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Posted

........ and you all start dying of cancer from long range fallout. Wonderful, lets do that, like, right away.

That fallout won't reach the USA.

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Posted

The worry that if Pakistan and India exchanged a couple of tactical nukes, it would possibly trigger China to come to Pakistan's defense, dragging the world in one by one. If no one else gets involved, I suspect the staggering damage caused by a tactical nuke going off in each country would hasten a ceasefire. I don't think either side understand what that would look like. Pakistan cannot win a nuke exchange and Pakistan has 3 major cities within 30km of the border with Lahore very vulnerable.

Posted

 

........ and you all start dying of cancer from long range fallout. Wonderful, lets do that, like, right away.

That fallout won't reach the USA.

 

 

I remember back in 1980 or so when the Mount St Helens erruption occurred, we were actually getting spectacular sunsets here from all the dust it put in the atmosphere. When the power plant blew up at Chernobyl in 1986, we were getting radioactive fallout in west wales. They actually put the Royal Observer Corp on standby to see what the uk wide effect on the UK was. Thats what, 1500, 2000 miles away? And that was a single, relatively low order event compared to multiple Hydrogen bombs going off.

 

Whether it reaches the US or no, there is a hell of a lot of people throughout southeast asia that will. That is going to include places like Guam.

Posted

The worry that if Pakistan and India exchanged a couple of tactical nukes, it would possibly trigger China to come to Pakistan's defense, dragging the world in one by one. If no one else gets involved, I suspect the staggering damage caused by a tactical nuke going off in each country would hasten a ceasefire. I don't think either side understand what that would look like. Pakistan cannot win a nuke exchange and Pakistan has 3 major cities within 30km of the border with Lahore very vulnerable.

 

There was a pretty BBC movie made a couple of years back called 'war book', about a Home Office exercise that plays out the global effects of an exchange between India and Pakistan, playing against the backdrop of a probable use of a nuclear weapon in an ongoing (but unexplained' crisis. The conclusions were there would be widespread rioting throughout asia, probably even as far as the UK, and the 'exercise' culminates in the US and the UK and presumably france initiating nuclear use to punish the aggressor. Which of course raises the spectre of Russia doing the same thing against us. Think 1914 with Hydrogen bombs and you have it.

 

When the US was conducting war games in conflict analysis over a potential US/Soviet conflict, they found the game players were really reluctant to go through the nuclear barrier. Conversely, when they did, they found it was damn near impossible to stop.

 

I never want the damn things to fly, ever. Its too dangerous to be glib about it.

Posted

The worry that if Pakistan and India exchanged a couple of tactical nukes, it would possibly trigger China to come to Pakistan's defense, dragging the world in one by one. If no one else gets involved, I suspect the staggering damage caused by a tactical nuke going off in each country would hasten a ceasefire. I don't think either side understand what that would look like. Pakistan cannot win a nuke exchange and Pakistan has 3 major cities within 30km of the border with Lahore very vulnerable.

 

Neither India nor Pakistan can afford tactical nukes. I gamed this scenario some years ago, in the end neither had enough strength to bring about decisive victory, although India was more likely to "win" the battlefield. Occupation of major Pakistani cities would most likely turn into a nightmare and hurting Pakistan didn't bring any reward to India.

Posted

People that make things wouldnt be out of work since theyd have to work overtime to make up for the mass of products the US currently imports. There would be a mass shortage of engineers, technicians, and production line workers. For some industries, such as the auto industries, they have mothballed plants that could readily be reopened.

 

If India or Pakistan launched 100 warheads, and they all hit cities (unlikely), they might inflict 100,000 fatalities per nuke. Total of 10 million fatalities. For a country like India, that has lost a couple million to famine on occasion, thats not an unrecoverable disaster. Maybe 1 or 2 percent of population.

Posted

The infrastructure damage and resulting deaths due to disease and famine would far outweigh the prompt fatalities in that scenario.

