At the end of March 2016, a regular nuclear security summit was held in Washington under the leadership of the United States. Russia refused to participate in it. In February 2016, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov noted that Moscow excludes the possibility of continuing negotiations with Washington on the reduction of nuclear arsenals. According to him, Moscow believes that Russia and the United States have come to a situation where bilateral Russian-American talks in the field of nuclear security are not possible. Among the main factors influencing the state of affairs, Moscow names the development of the American missile defense system in Europe and the sanctions imposed on Russia.
Meanwhile, Washington is building up its capabilities: at the NATO summit in summer 2016, the United States will push for a new expanded nuclear strategy for the alliance. Plans are underway to replace the outdated B-61 free-fall nuclear bombs with the new modification B-61-12. At the expense of technical means, they become an extended-range tactical nuclear warhead. Aircraft will be able to use these bombs without entering the zone of destruction of enemy air defense systems.
For a more attentive and confident review of the American government in preparing the armed forces of the country and the armed forces of NATO countries for a war with the use of nuclear weapons, it would be interesting and useful to look at the entire process of developing and producing nuclear weapons for various means of delivering them to targets in the United States.
DEVELOPMENT AND PRODUCTION OF NUCLEAR AMMUNITION IN THE USA
The United States of America began researching, developing, testing, and building nuclear weapons in 1940. Four ministries or agencies have been working on solving the issues of creating nuclear warheads and nuclear weapons in general for almost more than 60 years of the last century and continue to work to this day. In particular, these works and activities were carried out by: the Manhattan Engineering District - 1942-1946, the Atomic Energy Commission - 1947-1974, the Energy Research and Development Administration - 1975-1977, the Department of Energy - from 1977 to the present. All of the aforementioned agencies of the US government spent about $ 89 billion together (at $ 230 billion in fiscal 1986 prices). At the same time, the Department of Defense spent about $ 700 billion ($ 1.85 trillion in fiscal 1986 prices) on the development and production of means of delivering nuclear weapons to targets (aircraft, missiles and ships) and other related activities.
Since the beginning of the activities of the Atomic Energy Commission in 1947, the military-political leadership of the United States has taken steps to separate the development and production of nuclear warheads from units and subdivisions of the armed forces that planned and intend to use nuclear weapons in hostilities. A similar practice of separating these activities exists in the United States to this day, however, the relationship between the producer and the consumer, of course, is significantly changing. From the very first days of the creation of nuclear warheads, the Atomic Energy Commission was the only organization in the country that determined the main directions for the development and creation of nuclear warheads. She had all the rights to the physical safety of all nuclear weapons in the United States, including even those weapons that were in the military. However, over time, the Atomic Energy Commission has gradually lost control over the physical content of nuclear weapons, its status has changed in the direction of reducing its tasks.
PHYSICAL SECURITY AND SEPARATION OF RESPONSIBILITY
The struggle for the physical safety of nuclear weapons in the units and subdivisions of the US Armed Forces was conducted mainly in the volume of transferring responsibility for ammunition, which were in the responsibility of civilian specialists, under the control of the military. However, step by step, the Atomic Energy Commission gradually transferred physical control over nuclear warheads in the military to the military. Moreover, the transfer of control functions took place sequentially: first, non-nuclear components of ammunition were transferred to the military, and then all the ammunition. These measures were followed by the transfer of low-power nuclear warheads to the military, then high-power warheads and, finally, a reserve.
The first steps were taken on June 14, 1950, when US President Harry Truman approved the transfer of 90 non-nuclear components of devices for training the assembly of ammunition to a special team for the assembly of nuclear warheads. However, in July 1950, a few weeks after the outbreak of the Korean War, the US President instructed the Atomic Energy Commission “from time to time to transfer physical control of nuclear capsules (this is a nuclear weapon without fissile material) to the Air Force or Navy command for the deployment of nuclear weapons in certain areas of the world overseas."
In the spring of 1951, President Truman, by a special directive addressed to the Atomic Energy Commission, ordered a small amount of nuclear components to be delivered to the US Department of Defense to the island of Guam and placed there in the appropriate nuclear depots.
The following year, the military's demands for full physical control over nuclear warheads increased significantly, and this demand was actively supported by the leadership of the KNSh Armed Forces and the country's defense minister. These actions led to the fact that on September 10, 1952, the President of the United States signed a document outlining the official American concept of nuclear weapons. The most notable part of this concept was that the US Department of Defense gains full control over the nuclear weapons located in the overseas territories, as well as over part of the country's nuclear weapons stationed directly on the continental United States. The document also indicated that the number of nuclear weapons at the disposal of the military on the continent is determined by the volume sufficient for the flexible use of this strategic reserve of nuclear warheads in any emergency situations. At the same time, the Atomic Energy Commission retained control over the rest of the nuclear warheads.
