Use of nuclear weapons soon?

[Moontanman]

I am beginning to hear serious concerns about the possible use of nuclear weapons by Russia in it's invasion of Ukraine. Is this a serious threat or is it just more war mongering by Russia in it's desperation to take over Ukraine? Some people whom I respect seem to think this is a likely endgame for Putin others seem to think nukes would not make much of a difference at this point since the troops are so widely dispersed. This would seem to put a target on cities if they were used at all. 

Russia seems to be in chaos after the drafting of civilians was instituted with hundreds of thousands of men leaving the country. Are nukes and the threat of nukes Putin's last chance at winning the war in Ukraine and would this drag the rest of the world into an exchange of nukes?  

[Peterkin]

2 hours ago, Moontanman said:

Are nukes and the threat of nukes Putin's last chance at winning the war in Ukraine and would this drag the rest of the world into an exchange of nukes?  

He has zero chance of winning Ukraine. And he has an ego the size of the moon, and he's terminally ill. If he can't have what he wants - making the Russian Empire Great Again - he'll try to goad the rest of the world into dying with him. He may have some mad generals on his side, but getting killed faster than usual

Quote

The world has been agog at the number of Russian generals killed in Ukraine over the last few weeks. This appears to be the tip of the iceberg, for “at least 15 senior Russian commanders have been killed in the field,” according to Markiyan Lubkivsky, a spokesperson for the Ukraine Ministry of Defence. The total was later amended to 16, including five named colonels and four lieutenant colonels. https://www.historyextra.com/period/second-world-war/russian-generals-killed-in-battle-compared-ukraine/

    so who knows the mind-set of the officers coming up in their place? My bet - not the farm, just a small one - is that the upcoming top brass of the horribly abused Russian army will have had enough and assassinate the crazy bastard before he destroys the world.

Hint to assassins: be very precise in the placement of that briefcase!

[TheVat]

Call me a optimist, I think Putin uses tac nukes solely as weapons of intimidation, not of war.  He's not a complete idiot, and realizes that prevailing winds are likely to carry radioactive dust into Russia.  The largest tac nukes yield ten kilotons, which is two-thirds the yield of Little Boy, at Hiroshima.  Their use would be so monstrous that Russia would descend to the deepest depths of pariah status, even with allies.  The people would suffer great hardship and it's very likely Putin would be disposed of, Lavrentiy Beria style.  Not sure he's really terminally ill (the world should be so lucky), and he could fear an ignominious end.

 

 

 

[Moontanman]

O hope you guys are right, I now live in an apartment and would probably not survive a 1st strike. 

[TheVat]

Nor would most of us.  I am not far from a base that's a linchpin of the nuclear strike force.  Our old stone foundation, two feet thick, might give some protection in the basement, but we would eventually starve with everyone else.  

Meanwhile, Ukraine does what I've been hoping they would do for months, bombing the Kerch Strait bridge.  (The Marilyn Monroe bit was icing on the cake...)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/08/crimea-kerch-bridge-attack-explosion-russia-ukraine/

 

Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, tweeted a picture of the damaged bridge and said: “@Crimea, long time no see” along with a heart emoji. And the head of Ukraine’s postal service said the agency would issue a new stamp showing a damaged bridge reading: “Crimean Bridge — Done.”

Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s national security and defense council, tweeted a picture of the burning bridge paired with a grainy black-and-white clip of Marilyn Monroe singing “Happy Birthday Mr. President,” in an apparent reference to Putin’s 70th birthday, which was Friday.

[Peterkin]

2 hours ago, Moontanman said:

I now live in an apartment and would probably not survive a 1st strike. 

I live in a nothing place of no strategic value, and would probably survive the first two rounds. Lucky me! I get to die very slowly, unless a roving gang of marauding bikers happens by to raid the pantry. There are no good scenarios in the Rapture.

[J.C.MacSwell]

8 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

I live in a nothing place of no strategic value, and would probably survive the first two rounds. Lucky me! I get to die very slowly, unless a roving gang of marauding bikers happens by to raid the pantry. There are no good scenarios in the Rapture.

I'm worried the grannies would get to me first.

I'd get the last laugh though...I haven't rotated the foodstuffs in my bunker since November 1962.

[MigL]

1 hour ago, Peterkin said:

unless a roving gang of marauding bikers happens by to raid the pantry

Mad Max ?
Is that you ?

[Peterkin]

He had a pantry? I thought he just stockpiled gasoline. We have cereal, rice, flour, canned goods, cooking oil and coffee to last through a medium-sized siege.

Quote

Just one very small (sub-kiloton-range) tactical nuclear weapon, mind, delivered on sparsely populated land or off the Ukrainian coast. It couldn’t be more than that, because the generals in the Russian chain of command would not accept orders for a bigger strike that might start a full nuclear war. They may be corrupt, but most of them love their families.https://lfpress.com/opinion/columnists/dyer-tactical-nuclear-strike-desperate-putins-likely-next-move

Quote

The key fact to keep in mind is the same Russian generals would probably not escalate further if NATO made no nuclear response to that single Russian nuke. They’d just wait for the terror and revulsion sweeping through Russia and every other country to take Putin down.

