Tactical Nuclear Weapons Inventory
According to Robert Ashley, Lieutenant General, U.S. Army, Director, Defense Intelligence Agency on March 6, 2018 "Russia has an active stockpile of up to 2,000 nonstrategic nuclear weapons. These include air-to-surface missiles, short-range ballistic missiles, gravity bombs, and depth charges for medium-range bombers, tactical bombers, and naval aviation; antiship, antisubmarine, and antiaircraft missiles; and torpedoes for surface ships and submarines. Russia may also have warheads for surface-to-air and other aerospace defense missile systems."
Writing about Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons [NSNW] in 2006 Jeffrey A. Larsen of Science Applications International Corporation noted that Russia " ... has a large tactical nuclear arsenal left over from the Cold War — most analysts have estimated that it maintains at least 3,500 NSNW, and some estimate as many as 15,000 or more". The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) believed during the Cold War the Soviets had stockpiled additional warheads for the delivery systems, providing them with a reload capability.
Gen. Eugene Habiger, U.S. Air Force (Ret.), Former Commander U.S. Strategic Command, testified before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 23 July 2002 that " Our unclassified intelligence estimates of the Russia's tactical nuclear weapons arsenal is in the range of 12,000 - 18,000". According to the Western media, the US has a tactical nuclear weapon inventory substantially smaller than that of Russia. The US is reported to have 1200 of them, 500 of them are in combat readiness, with 200 of the latter located in Europe. The US Navy has 10 aircraft carriers, which have F/A-18 fighter-bombers which are nuclear-capable. These are all B61 air dropped gravity bombs.
Russia provides extremely little transparency regarding the number, location, and deployment status of its non-strategic nuclear weapons. The United States does not publicly disclose information about the size of its non-strategic deployments. Russia’s lack of transparency contributes to widely varying estimates of the number of non-strategic weapons that it deploys or has stockpiled.
Arbatov reported 4,000 weapons in 1999 including ADMs. Russian press reports were that 3,300-5,700 battlefield nuclear weapons were retained including nuclear artillery, missile warheads, bombs and cruise missile warheads and suitcase bombs.
The 2009 Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States cited unnamed "senior Russian experts" who estimated that Russia possessed some 3,800 non-strategic operational warheads. Despite the uncertainty surrounding the size of Russia’s operational non-strategic arsenal, there is wide agreement that the United States, in partnership with its NATO allies, deploys far fewer non-strategic weapons in Europe than Russia does in its territory.
Currently, carriers of thermonuclear bombs in long-range aviation in Russia are the Tu-160, Tu-95 and Tu-22M bombers (the latter were also found in the Navy aviation). The main strike complex of the front-line aviation is the supersonic tactical bomber Su-24, capable of carrying nuclear bombs TN-1000 and TN-1200 (these symbols are quoted in the "Modern Military Aviation and Air Force of the World" reference book by the British expert David Donald, but do not occur in Russian sources).
In the arsenal of domestic aviation weapons there were also nuclear depth charges for hitting submarines. The first such bomb, the 5F48 Scalp, appeared in the early 1960s. It was designed for combat seaplanes Be-10 and Be-12. In addition, the nuclear deep-seated bombs received also purely "land" anti-submarine aircraft (coast-based) Il-38 and Tu-142. The latter, thanks to the enormous radius of action, is able to apply them in practically any region of the World Ocean.
Depth bombs with a nuclear charge can also be carried by deck-based anti-submarine helicopters - the first of them was the Ka-25PLYu, equipped with a "special", as it was said in the "secret carrier" environment, 8F59 bomb. This helicopter was developed by a decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR dated May 15, 1965, and, apparently, it is the first rotor-wing machine in the world equipped with nuclear weapons. Subsequently, deck helicopters Ka-27 and amphibious helicopters Mi-14 became carriers of anti-submarine nuclear weapons.
