B61-12 Tactical Nuke Upgrade

[davedan]

The US has 120 tactical B61 nukes divided among 6 European bases in 5 countries. B61's are dumb bombs armed with a nuclear warhead that have to be flown over their target and dropped. These tactical weapons are obsolete and have no use today. Any aircraft (even stealth) carrying these weapons would likely be shot down before their reached their target. The F-22 cannot even carry these weapons as they don't fit. The US is spending billions to upgrade the avionics of these weapons to convert 20 of these weapons from dumb bombs into "smart bombs". The millitary says that these upgrades will only make these useless weapons "more usable". By posting this information all over the internet, Russia is using these upgrades as an excuse to roll out numerous advanced medium and long range stategic nuclear weapons systems.

This move to upgrade these obsolete weapons provide absolulely no strategic or tactical advantage, and will only serve to futher provoke Russia.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/julian ... -in-europe" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The real issue I have with this is, why publicize it?

[carbon dioxide]

I don't think there is a nuclear weapon that is obsolete. A nuclear explosion is a nuclear explosion. In a nuclear war, many delivery systems will be used and even dumb bombs will be effective in that hellish day.

[davedan]

In a nuclear first strike, all 6 European US Bases will be hit, and there will be no more airplanes to carry these weapons for any type of retaliation.

the current US nuclear policy (PDD 60 by President Clinton) is to absorb a nuclear first strike and then decide if we can retaliate. Before PDD 60, our nuclear policy was "launch on warning". Launch on warning is no longer the current US nuclear strategy since President Clinton. It is reported by Joel Skousen that a US General exclaimed after hearing the secret directive "retaliate with WHAT?!?"

[farmerchick]

Let's send Ezra with his scriptures and poems to educate the warmongers who are making these warlike gestures. I'm sure he could fix all this peacefully with his wit and intellect saving countless lives...maybe even his own.....my bad...couldn't resist....

[davedan]

I'm not necessarily a fan of nukes in Europe. And I'm not necessarily against upgrading the avionics.

But why publicize it?

Is this part of President Obama's campaign promise to be transparent?

[Dash jones]

I'm no expert at all on this, but I imagine the idea with these would be that there would be some sort of forewarning before a strike. In that case you put the aircraft on alert. In these instances you may actually even have several aircraft at the end of the runway ready to take off. You could get one off per minute (maybe faster depending on how they took off) meaning you could have three or more aircraft in the air by the time the first nuke takes out the base.

After that it's just a matter of how long they can stay in the air.