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Nukes: The Next Generation
jonerik writes: "Following up on the weekend's posting on the revision of American nuclear war-fighting plans, the New York Times has this article on the difficulties in building a new generation of nukes. The American nuclear arms industry is much smaller now than it was ten years ago, testing the new, smaller "bunker busters" would be problematic, and no one's certain that a nuclear weapon with a tiny explosive yield that's capable of penetrating yards of reinforced concrete could actually be built."
but i thought any nation that was amassing weapons of mass destruction was terrorist?
Are there bunkers in existence that are not vulnerable to the conventional bunker busters? Might those bunkers be in Iraq? I am mighty skeptical that there's a bunker in existence that can't be destroyed by a large precisely targeted conventional bomb. The only exception to this would be a bunker that's extremely deep, but a small nuke would also have trouble with this. Probably nothing that can't be solved with a larger nuke. Funny (not funny haha) how we all thought 5 years ago that since the Russians are our friends we didn't have to worry about nuclear war, and now our President might actually use nukes in an upcoming war.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
How do they want to penetrate deep into the earth with a nuke bunker-buster? hum, from what i've seen yet atomic bombs give away their force to the sides and upwards!?
Anybody who's got a link to some technical details/explanations?
Life sucks.
Couldn't you get rid of Bush before he starts a thermonuclear war?
Cause I don't know about you, but the rest of the planet is getting a little bit scared.
True warriors use the Klingon Google
This place has all you want to know about the "Golden Age" of American nuclear testing.
This is a picture of the Hardtack II / De Baca test, which was a small nuclear gravity bomb (11.3 inches in diameter, 15 inches long, weight 66 lb). It had a "disappointing" 2.2 kTon yield.
Even more interesting is Upshot-Knothole / Grable which was a nuclear cannon shell.
How small did they get? Here's the W54 (Davey Crockett) warhead, normally used as a rocket mortar round. It weighs 50 pounds, and has a yield of 22 TONS. Not Kilotons. Not megatons. Tons.
Of course small nuclear devices are possible, even workable. Not every miltary explosive needs to be like Castle/Bravo (the largest nuclear device the US has tested).
Since 9/11 a few disturbing things have happened. Under the pretense of terrorist fighting the US defense budget has been raised by an insane amount of money; privacy and freedom of speech invading laws have been rubberstamped and now there's talk about developing and actually using new nuclear weapons. What's next? Precision bombardments with tons of antrax from a B52???
WTF, we're supposed to be the good guys! Remember Hiroshima? Remember various non prolifiration treaties????
The truth is even more disturbing. Nuclear weapons are an option because american casualties need to be avoided, at all cost. Compared to the loss of 1 american life the thousands of affected lives of local civilians(be they iraqis, afghanistani's) is acceptable and considered collatoral damage (thus irrelevant and not news worthy). So it is more convenient to deploy nuclear weapons than to accept a hand full of (american) losses and fight the war the conventional way. The indifference towards the hundreds of thousands of afghan fugitives (not to mention the tens of thousands babies, elderly and sick people that have died) is equally appalling. Somehow it seems like the tragic death of = 4000 New Yorkers outweighs any amount of Afhan collateral damage.
Right now the American policy towards just about anything appears to be 'Nuke em 'cause we're superior.
I am not at all surprised anti american feelings prosper in the middle east. I don't share those feelings (at least not entirely) but I understand them well. I also understand that deploy nukes is not going to contribute to a permanent solution (except perhaps for an end losung).
Increased mutations are good for the genome.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
They don't need to test new weapons, they just need to get a copy of Worms Armageddon or Worms World Party and study the Gopher weapon. He burrows, then *BOOM!*, all gone, go bye-bye.
-Adam
Yes, Fallout help to solve that annoying biodiverity problem
Most mutations have no end result, of those few that actually affect the organism, they usually have negative effects. The only time that mutations tend to be helpful are in response to drastic environmental change. So the only mutation that would become widespread would be that which increases radiation tolerance. The vast majority of organisms, along with their null and negatively mutagenic varieties, would die out.
