Many of these answers would be correct if this question was asked in 1987, but it’s 2017. And if in 2017 there is one place on Earth that’s going to get utterly saturated with nuclear weapons, it’s Murmansk in Russia.
The region around the city of Murmansk is home to the Russian Northern Fleet which not only includes most of Russia’s surface ships and their nuclear weapons but also most of Russia’s SSBNs, a heavy rocket depot and storage silos for large but undisclosed number of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons. Everything is just scattered enough to warrant its own weapon or two.
In the current era, no one is going to prioritize targeting silos. Why is that, you might ask? Because it’s basically impossible to “sneak attack” silos. Launches from the Russian mainland are harder to initially verify but give you more lead time.
Launches from subs give you less lead time but would be picked up and immediately verified by hundreds if not thousands of radars and satellites. Back in the 80’s it might have been possible for the USA to first strike the Soviets but with the qualitative and quantitative improvements to the OKO satellite in the late 80’s that window closed.
If the Russians were dumb enough (and contrary to what others may say the Russians are not dumb) to attack those silos then close to a thousand weapons would blow a 400 empty silos to hell, and the fallout would wipe out most of the east coast population centers which leads to..
Contrary to Hollywood and RAND the objective of a first strike is not total annihilation or even compete disarmament; both of those are effectively impossible. The goal is to break your enemy’s will to fight. You inflict just enough damage to make your enemy second guess their ability to “win” and begin to doubt the ability of their government to protect them.
At the same time you leave their cities intact so you can hold them hostage with your second strike forces. You also leave their government alive because, duh, someone has to be alive to surrender. It comes down to this: After a first strike your enemy is going to have a shit ton of weapons left, more than enough to destroy you.
A successful first strike means you convinced him to not use those weapons.
An unsuccessful strike means he launches his first strike force at your conventional forces and second strike force. And in the case of the USA, that means we unload our use em or lose em ICBMs first while our bombers scramble.
That means smart Russians would concentrate their early attacks on bombers’ bases because bombers, even with advance warning, can not escape quickly enough. The area around those bases would also be saturated in an attempt to destroy bombers that just took to the air. The other major targets would be our SSBN ports. Kings Bay and Kitsap naval bases along with their support facilities would get hit hard.
This map tells you what areas will get nuked the hardest.
Russia: Nearly 1,000 nuclear weapons surround Saratov. Russia has an estimated 48 permanent nuclear weapon storage sites, of which more than half are on bases for operational forces. There are approximately 19 storage sites, of which about half are national-level storage facilities.
In addition, a significant number of temporary storage sites occasionally store nuclear weapons in transit between facilities. This is a significant consolidation from the estimated 90 Russian sites ten years ago, and more than 500 sites before 1991.
Many of the Russian sites are in close proximity to each other and large populated areas. One example is the Saratov area where the city is surrounded by a missile division, a strategic bomber base, and a national-level storage site with probably well over 1,000 nuclear warheads combined.
There is considerable uncertainty about the number of Russian nuclear weapons storage sites, for several reasons. First, the Russian government provides almost no information about its nuclear warhead storage program. Second, Western governments say very little about what they know.
Moreover, estimates vary on what constitutes a “storage site;” some count each fenced storage bunker as a site, even though there may be several individually fenced bunkers within a larger storage complex.
Each storage complex is counted as one site or storage location in this report. It is estimated that Russia today stores nuclear weapons permanently at 40 domestic locations. This is a slight reduction from a 2009 estimate, but It is a significant reduction from the 100 sites in the late-1990s, 250 sites in the mid-1990s, and 500 sites in 1991.
Although the Russian government provides almost no public information about its nuclear weapons storage program, it has occasionally made declarations. For example, at the 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, Russia declared that “the total number of nuclear weapons storage facilities has been reduced fourfold” since 1991.
At the same event, the Russian delegation distributed a publication stating that “Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons are concentrated in centralized storage bases exclusively the national territory” (Russian Federation, 2010b:). Moreover, twice a year under the terms of New START, the Kremlin hands over a detailed list of its strategic force deployments to the US government. Unfortunately, the list is secret.