New Soviet missile systems enhanced front nuclear capabilities. The SS-21 missile that was entering the force and the SS-23 that eventually deployed offered significant increases in range, accuracy. and survivability over current front missiles. These systems enable Soviet planners to allocate lower yield warheads and still meet current damage requirements against most front targets. The benefits of the improved accuracy of the SS-21 and SS-23 could be lost, however, if mobile targets were not detected or if timely and accurate target location data are not available.
The Soviets, more than the United States, emphasized specialized (single-purpose) nuclear delivery systems organic to their general purpose forces, and in much larger numbers. They had launchers at divisional and higher levels, consisting of the FROG series, the SCUD B, the SS-12 SCALEBOARD, and two follow-on systems -- the SS-21 replacement for the FROG, and the SS-22 missile for the SCALEBOARD launcher. Many of these missiles were longer in range than their counterpart NATO systems.
By the end of the Cold War the Soviet Navy maintained an extensive sea-based non-strategic nuclear force comprising both anti-surface warfare (ASUW) and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) systems. The Soviets maintained an inventory of nuclear tipped torpedoes as well as ASW depth bombs. Almost all major surface combatants (about 290), all submarines (about 340) as well as a few of the other combatant ships (some 31) carried at least one if not a mix of systems.
It is believed that by early 1991, the USSR had approximately 20-22,000 units of tactical nuclear munitions. These were nuclear charges of air bombs, the warheads of tactical missiles Luna, Point, Oka, nuclear warheads of antisubmarine and anti-ship weapons of the fleet, special missile defense missile and missile defense missiles, nuclear mines and nuclear shells of the artillery of the Ground Forces.
The baseline numerical estimates from 1991/1992 are crucial, since all subsequent official Russian statements have used a formula of reporting on progress by percentages, as opposed to actual numbers. The open source estimates on the number of Soviet/Russian TNWs that existed in 1991/1992 vary widely. One Russian estimate provided the following account of Soviet TNWs: - 13,759 platforms - 11,305 warheads - This account estimated that at the conclusion of the unilateral reductions, Russia would still possess 2,560 TNW-related aircraft and 3,100 bombs. [Vladimir Belous, Nuclear Warheads: What Do We Do? Good Intentions and Harsh Reality, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 17 June 1992, p. 2 [JPRS-UMA-92-026]].
At the end of the Cold War, Russia followed the United States lead and deactivated its nuclear artillery units in 1993. Russia committed to eliminating all warheads on three types of short-range missiles and six types of artillery; all nuclear mines; one third of its naval warheads; one half of its air force warheads; and one half of nuclear air defense warheads. The Russian timeline would take until 2000 to reach some of those goals. By 2000, Russia reported that "nearly all" nuclear artillery shells and missile warheads had been destroyed.
In April 2002 the Russian government gave a public summary of its reduction status. In its “Russian Statement on Article VI,” delivered at the First Session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2005 NPT Review Conference under Article VI of the Treaty (New York, April 11, 2002) it claimed that "... all NSNW has been dismantled from surface ships and multiple-purpose submarines, as well from ground-based naval air force and placed for centralized storage; more than 30% of nuclear munitions of the total number designed for tactical sea-launched missiles and naval air force have been eliminated ... production of nuclear munitions for tactical ground-launched missiles, nuclear artillery shells and nuclear mines has been completely stopped .... Russia has practically implemented all the declared initiatives to reduce NSNW with the exception of elimination of nuclear weapons of the Army. The elimination of ... nuclear artillery shells and nuclear land mines is meanwhile restrained by insufficient financing, as well as by non-fulfillment of the treaty provisions on the elimination and reduction of conventional arms, strategic offensive arms (START I) and elimination of chemical weapons."
The US Department of State released on 10 June 2005 a statement to Arms Control Today that “Russia has failed to state publicly the status of the elimination of its nuclear artillery munitions, nuclear warheads for air defense missiles, nuclear mines, or nuclear weapons on land-based naval aviation.” For its part, Russia issued a May 2005 report that stated it has reduced its tactical nuclear arsenal “by four times” since 1991 and intends to “further reduce the level of these weapons.”
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