India Thermo Nuclear weapon was not a total success?

[RationalGuy]

So some people think that for 27 years after 1998 tests , we have not made any progress in the design of our Nukes

Why are such people even born

They're reactionary. "Saar China detonated 5 megaton weapons must detonate 10 megatons saar". They listen to one scientist and then lose all faith on an entire establishment, one which actually built the bomb. And they don't even read the facts carefully. The fact is, we have thermonuclear weapons. Our Shakti 1 test was a partial success, the primary stage worked and secondary stage had a partial detonation. We have the capability to rectify that flaw and make thermonuclear nukes up to 200 kiloton yield. PERIOD. I literally gave the example of US deploying a 25 megaton nuke which they never tested (it was scaled up version of 5 megaton nuke they tested), but of course, they want fo act like that doesn't exist.

 

[Shan]

Conspiracy Theories - TIME

It's now been nearly four decades since Neil Armstrong took his "giant leap for mankind" if, that is, he ever set foot off this planet. Doubters say the U.S. government, desperate to beat the...

content.time.com

It's now been nearly four decades since Neil Armstrong took his "giant leap for mankind" — if, that is, he ever set foot off this planet. Doubters say the U.S. government, desperate to beat the Russians in the space race, faked the lunar landings, with Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin acting out their mission on a secret film set, located (depending on the theory) either high in the Hollywood Hills or deep within Area 51. With the photos and videos of the Apollo missions only available through NASA, there's no independent verification that the lunar landings were anything but a hoax.

There are people who are scientists and engineers who subscribe to this theory as well. There are frequent ex-federal govt. consultants who say this as well.

 

[LX1111]

North Korean subs are very noisy and wont survive against US, Korean and Japanese P8I Posiedon and ASW assets

This type of submarine usually operates within 10 nm of the coast, and the P8I cannot fly that close.

ASW assets and that 50 warhead count is even less than what I thought it was lol. Its funny you think Indian missiles like K4, Agni 5 pose no threat to China

Given North Korea's weak national strength, it is already very difficult for it to reach 40% of the number of India and Pakistan.
There is no essential difference between India’s deterrence against China and North Korea’s deterrence against the United States and Japan, which consists of some land-based ICBMs and some SLBMs.

n pose a threat to Japan and US whose BMD system is far more complex and capable than China's. North Koreas nuclear arsenal poses no real threat to the US. It is 100% a threat to South Korea

How did you come to the conclusion that the missile interception capabilities of the United States and Japan are far superior to those of China?

 

[RationalGuy]

This type of submarine usually operates within 10 nm of the coast, and the P8I cannot fly that close.


Given North Korea's weak national strength, it is already very difficult for it to reach 40% of the number of India and Pakistan.
There is no essential difference between India’s deterrence against China and North Korea’s deterrence against the United States and Japan, which consists of some land-based ICBMs and some SLBMs.


How did you come to the conclusion that the missile interception capabilities of the United States and Japan are far superior to those of China?

India can strike China from land and sea and air. North Korea can only strike the US mainland and Guam with land, that too is suspect as North Korean ICBMs are far inferior in terms of CEP and evasion capabilities. But Indias deterrence wtr to China is the same as North Korea vs US? India's nuclear weapons ratio to China is 2:5 roughly, North Korea to US is a whopping 1:70, and India can strike China from all three mediums while NK can only strike from one medium (land). Sometimes I think you need a mental checkup.

As for China's interception capability, you are nowhere near the US. I asked you a long time ago to give me China's equivalent to the US GMB system, you did not. China does not have battle proven systems like SM 3 and SM 6 which even have ASAT capability. Not to mention battle proven systems like Patriot and THAAD. The only evidence of China's air defence efficacy is the total failure of HQ9 against India's subsonic and supersonic cruise missiles.

