SECURE FACILITIES FOR NUCLEAR WARHEADS

ABSTRACT
Nuclear weapons states have developed dedicated safe and secure facilities for
nuclear warhead assembly and disassembly operations. These facilities are critical
elements of material nuclear weapons infrastructures. Their broad operational
responsibilities include the production of new warheads, the dismantlement of retired
warheads, warhead modernization and refurbishment, stockpile surveillance and
component testing ,production of trainers, and modification of stockpiled warheads
for flight-testing purposes such as an operation involving replacement of fissile
components with inert materials and telemetry systems. The facility is defined as a
nuclear warhead assembly/disassembly plant, If it conducts the operations of
assembly/disassembly of nuclear explosive packages (NEP), an assembly
containing high explosive (HE),components and fissile materials, and/or final
mechanical assembly of warheads (Bombs). As such operations involve staging and
handling of fissile materials components and assemblies including NEPs and fully
assembled warheads. The facility's states could be defined as "Shutdown" or
"Converted". If it no longer works with intact nuclear weapons or subassemblies
containing fissile materials.
In this paper, I discuss and present the main secure facilities for nuclear warheads
and the major monitoring options for former warhead assembly/disassembly facilities
that could be used in combination with each other, and show some cases of nuclear
forensic investigations.