Our hydrogen bombs or Erdogan's?

 

"Erdogan to announce tomorrow major policy change after the National Security Council (MGK). Could be something drastic, like leaving NATO, or giving up the EU membership application. Or even maybe declaring himself president for life, effectively taking over the entire state apparatus. Or even disbanding the parliament, and calling for a new referendum and election."  A Turk

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"As of 2005^[update], 180 tactical B61 nuclear bombs of the 480 U.S. nuclear weapons believed to be deployed in Europe fall under the nuclear sharing arrangement.^[7] The weapons are stored within a vault in hardened aircraft shelters, using the USAF WS3 Weapon Storage and Security System. The delivery warplanes used are F-16s and Panavia Tornados"  wiki on Nuclear Sharing

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"The WS3 system consists of a Weapons Storage Vault (WSV) and electronic monitoring and control systems. One vault can hold up to four nuclear weapons and in the lowered position provides ballistic protection through its hardened lid and reinforced sidewalls.^[1] The WS3 system allowed storage directly underneath the aircraft intended to carry the bombs. The location inside the aircraft shelter increased the weapon survivability in case of any kind of attack and prevent monitoring of preparations to use the weapons. The electronic systems include various classified sensors, electronic data-transmission and security equipment such as video, motion detectors, closed circuit TV coupled with thermal imaging devices. These facilities enabled remote controlled weapon safety and made the large security forces obsolete."  wiki on weapons storage  and security system

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"A Turk," whose words are quoted above is a long term commentator on SST.  I consider him to be a good source.

There are between 50 and 90 B-61 variable yield thermonuclear weapons  (hydrogen bombs) stored at Incirlik Air base in SE Turkey.  This base was built by the US starting in 1951 but it has always been a TURKISH base with US tenants.   Some of the weapons are earmarked for US use and some for Turkish use against US/NATO agreed on targets if they are ever released by the US National Command Authority.  The weapons are stored there in a semi-automatic system in vaults under the delivery aircraft.  Small point - There are no US delivery suitable aircraft now stationed at Incirlik.  They would have to brought in from somewhere else to mate them with the bombs.  At the same time, the Turkish Air Force no longer has nuclear weapons certified pilots.

Questions:

1.  What are the targets for which these weapons would possibly be used?   Are there any?  Really?

2.  How firmly are the American airmen at the base in control of these weapons, weapons situated on a foreign base?

3.  Can the weapons be disabled, perhaps remotely?

Let us say, for the sake of argument, that Erdogan controlled forces make a move to seize control of the hydrogen bombs on THEIR BASE.  What could the US do about it?

IMO the US should remove the weapons or disable them as soon as possible.  pl

Comments

[turcopolier]

IZ
From what I understand these are USAF technicians. If that is not so, someone tell me! pl

[Fred]

IZ,

Thank you. I appreciate your sentiment.

[Tigersharktoo]

Well, if they are willing to detonate one bomb, they won't survive, but neither will the armor, and the remaining bombs will be useless.

[Dabbler]

Wouldn't Putin (and others) be rather pleased with tayyip if the latter's actions caused the B-61s to be removed from Incirlik? Just a thought...

[James Loughton]

Sir,

My knowledge is almost 50 years out of date by now and based solely on my experience as a high school student whose father was a wing commander of B-52 wings from 1966 through 1969. One weekend day dad let me ride along as he took a tour of the flight line including the active alert area. My recollection was that there were several perimeter guards and the several guards around each armed aircraft They carried rifles and pistols, but appeared to be Airmen rather than (Army) soldiers. Perhaps they were military police with additional training, or perhaps they had some other training. I didn't ask, so cannot say.

I had never really thought about it until today, but my guess is that few, if any had ever fired a shot in anger. Perhaps someone more knowledgable than I can improve on this.

[James Loughton]

As for Question 3: Can the weapons be disabled, perhaps remotely?

The best information I could find is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_Action_Link

It's not clear to me whether they can be disabled remotely or not. I does appear they can be disabled on site.

[Lloyd D. Herod, Jr.]

Col., and SST;
For answers and informed speculation to some of the questions posed about the safety and security of US devices in this thread, I recommend Command and Control by Eric Schlosser. The safety and security measures mentioned in the book come from extensive interviews by the author of engineers, physicists and military personnel with knowledge of nuclear weapons design, safety and control.

