Quote:
Originally Posted by Majordomo
I was curious too. I found this article.
I also found some other articles that claim it was stated that Israel had a certain number of nukes by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency in a report called "The Decades Ahead" from July 1999 on pg. 38. I couldn't find that information because I could only find a short text versions of the report. I can't find the full version and I am giving up.
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Well, at least you made the attempt to search. That counts for something in my book.
US intelligence estimates vary depending on the exact source, but generally 60 to 140 warheads. Don't hold me to this, but I believe the DIA report you read would have said 70-130 if you had the full copy.
Granting 'E' for Effort...
Mircea
Quote:
Originally Posted by roysoldboy
Can you provide something in the way of at least one source that has counted the Israeli nuclear weapons? Surely you can do that since you talk so sure about the numbers.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by roysoldboy
I wonder when that OP will be back with some sources to the 400 nuclear weapons he said Israel has. Maybe will have to look it up ourselves. Any of you left leaners want to do that for me?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mwruckman
The State of Israel will not confirm that it has nuclear weapons and has never acknoledged having tested devices that it officially does not have! So any estimate of Israeli nuclear arsenals is a matter of either intelligence estimate, espionage or guesswork.. The best estimates say Israel had a working atomic bomb as early as 1968 or 1969. By the mid 1970s they had a working thermonuclear bomb and so called radiation enhanced tactical weapons. Some belive Israel gave South Africa several atomic bombs in the 1970s in exchange for enriched Uranium and in the late 1970s there was a mysterious explosion in the South Atlantic that our satellites identified as a possible nuclear event. By the time we got a ship in the area any radioactivty had been dissipated. We know about the South African weapons because Nelson Mandela got rid of them and they were given to the USA for proper disposal. If they were Israeli they were well engineered and the handiwork of an advanced nuclear power.
Iran can learn a lot from Israels keeping its nuclear arsenal under the deepest cover of secrracy. Like Israel , Iran will never acknowledge that it officially has nuclear weapons and like Israel may never test a nuclear weapon.
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Because HEU has a very low spontaneous fission rate, you can use single-gun or double-gun implosion weapons. Such weapons do not need to be tested, and historically, no country has every tested a uranium-based single-gun or double-gun design. It is true that Pakistan test-detonated a double-gun warhead, but that was not "testing"
per se, that was simply to prove to the rest of the world that they did in fact have nuclear weapons.
On the other hand, plutonium has a high rate of spontaneous fission, and you cannot use the single-gun or double-gun design with plutonium. Spherical implosion are the first step in the design process. Such weapons must be tested to ensure that the design actually works, which is why North Korea tested theirs.
Israel stole working spherical implosion designs from the US, and also stole computer data for simulation modeling, so it would not be completely necessary for Israel to test-detonate a warhead, although many find compelling evidence that Israel conducted such a test.
Israel also stole the design for the Pershing I/IA, which used a 3-stage fission-fusion-fission multiple yield (not variable yield) design. The 1st stage was a 30 kt fission warhead, and you could boost that using the 2nd stage fusion package to 300 kt, and the 3rd stage was uranium/plutonium that boosted it to 360-400 kt.
Since Israel is not a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and refuses inspections in addition to denying that it has a nuclear weapons program, little is actually known, and what is known comes mostly from a technician that worked at the Dimona facility.
Israel claims Dimona is a 25 megawatt reactor, but most intelligence pegs it a 100 to 150 megawatts. As a general rule, it's 1 gram of plutonium for each megawatt per day of operation. Because of maintenance, down-time and re-fueling, it is not possible to run a reactor more than 40-42 weeks per year, and most reactors are only run 30-36 weeks per year. Given the length of time that reactor has been operating, Israel should have their game on and be able to produce Pu-239/Pu-240 with only minimal Pu-241 and no Pu-242 (meaning less than "trace").
Even so, no process is 100% efficient and during the separation process (separating Pu-241 from Pu-239/Pu-240 and separating U238 and other garbage) you lose about 12% to 18%.
The estimate of warheads is then based on reactor operating time and total amount of weapons-grade plutonium produced (usually 92%-97% Pu-239 and 3%-8% Pu-240).
An estimate of 400 warheads is outrageous and defies common sense and logic.
Since the Israeli military is an exact copy of the Soviet/Russian military in terms of tactics, strategy, doctrine and organization, it is both logical and reasonable to assume that Israel would group its nuclear weapons into battlefield tactical nuclear warheads and theater tactical/strategic warheads.
Battlefield weapons would have yields of 2 kt or less. These would be classes like "back-pack nukes" which use about 4.5 kg of plutonium and yield 1 kt (the yield can be doubled with an HEU jacket/sleeve). Gravity bombs carried by aircraft, and AFAPs. I seriously doubt Israel has any 8"203 mm nuclear RAP rounds, because that's a one-shot deal. If Israel stole the "football" from the US, then they could use 3.5 kg in a linear implosion design for the 6"/155 mm artillery with a yield of 0.01-0.02 kt. You can fire multiple nuclear rounds through a 155 mm gun tube.
Their theater weapons would include gravity bombs in the 20 kt to 40 kt range, and then larger fission-fusion warheads in the 300 kt to 750 kt range. Their missile warheads would also be in the 300 kt to 750 kt range.
In what was probably the greatest espionage coup ever, Israel stole tritium from the US. That tritium is worthless now, but it allowed Israel to go forward with fission-fusion warheads, and also develop variable yield warheads up to 100 kt. Israel now has the facilities to produce their own tritium.
400 warheads would assume 3.5 kg to 4.5 kg for each warhead, which is quite silly.
Anything over 300 kt is going to have 18 kg - 30 kg of plutonium.
I like ~120 warheads. That's a reasonable number and in keeping with their doctrine and strategy. I would venture to guess that they also have a small stock-pile of maybe 24-60 pits from warheads that have been removed from service.
Estimating...
Mircea
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