Posted

In some ways 3rd worlders are more resilient to disasters than 1st world. Give most of them some oil and flour and they have bread in a few hours, did that here and the majority would starve to death looking at it.

Posted

Thirdworlders with access to nuclear weapons sounds like a recipe for disaster. The fear is that the general unwillingness of the UNSC permanent membership to pay the cost of enforcing NPT despite being granted a mandate by international law to do so will someday have serious consequences.

Posted

Given the lack of high yield fusion weapons, I suspect that any use of weapons in a battlefield(tactical) role would result in the fears of SAC over use of nukes in Korea coming to pass. That being, they would lose their luster as the uber weapon, which would be a negative for Pakistan especially.

 

City busting would result in large casualties numbers, but that's a function of density, and yes, many casualties would come from the marginal function of society, even in peacetime. S/F....Ken M

Posted

There is a claim that india is technically capable of developing neutron bombs. Which seems, if they have actually developed them, to be the only advantage they would have over pakistan. The Pakistani's seem to have a slightly large stockpile, and their largest weapons have a range of 300-500 kilotons. The Indians seem to top out at 200kt, though they do seem to have weapons (including an SLBM capability) of longer range. Rather futile in any kind of exchange with Pakistan.

 

So either side seem to lack megaton range weapons which is very good news as far as the fallout footprint. It seems inevitable they will cross that rubicon at some point though.

Posted

Where do you read that Pak has staged fusion weapons? The sourcing I've read indicates 100-200 warheads, with perhaps 50 being tritium boosted. FAS seems to think that there's greater chance, but not certainty, that India has a staged fusion weapon. I would expect tritium boosted weapons to be more likely here as well.

 

Neither of these countries have done significant testing, and absent that, even with foreign assistance, there's just too much uncertainty for a weapons system. S/F...Ken M

Posted

the real problem is not about them nuking each other or not with what exact sort of nukes, it´s about that bringing the refugee flood with it. himalaya is providing water to chinese, pakistanis and indians. climate warming up, glaciers getting smaller, river getting less water. those, who control upstream , live better life than downstream ones. hence occupation of tibet, kashmir conflict etc. even current syria war has been put on turkey cutting syrian´s water, making the people on the countryside emigrating to cities and creating trouble there

Posted

The largest weapon test by Pak was 45kt. India was around 50kt.

 

They had small tests, but larger ones may not have been necessary with modern computer modelling. For example, an account of Chagai II relates an 8kt detonation, but that it represented a Plutonium based, boosted fission weapon. Which suggests they could build a hydrogen weapon of megaton range, if they could figure out a delivery system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chagai-II#cite_note-PakDef,_original_aired_on_GEO_TV_in_2005-4

 

The Indian Pokhran II test included a 45kt weapon, which was a thermonuclear weapon and reportedly capable of putting out 200kt. One other source indicates they are believed to be capable of developing neutron bombs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokhran-II

Posted

Most likely they simply turned away when the missiles, probably shot at extreme range, were detected.

Posted

I'd guess more along the lines of the Yama theory - maybe the Indian Air Force used the SU-30's thrust vectoring to draw the AMRAAM shots, which they promptly outmaneuvered, then sent the MIG-21's in supersonic.

Posted

I'd guess more along the lines of the Yama theory - maybe the Indian Air Force used the SU-30's thrust vectoring to draw the AMRAAM shots, which they promptly outmaneuvered, then sent the MIG-21's in supersonic.

MiGs were in the mix first, their base was very next to the bombing targets, other Indian fighters apparently missed the party proper and only got to dodge few Parthian shots lobbed by withdrawing Pakistani fighters.

Likely when the Su-30's arrived, first MiG was already shot down and second (?) one disengaged to avoid same fate.

Posted

 

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Guys, please have a look at a map of the Kashmir border area and tell me where you are going to base Indian S400s and how you are going to get them to those bases.

