Nuclear weapons delivery
technology and systems used to place nuclear weaponry at the point of detonation
Nuclear weapons delivery is the technology and systems used to place a nuclear weapon at the position of detonation, on or near its target. All nine nuclear states have developed some form of medium- to long-range delivery system for their nuclear weapons. Alongside improvement of weapons, their development and deployment played a key role in the nuclear arms race.
Strategic nuclear weapons are intended primarily as part of a doctrine of deterrence by threatening large targets, such as cities or military installations. These are generally delivered by some combination of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, sea-based submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and air-based strategic bombers carrying gravity bombs or cruise missiles. The possession of all three is known as a nuclear triad.
Tactical nuclear weapons are intended for battlefield usage and/or destroying specific military, communications, or infrastructure targets, and generally have lower yields. Delivery systems developed for them include shorter-range ground-, air-, and sea-launched missiles, nuclear artillery, nuclear land mines, nuclear torpedoes, and nuclear depth charges, but they have become less salient since the end of the Cold War.
Delivery systems were occasionally tested with live warheads as a provocative form of nuclear weapons testing and live fire exercise.
Detection and interception of delivery vehicles is a key part of nuclear deterrence.
“Nuclear weapons delivery” enters the record as technology and systems used to place nuclear weaponry at the point of detonation. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Nuclear, weapons and delivery can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Nuclear weapons delivery” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.