Bangor subs to get new kind of nuclear weapon

A new kind of nuclear weapon is coming to the submarines based at Bangor.

A "low-yield" tactical warhead for the nuclear arsenals of the country's 14 ballistic-missile submarines — eight of which are based at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor — has been developed over the past two years. Fulfilled with a final $10 million in recent congressional-approved funding, the program is set to be unleashed, though officials at the Pentagon or Navy declined to give specifics on when the subs would be armed with the weapon.

U.S. officials had pushed for the new weapon as a countermeasure to similar Russian weaponry. They are smaller than conventional nukes and called "low yield," but can still do tremendous damage, according to Hans M. Kristensen, director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists, a Washington D.C.-based think tank.

"We're talking about the center of a city being devastated," he said as an example. "It's not like a pinprick — this is vastly more devastation than you can inflict than with conventional weapons."

The bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, at the end of World War II had the explosive energy of about 15 kilotons. Today's Ohio-class submarines carry 20 Trident D5 missiles, which can contain both warheads with the energy of 100 and 475 kilotons, respectively. Kristensen reckons the new low-yield missile will have roughly a third to half of that of the Hiroshima "Little Boy" bomb, at around 5 to 6 kilotons.

Only the Ohio-class submarines with ballistic missile capability can accommodate the warhead, which means they'll only be in two places in the United States: Kings Bay, Georgia, home to the other six ballistic missile submarines, and Bangor, already home to the country's largest stockpile of deployed nuclear weapons.

"There are only two bases that can handle this weapon," he said. "This warhead doesn't fit on anything else (besides submarines)."

The first W76-2 warhead — a variation on the W76-1 that the Ohio class subs have carried for years — was produced in February 2019, according to Dov Schwartz, a spokesperson for the National Nuclear Security Administration, a part of the federal Department of Energy. The exact number of warheads created is classified, Schwartz said.

Kristensen believes approximately 50 to 100 of the new warheads were made.

Development of the new weapon, a modification of the existing nuclear arsenal, is in response to the Trump Administration's Nuclear Posture Review in 2018. The report cites concern the United States could not respond in-kind to an immediate, low-yield nuclear strike by Russia, and Defense Department officials looked to fill that gap.

"This is a comparatively low-cost and near-term modification to an existing capability that will help counter any mistaken perception of an exploitable 'gap' in U.S. regional deterrence capabilities," the report says.

Kristensen disagrees with that analysis, noting the United States still has its existing nuclear arsenal it could use to respond.

A rush of bills that passed Congress just before the holidays included the final funding for the W76-2. U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Gig Harbor, said he was against the new missiles' development but signed onto the bill anyway because of the number of other appropriations it supported, including pay raises for service members and 12 weeks of paid family leave for federal workers.

"I don't think we should be lowering the threshold for using nuclear weapons," Kilmer said.

Tom Rogers, a retired Navy captain who is an anti-nuclear activist, has concerns that the weapon alters the mission of the submariners who carry out the Navy's "strategic deterrence" mission. That mission is to prevent a nuclear strike by providing the ever-present ability to respond in kind should an enemy use such weaponry.

That changes with a tactical weapon on board the Ohio-class submarines, he said.

"They signed up to prevent war, or if war happened, to carry out a final vengeance because the enemy attacked," he said. "But now you're asking those same guys to think about shooting a tactical weapon that will kill hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps millions."

But Gen. John E. Hyten, commander of the United States Strategic Command, testified before the Senate Committee on Armed Services in February 2019 that the new warheads were necessary to counter the Russian threat.

"These capabilities are necessary to our strategic deterrence mission and will serve to disabuse any adversary of the mistaken perception they can escalate their way to victory," he testified.