RE: Trending up20 Apr 2022 15:34
Russia battlefield nukes are old, not maintained and decayed, the bigger monsters 'might' have been maintained. For the small battlefield ones, the fissile material has decayed over the decades and most shells would likely not go critical. Most of those that do will have reduced, and very much reduced, yields such they cease to be effective. You then have all the old soviet cheapo hardware, relays and switches that have rusted over, insulators that have broken down, plastics that have depleted integrity and a whole heap of issues that would prevent launch and successful detonation. If Putin launches nukes but they fail or have very limited yield he will have played his ace and lost. He knows using the larger ICBMs will result in a full nuclear response from maintained systems with maintained and upgraded warheads. Things are not what they seem on the nukes front. A lot of the kit is cold war era, getting on for at least, AT LEAST, 40 years old!