The very few remaining survivors wouldn't have nearly as much of that annoying biodiversity to deal with. Because variety is the spice to the ulcer of life. Human tissue is so much more pleasing when it is oxidized and blisering. And I look forward to seeing how the scrotum evolves in response to natural selection.
Being disbarred means that he can't practice law... Clinton was not impeached. Illegal wiretapping of politically powerful people is is better recipe for impeachment than illicit sexual contact with politically subservient assistants. Perhaps a home movie of Bush snorting Coke off of Tipper Whor^d^d^d^dGore's genitals leaking onto Gnutella would have some interesting political repurcussions. "Parental Advisory Warning - Insufficient censoring of Tipper may induce nausea."
As we have already seen, a few nukes will hardly destroy the world, though it may make life near ground zero distinctly unleasant for some time... especially without a nearby ocean to absorb most of the fallout. Global life expectancy may drop a few years for most populations. But censorship would still be rampant (Thanks Mrs Gore!) and easing the discomfort of radiation poisoning with Cannabis and narcotics would still be illegal. (Clinton, Bush, respectively should decriminalize or accept reprimand.)
Here we go again. More, better ways of starting a nuclear war without the inconvenience of an obvious M.A.D-type scenario to dissuade crackpot presidents and dictators, at home or abroad. As if already being able to drop hundreds of megatonnes of death wasn't enough!
I'd like to give all the scientists and engineers involved directly involved with this project a big 'fuck you'.
Sigh....
- undoware.ca
One American death is a tragedy. One million Afghan deaths is a statistic.
Bugrit! Millenium hand and shrimp!
Nuclear bombs are fragile because they can't burrow through 6ft. of concrete and _then_ explode.
Basically this is a big huge egg drop project.
Just what we need. Unfortunately, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are only remembered as footnotes in textbooks to those planning this revitalization of the US nuclear arsenal.
The world doesn't need more nukes. We've *still* got more than enough to kill ourselves many times over as it is.
Being a Canadian, I've noticed that our neighbors to the south have been changing over the past few years, and not for the better. The DMCA and other legislation restricting freedom (even the freedom of non-US citizens in other countries), George W.'s refusal to adhere to past treaties. A decision to increase their nuclear stockpile... I hope you guys come to your senses soon and boot George out of office...
References to a "club" and America being labeled terroristic is absurd! If you ACT like a terrorist and support terroristic acts without even a facade of anti-terroristic belief, you are a TERRORIST.
If you've been paying attention for the past hundred years or so you may have noticed that some people are more likely to invade neighboring countries or say, indiscriminately shoot over borders because of this or that belief. Sometimes I seriously wish we would just mind our own damn business and let all of Europe fall into another World War except this time the enemy has the power to obliterate those countries that ride the neutral line because they aren't directly involved...yet.
Do NOT beat up America for trying to create plans to preserve itself and more than likely OTHER countries. When we start dropping nukes on Canada or Mexico then you can complain.
A view of Iraq.
Recently the VP of Iraq stated that UN arms inspectors were kicked out of Iraq for spying. Spying to me is the uncovering of hidden agendas and or plans. In this case spying was the discovery of weapons of mass destruction or their telltale signs of production. That's EXACTLY what they are supposed to be doing! It was a United Nations mandate to put inspectors there to make damned sure those weapons were removed! The entirety of the WORLD should be behind the obliteration of the existing Iraqi government who openly support terrorism and refuse to abide by UN mandates. The UN is a large body of wussies headed by a patholigical bystander. Britain and the US have been two of the few powers willing to stand up and take physical action against unstable cancers and those that do take flak from those that don't. How quickly people forget their histories!
Whoever scored this guy as insightful is an IDIOT.
When your country begins to worry about the US establishing military presence in or near your country think about WHY we are doing it because I can guarantee it's not because we want your land or require your resources. The American people as a whole would not stand for our government indiscriminately attacking other countries. We don't brainwash easily due to our crazy mixture of beliefs so there's no chance of a Hitler here. When we do things, we do it for what we believe to be the greater good of our country and the world. We have no unified or even predominant religious beliefs so don't expect a holy war from us! Like it or not, we aren't militant marauding bastards out to take over the world.
