Two years after the November 2021 delivery of the primary B-61-12 tactical nuclear bomb, an annual report by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has revealed that the Air Force has the weapons ready for operational use on its 20 B-2 Spirit stealth bombers—flying wing jets designed to traverse vast distances and penetrate enemy airspace without being detected. The striking and immensely expensive Spirits are all a part of the 509th Bomb Wing, based at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri.
The B61-12 actually marks a big departure from the 12 preceding models of B61 tactical nuclear gravity bombs, the primary of which debuted within the Sixties. It’s latest tail kit has moving fins and spin-stabilizing rockets that allow it to be launched from a standoff distance and land, on average, inside either 30 meters of a delegated goal (using an inertial navigation system), or inside 5 meters (if there’s GPS access). Compare that to the 110-170 meter average error of its predecessor.
The improved precision signifies that a smaller nuclear warhead and half the variety of tactical nukes overall may very well be used to attain the identical objectives as previous incarnations, leading to less collateral damage and radioactive fallout. Nonetheless, critics of nuclear proliferation have argued that the B61-12 constitutes such an enormous improvement in effectiveness that it risks dangerously increasing the temptation to make use of tactical nukes.
By 2025, a complete of around 480 B61-12s are expected to be converted from B61-4 bombs—though components from the B61-3, -7, and -10 are apparently mixed in. This ostensible life-extension program (LEP) of the B61-4 wasn’t low-cost. A 2012 article estimated that every 825-pound bomb cost greater than its weight in gold ($18.4 million in 2022 dollars) at $28 million each. The newest NNSA report estimated a complete program cost of $8.3 billion in 2020 dollars (including roughly $1.2 billion still to spend), while outside experts think cost overruns could make the ultimate number closer to $10 billion.
Eventually, the B-61-12 will likely be certified to be used on the B-2’s alternative (the B-21 Raider), in addition to on F-35 Lightning II stealth fighters, the widely operated F-16 Fighting Falcon tactical jet fighter, the F-15E Strike Eagle fighter-bomber, and German and Italian Tornado fighter-bombers. Indeed, most of those aircraft have already test dropped B-61-12s.
The B61-12 is not going to, nonetheless, be integrated into the Navy and Marine Corps’ FA-18E/F Super Hornet fighters, nor the Air Force’s B-52 and B-1 non-stealth bombers.
The precise reach of the B61-12’s standoff capability is classed, but it surely is estimated to not exceed 15 miles even under ideal conditions (launched from high altitude) attributable to the dearth of pop-out wings.
Still, even 15 miles would considerably enhance the survivability of non-stealth aircraft, which would want to drop older B61 variants almost directly over the goal. This proceedure risked amounting to a suicide run against any goal benefitting from unsuppressed modern air defenses. The dearth of standoff-range almost meant that there was a greater risk that the dropping aircraft could be caught the blast before it could pull far enough away.
Indeed, the most recent air defenses pose such a threat that even stealth aircraft have their survivability and suppleness considerably improved by added standoff range. That explains the prioritization of the B-2 Spirit: it’s the platform that the Air Force would first turn to if it to needed to promptly deliver a strong tactical nuclear attack at the bottom risk of losses. The B-2 will even give you the chance to leverage the precision-guidance capabilities of the B-61-12—a capability not possessed by the F-16 or Tornado, attributable to their older electronics.
The B-2’s stealth-optimized AN/APQ-181 radar may provide crucial targeting capabilities in wartime conditions when GPS is inaccessible or degraded—a method tested by a B-2 using a dud B61-12 and novel Radar Assisted Targeting Software (RATS) tool in July of 2022.
The longer term of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons
The B61-12 will replace B61 mod-3, -4, and -7 bombs currently in service that were built between 1979 and 1990. Like these bombs, the B61-12 has an adjustable (or ‘dial-able’) yield, starting from .3 kilotons to a maximum of fifty kilotons—the latter being nearly 3 times more powerful than the ‘Little Boy’ atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
That’s actually less extreme than the B61-3 (max 170 kilotons) and the strategic B61-7 (max around 350 kilotons). But due to improved precision, the 30-60 meter wide crater from a 50-kiloton blast is assessed to reliably destroy bunker-sized targets.
Fifty specialized B61-11 bombs will remain in service alongside the mod 12, attributable to their specialized ground-penetration capabilities intended for disabling nuclear weapon sites and command centers a whole lot of feet below the bottom. These 1,200-pound weapons manufactured from high-strength steel have the next maximum yield of 340 or 400 kilotons.
Meanwhile, in October of this 12 months, the Biden administration announced that it had approved plans for a higher-yield B61-13 model using the B61-7’s warhead to supply “additional options against certain harder and large-area military targets.”
Because the B61-12 was originally slated to interchange the B61-7, and the general stockpile of tactical nukes would increase. Which means that future production of B61-13s (estimated to total around 50 bombs) would come on the expense of the B61-12s.
