US's Most Powerful Nuclear Bomb Being Dismantled

SpuriousLogic sends this excerpt from an AP report: "The last of the nation's most powerful nuclear bombs — a weapon hundreds of times stronger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima — is being disassembled nearly half a century after it was put into service at the height of the Cold War. The final components of the B53 bomb will be broken down Tuesday at the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, the nation's only nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly facility. ... The weapon is considered dismantled when the roughly 300 pounds of high explosives inside are separated from the special nuclear material, known as the pit. The uranium pits from bombs dismantled at Pantex will be stored on an interim basis at the plant, Cunningham said. The material and components are then processed, which includes sanitizing, recycling and disposal, the National Nuclear Security Administration said last fall when it announced the Texas plant's role in the B53 dismantling."

Comments

Oops

[Tenek]

The final components will be accidentally dropped Tuesday at the Amarillo Crater...

Re:Oops

[0123456]

The final components will be accidentally dropped Tuesday at the Amarillo Crater...

I read an article about the disassembly plant a few years ago; AFAIR they're dismantled inside sealed bunkers underground, so if the HE goes off everyone dies, the bunker collapses and the radioactive materials are safely buried until they can dig them up.

Of course if it did trigger a nuclear explosion that wouldn't help much :).

Re:Oops

[Luckyo]

It's pretty unlikely to trigger a nuclear explosion considering the requirements to reach criticality in a bomb. In most cases, you'll have explosives go off by accident on such a bomb, they don't do enough compression to cause criticality and end up being essentially a dirty bomb scattering highly enriched uranium or plutonium around.

Which is what bunker is designed to protect against.

Re:Oops

[luder]

I don't know about that, but I have a feeling the US will activate its emergency broadcast system in the near future...

Re:Oops

[SplashMyBandit]

Oops, you mis-used a word there. You mean a 'critical mass' would not be caused and no nuclear detonation would result. The much more likely 'criticality' condition is a non-critical mass that causes the thermal explosion that has the same effect as a 'dirty' bomb.

Re:Oops

[Synerg1y]

I'm going to make the argument that anybody with a top secret security clearance working in an underground bunker on an atomic bomb is going to accidentally set off the bomb, I doubt u just hit a nuke with a hammer and it goes off. Have more faith in the government, if they were going to set it off unjustifiably, it would not be in a bunked shelter :)

Re:Oops

[IAN]

Oops, you mis-used a word there. You mean a 'critical mass' would not be caused and no nuclear detonation would result. The much more likely 'criticality' condition is a non-critical mass that causes the thermal explosion that has the same effect as a 'dirty' bomb.

Criticality -- the point at which a fuel assembly can sustain a nuclear chain reaction by itself.

Critical mass -- the smallest mass of fuel for which the criticality is reached; depends on geometry, density, temperature etc.

So the GP's usage is correct. To be really precise, one could note that weapon fuel should go from subcritical to prompt critical to achieve explosion, but that would be nitpicking in this context.

Re:Oops

[rgbatduke]

Depends on what the bombs are made out of. For thermonuclear bombs you're mostly correct all of the time, and completely correct most of the time. Only if the thermonuclear part of the bomb is triggered with a straight up boring U235 gun design core is it not correct. There's a Rutherford quote I don't have the energy to look up that points out that one can get a creditable nuclear explosion out of two subcritical pieces of U235 if one places one of them on the floor and drops the other onto it off of a table. Or, I imagine, grabs one in each hand and slams them together manually (what a way to commit suicide!) Setting off high explosives in the wrong place in a gun type bomb could very definitely cook off a real nuclear explosion.

Implosion bombs, OTOH, are damned difficult to set of at all, and require precise timing, shaped charges, and so on. I have no idea what the B53 bomb is -- if it is a BIG bomb and it DOES have Uranium in it it might not be a Pu implosion core. No matter what, accidentally setting off HE inside a nuke, even if not in the precise way that sets it off critically, is a baaaaad idea...

rgb

Re:Oops

[Luckyo]

When all is said and done, chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and while most governments that handle bomb-quality nuclear materiel tend to apply very rigorous selection process to personnel involved, we do have recorded cases of failures, from bombs falling from planes to bombs being displaced across pretty much all nuclear powers (yes, including US).

Which is why these bombs are made so that it's exceptionally difficult to actually get them to go critical in the first place. Even falling from a plane and hitting the ground, they are unlikely to cause a nuclear detonation, much less from "hammer impact". This minimizes the "human factor", and is one of the main reasons why we never had a nuclear conflagration in spite of all the nuclear-armed weapon systems fully armed and ready to go during cold war.

Re:Oops

[SETIGuy]

I have no idea what the B53 bomb is -- if it is a BIG bomb and it DOES have Uranium in it it might not be a Pu implosion core.

Its a two stage thermonuclear using an implosion primary fueled by highly enriched uranium. The secondary uses the standard magic for implosion with lithium-6 deuteride fuel. The HE initiator is sensitive to shocks, so if someone were to shoot at the warhead, the HE could go off, but the primary probably wouldn't achieve criticality due to asymmetrical compression. If you're close enough for it to be a problem, you probably won't even notice the uranium. The secondary has probably long since been removed, since (what's left of) that stuff can be useful.