Slashcrap at it's best.
Mod this!
Done ranting!
So much for the simulations of nuclear detonations.
Speaking from a completly ignorant position, surely it wouldn't be that much of a stretch to extend the simulation to determine the effects of the detonation on bunkers, subterranean caves etc?
Fast, cheap & reliable. Pick two.
And because we used it we saved hundreds of thousands of Japanese and Allied lives, and brought the war to an end much sooner than it would have otherwise.
We also kept the Soviet Union from overrunning the rest of Europe, be cause they knew we had it, and would use it.
[rant mode on]
I am sick to the teeth of the ignorance and naivete displayed by most peacniks, on so many levels. They assume that all peoples of the world simply want the same things. They assume that all political, philosophical, and religious structures are morally equivalent. It's especially galling to hear these kind of complaints from Europeans. Who kept Britain free of German domination twice in the last century? That's right, WE DID. Who liberated you rifle-dropping French, twice? THat's right, WE DID.
It's also quite depressing when this sort of rubbish comes from US citizens. The ignorance perpetrated by the liberal education system in the US has resulted in more than 2 generations of selfish, self-centerd whingers, who feel rather than think, and who have no understanding or gratitude for the sacrifice of those who have gone before. We have been given the most prosperous, moral, and brave country in the world. We ARE fit to be the world's policemen. The old nations proved they were unfit to the task.
[rant mode off]
I expect to get flamed, and modded down, but that's alright.
In other news, Pentagon spending on a mobile Nuclear attack tank was revealed yesterday. The project code named "Metal Gear" will supposibly be equipped with a electromagnetic, nuclear weapon launching "rail gun".
The proliferation of weapons like these just disgust me. They're going to destroy the world and these people call themselves "Patriots".
Veramocor
Veramocor
What ever happened to the Neutron Bomb??
It can be made very small, it produces neutrons that penetrate heavy armor/ bunkers. It doesn't produce long lingering radiation so it only kills the targets. And it doesn't make the drop zone uninhabitable.
Imagine if we'd have used the neutron bomb in Afghanistan; same horribly dead victims, but the country wouldn't look so much like a blasted Martian landscape. Also, no depleted uranium shells littering the land, damaging people, babies, and crops for generations.
Really, why aren't they developing this trusty old tech? Sure seems like the lesser evil.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
Urban legend and propaganda. Try reading a book sometime and you'll know where it's actually from.
I think the idea is that the bomb would dig in a few 10's of meters then detonate and the resulting shockwave would be powerful enough to collaps the underground fortification. The reason for using a nuke at all is to deliver a powerful enough shockwave in a can to the target area.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
The ABM treaty was negotiated and agreed because mass deployment of ABM systems would have removed MAD as a strategic stabilizer and would have bankrupted *BOTH* countries in the process.
Oh, the anti-missile system is a perfectly decent piece of hardware. Okay, a plan for one.
You can cap satellites, space ships (Anyone want to bet 1st people on Mars won't be caucasian?), Dr. Strangelove scenarios..
It's just not much good against a strategic threat. I mean, all you have to do is to get some bombs inside a shipping container and once it's shipped to Redmont - Boom!
Those sneaky rogue states might consider taking off AMD sites 1st, too.
We can either stand up as a country and let the politicians know he needs to be impeached, (enron, the dirty election in the first place, things we havent even found out about yet, etc.) or somebody can go find a Barrett Model 82A1.
Longest confirmed shot is 1.112 miles.
Shill this.
You should not throw stats out that you do not research or even think about. Just because all of your friends think he's doing a swell job doesnt mean that the rest of the country does. Your posts are making me so pissed off I'm thinking about taking the time to register.
first, as an israelli, I'm generally very much supportive of the US, you are our allies and dear friends, after the 11,9 , it was israelly citizens who (spontaneously! we are a democracy) donated blood for your victims, while many in the arab world danced with joy.
having said that, as a friend , I say the following:
2) even if you were at one time wise or strong enough to be the world's policemen, this does not mean you've stayed, or will stay, that way.
