" argument.

Source :- H-Bomb controversy - Hindu Op-ed

[Officer of Engineers]

People, please forgive me. I screwed up. I have all your anwsers including where Hans cherry picked his evidence. It was listed in his footnotes. I am going to answer you all but I will point to the documents I've listed and list the specfic points tomorrow.

[diplomaticview]

Indian nuclear tests 1998

Pakistan wants to use her nukes as weapons of war...which means she will need a lot of them of various sizes.

India needs them only for deterrence..which means once she gets nuked her,nukes will only be targeted at population centers.So she does not need that many of them nor does she need tactical nukes or neutron bombs etc.

Ergo..Pakistan has more nukes.There I solved it.

I think India have to give concern to update their nukes and their possibility of work on target. In fact news from Indian scientists are also put valuable questions on Indian Nuclear proliferation programs!

What you think?

[Yusuf]

I think India have to give concern to update their nukes and their possibility of work on target. In fact news from Indian scientists are also put valuable questions on Indian Nuclear proliferation programs!

What you think?

What valuable questions on Indian Proliferation? Can you elaborate?

[antimony]

While the Col comes up with his piece

I must say that the sense of humor on this board has nosedived. Not one poster commented about the Col's choice of a virgin

Gentlemen,

I have to admit, my head is swimming. My gut can understand what you're saying but everytime I try to think things through, I still can see the Pakistani key holder imagining receiving 100 Indian nukes. If the pathway to virgins is their primary concern, then, they should have tossed nukes by now. At 50 nukes aimed at 50 targets, they would have inflicted a crippling, though not lethal, blow to India. To destroy India, they need a superpower arsenal and that they can neither afford nor acquire.

If we can convince certain folks that this in fact is what a virgin look like, why we may be looking at an answer to end terrorism

Ok, enough of levity, back to serious discussions now

[Officer of Engineers]

Which may also explain why Pakistan has not tossed any nukes yet.

[calass]

Article from the man who caused the whole controversy about the hydrogen bomb yield.This Santhanam guy is also a ex Indian Intelligence psy-ops specialist. Is the Indian govt using him to fend off Obama's attempt to get them to sign the CTBT?

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Pokhran-II thermonuclear test, a failure

K. Santhanam and Ashok Parthasarathi

A critical analysis of the technical facts can lead to no other conclusion. BARC must learn to tell the nation the truth.

Several inaccuracies in the claims made by BARC and in the articles published in the press, including The HinduPokhran-II need to be corrected. We have hard evidence on a purely factual basis, to inform the nation that not only was the yield of the second fusion (H-bomb) stage of the thermonuclear (TN) device tested in May 1998 was not only far below the design prediction made by the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), but that it actually failed.

All the five nuclear tests conducted in May 1998 were undertaken through a joint BARC and Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) team. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and R. Chidambaram assigned the DRDO team the critical responsibility for all the field instrumentation to record seismic data from all the tests: this was vital in estimating the yields. The seismic sensors were placed at many points in the device shafts and out to a radius of 2.5 km. The sensors and instrumentation were calibrated several hundred times and perfected. They fully met international standards and were acknowledged to be so by BARC.

The DRDO was thus deeply involved in all the seismic measurements and was fully aware of the BARC-projected readings vis-À-vis its own measurements. One of the authors, Dr. Santhanam, was personally aware in detail from key BARC scientists of the core designs and hence the projected yields. Consequently, the reference in a report published by The Hindu on August 28 (headlined “’Fizzle’ claim for thermonuclear test refuted”) attributed to a “former senior official of the Vajpayee government” that I was “not privy to the actual weapon designs which are highly classified,” was incorrect.

The DRDO also designed and conducted numerous tests of the High Explosive (HE) Trigger of the TN test. BARC scientists witnessed these tests, took copies of test records, and expressed satisfaction with the DRDO’s work.

Over May-October 1998, DRDO produced a comprehensive report of actual seismic readings vis-À-vis values predicted by BARC, mentioning why the former showed considerably lower yields than the latter.

The DRDO report was discussed at a meeting called by National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra in late 1998. The meeting was attended by Dr. Chidambaram and Dr. S.K. Sikka, the scientific head of the BARC team; Mr. Kalam, the Director-General of the DRDO; Dr. V.K. Aatre, the Chief Controller of the DRDO, Dr. Santhanam, and the Chiefs of the Defence Services. Despite a long discussion, largely between the DRDO and BARC, both stuck to their positions on the TN device yield. Thereafter, the NSA took a ‘voice vote’! This was highly unusual because the matter was technically very complex and the services were ill equipped to give an opinion on yields. Most surprisingly, NSA concluded saying government would stand by Dr. Chidambaram’s opinion.

Dr. Chidambaram’s claims and those in Atomic Energy Commission statement reported on September 16 under headline “No reason to doubt the yield of 1998 nuclear test: AEC” are wrong.

BARC basically argued that the geological structure of Pokhran was different from test sites elsewhere. However, the DRDO and BARC utilised the same published information in their calculations of TN device yield. BARC accepted the DRDO’s yield estimates of the fission (A) bomb, but not of the TN device, although the latter’s shaft was situated only a few hundred metres from the former’s shaft. Globally, geological structures do not change dramatically at such small separations. So BARC’s argument to “explain” a lower TN yield is untenable.

