Pakistan's construction of these new reactors at the Khushab site will result in a dramatic increase in its plutonium production capability. Combined, the three new reactors will be able to produce enough plutonium for over 12 nuclear weapons per year, depending on the reactors' size and operating efficiencies. 1
This compares with Pakistan's current estimated production of enough weapon-grade uranium and plutonium for about 7-14 weapons per year. 2 These three new reactors will roughly double Pakistan's annual ability to build nuclear weapons to about 19-26 nuclear weapons per year.
Pakistan appears to want the plutonium to improve the quality of its nuclear arsenal and build a new generation of lighter, more powerful weapons. Plutonium-based weapons can have more explosive yield in smaller, lighter packages than weapons based on weapon-grade uranium. Pakistan appears to want warheads small enough to fit on cruise missiles it is currently developing.
It also may want larger yield (50-100 kiloton) fission weapons that can cause far more damage to Indian cities than its current relatively low-yield weapons. In addition, plutonium-based fission weapons could enable Pakistan to build deliverable thermonuclear weapons (i.e., hydrogen bombs). Thus, the recent activity at Khushab should be viewed as further evidence of an accelerated nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan. notice that they say when the three reactors are fully operational..but the third reactor was made operational in 2010..so if we go by there estimate than pakistan with the three reactors operational produced upto 26 warheads per year.while the 4th one which was suggested could be the reason of pakistan aim for thermonuclear weapons might push the warhead production capcity to 40 per year
Institute for Science and International Security › ISIS Reports › Pakistan › Pakistan Doubling Rate of Making Nuclear Weapons: Time for Pakistan to Reverse Course
Is that so? :thumb:
It takes anywhere between 4-6Kg of plutonium to make a 20kT bomb. How much do you think a 100kT bomb will need?
Your military reactors are tiny. Also what about weapons grade uranium?
how do you know they are tiny...do you think all of them are based off the reactor design in 90's.
How about thousands of SAMs spread out over the country with a hit probability of 99.8%. All designed to stop all the IRBMs in your inventory. What if not even one BM makes it through?
Also a larger warhead means a bigger target. A 100kT warhead will be bigger and hence a hotter target.
There is a reason why both Russia and the US have more than 30000 bombs each. If you think 150 missiles with 100kT bombs are enough to take out India then the superpowers have 3000 ready to fire warheads of 200kT - 5MT capability. How realistic do you think you are being here?
Majority of India lives in villages with those 200 cities being only around 20 - 30% of the population of India.
well i had done a calculation last time..the population of 66 cities in pakistan was about 42-43millions compared to just 10 cities of india having more than 60+millions people.
so incase of nuclear war..no matter what but india will get a civilian damage of atleast 4-5times more than pak.pak economy might collapse.i agree about this.
even if india nuke all the 66 cities of pak..that probably will account for the death of upto 40millions.but imagine if pakistan nukes just 50 cities of india?that would count for more than 100millions population of india..i am sure this would be more..but not in the mood of calculation right now
At your current rate you will need 150 years before you can make 150 100kT bombs. You will need at least 20 or 30 reactors before you can boast such a number in just 10-15 years after the 1998 tests. The western analyst predictions are that you make 10 bombs a year of the 20kT class.
4 are active with combined capacity close to 170kg.even if a 100kt warhead need 15-18 kg of plutonium per warhead.
we can still make atleast 8-10 100kt warheads per year.
than add to this the construction of new reactors with even more production capacity.
though 50kt warheads are ideal for destruction of a city.in a sense nuclear radiation and ofcourse nuclear winter as well.
and your already aware of the after effects of nuclear warheads remain for decades.