3) when the policeman of the world ignores his own contractual agreements to keep pollution down (Kioto Agreement) because it will cost him money, one starts to doubt both good faith and sanity of above policeman
4) the decision to use N.W. at WW II was to my eyes justified AND correct, it did save a lot of lives, many of them civilian. This does not mean any such future decision will also be so.
5) This does not mean to say the US cannot ever use force to resolve conflicts she's involved in or to "calm down" insane, cancerous, enemy regimes (Hitler's was a good example, the taliban is another), but there are many forms of force, the military one being at the far-blue end of the spectrum, and the nuclear at the far X-ray. A goverment is wise if it uses the right tool for each job.
I wish for a decisive, wise israelly goverment.
I think you should do the same for yours.
when the policeman of the world ignores his own contractual agreements to keep pollution down (Kioto Agreement) because it will cost him money, one starts to doubt both good faith and sanity of above policeman
This Kyoto business is nonsense. We don't have an agreement because we never ratified the Kyoto accords. In fact, hardley any body did, and the only people that supported it were countries like India and China - the worst polluters, and who were exempt from most of it's tennents.
If the environmental whackjobs and commie pinkos who underwrote Kyoto would expend half the energy in helping to develop new energy systems and infrastructures which are less harmful to the environment, it'd do alot more good then just floating treaties around that exempt the worst pollutors simply because they are poorer nations.
I make roughly $24,000 a year. I work for a living, I don't smoke pot, and I don't expect anyone else to pay for what I want. That's the kind of person who supports G-dub.
You missed the point. Clinton was not impeached for screwing an intern, Clinton was impeached for lying under oath during a sexual harassment trial. I suppose you think that sets a good example for the people in this country?
I didn't give a damn about who Clinton was screwing, but it really hacked me off that he didn't feel obligated to be honest when he was under oath--I guess it didn't matter that he sexually harassed someone, he was the governor of Arkansas and therefore exempt. Thanks for upholding women's rights by approving of that behavior.
Shaped-charge nuclear weapons are theoretically possible. See John McPhee's "The Curve of Binding Energy". There are many anti-armor weapons that put out most of their energy in a specific direction, and apparently that can be done for nukes, too. A bunker-buster that isn't a deep penetrator might be possible.
GWB can't break the Kyoto treaty because the US didn't sign the damned thing.
/. so it's ok.
Just because a bunch of nut head tree hugging plant munching dope heads sign a piece of paper in some other country doesn't mean the US is required to adhere to it as if the US had signed it.
Hint: the US didn't.
How stupid can you be? Oh that's right, this is
Yes it was in the interests of the US to stop the Nazis and Japanese, however, if the Europeans had their shit together in the first place WWII wouldn't have gone down like that.
Let's talk about peace with honor.
Let's talk about the ridiculous french defenses (oops! forgot Belgium!)
Let's talk about the number of high ranking pro-Nazis in the British government and royal family.
Let's talk about how many Americans died bringing fuel, food, and weapons to Britain (what the hell do you think the German uboats were doing in the Atlantic anyway?)
Sure the US needed to be there but only because Europe didn't deal with it's own self created mess a decade earlier before Germany was such a huge threat.
And oh yeah, how about the British inability to defend their little Empire (the sun never sets, eh?) in the east, letting the Japanese stomp all over the whole place?
So uhm yeah, we saved your asses and got involved because we had to. Europeans had made such a mess of the world. Someone had to clean it up.
The US is more like Europe's janitor than the world's policemen. The US is always running around cleaning up European messes.
Kick bush out and get your media to stop being so ignorant if you really want to save the world and billions of people.
"In the U.S, you may not realise it but just about all the news you hear is propoganda to an extent.
The media isn't about propiganda, it's about ratings. No matter how often I check the news, it's always about death, disaster or disease because morbid news sells. This is nothing new and it applies to all free media, not just the US.
The rest of your message sounds like one long conspiracy theory which you'll have to do a better job of cooking for me to swallow.
The ABM treaty was made back when those people capable of obtaining nuclear arms were for the most part rational people. That time has regretably passed. Again, I'll point you back to my original post that we are not out to take over the world.
