Estimation of Indian Nuclear Arsenal.- Present and Future

[olivers]

Well we have Thermonuclear weapons. We are weaponizing them in spite of 2008 nuclear deal's aim to cap. This is the key takeaway. We are building a first world nuclear arsenal not a third world one. I can see why US and other powers are desperate and moved to an ENR cap in 2011. It's to tie us down strategically with a nuclear supply umbilical cord. They had all this information in June 2011 before the ENR change was made. All the sources I have quoted are pre 2011.

 

[olivers]

We may however need to test the thermonuclear device. It's better we do, we can't just go into war without testing. At least for quality analysis. We will only do it if we feel a threat coming our way.

 

[LETHALFORCE]

Oliver where will we utilize all this HEU it seems by your numbers we will have excess even if used in
More submarines and blanketing of warheads?

 

[Yusuf]

@ olivers,
Western intel knows we got new centrifuges. They also know we have now managed super critical centrifuges. But the level of sophistication is what I am talking about which they don't know about. I first thought you were somewhere connected to India's nuclear program which is now clarified.

 

[LETHALFORCE]

An advancement in centrifuge technology is Huge. Other nations have to spend about 4 years
Before having enough HEU for one uranium based warhead of decent size using latest
Centrifuge technology. Iranian Centrifuges are believed to be from pakistan.

 

[Yusuf]

Oliver where will we utilize all this HEU it seems by your numbers we will have excess even if used in
More submarines and blanketing of warheads?

Five nuclear submarine and possibly at least one carrier.

Which means India has to make all the HEU ready in time to load it into the nuclear reactors and for a long duration in between refueling.

 

[LETHALFORCE]

One more point for oliver HEU is not necessary for many plutonium based warheads.

 

[Yusuf]

One more point for oliver HEU is not necessary for many plutonium based warheads.

India's fission weapons are all entirely based on Plutonium. They are lighter and we could produce a lot of it. Refer OP.

 

[olivers]

India's fission weapons are all entirely based on Plutonium. They are lighter and we could produce a lot of it. Refer OP.

This is TN only capability. This is the first ever estimate anywhere of Indian TN capability.

 

[LETHALFORCE]

India's fission weapons are all entirely based on Plutonium. They are lighter and we could produce a lot of it. Refer OP.

This has always been true from the beginning. Two bombs dropped one on hiroshima and one
On nagasaki one was pure uranium and the other pure plutonium.

 

[LETHALFORCE]

The combination of many things brought about the nuclear deal to India.
Another major development was India's heavy water production breakthrough.

 

[pmaitra]

One perspective:

A useful rule of thumb for gauging the proliferation potential of any given reactor is that 1 megawatt-day (thermal energy release, not electricity output) of operation produces 1 gram of plutonium in any reactor using 20-percent or lower enriched uranium; consequently, a 100 MW(t) reactor produces 100 grams of plutonium per day and could produce roughly enough plutonium for one weapon every 2 months. Light-water power reactors make fewer plutonium nuclei per uranium fission than graphite-moderated production reactors.

Source: Plutonium Production - Nuclear Weapons

 

[trackwhack]

This has always been true from the beginning. Two bombs dropped one on hiroshima and one
On nagasaki one was pure uranium and the other pure plutonium.

LF, it was the other way around. Nagasaki got Fatman, the plutonium warhead and Hiroshima got Little Boy, which was the untested Uranium warhead.

 

[LETHALFORCE]

LF, it was the other way around. Nagasaki got Fatman, the plutonium warhead and Hiroshima got Little Boy, which was the untested Uranium warhead.

True TW the point I was trying to make was plutonium based nukes do not need HEU.
Most plutonium based weapons now have 2 cores which more or less guarantees if one
Goes of it will trigger the second. And only a small quantity is needed 5kg of plutonium
Is enough to reach critical mass.

 

[trackwhack]

India does not have a dedicated bomber fleet. We had modified Mirage for weapons delivery. I doubt India will base any nukes for delivery from fighters once we have numbers in our missile fleet. We may keep some reserves from what exists today.

Indian Navy will be entrusted with nukes that will be sub surface. India will not base any nukes on the naval Prithvi aka Dhanush. It's very risky.

I was under the impression that all SSBN's would be under the SFC and not the Navy.

 

[trackwhack]

True TW the point I was trying to make was plutonium based nukes do not need HEU.
Most plutonium based weapons now have 2 cores which more or less guarantees if one
Goes of it will trigger the second.

Actually I misread, I thought you meant uranium was on nagasaki. I just rearead your post and noticed you were not assigning either.

 

[olivers]

India's fission weapons are all entirely based on Plutonium. They are lighter and we could produce a lot of it. Refer OP.

