US President Donald Trump, who spoke about the secret systems of American weapons that no one supposedly knows about, probably meant the W76-2 low-yield thermonuclear warhead, writes Popular Mechanics.
“The president was probably referring to the W76-2, a new nuclear warhead designed to be mounted on [UGM-133A] Trident D-5 ballistic missiles launched from submarines by the US Navy [UGM-133A],” the newspaper notes.
Popular Mechanics recalls that the US Navy currently has 12 submarines, each armed with approximately 20 UGM-133A Trident D-5 missiles. Each of these ballistic missiles, according to open data, is capable of carrying 4-5 W76 warheads with a capacity of 100 kilotons (in TNT equivalent).
The publication notes that one such American submarine, located off the coast of Canada, “can bring down to the west of Russia up to 80-100 warheads.” Popular Mechanics admits that the power of the W76-2, compared to the W76, is reduced, probably to 4-10 kilotons.
In February, TASS columnist Dmitry Litovkin wrote that Russia should be wary of returning low-yield nuclear warheads to the American concept of warfare. The author cited as an example the US plan to use a low-power nuclear explosion in Iraq, which would deactivate the local air defense systems.
In the same month, the Pentagon announced that the US had begun deploying low-yield W76-2 warheads on submarines.
In June 2018, the director of the information project on nuclear weapons of the Federation of American Scientists, Hans Christensen, said that the W76-2 is planned to be created on the basis of the W76-1 thermonuclear warhead by removing thermonuclear fuel (uranium, lithium and deuterium), as a result of which only plutonium will remain from the previous warhead. trigger, and the energy output of the new weapon will decrease from 100 to 5-6 kilotons.
