Tactical nuclear weapons = useless?

Who else in here thinks that tactical nuclear weapons are useless nowadays? I do not believe any nuclear armed country would differentiate using tactical nukes vs. full blown nukes (ballistic missiles). Yes tactical nukes indeed pack a more deadly punch compared to their conventional counterparts, but once you press the trigger, every nuclear armed (and non-nuclear for that matter) country would see that as a first use of a nuclear weapon since 1945 and would reply in kind by using full blown nukes in retaliation to a single nuclear tipped Moskit anti-ship missile that was launched (just an example). There's this saying, "Go big or go home", I think it applies very well to this topic.

Discuss!

The US was toying with designing nuclear bunker-busters because of the Iraq war. The US would make an argument on a difference since Americans saw a "legitimate" purpose in making and using it against deep bunker hard targets.

Also, I thought tactical nukes were gernerally lower yield and it was the conventional nukes that were more powerful since they were meant to destroy major cities.

there are two kinds of nukes. tactical and strategic. tactical are low yield, which means it's designed to destroy troop concentrations and such. strategic is the mother load... it's designed to basically wipe New york city or moscow off the face of the earth.

AssassinsMace said:

The US was toying with designing nuclear bunker-busters because of the Iraq war. The US would make an argument on a difference since Americans saw a "legitimate" purpose in making and using it against deep bunker hard targets.

Also, I thought tactical nukes were gernerally lower yield and it was the conventional nukes that were more powerful since they were meant to destroy major cities.

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I meant conventional as in convential non-nuclear explosives, not conventional nukes! When I said full blown nukes, those are your conventional nukes

it all depends on how much the opponent can retaliate. for example. if USA or Russia nuke china right now. they will regret it, because china have ICBMs that can attak them homeland as well. but if one of the nuclear powers such as USA nuke afganistan, or iraq or iran. these nations can't retaliate. other than some nations frown upon american actions, who's going to do anything... boycott american goods?? not going to happen, because it will ruin their own economy. most of the nations with nuclear weapons are also economic power houses, so an economic sanction is almost out of the question since it will ruin other economies. i'm not singling out USA, just an example, it could also be china or britain or france or india. of course this also depends on who is getting nuked. if france or britain got nuked today, world war 3 here we come. but if it's iraq, i doubt many nations would take action other than some lip service.

Nukes are useful, atleast they deter other nations to invade you, look at today's classical example.

Iraq to US: We dont have nukes. Result: US invade
DPRK to US: We have nukes. Result: 6 party talks

Its all about the deterrence nuclear weapons offers. Does nukes have any real military prospect of been actually used? No, but they are the mother of bombs in the international political arena

ordinary dude said:

Does nukes have any real military prospect of been actually used? No,

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ahem. cough cough

I could mention something about how the march of barbarism will consume those who practised it first. The first world war happened because certain countries found it so easy to machine gun stone age cultures...when war arrived everybody cheered because they were so used to 'war'.



however nobody was so gung ho when they discovered the other side of a machine gun ....

hmm...perhaps a wording change is in order. a nuke such as an icbm is a strategic nuke, used in deterence for strategic purposes. the tactical nuke is any missle with a nuclear wahead, with reduced power so it can perform in a battlefeild situation.

while strategic nukes are tasteless and inhumane weapons, the tactical nuke has supreme potential. the only problem is that scientists need to fiure out how to perhaps instal a special device to the bomb that immediatly destroys radiation after detonation. then such a weapon would be perfectly humane, and would perhaps be the ideal solution to killing a cvbg. tacticla nukes with nulled radiation shouls be thought of as nothing more than a very, very powerful explosive

and tactical nukes have their uses for terrorists. even any small, bomb will do enough to threaten a city. a "dirty" bomb with radiation dosage in mind is a nasty weapon. im not even going to go into what kind of power a cold fusion bomb would have...

MIGleader said:

while strategic nukes are tasteless and inhumane weapons, the tactical nuke has supreme potential. the only problem is that scientists need to fiure out how to perhaps instal a special device to the bomb that immediatly destroys radiation after detonation. then such a weapon would be perfectly humane,

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Humane? I guess the word humane takes on a different meaning in military forums.
a nuke without the radiation would be nice, but then I could talk about cloaking devices and photon torpedoes and it wouldn't be much different.

im not even going to go into what kind of power a cold fusion bomb would have...

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Yes, the 'cold fusion bomb' would belong on the science fiction thread, so since we don't have one of those it is good that you don't go into it.
the 'normal' fusion bomb, on the other hand, packs a punch...but that darn radiation!

But as far as tactical nukes go, I have to agree with riceboy, as soon as one country uses it the other will escalate with strategical nukes. So in the end tactical nukes, while great for just wiping out your enemy's forces, will just escalate the war to full out nuclear no holds barred.

cold fusion bomb would defeat the purpose of building a bomb because it doesn't generate explosion force hence 'cold' fusion; the term was coined because it would be prefect for power generation as it ISN'T dangerous!

my guess is you are thinkng about a fusion bomb, which already exist and is commonly refer to as the Hydrogen Bomb.

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tactical nuke are not entire useless, they do have uses; the trouble with nuke is the civilian damage and aftermath. using a nuke against a purely military target i feel, will not generate the same kind of condemn as hiroshima.

yet it cannot be mainstream weapon because it is hard to prevent your own forces and objective from being compromise. hence smart weapons is still the prefer weapon of choice in modern warfare. also modern combatant unit are seemingly getting smaller in size, making the tactical nuke an overkill for most target.