The US has over 60 years of missile interception legacy, they have way more space assets to detect and track missile launches compared to China, they have a world distributed ISR capability for the same and they even had nuclear tipped ABM systems. You are literally not even in the same league as the US in BMD, even Russia is ahead of you, as is India in some aspects (China does not have anything like our PDV Mk2 which successfully shot down a satellite in 2019 afaik).

 

[Gosu]

How did you come to the conclusion that the missile interception capabilities of the United States and Japan are far superior to those of China?

That's the default assumption anyone would come to given the legacy, depth, and historic qualitative edge of American MIC. Don't mistake it as me saying America has complete superiority over China– it just means America has the advantage in people's minds. Unless and until China and America go to war, American arsenal, and by extent those of the Japanese would be considered by most to have a qualitative edge over China.

It's sort of like the way you assume all Indian weapons are inferior to their Chinese equivalents.

 

[RationalGuy]

That's the default assumption anyone would come to given the depth and historic qualitative edge of American MIC. Don't mistake it as me saying America has complete superiority over China– it just means America has the advantage in people's minds. Unless and until China and America go to war, American arsenal, and by extent those of the Japanese would be considered by most to have a qualitative edge over China.

It's sort of like the way you assume all Indian weapons are inferior to their Chinese equivalents.

It thinks NK nuclear arsenal poses a bigger threat to the US than the Indian nuclear deterent does to China. Lol.

 

[Gosu]

It thinks NK nuclear arsenal poses a bigger threat to the US than the Indian nuclear deterent does to China. Lol.

I know. Hence, the last part of my post.

It's sort of like the way you assume all Indian weapons are inferior to their Chinese equivalents

 

[LX1111]

India can strike China from land and sea and air. North Korea can only strike the US mainland and Guam with land, that too is suspect as North Korean ICBMs are far inferior in terms of CEP and evasion capabilities. But Indias deterrence wtr to China is the same as North Korea vs US? India's nuclear weapons ratio to China is 2:5 roughly, North Korea to US is a whopping 1:70, and India can strike China from all three mediums while NK can only strike from one medium (land). Sometimes I think you need a mental checkup

A weak country like North Korea is implementing the minimum nuclear deterrence.

As for China's interception capability, you are nowhere near the US. I asked you a long time ago to give me China's equivalent to the US GMB system, you did not. China does not have battle proven systems like SM 3 and SM 6 which even have ASAT capability. Not to mention battle proven systems like Patriot and THAAD. The only evidence of China's air defence efficacy is the total failure of HQ9 against India's subsonic and supersonic cruise missiles

Aren't you talking about the HQ29?
Something similar to the US GBI interceptor missile

As for something like the Chinese SM3/SM6, we only have this picture of it being tested on the Chinese 851 Bi Sheng test ship, and the specific model remains confidential.

As for your comment that China lacks anti-satellite capabilities, I think you'd better use Google
Saltzman has frequently described China’s 2007 test of its direct ascent ASAT weapon as a turning point in the history of military space operations. Speaking at the Atlantic Council on Nov. 15, he warned that such weapons remain a serious concern.

Saltzman: China’s Anti-Satellite Weapons Are ‘Compounding Problem We Have to Figure Out’

Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman said advancing anti-satellite missile technology from China is "a compounding problem."

www.airandspaceforces.com

 

[RationalGuy]

A weak country like North Korea is implementing the minimum nuclear deterrence.


Aren't you talking about the HQ29?
Something similar to the US GBI interceptor missile
View attachment 45279
As for something like the Chinese SM3/SM6, we only have this picture of it being tested on the Chinese 851 Bi Sheng test ship, and the specific model remains confidential.
View attachment 45280
As for your comment that China lacks anti-satellite capabilities, I think you'd better use Google
Saltzman has frequently described China’s 2007 test of its direct ascent ASAT weapon as a turning point in the history of military space operations. Speaking at the Atlantic Council on Nov. 15, he warned that such weapons remain a serious concern.

