Comment on In a First, America Dropped 30,000-Pound Bunker-Busters—But Iran’s Concrete May Be Unbreakable, Scientists Say

Rivalarrival@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

• DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  tactical

  Lol, they’re gonna do the strategic one next

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  • Rubanski@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    I never really got why tactical and strategic nukes are so wildly different. Aren’t those words more or less synonyms?

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    • DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Strategic = Hiroshima getting obliterated

      Tactical = The Imperial Palace is obliterated, but rest of Tokyo is mostly intact.

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      • andallthat@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        rest of Tokio is mostly intact

        and housing becomes much more accessible too when buildings are intact but their inhabitants have much shorter lives because of radiation

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    • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      The reality is that “tactical” and “strategic” are functionally meaningless adjectives when applied to weapons or systems.

      Theoretically, “tactical” refers to how a military unit engages another military unit. It is how a commander wins a battle against an enemy unit.

      “Strategic” refers to how a nation engages another nation. It is how a government wins a war.

      The term “tactical nuke” referred to something that a lower level commander could have been authorized to use under his own judgment. If Soviet tanks were rolling across Europe during the cold war, commanders may have been granted the discretion to use small nuclear weapons to halt their advance.

      Since the the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction was established, there has been no such thing as a “tactical” nuke. Any wartime use of a nuclear weapon of any kind demands an escalation to total annihilation. I used the term “tactical” ironically.

      In declaring that conventional bombs cannot penetrate this fixed bunker, it seems that someone is pushing for unconventional warfare. The reality is that this bunker is not impenetrable. It shares the same weakness as any bunker: getting into and out of it. Bomb the entrances to the bunker, and it will take months or years to tunnel back in. Whatever they are doing inside it, they won’t be doing until they manage to dig it up again.

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    • MangoCats@feddit.it ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      In common usage they’re equivalent to small and big. In practical terms, all nukes are strategic - use of a nuke has profound global diplomatic repercussions.

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    • Gladaed@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Very much not.

      Tactical means immediately useful. E.g. use against troops. Strategical means mediately useful. E.g. use against infrastructure and production capacity. Also massively killing civilians. This is where most heinous war crimes live.

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      • flightyhobler@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        Image

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    • Saleh@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      It is like a rifle vs. a cannon.

      Yes it is functionally the same, but the “bullet” is much much larger.

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      • Gladaed@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        Not really. More like a cannon and an artillery aimed at industrial capacity.

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    • EstonianGuy@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Generally yield and intention difference, strategic takes out cities, tactical takes out factories, military bases and compounds.

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