But then, Dyer, like me, has guessed wrong before.

[J.C.MacSwell]

1 hour ago, Peterkin said:

 

But then, Dyer, like me, has guessed wrong before.

Like you he calls them the way he sees them. That's why they call it the Dyer straights...

[MigL]

1 hour ago, Peterkin said:

He had a pantry? I thought he just stockpiled gasoline.

No. Not 'Road Warrior', or its sequels.
The original 1979 'Mad Max', where the bikers kill his wife/family.

 

Count me as another of G Dyer fan.

[Peterkin]

9 minutes ago, MigL said:

The original 1979 'Mad Max', where the bikers kill his wife/family.

And his dog. That's where I changed the channel.

[TheVat]

2 hours ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

Like you he calls them the way he sees them. That's why they call it the Dyer straights...

He's doing the Walk of Life, still, at 79.  Perhaps still Twisting by the Pool.  Always a thought provoking columnist, sorry to say I have not been reading him in recent years.  Thanks to Peterkin for the link.

I question "sub kiloton range" tac nukes, though.  Most of what I've gleaned is they are largely in the 1-20 kiloton range, and if you were going for a scary demo, I doubt sub kiloton would be your pick.   IIRC, there were some tiny tac nukes back in the early decades with yields down to 0.02 kilotons that could fit into artillery shells, etc. which were phased out as more trouble than they were worth.  Conventional munitions could develop yields approaching that range, in groups, more cheaply and safely to your own troops.  (I used to belong to a nuclear disarmament group, in a marginal way, used to try and keep up with all this madness)

Really, more I think about it, the more absurd a demo bomb seems.  People know what large explosions are, and what nukes bring to that game.  It's not like Ukraine watches a giant crater made in a sunflower field and says, oh dear, now we know nukes are real! Let's bargain!  

Edited October 10, 2022 by TheVat
Fobekdo

[iNow]

7 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Most of what I've gleaned is they are largely in the 1-20 kiloton range, and if you were going for a scary demo, I doubt sub kiloton would be your pick.

David Petraeus suggested this morning that smaller weapons used on more symbolic targets (like Zalinskys home town or some equivalent of Ukraines attack on Kerch bridge, for example) would have the same intended effect without the higher yields nor risk presented to your own troops with a nuclear deployment to the front lines. 

[LaurieAG]

When somebody says "All options are on the table" do they mean all options but the nuclear ones?

The following was published on 27 November 2021 at 10:03am.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/all-options-on-the-table-for-us-as-russia-ramps-up-troops-on-ukraine-border/4pmh5ului

All options are on the table in how to respond to Russia's "large and unusual" troop buildup near Ukraine's border, the top United States diplomat for European affairs said on Friday.

[iNow]

3 minutes ago, LaurieAG said:

When somebody says "All options are on the table" do they mean all options but the nuclear ones?

They usually mean, “Go away you moron reporter. We’re not dumb enough to tell our enemy what we’re actually planning here on your pathetic little show.”

[Peterkin]

The problem is, all the sane people are speculating on possible venues to sane containment of an insane situation driven by an unknown number of insane actors behind a known insane figurehead. We know the options and materials available to them; what we don't know is the breadth and depth and consilience of their insanities.

It's always those pesky unknown unknowns that bite you in the ass. 

[Moontanman]

I live near a state port, a military terminal and a nuclear power plant... so long, fair well, al vita Zein. 

[Peterkin]

20 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

I live near a state port, a military terminal and a nuclear power plant... so long, fair well, al vita Zein. 

Going on vacation? I hear the sunbathing's pretty good in Puerto Rico this time of year.

[Sensei]

23 hours ago, Moontanman said:

O hope you guys are right, I now live in an apartment and would probably not survive a 1st strike. 

At least you had the honor of talking to the creator of the Universe..

 

Edited October 10, 2022 by Sensei

[Moontanman]

5 hours ago, Sensei said:

At least you had the honor of talking to the creator of the Universe..

 

Myself? 

[J.C.MacSwell]

19 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

Myself? 

You don't believe in a Suntanman God do you? You're better than that...

No one needs moonscreen.

(full disclosure: no idea what Sensei is on about)

[Moontanman]

47 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

You don't believe in a Suntanman God do you? You're better than that...

No one needs moonscreen.

(full disclosure: no idea what Sensei is on about)

hey... at least the sun is real 🤪

[J.C.MacSwell]

6 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

hey... at least the sun is real 🤪

Maybe frontreal or backreal...certainly not sidereal.

[TheVat]

9 hours ago, Sensei said:

At least you had the honor of talking to the creator of the Universe..

 

I'm guessing if we worked on the grammar of that sentence, we'd find you meant that anyone annihilated in a nuclear attack would get to meet God.  Assuming we accept the conjecture of a personal god who created everything (and all the pretzel logic that goes with), and engages in chats with all the freshly dead, then it's not really an honor is it?  If everyone gets something, then that something is not really an honor, since "honor" in this sense implies a special recognition accorded only to a select few.