Saltzman: China’s Anti-Satellite Weapons Are ‘Compounding Problem We Have to Figure Out’

Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman said advancing anti-satellite missile technology from China is "a compounding problem."

www.airandspaceforces.com

You better read clearly because I said China lacks a proven ship based ASAT capability SM3 and SM6 offer. I never said China completely lacks ASAT capability. Infact I would say Chinese ASAT capabilities are third best after Russia and US, certainly way ahead of India.

How many HQ29 has China deployed? US has 40 GBI iirc. Furthermore US has global missile launch detection and track capability, it's ISR for BMD is superior than China due to space based assets and global distribution of radars, ships, sensors etc. So the point of US being much ahead of China in missile defence stands. US helped Israel intercept hundreds of Iranian ballistic missiles while it was 10,000 km away.

 

[LX1111]

The US has over 60 years of missile interception legacy, they have way more space assets to detect and track missile launches compared to China, they have a world distributed ISR capability for the same and they even had nuclear tipped ABM systems. You are literally not even in the same league as the US in BMD, even Russia is ahead of you, as is India in some aspects (China does not have anything like our PDV Mk2 which successfully shot down a satellite in 2019 afaik).

This is purely part of the stereotype. For example, there are the "Pioneer" series of reconnaissance satellites and the "Outpost" series of infrared early warning satellites. few people know that
But everyone knows the US SBIRS series.

 

[LX1111]

ou are literally not even in the same league as the US in BMD, even Russia is ahead of you, as is India in some aspects (China does not have anything like our PDV Mk2 which successfully shot down a satellite in 2019 afaik).

Russia does not have mature KKV technology. The S500 is a missile similar to the HQ19, which is extremely large.
The S500 is even still using some of the old radars from the S300PMU2. What do you think of their technical level?

 

[RationalGuy]

Russia does not have mature KKV technology. The S500 is a missile similar to the HQ19, which is extremely large.
The S500 is even still using some of the old radars from the S300PMU2. What do you think of their technical level?
View attachment 45282
View attachment 45283

@randomradio is this so?

 

[LX1111]

That's the default assumption anyone would come to given the legacy, depth, and historic qualitative edge of American MIC. Don't mistake it as me saying America has complete superiority over China– it just means America has the advantage in people's minds. Unless and until China and America go to war, American arsenal, and by extent those of the Japanese would be considered by most to have a qualitative edge over China.

It's sort of like the way you assume all Indian weapons are inferior to their Chinese equivalents.

These words can only be said by people who know nothing about military affairs.
Just as we have taken the lead in launching two sixth-generation aircraft, it at least shows that we have caught up with or even surpassed the United States in many military technologies.
But we did not see such a thing happen in India. If India had flown AMCA for the first time at any time before 2011, all Chinese would have admired India and regarded India as the hope of developing countries.

 

[LX1111]

It thinks NK nuclear arsenal poses a bigger threat to the US than the Indian nuclear deterent does to China. Lol.

For example, the 98L6 radar is the AESA version of the 96L6 radar.

The 96L6 is a PESA radar imported by China along with the S300.

 

[LX1111]

@randomradio is this so?

For example, the 77T6 radar is essentially the AESA version of the 92N6 radar,
92N6 is also the supporting radar of the S300PMU2.

We congratulate Russia for finally reaching the technical level of the HQ9B radar

 

[RationalGuy]

Russia does not have mature KKV technology. The S500 is a missile similar to the HQ19, which is extremely large.
The S500 is even still using some of the old radars from the S300PMU2. What do you think of their technical level?
View attachment 45282
View attachment 45283

Well, Russia has a history of combat proven air defence systems, such as SA2, S100 to S400, and they had nuclear tipped ABM missiles, some of which are still deployed around Moscow. Based on this, I said their ABM capabilities were superior.

 

[FenicromovCW]

I'm very late to this discussion but @South block @Rajput Lion @D68 @Bon Plan and others, the real yields of Shakti 1 and Shakti 2 were discussed enormously well and in detail by this (I'm assuming American) scientist in a very old website. I'm attaching the link, you guys can read it: What Are the Real Yields of India's Tests?