There is an article in the current New Yorker dated 7/17/2016 by Schlosser entitled "The H-Bombs in Turkey" There are entrys for the B-61 and it's variants in the National Security Archive website, The nuclearweaponsarchive.org website also contains information on the B-61, some of it duplicating information found in the Nationa Security Archive website.

[turcopolier]

Dabbler

Yes, Putin would be pleased. So what? pl

[Peter Reichard]

It is difficult to imagine any scenario with the possible exception of Korea where the rapid use of tactical nuclear weapons would become necessary. The current instability in Turkey shows that the risk/benefit ratio of deploying these weapons overseas is enormous, they should be withdrawn to US territory or kept on ships.

[Dubhaltach]

In reply to turcopolier 19 July 2016 at 08:20 PM

Colonel,

I'd always been told they had breakout capability for creating the munitions but not for the delivery. Is that still the case?

I've got a great deal of respect for the level of ability one finds in Turkish universities.

[turcopolier]

Dubhaltach

They could create nuclear weapons but to achieve the miniaturized industrial processes needed to produce weapons like the B-61, etc. is a far different matter. Their first weapons would probably be something like the ones we used on Japan. pl

[Dabbler]

It likely wasn't necessary for Erdogan to make a move (or feint) toward Incirlik in order to defeat the coup and conduct the purge. The fact that he did make such a move should have the effect of causing the US to re-think its storage of B-61s at the base, as folks here have suggested. If Erdogan's move against the base does result in the US moving the B-61s further from Russia, Iran, etc., the possibility of rapprochement between Turkey and various Eurasian countries may increase.

Removal of the weapons is sensible from the US POV. Prodding the US to remove the weapons would be sort of a housewarming gift from Erdogan to Putin and others. The above senario implies that Erdogan or someone else was thinking ahead a little, with intent to accomplish more than one end. If Erdogan had threaten the base absent the simultaneous failed coup and purge, the B-61 issue would have become much more visible and provocative.

[Allen Thomson]

Looking around for possibly relevant information, it turns out that an F-16 can carry two 750-lb B61s on wing stations plus a center-line fuel tank. People who know more about F-16s than I might want to comment on what that means in terms of mission radius.

Also, and relating to transportation of B61s, https://fas.org/blogs/security/2013/08/volkelnukes/ has a couple of pictures. The bottom one shows a complete B61 being loaded into a C-17 -- a small bomb going into a big airplane. The top picture is more interesting; see https://fas.org/blogs/security/2007/09/flying_nuclear_bombs/

[turcopolier]

Allen Thompson In a pinch you could probably put the whole group pf bpmbs in 3 C-130s. pl

[Allen Thomson]

I agree. Getting them out shouldn't be a big deal unless the Turks were being difficult about it.

BTW, on carriage, it seems that an F-16 can carry a B61 and a biggish fuel tank on each wing: https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5443/6997234036_941607d241_b.jpg

[Ghostship]

Some believe that Turkey was the unknown fourth customer of A Q Khan and technically they are probably more advanced than Pakistan so they might not be there by 2020 but 2025 may be possible. And with the reactors they're buying from Russia and the Franco-Japanese consortium, I've seen reports that Turkey intends to do the enrichment and reprocessing themselves and with reprocessing being so expensive compared to the cost of clean new LEU, it suggests they want to get their hands on some plutonium.
BTW, if, as some people claim, the Syrians were capable of developing nuclear weapons, shouldn't the Turkish be able to do it. On the otherhand, the Israelis produce an awful lot of BS.
As for Erdogan's major announcement, a three month state of emergency. How boring.

[Tyler]

TTG,

Si.

[Imagine]

Ergodan family was middleman to ISIS oil sales to Israel. MSM reports on who sells oil but never on who buys.

[Imagine]

A classic well-researched article documents decades of Iranian leader statements that they are morally, strategically, and tactically against Iranian possession and use of nuclear weapons.

"Ignoring Decades of Iranian Statements on Nuclear Weapons for the Sake of Propaganda"
http://www.wideasleepinamerica.com/2012/10/the-goldberg-predilections-ignoring.html

the simplest explanation is that they are sincere, and have been set up for the 1984 Two Minutes of Hate since '79. Also note Iran has co-sponsored MENWFZ proposal. So people who propose Iran actually "should" get nukes, to balance the region, still have not heard what is actually being said and are missing the boat. They are thinking, from an Anglo viewpoint, "What would WE do if we were Iranians?"

Can you confirm any of this?