Reliable Replacement Warhead - Concept

Concept

The concept underlying the RRW program is that the US weapons laboratories can design new nuclear weapons that are highly reliable and easy and safe to manufacture, monitor, and test. If that proves to be possible, designers could adapt a common set of core design components to various use requirements, such as different sized missile warheads, different nuclear bomb types, etc.

NNSA officials believe the program is needed to maintain nuclear weapons expertise in order to rapidly adapt, repair, or modify existing weapons or develop new weapons as requirements evolve. They see the ability to adapt to changing military needs rather than maintain additional forces for unexpected contingencies as a key program driver. However, Congress has rejected the notion that the RRW is needed to meet new military requirements. In providing funds for 2006, the Appropriations Committee specified, "any weapons design under the RRW program must stay within the military requirements of the existing deployed stockpile and any new weapon design must stay within the design parameters validated by past nuclear tests."

According to a Task Force of the Secretary of Energy's Advisory Board (SEAB), the RRW program and weapon designs should have the following characteristics:

• Support an adaptable 1,700-2,200 weapon sustained force level (3.1)
  • Resolve an issue with the weapons stockpile within 12 months
  • Adapt a weapon to a new requirement in 18 months
  • Design a new weapon within 36 months
  • Be ready for full production within 48 months
  • Be capable of conducting an underground nuclear test within 18 months
• Produce all new weapons using Insensitive High Explosive (see TATB and Plastic bonded explosive) and replace all existing weapons which use other explosives (3.1.2)
• Produce new weapons with the full spectrum of security and use control safety features available today, some of which are intrinsic to the basic design of a weapon and cannot possibly be retrofitted into the design of an existing weapon (3.1.3)
• Designs which trade off higher weight and larger volume to maximise: (3.1.4)
  • Certification without nuclear testing
  • Inexpensive manufacture and disassembly
  • Ease of maintenance, surveillance, and disposition
  • Modularity (primaries, secondaries, non-nuclear) across systems
  • Maximizing component reuse and minimizing life-cycle costs
• Comparable or improved levels of reliability to existing designs, using larger margins and simpler components (3.1.5)
• Lower cost (3.1.6)
• Designs which can be designed and certified without necessarily undergoing nuclear testing (3.1.7)
• Consolidation of many nuclear weapon production and maintenance functions to one site (4.1)
• (in passing) Designs avoiding the use of beryllium or beryllium Oxide in the weapon fission reflector (4.6)

However, the full SEAB disavowed the Task Force's recommendations regarding the RRW, because the Task Force did not consider the program's potentially adverse impacts on U.S. nonproliferation objectives, which were beyond its expertise.

The RRW program has not to date publicly announced that it has developed any new nuclear weapon designs which are intended to be placed into production. Presumably, once that occurs, the weapons will receive numbers in the US warhead designation sequence, which currently runs from the Mark 1 nuclear bomb (aka Little Boy) to the W91 nuclear warhead, which was cancelled in the 1990s. RRW designs would presumably receive designations after that number, though new RNEP nuclear bunker buster weapons could conceivably be type-standardized and numbered prior to any RRW reaching that point, if the RNEP program does proceed.