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NATO Developing Environment Friendly Weapons
EGSonikku writes: "Although it may seem a bit odd, according to this msnbc.com story
NATO and its member countries are developing so called 'green
weapons' that produce similar effects to standard weaponry,
without using chemicals that could be hazardous to the
environment and the soldiers using them. Good to know that we can
bomb each other without hurting the butterflies now, eh?" Heh -- it's the environmental bit shift of the neutron bomb -- "Kill the people, preserve the industry" becomes "Kill the people, preserve the land."
"...99 percent of all missiles are launched in training over your own ground,"
That's the key. But do we really care about the enemy's environment? So, perhaps a more appropriate name for these is training missiles.
Looks like many people here missed the point. One key reason to care about what goes up and comes down is that 99.9% of all ammunition is depleted during training, on your own soil.
.1% higher-tech more-lethal toxic-in-the-making weaponry.
One perfectly valid scenario would be to have, say, 75% efficient nontoxic training grenades which are replaced by 100% efficient war grenades when the time comes to go to war. This is already done with live vs. blank rounds, nothing saying the practice can't be extended.
And if I could say so, I would rather have that 99.9% market share of environmentally friendly training weapons, than the
It's a long-term goal, really. But isn't peace worth it?
While every peace activist in the world will cry foul, peace is so worth it that we spend umpteen billion dollars a year on defense because it is a deterrent.
For example, if there were no nuclear weapons, we would have had WWIII and IV already. Millions of people (including civilians) would have died.
What we really need is goodwill. :) Nations unwilling to work together would be detrimental even if they were unarmed.
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
This is, of course, absurd, because the neutron bomb's primary purpose was for tactical and operational, rather than strategic, use. The idea is that if you can affect your enemy over the same area with a 1 kiloton neutron weapon as with a 13 kiloton fission weapon, you can essentially "manage" the nuclear battlefield better.
The neutron bomb concept came out of a rethinking of US defense policy, a reorientation towards a strategy oriented around actually fighting the Soviet Union at the point of attack, rather than relying on the Massive Retaliation policy of the 1970s.
Although eventually the DoD found other methods of answering Soviet numerical superiority (deep strikes from the air, force multipliers like the M1 tank, precision guided artillery, cruise missiles, and so on), the neutron bomb was never seriously considered as a means of "saving the industry". Even generals know about radiation. ;-)
See here for a bit more about the neutron bomb in the context of overall defense planning.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
On the neutron bomb, for those who don't actually know or remember (me) the details: [http://web2.iadfw.net/myself/secular/writing/n_bo mb.htm]
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From the comment at the top, it's obvious that Hemos doesn't understand what the Neutron bomb was designed for.
The common misunderstanding is that it was developed to leave industry alone so we could wage an atomic war and then move right in. That's simply not true.
The Neutron bomb, or Enhanced Radiation bomb (ER), was designed with Soviet Armor in mind. During the above ground weapons testing in Nevada, it became clear that a standard nuclear device wasn't effective at knocking out armor. Kind of like how cockroaches, turtles and armadillos survive nukes.
Since the Soviets had 6-1 armor strength in the 60s and 3-1 in the late 70s and early 80s, something else had to be developed. That was the ER nuclear device. Most ER warheads were developed for the 203, 175 and 155mm artillery pieces, the 175 'Long Tom' was retired so that left the 203 and 155, then the Lance tactical missile was fitted with the 175's warheads and the Pershing 1 was also given the ability to fire an ER weapon.
The Neutron bomb penetrated armor and killed the crew much more effectivly than a much larger conventional atomic device.
All the ER weapons were in the 10-15 KT range, not a city buster or stratigic weapon by any stretch, but a tactical weapon that would have been deployed in bottle-necks like the Fulda Gap or against Soviet Armor on the Northern German plains were the Soviet out tanked the British EF by 6-1 or 10-1 depending on the Soviet's deployment.
The whole Neutron bomb for nuking cities or industry and leaving it in-tact was propganda from the Soviet funded anti-nuclear activists. See the Mitrokhin Archives for info on that.