The B61 is 3.56m long. I had to wonder if the internal bomb bays could fit something like that and found a pic on reddit with it tucked in with quite a lot of room to spare.

https://www.reddit.com/r/WarplanePorn/comments/tojr6m/close_...

Is this meant to sell F-35's or just to move the hands on the doomsday clock closer to midnight? Or cynically, both?

It's a lateral move. Recall that the US is updating their nuclear stockpile[0]. This is not expanding the stockpile, but neither is it reducing it.

The F-35 was created to be a one-size-fits-all solution invented by the same bureaucrats who invented Full Stack Developer or the Bradley[1] with exactly the same results.

If you're talking Doomsday clock, well there is a certain country actively stating they are willing to use nuclear weapons in an ongoing conflict that you might want to consider to contextualize (which itself requires further contextualization all the way down the rabbit hole)

[0] https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/357166...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA

According to the article it’s technically not moving the dooms day clock closer to midnight because these warheads already existed. They just got new housing silly! it’s just twice as fast and harder to intercept.

Bit of both. Not being able to throw nukes has restricted the F35 sales in NATO, which has . . traditionally . . depended on nukes to slow down the momentum of a Warsaw Pact breakthrough.

The idea is that an armored breakthrough is likely to be concentrated, and if you nuke the tip of the spear right at the place the spear is connected to the shaft, you can make an instant no-man's land that will buy you time as the spearhead runs out of gas/water/food/support. The teensy problem is that this kicks off, in simulations anyway, stroke-counterstroke-countercounterstroke nukes over a waaaaaaay-too-small area, and the tactical situation just turns into soup. In newer simulations, the disruptions to C&C - from the residual ionization - is so bad that it's actual literal static, for long periods of time, no one anywhere knows what's going on anywhere else. Which still counts as no-man's-land? Just a bit more long term. "Mission very accomplished, but with qualifications" is a pretty good functional summary of nuclear explosives in general.

Could somebody explain in simple terms why modern nuke can’t be delivered by any aircraft capable of carrying its weight?

To clarify my question, the article speaks about 10+ years of intense effort to certify F35, which probably means more than just new safety protocols or a mounting mechanism.

Further, it says that F35 is the first nuclear capable Gen 5 fighter ever. If it means what I think it does, neither China nor Russia have figured a way to put nukes on their fifth gen fighters, and those guys are not known for being overly cautious when they are behind in arms race.

The munition in question is basically on every major platform

> The B61 has been deployed by a variety of US military aircraft. US aircraft cleared for its use have included the B-1 Lancer, B-2 Spirit, B-52 Stratofortress, F/A-18 Hornet, A-6 Intruder, A-4 Skyhawk, F-111, F-15E Strike Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon and the F-35A. As part of NATO Nuclear Weapons Sharing, German and Italian Panavia Tornado aircraft can also carry B61s. The B61 can fit inside the F-22 Raptor's weapons bays and will also be carried by the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II.

In a pinch, that is probably sufficient.

But presumably the bomb has some mount and you would want to validate that and the bomb door/release mechanism. You probably also have some sort of targeting system, guidance control, arming system to integrate all which probably require some sort of validation.

You would probably also want certification to validate the operational characteristics of the aircraft carrying the bomb, e.g. range, flight performance, detection, capacity.

And seriously, it is a nuke, better safe than sorry. If you can test it ahead of time you do that.

The control systems to arm the device (authorize its use) are designed to be very strict.

Yeah it’s because defense contractors need to keep U.S. tax dollars flowing into their families pockets and not yours

I don't know the answer either, but I do know that such a distinction goes back to the very first bombs. Only "Silverplate" B-29s were certified to carry atomic weapons. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silverplate>

TIL there are still nuclear gravity bombs. For some reason I thought they would all be standoff weapons at this point.

They are even updating the stockpile[0]

You'd still want these because you can't always rely on guidance systems. In fact, that's kinda one of the things about nuclear war is that you'd have EMP effects... everywhere... and so you need some manual methods if you are planning an effective MAD strategy.

(gravity bomb = bomb guided by gravity. Guidance Cowboy[1] is optional)

[0] https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/357166...

[1] https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/0*zyLdhxLVES95o8QV...

Imagine if we spent this much time and effort into providing healthcare, housing, and food to everyone in the world.

And imagine you had enemies and they would not do that