Arthurista and weapons of mass destruction

Arthurista
Nuclear program start date	1944
First nuclear weapon test	1949
First fusion weapon test	1963
Last nuclear test	1971
Largest yield test	3MT
Total tests	7
Peak stockpile	Unknown
Current stockpile	330

The Commonwealth Defence Forces are known to possess nuclear and chemical weaponry. According to information released by the Arthuristan Ministry of Defence to arms control organisationsas of 2017, the number of warheads in active service is 330, all of which have a maximum yield of 150 kilotons.

First efforts: 1940s-1960s

Arthurista tested its first atomic bomb, a gun-type uranium-based fission device with a yield of 15 kiloton known as 'Red Rivet', in 1949. It was regarded more as a physics experiment on a grand scale than an actual weapon of war.

Arthurista mastered the capability to build implosion-based weapons in 1951. Over the next decade, atomic weapons of between 10-30 kilotons were manufactured in small batches at a leisurely pace, featuring non-standardsed 'physics packages' hand-assembled by skilled technicians. These heavy bombs were only capable of being carried by large strategic bombers of the Commonwealth Air Force, and the main carriers for these early weapons was the Victory Bomber, later replaced by the jet-powered Sperrin and finally, the Continental Imperator, of which 160 were procured. It was estimated that Arthurista possessed a stockpile of over 90 atomic weapons by 1960. All of these 'artisan' bombs would later be dismantled and their fissile material re-used for newer generations of weapons.

It was not until the 1961 that the 'Red Shoe', a standardised casing light enough to be carried by both bombers and tactical fighters, weighing 750kg with a variable-yield fission warhead of up to 60 kiloton, entered mass production. Meanwhile, in 1963, bombers began to deploy with the ACM-3 Bune stand-off nuclear missile, significantly enhancing their survivability in the face of increasingly capable counter-air technology then gradually coming into service around the world.

Meanwhile, theoretical and experimental work towards creating a fusion-device continued apace. However, initially, there was little effort to develop such weapons, with both the military and political establishment believing that the existing fission bombs constituted a sufficient deterrent. The political decision to create thermonuclear weapons of real military utility was not made until 1963, prompted by the fact that purely fission weapons become prohibitively expensive to 'scale' up to larger blast yields, due to their consumption of large quantities of valuable fissile materiel for which far more productive uses could be found, such as fuelling power plants or naval vessels.

Fortunately, the theoretical and experimental groundwork for the creation of miniaturised thermonuclear weapons had already been laid earlier, albeit languishing unused until then. In 1968, the 'Red Hammer', yielding from 10kt to 150 kt, and which could be carried by small fighters as well as heavy bombers, was successfully tested and from 1971 became the standard Arthuristan nuclear warhead, replacing all earlier types.

Current nuclear posture

Arthurista's strategic weapons arsenal is largely configured to deter regional threats. It is based around the CAF's remaining fleet of 120 Continental Imperator strategic bombers which, together with the service's aerial refueller aircraft, constitutes the totality of Arthurista's strategic and tactical nuclear strike force.

The actual deployment of Bomber Command is not knowable by any degree of certainty through open source information. It is widely known that the fleet of bombers rotate through a tri-yearly cycle, whereby every year one third of the bombers are on maintenance or training, one third are retained to support the tactical air forces with conventional weapons, and one third are on nuclear alert, together with a similar portion of the CAF's refuellers.

In peacetime, it is known that certain flights, or even up to one to two squadrons of those aircraft which are nuclear-armed are on 5-15 minute alerts at any given time. This is to minimise the probability that a first strike would be able to eliminate the entirety of Arthurista's retaliatory capability. In times of tension, the number of aircraft on alert could be significantly increased, and the alert times reduced, perhaps to one minute for some flights.

Individual flights of bombers and refuellers are scattered in airfields around Arthurista, thereby further minimising the chances that a 'knockout blow' could be struck via a first strike.

Arthurista has a longstanding qualified 'no first-use' policy, undertaking that it will not initiate the exchange of weapons of massed destruction outside of the Arthuristan mainland. This also means that it has a purely 'countervalue' targeting policy. As Arthurista would have already sustained a first strike, with commensurate civilian casualties, planners believe that there was little point in attacking nuclear weapons which have already 'flown the coop' and accordingly they have no qualms about orienting their entire target list purely on Valgtean population centres.

The sole warhead in use is the Red Hammer, as either a free-fall tactical weapon (i.e. the 'Red Hammer Prime') or in its strategic form it is installed on board the ACM-1 Cerberus cruise missile, which has a range of 3,600km in its nuclear configuration. The maximum yield of both variants is 150 kilotons. An Imperator B.3 can carry a maximum of six Cerberus cruise missiles externally, with the bomb bay being used to carry additional fuel.

Command and control

The command and control of Arthuristan nuclear weapons is notoriously simple. The commander of the airbase will order a scramble upon receipt of a clear order to do so.

Permissive Action Links are not used by the Arthuristan military. The airfield commander can easily effectuate an irrevocable scramble with the assistance of his executive officer and a few members of the crew. Tactical nuclear warheads are armed with a key, which is inserted into a lock "not dissimilar to those used to prevent bicycles from theft" according to one journalist.

Chemical and biological weapons

Arthurista built a stockpile of chemical weapons between the 50s-70s, mainly GB and VX nerve agents intended for use as tactical weapons. The program was accelerated in the wake of the Tempesta War. This policy was reversed in 1984, when a unilateral moratorium on the development of chemical weapons was declared and in subsequent decades the stockpile was reduced by more than 80%. Successive governments have reaffirmed the commitment to fully eliminate the stockpile by 2030 at the latest, though leaked plans from the Ministry of Defence may suggest that the elimination process has been paused since the mid-2000s. Presumably, the aforementioned undertaking to not initiate an exchange of WMDs beyond Arthuristan soil also governs the use of chemical weapons by Arthuristan forces.

Loweport has never opted to develop a biological weapons stockpile, except small quantities produced for the purposes of studying potential countermeasures. Biological agents were considered to be weapons of dubious military value: insufficiently fast-acting to be used as tactical weapons and no-match for a nuclear arsenal on the strategic level.