I have acknowledged this capability in one of my earlier posts in this forum. I wrote about the assumption that India needs enriched Uranium and rebutted that with the FBF warhead example of why our economics dictated otherwise. I had suggested we have single stage Fusion boosted fission variable yield warhead. As of 2006 this is our preferred warhead. Admiral Arun Prakash confirmed this recently. So until the true TN devices take over we are using 300KT FBF with variable yield. There is as yet no confirmation on the variable yield part except some obscure defense publications from 2009. Our Pakistan only arsenal is likely to stay plutonium based.

An interesting point here is Openheimer opposed two stage thermonuclear warheads until 1951. He wanted FBF single stage warheads. He relented only when radiation implosion was used to solve the problem. He called it sweet. He was discredited for this throughout his life. In 1979 his nuanced position was made public.

 

[olivers]

Oliver where will we utilize all this HEU it seems by your numbers we will have excess even if used in
More submarines and blanketing of warheads?

We will not have too many excesses if we consider 20kg 90% HEU blankets with 5kg trigger. In ten years we will produce 280 warheads with 300000 SWU/yr.
However there are excesses I have chosen to ignore to arrive at this figure. I am using a shp of Arihant which is double the current value. I have assumed we will operate Arihant in a profile similar to the American submarines. They are known to run through their fuel quicker than anyone else in the world through aggressive maneuvers. The final reactor vessels of Indian submarines are expected to produce 180 MW as opposed to 90MW quoted. This is expected to be peak power which will be available for sudden maneuvering when being tailed. This deliberate lax counting will also ensure the estimates are not over the top if we operate newer vessels with higher enrichment factors for U-235. So even the most aggressive usage is accounted for by these estimates. I am quiet confident on the numbers.

The TN weapons are being build like the Russian and American weapons. We are not going to use depleted u-235 from the numbers. So our designs must be fairly close to w-88 warheads in terms of weight to yield ratio with HEU blankets. 475KT for a 350 to 400 kg TN weapon. This also means our missile development of ICBM's is complete with Agni VI. Agni VI all composite will be MIRV and will have a global reach. It's equal to the best in the world. We also have the option with HEU of using the initial HEU for only the trigger then replacing the depleted u-235 blankets with u-235 as time goes by. The nuclear arsenal will get stronger as years roll by. The possibility of a cap and reduce is gone.

 

[olivers]

Five nuclear submarine and possibly at least one carrier.

Which means India has to make all the HEU ready in time to load it into the nuclear reactors and for a long duration in between refueling.

We will have more than enough for 3 SSBN's and 6 SSN's even assuming we produce one vessel a year. There will also be enough for aircraft carriers if they are of higher displacement and Indian Navy decides we need them to be propelled by Nuclear reactors. IN has denied reports of fielding a nuclear aircraft carrier. My estimates have included fuel for 1 submarine a year at american utilization factors. The other estimates floated around are 90Kg of HEU for Arihant. I have used 300kg of HEU per submarine. There will more than suffice for Aircraft carriers as well. There is enough excess HEU to account for more. I have also calculated the HEU in the maximal case ignoring 30,000 SWU/yr for processing losses and other such contingencies. So there is plenty of room to play around with. I have given an extremely conservative estimate. The idea was to get a minimum and a maximum. I am quiet confident about the minimum even from western intel source based calculations. With the new advances the number is much much higher. It's like day and night. If you notice the values quoted for the 30,000 SWU/yr figure even those numbers are respectable. 30 TN devices of W-88 with U-235 90% HEU blanket in 10 years. Or a large number of U-235 devices with 5kg HEU trigger. Please also note I have only indicated HEU values. A teller-ullam two stage implosion design will also include other material. This is easier to come by for India. So even in the worst case we will have plenty of HEU devices by 2020.

All of this is without using our FBR as a military breeder. With FBR as a military breeder it's a whole different ball game. Something India isn't even thinking about. They don't need to in light of these developments. Of course I am just a layman and my calculations are always subject to mistakes. Feel free to poke around.

 

[olivers]

An advancement in centrifuge technology is Huge. Other nations have to spend about 4 years
Before having enough HEU for one uranium based warhead of decent size using latest
Centrifuge technology. Iranian Centrifuges are believed to be from pakistan.

We still have a little further to go on Centrifuge designs. TC11 is two generations behind Urenco centrifuges. TC12 produces 40SWU/yr. TC21 is 50 x initial designs which is 100 to 150SWU/yr. All of my calculations were based on TC11 which is 30SWU/yr in the Indian reactors. I have made this reduction given our surface speed is 600m/sec as opposed to 620m/sec for TC12. I have also kept it lower to account for our older generation units which may still be working until we move them to chittradurga. So lots of bandwidth to account for uncertainty.