There is also uncertainty about the status of many nuclear weapon systems, including what constitutes “non-strategic” weapons. For example, medium-range Tu-22M3 Backfire bombers are sometimes described by Russians as more than tactical, but they are not considered strategic in arms control agreements signed by Russia.
Consequently, this study considers the Tu-22M3 and all other weapons not covered by New START to be non-strategic and to be covered by the Russian declarations that all non-strategic nuclear warheads have been placed in central storage.
Russian permanent nuclear weapon storage locations fall into three main categories: operational warheads at Strategic Rocket Force, navy and air force bases; non-strategic and reserve/retired warheads at national-level storage sites; and warheads at assembly/disassembly factories.
The storage locations for operational warheads include 11 ICBM fields and garrisons, two nuclear submarine bases, and two heavy bomber bases. The national-level storage sites include 12 separate storage sites, although the status of a few of these is unclear. The warhead production complexes also have warhead storage facilities.
The United States in 2014 stores nuclear weapons at 18 sites, including 12 sites in 11 states in the United States and another six sites in five European countries. At the end of the Cold War, the United States maintained thousands of nuclear weapons outside of its borders on land and on the high seas.
In 2014 the United States has further consolidated its nuclear weapons into fewer sites. Most significant is the apparent termination of nuclear weapons storage at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, which only a decade ago contained one of the world’s largest concentrations of nuclear weapons.
Similarly, nuclear weapons have been removed from Barksdale Air Force Base, one of three remaining heavy bomber bases,4 and from all tactical fighter-bomber bases in the continental United States. All Air Force nuclear warheads are now stored at five locations: three intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) bases (F. E. Warren, Malmstrom, Minot), two bomber bases (Minot, Whiteman), and one central storage facility, Kirtland Underground Munitions Storage Complex (KUMSC).
The last naval non-strategic nuclear weapon system—the Tomahawk land-attack cruise missile (TLAM/N)—was eliminated in 2012. The weapons were stored at the Strategic Weapons Facilities at Bangor in Washington and at Kings Bay in Georgia, the only two remaining naval nuclear weapons storage sites.
The United States is the only nuclear-armed state that deploys nuclear weapons in other countries. Approximately 180 non-strategic nuclear bombs are stored in underground vaults beneath 87 aircraft shelters at six bases in five European countries (Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey) for delivery by US and NATO fighter-bombers.
Historical Nuclear Weapons Storage in the USA
The US has also maintained a significant number of nuclear warheads across Europe. During the Cold War era US had more than 10,000 nuclear warheads in Europe, however after the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union that number rapidly decreased.
Today according to some unofficial estimates the US has around 150 to 250 warheads deployed in Italy, Turkey, Germany, Netherlands and Belgium. It should be noted that most of these weapons are free fall gravity bombs delivered by aircrafts.
There is still an ongoing debate in NATO whether there should be a further decrease in nuclear armament, as proposed by President Obama’s administration, or the nuclear armament should be deployed in Eastern Europe countries as a response for Russian actions in Crimea.
Though most of the nuclear weapons are in Western Europe total disarmament and removal of these warheads is highly unlikely, considering the situation in Ukraine and in the Middle East. However, it is unknown what direction the Trump administration may take.
There are two types of bases currently used to hold nuclear weapons in Europe: Nuclear Air Bases
- Lakenheath (UK)
- Volkel (Netherlands) – currently 20 B61 variable yield 0.3 to 340 KT
- Kleine Broggle (Belgium) – currently 20 B61 variable yield 0.3 to 340 KT
- Buchel (Germany) – currently 20 B61 variable yield 0.3 to 340kt
- Ramstein (Germany)
- Ghadei Torre (Italy) – currently 50 B61 variable yield 0.3 to 340 KT
- Aviano (Italy)
- Incirlik which is in Turkey – currently 50 B61 variable yield 0.3 to 340 KT
Weapons stock quantities
Air Bases with Nuclear vaults in caretaker status
- Norvenich (Germany)
- Araxos (Greece)
- Balikesir (Turkey)
- Akinci (Turkey)
Of all other countries Germany is the most nuclearized with the potential storage of more than 150 bombs, also all these weapons can be moved and shifted to other bases or other countries if need be.
Historical US Nuclear Weapons Storage in Europe