The appearance of thermonuclear warheads in the US nuclear arsenal introduced new assessments and changed the general procedure in plans for the strategic use of nuclear weapons. So, in 1955, US President Dwight Eisenhower decided to transfer all thermonuclear warheads with a capacity of less than 600 kt to the country's Ministry of Defense. The same thermonuclear warheads, whose power exceeded 600 kt, were left under the control of the Atomic Energy Commission. However, later in 1959, Eisenhower ordered the transfer of all nuclear weapons, including nuclear weapons, with a yield exceeding 600 kt, under the control of the Ministry of Defense. Thus, after this presidential decree, the US Department of Defense began to own more than 82% of the country's entire nuclear arsenal.
By the mid-1960s, the Atomic Energy Commission had very little nuclear weapons at its disposal. For the 1966 financial year, money was planned for the maintenance of 1,800 nuclear warheads, which amounted to 6% of the country's total arsenal. Due to the fact that these nuclear warheads have already been placed in eight warehouses under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Defense, the government was able to somewhat reduce the total cost of storage and maintenance of warheads by reducing duplicate work for all these activities.
On February 10, 1967, President Lyndon Johnson decided to transfer all nuclear warheads controlled by the Atomic Energy Commission to the Department of Defense. Thanks to this instruction, the military concentrated all ready-to-use nuclear weapons in their hands, ensuring their physical storage and maintenance, safety and the necessary military service.
The Department of Defense has worked in full and constant contact with the Department of Energy in monitoring the status and life cycle of each nuclear weapon in their hands. Each warhead received a full cycle of maintenance and attention and was always under the control of the leadership of both ministries. Initially, the Atomic Energy Commission dominated the direction of US construction and nuclear policy, the ability to manufacture them, store them, and maintain safe and secure handling, and physical protection and safety. At present, even taking into account the capabilities of the Ministry of Energy to create nuclear warheads for various purposes and for various weapon systems or delivery vehicles, its role has been significantly reduced to the level of providing technical support required for military specialists. The types of armed forces and command, with the approval of the Ministry of Defense, establish tactical and technical characteristics - the geometric dimensions, weight and power of the ammunition, as well as other requirements for the next batch of nuclear warheads. The Ministry of Defense develops and manufactures delivery vehicles, the necessary support equipment, and also provides training for service personnel and moves nuclear weapons to places and regions that correspond to the strategic plans of the country's military-political leadership.
The Department of Energy is responsible for the development, testing, production, assembly and disassembly of warheads. It also produces special nuclear material: uranium, plutonium, tritium, as well as components for warheads, and certifies the quality of storage through constant monitoring of the warehouse. Both the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy are verifying the reliability of storage, the standard of carrying out the necessary measures and systematic maintenance of nuclear warheads.
PRODUCTION STATISTICS
A number of sources report that during the period from 1945 to 1986, the United States produced and supplied to the troops 60,262 nuclear weapons of 71 types for 116 types of nuclear weapons of the US Armed Forces. Of the specified number of types of nuclear ammunition, 42 types of ammunition were removed from service and subsequently dismantled, the remaining 29 types of ammunition, as of 1986, were in service with units and formations of the US Armed Forces and NATO, designed to conduct hostilities with the use of nuclear weapons. Of the 71 types of nuclear weapons created and produced, 43 types of ammunition were intended for units of the US Air Force, 34 types of ammunition for units of the Navy and Marine Corps, and 21 types of ammunition for units of the Ground Forces. The additionally developed 29 types of nuclear weapons were not accepted for service and were rejected by the higher authorities even before their final development.
As of January 1, 1986, 820 nuclear weapons were detonated in the United States in various versions. The detonation of 774 nuclear devices was carried out at American test sites, the results were fully used in the interests of the US Armed Forces, and 18 nuclear devices belonged to nuclear devices created on a joint American-British basis, and the data obtained during the test became known to both parties involved in the detonation of the nuclear devices.
President Truman signs the law on the use of atomic energy, on the basis of which the corresponding commission was created. 1946 year. Photo from the archives of the US Department of Energy
Nuclear warheads and nuclear munitions are developed, tested and manufactured in state-owned factories leased to private companies (GOCO). State-owned factories are located in 13 different states of the country and have a total area of about 3900 square meters. miles (about 7800 sq. km).