 

First, they'd have to have the thing, which they don't.

 

Deploy the radars and command center and some of the missiles somewhere around Jammu/Amritsar, with some of the battery's other missiles remotely deployed on the line Uri, Poonch, Hafthrada.

 

 

 

Now take a look at what that actually looks like in satellite imagery or a relief map. This is Uri, for example

 

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Uri+193123/@34.0881211,73.9639467,12z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x38e05748af885045:0xa67531f1a8648f93!8m2!3d34.0881166!4d74.0339852!5m1!1e4

 

 

 

If the battery radars are at Jammu or Amritsar then they are well situated to protect New Delhi and dominate the entire Punjab/Kashmir air space. Some missiles at Uri (deployed via the S-3) provide coverage further north. A-50 on patrol, or other such aerial network assets would have to provide via datalink the information to the S-400 command centre against targets attempting nap of the earth tactics in this region. That was my guess.

 

To go up against the SU-30/A77 the F-16/AMRAAM needs to be at high altitude coming eastwards over Islamabad for its best kinematic missile shot. But this is exactly the flight profile in which an S-400 at Jammu could chop them to pieces. Bit of a poser for the Pakistanis in that case.

 

 

Sorry, but you haven't really understood the map or the geometry involved.

Posted

 

I'd guess more along the lines of the Yama theory - maybe the Indian Air Force used the SU-30's thrust vectoring to draw the AMRAAM shots, which they promptly outmaneuvered, then sent the MIG-21's in supersonic.

MiGs were in the mix first, their base was very next to the bombing targets, other Indian fighters apparently missed the party proper and only got to dodge few Parthian shots lobbed by withdrawing Pakistani fighters.

Likely when the Su-30's arrived, first MiG was already shot down and second (?) one disengaged to avoid same fate.

 

 

As good a guess as I've seen yet...

Posted (edited)

 

 

 

Sorry, but you haven't really understood the map or the geometry involved.

 

 

 

The point of an S-400 to my eye would be dominate at high altitude over Islamabad so that the Indian Air Force could engage and destroy the Pakistani Air Force from a position of height advantage while protecting the New Delhi axis. If the PAF uses high alttitude tactics the S-400 destroys them. If they use low-level tactics to avoid the S-400 then the SU-30/A-77 destroys them from high altitude, or the S-400 will datalink via the A-50's or other 3rd party platforms to engage such targets.

 

So the three assumptions I made are that (1) the IAF has a significant combat advantage with the R-77 if the Pakistani air force is forced to fly lower; (2) the S-400's missiles can be deployed remotely = 100's of KM, say at Poonch - from the fire control radar and (3) that S-400 at 200km (Jammu to Islamabad) has no problems firing at targets, either directly or via datalink to 3rd party systems. Which of these is not correct?

 

The key assumption is that I'm assuming that if the Pakistani Air Force wants to fly low to avoid the S-400 at Jammu, then the SU-30's at 30,000 feet will have a field day, and if it flies high for good AMRAAM shots, then the S-400 will have a field day.

Edited by glenn239
  • 5 weeks later...
Posted

 

 

Pakistan denied that the Indian airstrike had hit anything at Balakot and India initially refused to release its own satellite photos of the Balakot site after the attack. Soon commercial satellite photos were released that did not show any large craters at Balakot the day after but higher resolution commercial satellite photos were eventually available showing three craters (and blast damage to trees around them). The craters were in a pattern similar to three buildings at Balakot and this indicated that the Indians had not entered the altitude of the targets, just the GPS coordinates indicating location. For a smart bomb coming down vertically the altitude of targets rarely matters. But since Balakot was above sea level and the SPICE 2000 bombs were gliding in from a distance all three appear to have missed their targets in a manner suggesting SPICE was not using the pattern recognition feature of its guidance system and was instead heading for a precise GPS location at sea level and thus glided over the targets.

https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htwin/articles/20190410.aspx

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