Washington. June 22. INTERFAX - The Strategic Command of the US armed Forces may lose its most powerful nuclear bombs in the coming years, it follows from the materials of the US Congress.
At the disposal of the Strategic Command, there are currently about 50 B83 nuclear bombs with a capacity of 1.2 megatons, which were put into service in 1983.
According to experts of the Federation of American Scientists, these bombs are outdated. The plutonium and uranium inside them slowly decompose, the electronics and even the glue holding them together make them unreliable.
"All these components wear out over time," said Hans Christensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project of the Federation of American Scientists.
One B83 nuclear aerial bomb weighing more than a ton is capable of destroying an entire city. The modernization of these ammunition, the expiration date of which expires in the 2020s, requires very high costs.
These nuclear munitions are designed to destroy the main underground command posts in the depths of the enemy's country. However, according to American military experts, the only heavy strategic B-2 Spirit stel-bombers capable of delivering these bombs to the target are unlikely to be able to overcome the echeloned air defense system to a greater depth of enemy territory.
In return, according to the National Nuclear Safety Administration, the United States began upgrading the B61 atomic bomb.
In the new modification, the anti-bunker nuclear bomb B61-12 with a capacity of up to 50 kilotons, the serial production of which began in May, has already been transferred to the US Department of Defense.
The first combat samples of the B61-12 version of the aerial bomb were assembled back in November last year at the Pantex plant for the production of nuclear weapons in Texas.
A total of 480 B61-12 bombs are planned to be manufactured by 2026. About 100 of them will be located in Europe in 2023-24.
The peculiarity of the new aerial bomb, which will replace the old models, consists in the tail. It makes the bomb controllable and more accurate, which makes it possible not to lower it with a parachute, but to drop it from an airplane flying at high altitude, after which the bomb autonomously plans towards the target for many kilometers, if necessary, "steering" to it.
In particular, it is planned to equip tactical fighter-bombers F-35A, F-15E, F-16C/D and Tornado of the US Air Force and other NATO member countries with these bombs in the European theater of operations.