The US nuclear industrial complex performs four types of work:
- researches and designs the next nuclear device (nuclear weapon), - carries out the production of nuclear materials, - carries out the production of nuclear warheads for nuclear weapons, - performs testing of nuclear warheads.
Two laboratories - Los Alamos National Laboratory, located in New Mexico, and Livermore National Laboratory. Lawrence, California-based nuclear weapons and basic research on nuclear weapons systems. In addition, they conduct research on the military use of atomic energy and other promising scientific developments.
The third laboratory, Sandia National Laboratory, is responsible for supporting the activities of the two previous laboratories and, in addition, develops non-nuclear components for nuclear warheads.
The Air Force, Air Force, Navy, and ILC Laboratories are additional R&D centers operated by the US Department of Energy. These laboratories carry out research and development in the field of means for delivering nuclear weapons to targets, investigate the impact of the damaging factors of nuclear explosions on military equipment and personnel of their armed forces, and carry out measures to prepare measures to protect against the damaging factors of nuclear explosions.
CONCEPTS AND PLANS
A significant amount of the work of the US nuclear research and production complex is devoted directly to the production of nuclear materials for the creation of nuclear warheads, including radioactive plutonium and uranium, as well as radioactive deuterium, tritium and lithium. The main stockpile of these materials was created in the mid-1960s, when the largest amount of nuclear weapons was produced. Later, the largest number of nuclear weapons began to be produced from plutonium and tritium.
Deuterium production in the United States was closed in 1982 due to the closure of heavy water production at the Oak Ridge Y-12 Plant, Tennessee, and from the early 1960s at the same plant Enriched lithium production completed at Oak Ridge Y-12. The requirements for these two nuclear materials are fully met in the United States through the use of nuclear materials extracted from retired nuclear warheads and through the use of previously accumulated stockpiles.
One nuclear reactor located on the Hanford Reservation in Washington state produces weapons-grade plutonium, while four operating nuclear reactors at the Savannah River Plant (SRP) in Aiken, South Carolina produce plutonium and tritium. …
Four nuclear reactors are designed to produce plutonium, one located in Hanford and three at the SRP plant. They currently produce about 2 tons of enriched plutonium annually. This plutonium is produced from stockpiles and decommissioned nuclear weapons and nuclear waste.
The estimated stock of radioactive tritium is about 70 kg. Only one nuclear reactor, located at the SRP plant, is dedicated to the production of tritium and about 11 kg of this material is produced annually at this reactor. Due to the fact that about 5.5% of radioactive tritium annually decays by self-decay, due to new production at the plant, only about 7 kg of tritium are accumulated annually.
Highly enriched uranium (U-235, 93.5% enrichment) was mainly used to equip nuclear warheads, which are often referred to as oralloy warheads and have not been produced in the United States since 1964. In this regard, the total stock of oralloy is gradually decreasing, since a small amount of it is used as nuclear fuel in laboratory research and in research reactors, as well as for the production of small nuclear explosions. The oralloy stock was slated to increase during fiscal 1988, when the US Department of Energy planned to resume production of oralloy for nuclear warheads and nuclear fuel.
Deuterium production was halted in 1982 due to the closure of the Savannah River Heavy Water Plant (SRP), and enriched lithium production was discontinued at the Y-12 Oak Ridge plant in the early 1960s. Recent requirements for these two radioactive materials have been met by extracting these materials from retired munitions and available stocks.
Components for nuclear warheads are manufactured at seven US Department of Energy factories. The Rocky Flats facility in Golden, Colorado, produces plutonium and collects blanks that can be used to store plutonium or enriched uranium. These blanks are used in fissile nuclear weapons and as a fissile base in thermonuclear munitions.
The Y-12 plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, produces uranium components for the initial stage of thermonuclear munitions, as well as for the production of nuclear components for the second stage of thermonuclear munitions. The components of the second stage of a thermonuclear explosion are made from deuteridylithium and uranium.
At the Savannah River Plant in Aiken, South Carolina, tritium is produced and filled into metal tanks for subsequent completion of thermonuclear warheads for nuclear weapons. The Mound Facility plant in Miamisburg, Ohio, manufactures detonators and various parts of the electrical circuits for detonating a nuclear weapon. And at the Pinellas Plant in St. Petersburg, Florida - the production of neutron generators.
The Kansas City Plant in Kansas City, Missouri manufactures electronics, plastic and rubber products, and other non-nuclear components for nuclear weapons. All of these components are packaged and shipped to the Pantex Plant located in the Amarillo, Texas area. This plant produces chemical explosives (components) specifically for nuclear warheads and assembles all the components of a nuclear weapon together. Assembled ammunition is delivered to the US Department of Defense's nuclear weapons depots located in various states of the country.