Tldr, basically Shakti 2, our pure fission device, was 100% succesful and detonated with a yield of 12 kilotons. However, Shakti 2 was not totally successful, but it did detonated with a likely yield of 31-35 kilotons, which is below BARCs claim of 45 kilotons. The author believes that the primary stage of Shakti 1 performed correctly, but the secondary stage only detonated partially and gave 10-15 kilotons:
View attachment 45270


So our hydrogen bomb was NOT a "fizzle" like K Santhanam claims, it did detonate but not upto the desired level. The secondary stage did also detonated but did not provide the expected contribution to the explosion energy. The author thinks that India however can refine the design and indeed develop scaled up version of this device all the way up to 200 kilotons:
View attachment 45271
K Santhanam claims that the hydrogen test was a total fizzle and 20 kt of yield came from the Shakti 2 explosion, but evidence shown in the article i shared disprove this, and goes to show Shakti 1 exploded and did explode in a thermonuclear reaction, just that it's level was not upto what was claimed. A partial success imo. And a big one at that, UK a pioneering country in nuclear technology failed multiple times in making hydrogen bombs! They succeeded after multiple failed tests.

I want to remind you guys of 2 key things which people rabidly advocating for testing forget:
1.) Scaling from lower yields is 100% possible, the American W41 was a whopping 25 megatons but was never tested, it was a scaled up version of a 5 megaton weapons iirc. I know we are not America but that was done in 1950s, today India has supercomputers of great complexity, programms to simulate explosions AND data from Shakti tests. It's not implausible to think we can simulate and design 2 stage thermonuclear weapons.

2.) Israel only tested like 1-2 times and has never tested its thermonuclear design and thought that computer simulations are enough. Now some of you may think US would freely give a thermonuclear design to them but imo that's highly unlikely. Thermonuclear weapon is the ultimate weapon of war which is crown jewel of nuclear technology, America didnt even give Israel atom bomb and was against it making it, it tried to stop its Dimon plant construction. So there's no reason to think Israel would get H bomb level of tech from somewhere else.

3.) India most definitely has boosted fission capability, and can boost fission warheads to near or beyond 100 kilotons if needed, which is also an extremely potent deterrent.

100 - 300 KT Nukes are norm as of today, and India has this capacity already, only question is of explosion efficiency on which I am very positive about. Our only area of concern should be that how strong India is in MIRV tech, as a 5 M population city will require around 6-8 synchronized nukes for full incapacitation.

 

[Bon Plan]

I'm very late to this discussion but @South block @Rajput Lion @D68 @Bon Plan and others, the real yields of Shakti 1 and Shakti 2 were discussed enormously well and in detail by this (I'm assuming American) scientist in a very old website. I'm attaching the link, you guys can read it: What Are the Real Yields of India's Tests?

Tldr, basically Shakti 2, our pure fission device, was 100% succesful and detonated with a yield of 12 kilotons. However, Shakti 2 was not totally successful, but it did detonated with a likely yield of 31-35 kilotons, which is below BARCs claim of 45 kilotons. The author believes that the primary stage of Shakti 1 performed correctly, but the secondary stage only detonated partially and gave 10-15 kilotons:
View attachment 45270


So our hydrogen bomb was NOT a "fizzle" like K Santhanam claims, it did detonate but not upto the desired level. The secondary stage did also detonated but did not provide the expected contribution to the explosion energy. The author thinks that India however can refine the design and indeed develop scaled up version of this device all the way up to 200 kilotons:
View attachment 45271
K Santhanam claims that the hydrogen test was a total fizzle and 20 kt of yield came from the Shakti 2 explosion, but evidence shown in the article i shared disprove this, and goes to show Shakti 1 exploded and did explode in a thermonuclear reaction, just that it's level was not upto what was claimed. A partial success imo. And a big one at that, UK a pioneering country in nuclear technology failed multiple times in making hydrogen bombs! They succeeded after multiple failed tests.

