NationStates Jolt Archive

How much do Nuclear Warheads cost if you have the facility for produceing Uranium-235 already set up?.

it all depends on teh RP you are involved in, some places they are fairly inexpensive, say 100,000 USD each, some places pretty expenxive, it is best to not worry about them and keep your warfare conventional because once you pull out Nukes you will draw the attention of Allies of your target, as well as other nations who jsut dont like that kind of stuff, especially if your nation is pretty small (I havnt looked at your nation yet).

But what if your not in a current RP, what if its just general?.

hard to say, I know that there is someone out there in the in character forum who can answer your question as to average cost and how many a nation can safely maintain, I never really got into the Nuclear aspect of war I prefer to use our nastier weapons and of course our Cylons and Im pretty fond of Orbital bomabrdment.

cost of enriched uranium is approx 20.5 million per ton or 10 thousand per pound.

for a 1 kiloton device around 15 pounds is needed. this number depends on the technology used. more will be required for a simpler design. the amount of heu required is roughly linear up to about a few hundred kiloton. at this point the physics no longer allow for effective fission devices.

so to build a 1 kiloton devuce would require a 150 thousand in uranium, and roughly another 50 to 60 thousand in machining, and componts. the cost will increase greatly depending on the delivery system and the technology used in the device.

maintenance would cost roughly one fifth of the device's cost per year. mostly becuase of the fairly frequent checks required to make sure that everything is still working. the average shelf life of a device is roughly ten to twelve years after which it should be returned to the factory for a complete overhaul.

so for a complete life cycle you are looking at about one million to 1.2 million per device of one kiloton per decade. with a fairly linear cost increase with increase in yield. this however excludes the maintanence costs of the delivery systems, device security, etc.

Cant it be any cheaper if I have the facilitys?.

If you didn't have the facilities it would be impossible to make a nuclear weapon.

Fifteen POUNDS?! Isnt that number a little.. high? I took a nuclear physics course.. the amount for a 1 kt device is a little bit less, if I remember rightly. But I could always be wrong. And if you want to boost your weapons to Thermonuclear status, you will need to get ahold of some tritium, which is even still more expensive.

i think the fifteen pounds is an average number. you need more if you are using a simple gun-type mechanism, less is you are using the more complex implosion deisgn.

You can also enrich the uranium yourself using I think bleech or Chlorine. Of course that way is really dangerous gives off alot of noxious fumes and it isnt as good as the proffesional stuff but its alot cheaper.

Cant it be any cheaper if I have the facilitys?.

not really. the price of heu that i quoted is from a russian-us trade deal. the price is probably fairly reflective of the total cost required, (raw materials, uranium feed stock, labour, facility costs, etc.)

the costs of maintenence maybe a little high. but given the fact that you need a group of highly trained (read expensive) people to maintain them it probably isn't out of line.

You can also enrich the uranium yourself using I think bleech or Chlorine. Of course that way is really dangerous gives off alot of noxious fumes and it isnt as good as the proffesional stuff but its alot cheaper.

not really. the common method is uses uranium hexaflouride. using a cheaper, but similarly reactive, gas, ie chlorine, doesn't reduce the cost too much. the gas can be recovered before the metal is fabricated. the cost is in both the equipment required to separate the heavier isotope, and the amount of raw uranium required.