India and Pakistan Have No Fusion Bombs

India and Pakistan have no nuclear weapons with yields over 40 kilotons, because they do not have fusion bombs in their arsenal. Fusion bombs need a fission bomb to boost a nuclear fusion explosion.

The USA, Russia, China, UK, France and Israel have nuclear fusion bombs. North Korea might have a fusion bomb.

india nuclear weapons

India’s Claimed a Successful Nuclear Fusion bomb test in 1998. Was False

In an interview in August 2009, the director for the 1998 test site preparations, Dr. K. Santhanam claimed that the yield of the thermonuclear explosion was lower than expected and that India should therefore not rush into signing the CTBT. Other Indian scientists involved in the test have disputed Dr. K. Santhanam’s claim, arguing that Santhanam’s claims are unscientific. British seismologist Roger Clarke argued that the magnitudes suggested a combined yield of up to 60 kilotonnes of TNT (250 TJ), consistent with the Indian announced total yield of 56 kilotonnes of TNT (230 TJ). U.S. seismologist Jack Evernden has argued that for correct estimation of yields, one should ‘account properly for geological and seismological differences between test sites’.

India officially maintains that it can build thermonuclear weapons of various yields up to around 200 kt (840 TJ) on the basis of the Shakti-1 thermonuclear test

Santhanam said that instead of 45 kilotons of destructive energy, the explosion had produced only 15 to 20. The bomb had not worked as designed.

By rubbishing the earlier test as a failure, they hope to make the case for more nuclear tests. This would enable India to develop a full-scale thermonuclear arsenal.

10 thoughts on “India and Pakistan Have No Fusion Bombs”

  1. This might be a conscious choice to minimize the cost of warhead maintenance. An arsenal of 30-40kt nukes is functionally just as much of a deterrent as an arsenal of 300-400kt nukes. Large (physically) fission warheads are much more stable and require less maintenance than miniaturized Teller-Ulam designs.

  2. I dunno. Fission bomb core mass and explosive output aren’t correlated below 100kt, are they? The 3kt suitcase nuke has as much fissile material as the 100kt gravity bomb. The difference in yield is how well the core is held together during the excursion, perhaps how many source neutrons present to kick it off.

    An arsenal of 30kt fission bombs is as functional deterrent as 400kt thermonuclear bombs in anything but a urinary projection competition.

  3. The adverts on this site have started showing me adverts for sun glasses and sun tan lotion. In the depths of winter. I wonder why…..

    • I am correcting false info. Robock published his incorrect info about nuclear winter a dozen times in various science journals. He gets published in Nature. I looked into it in 2009, 2010 and again recently. It is wrong. He covers it up by focusing on computational models that already assume 5 millin tons of soot in the stratosphere from 100 bombs in a nuclear war between India and Pakistan. This is the Robock scenario. I am correcting that scenario.

      There already was the fires and burning of Japanese Cities at the end of WW2. This history happened. Starting cities burning with napalm or with nuclaer bombs is similar, but actually burning with napalm and incendiaries is worse because you are adding more fuel for the fires. The tests have already been done and burning 60 nuclear bomb equivalents worth of city does not put anything close to 5 million tons of soot. It is more like 50,000 tons.

      I am not hoping for war. I am telling you that based upon what already happened in WW2 there will be no nuclear winter regardless of how many nuclear bombs are used. The more important factor is analyzing how cities will burn. I had three articles. One going over what I wrote and researched in 2010 with some slight updates and another going deeper into the arsenal of India and Pakistan and going over more of the WW2 details.

      If you are going to talk about nuclear war and fire then you have to look unflinching at what happened in WW2 because that is the data of when we burned cities en masse. The problem with Roblock is he ignores the reality of what happened.

      Also, it not just nukes starting fires. It has to be firestorms. Firestorms are not normal fires. Also, some firestorms are not big enough to get a lot of soot into the stratosphere. There is size limit to firestorm fires. Firestorms need a lot of oxygen, which is what is causing 150 mph winds.

      The third post was correcting commenters who said India has fusion bombs 100X more powerful than Hiroshima bombs. The US does not have fusion boms 100X more powerful than Hiroshima bombs. The US and Russia could but they choose not to have them. The US has nearly half 90 kiloton bombs and then half about 300-400 kilotons and about 10% 150-200 kilotons. Those are 6X Hiroshima, 20X Hiroshima and 10-12X hiroshima. India and Pakistan weapons range fomr half Hiroshima to double Hiroshima.

      Science and Technology and predictions require getting all of the relevant information correct.

      I am clearly up widespread false beliefs and misinformation.

  4. I thought I remember reading that North Korea had an estimated 100 kt bomb blast, which along with propaganda photos of warheads, lead one expert – Jeffery Lewis – to conclude that not only did NK have hydrogen bombs, but had miniaturized them to fit on a ballistic missile.

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