Could be that tactical nukes are not worth the hype, but they cannot be dismissed.
Nobody is dismissing it. Be the moniker you have and think about what is being said.
My 'original' post was to exhibit the fallacy of the persistent belief here of NASR being a super weapon to stop Armoured Divisions.
Somehow, it has become a major trend in PDF to bring everything to the level of NASR and use of Nuclear Weapons at a Tactical level. This has led to a serious embedding of the view that the advent of TNWs on subcontinental field, is an assurance of security. Whereas, it merely brings down the threshold. I shall elaborate on it a bit more subsequently.
The datum was posted to exhibit the requirement of number of weapons to effectively neutralize an armoured division in a theoretical manner without getting in to specifics. One merely needs to correlate the numbers required as calculated, to the industrial capacity of the nation to reprocess and enrich and also the availability of nuclear material in first place. The latter is severely limited. So, the number of nuclear devices that a nation can make quickly is limited. Of course, I do give the members the right to self delude and assume that it is available on demand and wish.
There were two very 'interesting' points made by the Pakistani
CriticalThought member as under -
a.
The Pakistan army has more resources than you see in the annual budget of the State of Pakistan. Where do you think we got 100+ Thunders from? Our defence is seen as being of a strategic nature by China.
b.
Typical Indian delusions regarding an enemy that has been amassing nuclear material for over a decade.
When a member makes such statements, one can understand just how seriously they are to be taken.
You can appreciate the laughs I get when member asserts Pakistan Army has greater budget than whole of Pakistan. No wonder they are forever on verge of default. And they have been amassing since over a decade. Wonder what India has been doing since 1964?
If tactical nukes meant nothing, than our army chiefs would not say that we will fight under a nuclear umbrella. There would also not be statements like 'we will call their nuclear bluff'.
What, in your opinion, is a Nuclear Umbrella? And what do you take away from the bold, what do you understand of the statement?
Now calling their nuclear bluff could mean two things - one that it is useless or that Pak won't go nuclear so easily. I find the latter more feasible. Maybe
@hellfire can comment on this.
That is your assumption.
I have been at odds with members of my fraternity for sometime over whether Pakistan is rationally irrational (hence their threat of nuclear weapons every other day and across the media) or whether they are genuinely irrational. The majority (and my view) is of view of former, that they are deliberately being irrational. And their achievement of drawing funds from US in garb of support to WoT over the past decade and a half, while strengthening their Nuclear Command and Control from same funds meant for same purpose (by playing on fears of Jihadis gaining control) exhibits the skillful and effective employment of this tactic to achieve their aims.
What I know of Pakistani Armed Forces, does not correlate with irrationality. Having said that, the TNWs are improbable, meant for domestic consumption and hardly to be taken seriously militarily. But they are very effective diplomatic tools, as nations around the world genuinely take them crazy enough to do something as stupid as use them.
Had they been willing to use the TNWs, you would have seen an unprecedented spike in violence in Kashmir. What does that tell you? Present level of violence is hardly a fraction of the peaks of 90s.
I see. I haven't heard of it being made for conventional strike though.
Let me put another point for you.
The smallest device we have, is for a 155 mm Caliber Artillery Gun.
Suppose we declare a First Use policy as they have. What will you, as a commander, assume when India fires the first artillery gun?
If you look at the statements emanating from Pakistan, from MIRVs to Cruise Missiles to NASR, everything is nuclear this or that. By doing so, they are already negating their own defences because while Indian policy calls for No First Strike, the mere fact that there is a line in India's Nuclear Doctrine which states that
'the use or threat of use of Nuclear, Biological, Chemical & Radiological Weapons' is enough to indicate the possibility of India mistaking a conventional rocket/missile attack as a nuclear attack. Such a move clearly shows the reckless behaviour of the opposite side.
India has clearly delineated it's weapon's systems for these very reasons. eg BrahMos has been kept exclusively for conventional strikes.
Further, there are plenty of Arm Chair Generals on this thread, and posting to every idiotic claim/assertion is a painful task.
Refer to
Effects of Nuclear Weapons by Samuel Glasstone & Philip J Dolan. It remains a good work on the Nuclear Weapons and understanding the whole concept.
Also, militarily, as a commander, I would like to use my nuclear weapon in a counterforce strike, to achieve a 'breakthrough'. There is
always a height where the radioactive fallout is minimal. The data for nominal bomb (called as a 20 Kt bomb because of use in Japan and data for the same is available) is available. Please be advised to go through that.
With an air burst at the ideal height, the primary casualties will be from shock and thermal effects of a nuclear weapons. With a negligible fallout (fallout is made up of debris and dust sucked up in near surface/surface blast which settles back on ground and gives rise to NIGA in long run in soil in near vicinity where the sand/debris is redeposited on land), as a Commander, I shall be able to take my troops in their MOPP and exploit the breach.
Just some pointers. Do the research.
Regards
And there is member who is busy calling all trolls and claiming results of tests. Let the member cite references of Genetic Defects/Incidence rate of Malignanies in Japanese survivors of Nuclear Strike. That too, is a very interesting study, the longest current study going on.
And the punchline: the Indians will NEVER attack in reality because they are actually scared to death. All they can do is come to PDF and take undue advantage of our hospitality to virtually realize their dreams of penetrating Pakistani forward defences under a nuclear umbrella 