Take your osama wanna-be handle and use it in another thread.
As soon as I saw the subject line I knew there'd be a boatload of posts from all the pseudointellectuals about the end of the world and nuclear armageddeon and all that. Your typical knee-jerk reaction.
When all is said and done a nuclear bomb is one thing: a powerful explosive. A device that can generate more thermal energy than any conceivable chemical reaction. No more, no less. The typcal anti-nuke person feels the way they do because a nuke in their mind represents both the ability to destroy a city as well as a device primarily used against civillians.
First off, I hate to break it to you but we've had the ability to wipe out a city for a very long time now. Ask the Romans about Carthage sometime. All technology has allowed us to do is accomplish that goal more easily. Examples range from Moscow to Atlanta to Dresden. Eliminating nuclear weapons from the equation doesn't make that capability go away, it just makes it slightly more difficult (fuel-air explosives, anyone?)
And then there's the persistant vision haunting everyone's nightmares since 1945: using nuclear weapons against civillian targets. Sorry, but if your goal is to go after civillian targets there are weapons far more effective (and more terrifying) to use against a civillian population than nukes. Both chemical and biological weapons are very efficient at wiping out large numbers of civillians (moreso than nukes) and have the added advantage of leaving industrial infrastructure virtually unscathed. In fact, of the three accepted classifications of "weapons of mass destruction," the only one that has real uses that don't violate the Geneva Conventions are nukes. Chemical and biological agents are all but useless against a well-trained and well-equipped military force. Heck, I'm willing to bet the only reason nuclear weapons get more bad publicity than chemical and biological weapons put together is the fact that they're so shiny and visible and scary-looking compared to an invisible killer.
Not that any of the above matters because what we're talking about is developing nuclear explosives that are tactically useful rather than stratiegicly. Low- and sub-kiloton explosives that are small enough to have their uses on a battlefield. In such a situation having a device with a blast radius that large is more damaging to your own forces almost as much as those of your target's. The main focus of weapons design (ANY weapon) for the past few decades has been on weapons that are capable of putting a lot of hurt in as small an area as possible, the so-called surgical strike. Take a look at what India and Pakistan are doing with their weapons development. They're so focused on developing tactical nuclear explosives that they couldn't care less about developing thermonuclear devices. Both of them have tested devices with below-kiloton blast yields with virtually no fallout.
And speaking of fallout, fallout is both a tactical hinderance and a sign of inefficiency in the explosive. Unlike the "dirty bombs" the media is currently panicking over ("radiological" as opposed to "nuclear," if you will), those that are developing and those that are asking for tactical nuclear weapons want as little fallout as possible, preferably none. As it stands now, if a tactical nuke was used to open a hole in an enemy's defensive line, the only forces that could best exploit that hole are MBTs, and sending in tanks without infantry support can get quite ugly. Tacticians want something they can use against a designated target and still be able to capture that target with no ill effects.
"Nuclear weapons" doesn't automatically mean ICBMs. A Minuteman III is just as able to carry mustard gas as well as it carries a thermonuclear warhead.
"Nuclear weapons" doesn't automatically mean megaton-sized explosions capable of wiping out a city. We're probably nearing the point where we'll be able to use a kinetic-kill weapon to do the same thing.
"Nuclear weapons" doesn't always mean the end of the world. Stratiegic weapons are all but useless in a tactical situation, but even if they weren't it IS possible to use just one and not unload the whole arsenal.
The only thing, the ONLY thing that "nuclear weapons" always means is "explosive devices based on fissioning atomic nuclei." Just as "gun" could mean anything from a pistol to Jules Verne's Columbiad, a hollow Californium bullet is just as much a nuclear weapon as Fat Man.
Hell, at this point I wish we'd start using some tactical nukes here and there just to stop the damned knee-jerk reaction everybody has to the word "nuclear." Maybe then we could actually focus on some real problems, like the willingness to wipe out civillian populations to begin with. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Amin and Milosevic did just fine without nukes, or hadn't you noticed?
Moderators: Go on, I've got the karma to burn. Make my day.