Currently, American and British nuclear devices and finally assembled nuclear warheads are being tested at a test site in the state of Nevada (only subcritical underground tests are being carried out - editor's note). The nearby Tonopah test site The Range Test is used to test samples of nuclear warheads and to test the ballistic performance of artillery shells and missiles. In addition to these proving grounds, the US Department of Defense's East and West proving grounds, located in Florida and California, and the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico are used.
The US Department of Energy and the US Department of Defense divide the overall life cycle of any nuclear weapon (nuclear warhead) into seven specific "life" phases. During the time period of phases 1 and 2, a general (early) concept for the creation of this particular nuclear weapon is determined and an assessment is made of the likelihood of creating this ammunition, based on the general nuclear concept of work when creating new nuclear weapons, taking into account the modern requirements of combat with the use of nuclear weapons.
During the time period 2A phase, a more accurate determination of the cost of the product takes place and the general combat characteristics of the created nuclear weapon are specified. The availability of the obtained characteristics is the basis for the selection of a specific laboratory group of employees who will continue to develop this ammunition.
In Phase 3 - Engineering Design - the Ministry of Defense reviews and approves the project. At this stage of work, the ammunition being developed is assigned its letter designation (either B - aerial bomb, or W - weapon system), the total amount of ammunition that is planned to be produced is determined, and time schedules for the creation of these ammunition are selected.
During the period of work within the framework of the 4th phase, special mechanisms and devices are being developed and created for the created nuclear weapon at all enterprises and workshops of the nuclear complex where this ammunition will be produced.
In Phase 5, the first samples of ammunition being developed (Firs Production Unit - FPU) are being created. If the tests carried out turn out to be positive, the development of the head part enters a new phase - the sixth. This phase means the mass production of the warheads and their storage in the appropriate warehouses.
The seventh phase of work begins when the previously coordinated work program and the presence of these warheads in service with the US or NATO Armed Forces ends and the removal of warheads from warehouses begins. It ends when all warheads of this type are removed from warehouses and transferred to the US Department of Energy for dismantling. Phase 7 is considered completed when all warheads of this type have been removed from the warehouses of the Ministry of Defense. At the same time, the head part can be in the state of phase 7 for some specific or additional time. It is determined by the rate at which a particular type of armed forces is removing its nuclear weapons from service, or by how quickly a new type of weapon enters into service, which replaces these warheads.
The American practice of the development, production and decommissioning of nuclear weapons shows that phase 1 can continue for a long time and will depend on how things are with new military-strategic concepts and how quickly new nuclear weapons or warheads should enter the US Armed Forces. … Phases 2 and 2A can take up to one year. Phases 3 and 4 (engineering and manufacturing design) can last from four to six years. Phases 5 and 6 (from the first production, mass production and creation of a certain stock of nuclear weapons of this type) can last from 8 to 25 years. And finally, phase 7 (removal of warheads from service, removal from warehouses and complete dismantling) can take from one to four years.
The US nuclear arsenal is in almost daily constant movement: some nuclear weapons are developed, produced and put into service, some are removed from service and completely dismantled. The volume of the stockpile of the arsenal of nuclear weapons and the pace of the implementation of individual activities have been very different over the past 40 or 50 years of its existence. The current rates of production, decommissioning and modernization of the nuclear arsenal depend on the volume of work carried out, the availability of space for the production of ammunition and the time for carrying out these works and activities and amounts to approximately 3,500-4,000 nuclear warheads (nuclear warheads) per calendar year … In order to keep up with this pace of maintaining the nuclear arsenal, the Department of Energy is requesting the appropriate funds from the US Congress, taking into account inflation and other expenses of the country's ruling administration. Note that if in the early 1960s the capabilities of the US nuclear complex made it possible to produce about 6,000 nuclear weapons per year (moreover, most of the warheads and bombs produced are newly created developments that were not yet in service with the US Armed Forces), then in 1977– In 1978, the mill's nuclear complex produced only a few hundred nuclear warheads.
The level of activity of the production work of the US nuclear complex can also be judged by the simultaneously produced various nuclear warheads for the needs of the country's armed forces. For example, from June to December 1967 (the peak period in the creation of the US nuclear arsenal), the country simultaneously produced 17 different types of nuclear weapons for 23 types of nuclear systems for delivering nuclear weapons to targets. For comparison: during almost the entire 1977 and partly 1978, only one type of nuclear weapon was developed in the country - the B61 type nuclear bomb.