The B61-13 could also be an administrative maneuver to assist retire the B83-1 strategic nuclear bomb, which has a maximum yield of 1.2 megatons (ie. 1,200 kilotons). The B83’s slated retirement was reflexively canceled by the Trump administration, and Biden now faces opposition by House Republicans in attempting to re-cancel the B83-1. The B61-13, subsequently, may amount to an offered compromise in the shape of a modernized substitute for the B83 with the next max yield than the B61-12.
The B61-11, B83-1, and any future B61-13s will only be deployed by B-2 or B-21 bombers—not fighters. It’s price noting that the collateral effects of those larger-yield weapons are many times greater, making them very hard to employ without significant fallout affecting nearby allies and non-combatants.
The one other non-strategic nuclear weapon in U.S. service is the 8-kiloton W76-2 warhead, which could be loaded into the Trident-D5 missiles on U.S. Navy Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines. It’s estimated that only 25 W76-2s were built, and it’s speculated that every Ohio-class sub may carry one or two missiles armed with W76-2 warheads on their patrol, alongside their far more destructive strategic nuclear payloads.
How and when would B61 tactical nukes get used?
While ‘tactical’ nukes are popular subjects of video games and motion movies, their use in real life would only be authorized in extreme circumstances. Ever for the reason that U.S. dropped two atomic bombs on Japanese cities in 1945, there was a so-far-unbroken taboo against using even the least powerful nukes in combat.
Currently, U.S. tactical nuclear bombs have implications for U.S. national security in two sorts of situations: conflicts with formidable military adversaries (Russia or China), and conflicts with regional powers which have or may soon acquire nuclear weapons capabilities (North Korea or Iran, respectively). The latter of those could still inflict numerous damage, though they fall wanting a real existential threat.
The first justification for U.S. tactical nukes may in truth be the deterrence of other countries’ tactical nukes. Russia, specifically, has nearly 2,000 non-treaty-regulated tactical nuclear weapons. In addition they have a more elaborate doctrine on their potential uses, each regarding limited scale operations for strategic signaling and intimidation (“escalating to deescalate”) and bigger scale operations for warfighting (using nukes to win on the battlefield).
Admittedly, a considerable fraction of Russia’s tactical nukes are designed for specialised roles in air-defense, anti-ship, and anti-submarine warfare. And China has not invested in tactical nukes—though, it’s within the strategy of expanding its strategic nuclear arsenal.
Still, Russian strategists may imagine that they’ll obtain psychological, political, or battlefield benefits using smaller, short-range nukes, cruise missiles, and Iskander ballistic missiles. They could count on an adversary to be unwilling to make the leap by retaliating with more powerful strategic weapons, which might result in mutual destruction on a civilization level. Thus, proponents of the U.S.’s tactical nuclear weapons argue that they create a capability to retaliate proportionally against small-scale nuclear attacks, reducing the perceived advantages of initiating such a game of nuclear chicken.
U.S. tactical nuclear gravity bombs also share a strategic deterrence role, as 100 are stored in bases in Belgium, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, and Turkey for potential carrying by those countries’ F-16 and Tornado jet fighters (and, eventually, F-35s). This diffuses national responsibility for nuclear deterrence across NATO, fostering a band-together ‘an attack on one is an attack on all’ dynamic. It’s hoped that this will likely be enough to discourage Russia from considering that it might politically disintegrate the alliance through nuclear threats.
Nonetheless, the U.S. also has its own war-fighting concepts for tactical nukes. Throughout the Cold War, these involved pulverizing concentrations of invading Soviet tank divisions, which were feared to have such a numbers advantage that they may prove unstoppable by NATO ground forces.
But within the post-Cold War era, the best fear is of nuclear weapons themselves (whether tactical or strategic), particularly those ensconced in underground silos that would prove difficult to knock out with conventional weapons. Thus, per doctrine, any future use of U.S. nuclear weapons—tactical or strategic—would likely be mostly pointed at enemy nuclear assets and command-and-control nodes.
Notably, tactical nuclear weapons is likely to be utilized in response (or, more controversially, in perceived preemption) to a nuclear attack from a ‘middle power’ like North Korea or Iran as a part of an effort to knock out nuclear assets—and their command-and-control enablers—before they’ll strike. The improved precision of the B61-12 and ground-penetrating capabilities of the B61-11 could offer a vital advantage in reliably destroying hardened targets.
That said, additionally it is possible to focus on enemy nuclear assets using only powerful conventional means, including stealthy JASSM cruise missiles and bunker-busting Massive Ordinance Penetrators . This may very well be kept away from taking over the awful collateral effects—and frightening escalation risks—of nuclear weapon usage.
All in all, one should hope that the improved efficiency of the B61-12 is rarely put to a real-world test.