Dr. Chidambaram’s statement that “the post-shot radioactivity measurements on samples extracted from the test site showed significant activity [levels] of radioisotopes Sodium 22 and Manganese 54, both of which are byproducts of a fusion reaction rather than a pure fission [device]” is incorrect. He should indicate the exact level of activity instead of merely saying “significant activity” as the activity level determines whether a fusion reaction of the magnitude claimed by BARC actually occurred.

Dr. P.K. Iyengar, a former Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission and a former Director of BARC, informed me that trace levels of these same isotopes were detected in Apsara, a pure fission reactor not involving any fusion at all. This is the exact opposite of Dr. Chidambaram’s claim.

Dr. Chidambaram’s statement that “from a study of this radioactivity and an estimate of the crater radius confirmed by drilling operations at positions away from the shaft, location, total yield and break-up of fission and fusion components, could be calculated” is extremely surprising. First, after the TN test, its shaft remained totally undamaged: if the fusion stage had worked, the shaft would have been totally destroyed. Secondly, the A-frame sitting astride the mouth of the shaft, with winches to lower and raise personnel, materials and so on, also remained completely intact. If the fusion stage had worked, the ‘A’ frame would also have been totally destroyed.

As for radioactivity levels, senior BARC radiochemists who undertook radio-assay of fission products in samples similarly drilled at Pokhran-I (of May 1974) told Santhanam that the yield announced to the media was substantially higher than what they had submitted to Dr. Raja Ramanna. Dr. Chidambaram must publicly substantiate any claim that it did not occur in the TN test along with justification data.

Dr. Chidambaram states: “BARC scientists worked out total yield of TN device as 50 +10 kt — consistent with design yield and seismic estimates.” However, he subsequently asserts: “BARC experts established DRDO had under-estimated yield due to faulty seismic instrumentation.” BARC cannot eat the cake and have it too.

The fission bomb yield from the DRDO’s seismic instrumentation was 25 +2 kiloton and left a crater 25 metres in diameter. If the TN device had really worked with a yield of 50 +2 kt, it should have left a crater almost 70 metres in diameter. Instead, all that happened was that sand and mud from the shaft were thrown several metres into the air and then fell back, forming a small depression in the shaft mouth. There was no crater.

This factual analysis reveals India’s decade-long, grim predicament regarding the failed TN bomb and so our Credible Minimum Deterrent (CMD). No country having undertaken only two weapon related tests of which the core TN device failed, can claim to have a CMD. This is corroborated by fact that even after 11 years the TN device has not been weaponised by BARC while the 25 kiloton fission device has been fully weaponised and operationally deployed on multiplate weapon platforms. It would be farcical to use a 3500-km range Agni-3 missile with a 25 kiloton fission warhead as the core of our CMD. Only a 150 – 350 kiloton if not megaton TN bomb can do so which we do not have.

(K. Santhanam was Project Leader, Pokhran-II. He worked as a physicist at BARC for 15 years. Later he was Chief Adviser (Technologies) in DRDO for 14 years and was then also Director General, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi. Ashok Parthasarathi, the co-author of this article, was S&T Adviser to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and deeply involved in Pokhran-I, of May.)
************************************************** **************

[payeng]

Sir,

A lot of members in this board basically assume that pak is not a rational entity & they seem to confuse the aims of Jihadists with pak national interests. In the kashmir thread when I pointed out that assuming hypothetically kashmir issue gets resolved it would improve India's security situation they keep insisting that pak would still destabilize India & nothing would change. Going by their actions so far they(PA) seems to care a lot about what happens to pak proper(punjab & sindh) unlike the pashtun part. While I agree that the influence of jihadists in pak in general is real . Unless jihadists comes to take over pak the notion of it being a "non-rational" entity is just plain exaggeration.

sniff..sniff, lol, why the Kashmir thread discussion here

[pChan]

Pakistan strategic position

I found a comment from an Australian defense attache who has worked with PN about pakistan's strategic balance. The comment was posted in PDF.

The strategic numerical balance has always been in India's favour but due to the nuclear arms program and the subsequent 'Lost Decade' the qualitative balance has shifted to India too. Grave critical mistakes identified from a strategic perspective are:

-The nuclear program which is not consistent with the country's strategic aims of a 'peaceful neighbourhood' to guarantee developement of both social and economic infrastructure. Instead, the tactical doctrine of 'minimum deterrence' has been allowed to take precedence over eco/social development which has critically weakened the social fabric of the country. It has also diverted critical resources and continues to do so from Pakistan's conventional modernisation of which Pakistan is almost entirely export dependent for assets such as quality fighters, submarines and MBTs that would have given the Pakistani Armed Forces a qualitative edge over the Indians.

-The failure to establish close relations, especially defence related with Israel and the utterly provocative decision to send PAF assets to engage the IAF at a time when Israel was under grave danger-forcing the Israelis to close with India with positive spinoffs for India's own nuclear program as well as conventional build up opposite Pakistan.

Pakistan will now be forced to rely even more on non conventional arms to offset India's massive strategic advantages should it continue to adhere to the doctrine of 'minimum deterrence'. To conclude my answer to your question SLCM armed SSKs will comprise the strategic naval section of Pakistan's response.

I found the comment relevant (though obvious) to this thread as the poster concludes that Pak will increasingly be dependent on nukes to offset the conventional imbalance.

[nebula82]

Does anyone know if the Indian military has a contingency plan in place to safeguard Pakistani nukes should the government collapse and the Taliban take over? We know the US does, but what about India (e.g. Special Forces-type unit)? The implications for India of a nuclear-armed Taliban Pakistan would be just as serious as for the US.

Nebula82.