I want to remind you guys of 2 key things which people rabidly advocating for testing forget:
1.) Scaling from lower yields is 100% possible, the American W41 was a whopping 25 megatons but was never tested, it was a scaled up version of a 5 megaton weapons iirc. I know we are not America but that was done in 1950s, today India has supercomputers of great complexity, programms to simulate explosions AND data from Shakti tests. It's not implausible to think we can simulate and design 2 stage thermonuclear weapons.

2.) Israel only tested like 1-2 times and has never tested its thermonuclear design and thought that computer simulations are enough. Now some of you may think US would freely give a thermonuclear design to them but imo that's highly unlikely. Thermonuclear weapon is the ultimate weapon of war which is crown jewel of nuclear technology, America didnt even give Israel atom bomb and was against it making it, it tried to stop its Dimon plant construction. So there's no reason to think Israel would get H bomb level of tech from somewhere else.

3.) India most definitely has boosted fission capability, and can boost fission warheads to near or beyond 100 kilotons if needed, which is also an extremely potent deterrent.

Israel : It's not impossible, once they have nuc, that uncle Sam give them some access to their simulation tools so as to fine tune their H bomb.

Boosted fission bomb : France, before reaching the H bomb level, made an operationnal boosted fission one with a Yeld, if I remember well, of 600kT.

 

[Bon Plan]

I said it's inferior to Israel and India, not low. Israel and India are nuclear triad powers and can produce many more nuclear weapons than North Korea. North Korea is still not a triad power, it's sea leg is very primitive and weak, likely not operational. Their Pukuksong SLBM poses no threat to the US, and they will not get a nuclear submarine for a while. As for North Korean ICBM, all I see are more targets for American GMB and SM3 and SM6. Not to mention South Korean BMD systems which can take them down when they start their trajectory. So, while North Korea has a deterent, its way inferior to the nuclear capability of Israel and India by a wide margin.

If you think North Korea can threaten the US with 60-70 nukes, then you're even more delusional than I thought.

About the Indian stockpile : now that we all know that china will grow up its deterrence, from 300 to 1000 warheads in the coming years, we probably will see the same evolution in India.

If you think North Korea can threaten the US with 60-70 nukes, then you're even more delusional than I thought.

It's not enough to erase USA, for sure, but enough to threaten.

 

[RationalGuy]

It is not so easy to guess whether the bomb was a dud and if so how it was a dud. The fundamental process that is publicly known for constructing a thermonuclear warhead is called a Teller-Ulam design, which incorporates a series of chained fission and fusion reactions extending the time of containment and therefore mass conversion before the bomb blows itself apart and is no longer critical. However, these "extensions" occur for nanoseconds and there are publicly theorized techniques where a bomb's yield can be varied based on a settings (don't ask me to explain how here). So if the bomb yielded only 30kt against a desired yield of 45kt, that is not a complete failure.

It indicates that the primary had managed to ignite the secondary, which means that an effective T-U design was engineered, perhaps not perfectly but they must have gotten most of right. Finally many international sources actually agree with BARC that the seismological data agrees with the official Indian claims. Either way, whatever may be the truth, I am confident that they would have been able to fix the issues by now if any in the intervening years.

Most outsiders disagree with our yield claims based on siesmolology. But the most accurate way of determining yield is radio chemical analysis of the site which is kept secret as the results can reveal certain bomb design aspects (through some technicality I didnt understand). Even with this analysis BARC claims full success. But tbh, I believe the hydrogen bomb detonated partially. However, it was not a bloody "fizzle" as Santhanam and that lunatic Karnad keeps harping, for that the bomb would have had to totally fail with only primary stage igniting but clearly, the secondary stage did ignite to an extent.

We would have collected a lot of data and refined the design accordingly. We have to remember also that the test was a bit rushed and assembly of the device in difficult conditions may have also had something to do with the partial detonation of the device. Nonetheless, it proves we can build thermonuclear weapons.