why cant you use tactical nuclear weapons?

Mark Conley

Active member
Seems to me that they were made..yet in all the conflicts where they could have been used (Korea, Viet Nam, and yes even the Persian Gulf) not one nation has dared to use them.

Why? tactical nukes are just little big explosive devices. Seems to me they would be awful practical. Who would know in the heat of battle?

What are some of the reasons why they havent been used?

:D
 
The US policy since WW2 has been to discourage the spread of nuclear weapons, for self-evident reasons. This was done in part through self-restraint, in order to promote a nuclear weapons use taboo. If we started treating them as just another battlefield weapon, the number of countries owning such weapons would instantly multiply, until nearly every industrialized country had them. If every country felt that a conflict with the US meant it would be attacked by nuclear weapons, it would promptly take necessary measures to avert this possibility, including acquisition of its own nuclear arsenal.

Incidentally, the Nonproliferation Treaty to which the US is a party prohibits the use of nuclear weapons on non-nuclear states. This is part of the NPT bargain: countries forswear the acquisition of nuclear weapons in return for guarantees they themselves will not be targeted by such weapons, assistance in developing civil uses of nuclear energy, and a pledge by nuclear weapons states to work toward eventual elimination of their own weapons. You mess with one or more of the three, and you'll see more nuclear weapons states.

This is the paradox: the US is one of the few countries to have nukes mostly because these few countries have taken pains to act as if they did not have them.

Mod edit: I love this answer. its great, shows thought. thanks for posting it.
 
Tac Nucs

Mark,

Remember that even a tactical nuc creates a large amount of fallout, especially when using a ground or air burst weapon. The fallout has a half life 10,000 years plus, so the environment is poisoned for a long time.

Semper Fi...
 
oh...that thought had occured to me...but what the hell. if we can live with a stream that is so polluted that it catches on fire, i suppose the amount of fall-out shouldnt be that noticable...

incidently, that paragraph above lil hulk is nothing but sarcasm...your point is well taken lil hulk.


did this for lil hulk....sheesh what a grouch
 
Yes the fallout is the major thing because of environmental effects. It contanimates everything outside the blast are itself. The fallout alone is unpredictable.
 
When MUST, you MUST use mini-nukes.

But it is only effective if you can assure the MAD.

If you can assure MAD, then you can use mini-nuke at any time you want.

It was never used before because it was not necessary or not possible to use (like in Korea War) or not effective and with too much political consequence (like in Vietnam War).
 
J.Hawk said:
The US policy since WW2 has been to discourage the spread of nuclear weapons, for self-evident reasons. This was done in part through self-restraint, in order to promote a nuclear weapons use taboo. If we started treating them as just another battlefield weapon, the number of countries owning such weapons would instantly multiply, until nearly every industrialized country had them. If every country felt that a conflict with the US meant it would be attacked by nuclear weapons, it would promptly take necessary measures to avert this possibility, including acquisition of its own nuclear arsenal.

Incidentally, the Nonproliferation Treaty to which the US is a party prohibits the use of nuclear weapons on non-nuclear states. This is part of the NPT bargain: countries forswear the acquisition of nuclear weapons in return for guarantees they themselves will not be targeted by such weapons, assistance in developing civil uses of nuclear energy, and a pledge by nuclear weapons states to work toward eventual elimination of their own weapons. You mess with one or more of the three, and you'll see more nuclear weapons states.

This is the paradox: the US is one of the few countries to have nukes mostly because these few countries have taken pains to act as if they did not have them.

Mod edit: I love this answer. its great, shows thought. thanks for posting it.

And I thought it was just that vorboden word "nuke"
 
Not sarcasm....

It wasn't really supposed to be sarcasm. The use of even a tactical nuke can be set to be either ground burst or air burst (meaning just above the ground to expand the effective range of the blast, not anti air)
 
i think you misunderstood me lil hulk...the first part of my reply was the sarcasm..the rest is a tribute to your post.

BTW folks..i was a NBC officer for 20 years..i defitnetly know what nukes are all about. no more pms about my intelligence please.

:D
 
Remember the fallout prediction charts?

I took a good amount of NBC training, when I went in I was tagged due to my chemistry and physic education ending up having to take the "NBC Lite" course (mostly Decon and fallout/drift charts), but never served directly in NBC. What I remember most is the charts for the drift/fallout prediction and immediate action procedures for unit survivability. ( I love the little litmus paper and other papers in the test kit the lasted about ten minutes in a humid environment....)
 
one of the biggest problems we had was all the people that insisted if you set the device off high enough, you would get it out of the ground effect where it would form a stem that sucks up most of the debris and converts it into highly radioactive materials. This was the whole premise behind the genie air to air missile: shoot it high into a bomber group, watch it blow. not much fallout. safe to use over the home world...no problems.

a bigger load of :cen: was never heavier dropped than that one on our NBC class... :D
 
Survivability...

I always liked the immediate action training with the thought that a nuclear event was survivable and that the unit could still be combat effective. I used to think about just the SHOCK of having a device dropped within 10 miles of the position, let alone truely close.
 
do you remember anything about the smokey tests in the 50s where they actually had guys get up and move into the area after indoctrination and setting the device off?

:shock:
 
Mark Conley said:
do you remember anything about the smokey tests in the 50s where they actually had guys get up and move into the area after indoctrination and setting the device off?

:shock:

That was something. One of the treaties I was trained for verifying was the Threshold Test Ban Treaty. I didn't get to sit in on any tests because of the '92 moratorium, but we did get to go sightseeing around the Nevada Test Site. We went to some of those old troop test sites, and it was just amazing how close the Ground Zero was to the trenches where the soldiers were.
 
Back
Top