r/whatif • u/Hope1995x • 2d ago
Other What if, Iran gets attacked and 90 days later they successfully conduct 10 underground nuclear tests?
In this hypothetical they already have the ballistic missile-tech to put a low-yield gun-type fission weapon on it.
What if once the warhead hits the ground, a chemical propellant is used to send the projectile into a plutonium core?
Basically the warhead detonates on impact, just like Houthi homemade rockets.
We're talking about a miniature version of Little Boy from WW2, and it works but it's like 1 kiloton. And there's 100s of them.
Should Iran get attacked again, a regional nuclear war commences in this scenario.
What happens?
Edit:
Iran is a threshold nuclear state, they probably already have this on standby. The empty "shells', the near-weapons grade uranium (which might be enough for a lower-yield explosion) and a dispersal strategy. Attacking Iran could be dumb.💀 A gun-type design is so primitive that they don't even need to do a test. It would be a surprise.
A strategy that I like to call nuclear-guerilla warfare, instead storing these all in one spot. They could disperse the shells & uranium to undisclosed or uncommon locations in cities or warehouses. No one would know, and a pre-emptive strike is just going to provoke more proliferation. You would have to invade Iran, which is not winnable.
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u/ReactionAble7945 1d ago
How is this not political?
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u/Hope1995x 1d ago
It's on that grey line of nearly being political.
It's more like military affairs of a country rather than policy affairs of a country.
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u/mehardwidge 1d ago
I don't believe Iran has been able to produce much plutonium, but perhaps you meant uranium. Also, Iran doesn't have uranium sufficient for "hundreds" of nuclear weapons. Maybe 10, but not 100.
If a rogue state produces a nuclear bomb, this can be "useful" to them. But the irony is they can never use them. Using an illegal nuclear bomb would result in regime change, since the rest of the world would not support that. Most of the whole world was on the same side in Iraq War 1. And "all" they did was invade Kuwait, not launch nuclear attacks. They can't win a war, and although they could cause severe harm with a single nuclear weapon, that won't win the war. So possessing the weapon can be useful, but not using it.
In many ways, Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons is irrational, except for a small group of people. Not the 90 million other Iranians. They can't use them, and as a deterrent, what are they deterring? It's been over 45 years of theocratic dictatorship, and no other country is trying to force regime change on them, plus that would be even less likely if they stopped pursing nuclear weapons! The only thing I think they really want them for is to try to provide some for a terror attack on their forever enemy. It doesn't "help" them, but neither does supporting the Houthis or Hamas or Hezbollah.
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u/Dependent_Remove_326 2d ago
What?
I am going to try and figure some kind of sense out of this. Only 2 countries really have beef with Iran. Israyel nukes the shit out of Iran on day 89. And if the US actually really attacked hard to assume a single bunker or production site would exist after 90 days of air strikes.
And Little Boy was airburst. Contact nukes suck, it limits the area of effect too much and creates too much fallout.
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u/Rear-gunner 2d ago
Only 2 countries really have beef with Iran.
There have been several border clashes between Iran and Afghanistan, particularly in recent years and Iran has targeted Saudi oil facilities.
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u/Hope1995x 2d ago edited 2d ago
The hypothetical is that they attack Iran, but Iran could've secretly dispersed basic fission weapon "shells" throughout undisclosed locations.
What if they attack the bunkers, but fail to attack the stuff hidden in civilian locations and 100s of other areas? The US is not omniscient.
This could also include near-weapons grade uranium. Which might be enough to get a lower-yield nuclear explosion.
Edit:
I call this nuclear-guerilla warfare. If any invasion happens in my hypothetical nukes go off. A guerilla nuke program is a smart way of evading a pre-emptive strike by the US or Israel.
Should the US nuke Iranian cities they become a pariah state for attacking innocent civilians, just like if Russia nuked Kyiv.
The more I think about it, it becomes an unwinnable war.
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u/Dependent_Remove_326 2d ago
So, in this scenario Iran is omniscient and everyone else is deaf, dumb, and blind. Got it. Iran ends the world and we all live in a radioactive caliphate.
Honestly though 1 Kiloton nukes are not that bad compared to the 20 to 50 megaton that the US would throw back. And the size of missiles needed to reach the US are f-ing huge, very hard to hide those. 7k+ kilometers is no joke.
Not sure what Isreal has for real.
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u/Hope1995x 2d ago
Iran is not omniscient.
The Houthis deploying a primitive tactical-nuke could be very interesting, to think about. But in reality, this would be very dark.
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1d ago
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u/Electrical-Reach603 1d ago
Just tell Iran we will lift sanctions if they give women same rights as men. Same with all other countries. That will not only discourage population overshoot (top reason for conflict) but also discourage war making mentalities.
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u/Status_News_1233 19h ago
They get every ounce of payback they deserve from the underground mole people.
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11h ago
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u/shredditorburnit 2d ago
I highly doubt they're capable of making a missile capable of hitting western Europe or the USA.
Therefore, targets are likely Saudi and Israel.
Neither of them like Iran, both would be happy to wipe it off the map. Both probably have nukes.
I can't see any way Iran uses a nuke and there is still an Iran tomorrow. And their missile might get shot down, and still suffer a nuclear retaliation.