Re:Oops

[SplashMyBandit]

Wow, impressively low user ID IAN. However, you are quoting the 'dictionary' usage of the term. Have a look at the following article to see how it is used *in the context of the grandparent's statement*. In his statement he stated that the 'criticality' would be the full nuclear explosion when in terms of explosive release a 'criticality' refers to a condition arising in a *thermal explosion* (the fuel density [actually density time derivative since the change in density rate is involved] and resulting reaction rate causes the the bomb to expand before a full nuclear (prompt) explosion can occur. Cool if you don't believe what I write here, but please see the following article for the usage of the 'criticality' condition in terms of explosions/accidents (and the grandparent was talking about accidents):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_accident

Re:Oops

[BlueParrot]

The GGPs post is fine as far as the wording is concerned, though he is wrong about the physics. It's not tricky to achieve criticality. It's more that you need a very efficient compression to ensure the fissile material reaches an optimal configuration before the reaction starts.

"Prompt criticality" is a property of the nuclear reaction inside an assembly of material, not a type of explosion. It refers to whether the chain reaction is self-sustaining without the contribution of delayed neutrons. It says nothing about how powerful an explosion will be, or how high a yield a nuclear weapon may have. It is not difficult to achieve, and even just dropping two suitably sized pieces of fissile material onto each other could produce a prompt-critical reaction.

Now, the reason a weapon may produce a very poor yield if the compression is inefficient is not because it doesn't become prompt critical , but rather because the explosion will blow the bomb apart before the reaction has produced very much energy. In particular, a poor compression could cause the chain reaction to begin before the fissile material is in an optimal configuration.

People sometimes try to make some distinction between a "thermal" or "nuclear" explosion, usually while discussing the Chernobyl disaster, but there is no such distinction as far as the physics is concerned. The amount of energy released in a nuclear explosion depends almost entirely on what neutron multiplication factor can be achieved, as well as how long the material is kept together before the explosion blows it apart. A nuclear fission bomb achieves the high explosive yield for basically two reasons:

1) The high enrichment and fusion-boosting allows the multiplication factor to become very large, 3-4 or even greater.

2) The fissile material has been accelerated inwards by powerful explosives, giving a lot of momentum that has to be overcome before the pressure blows the bomb apart.

Note that we to this day do not know whether the Chernobyl reactor went prompt critical or not. It may well be the case that it simply overheated to the point that the piping could not sustain the pressure from the steam, but given the design of the reactor it is also very possible it reached prompt criticality. In either case the explosion was very much a nuclear explosion in the sense that it was driven by the heat released from a nuclear chain reaction. It is of course not possible for a chain reaction that is not prompt-critical to produce an explosive yield of several kilotons, but that is mostly because it would be too slow to produce much energy before the thing blows itself apart. For the same reason it is not sufficient for a chain reaction to be prompt critical in order for it to produce a substantial yield. The neutron multiplication factor must also be large enough, and the material must be kept together for a long enough time. That is why a reactor could never produce an explosion similar in power to a nuclear bomb. It simply doesn't have a high enough multiplication factor. In fact, it will likely be very close to 1.

Re:Oops

[TheTurtlesMoves]

This is not correct. Getting a gun type configuration to prompt criticality where a percentage of of the U235/Pu239 would be consumed is impossible without explosives. Even a tiny amount of fission (much less than .1%) will heat up the material to metal gas temperatures and will disassemble very fast and hence it is a fissile. Even with explosives gun type configurations are very inefficient, typically less than 30% is consumed and thus they need a lot of material compared to implosion devices.

Getting implosion devices to work was hard in 1945. Your computer has much more critical timing as does USB 2.0 etc. Explosive lenses are something quite easy to do with modern explosives. Hell even slapper detonators are used in civilian applications now days. The hard part is bomb grade U235 or Pu239.

Re:Oops

[TheTurtlesMoves]

There has been a case with one warhead in a rocket fire (H2N2CH3+N2O4 IIRC) and it just burnt and did not detonate.

Re:Oops

[tehcyder]

The final components will be accidentally dropped Tuesday at the Amarillo Crater...

"Can you show me the way to Amarillo?"

"Sure, just head towards the mushroom cloud. Sorry about sweet Maria BTW."

Re:Oops

[rgbatduke]

Yeah, I don't even know where one would learn this these days -- oh, wait, I see, wikipedia. Why am I not surprised? Yes, well, implosion I fully agree would be unlikely to go critical from an accidental shock from an asymmetrical compression, that's why they both use dual explosive lenses and require those itty bitty superfast switches and detonators that used to be (and probably still are) controlled munitions. Although I can't help but imagine that these days anybody with a laptop computer could design the implosion lenses from spec and that there are dozens of ways of accomplishing the timing using over the counter or homemade stuff.

Ah, but the good old gun design. Anybody could manage that one. Got an old shotgun? Make yourself a (pretty high yield) fission nuke! The only catch there was getting pure enough U235, and I rather suspect that that has been made way simpler than Oak Ridge level gas diffusion plants and centrifuges by the use of a bit more modern physics...

Nucleo-Terroristically yours, rgb

Re:Oops

[rgbatduke]

Ah, but a gun type design does not require timing , it requires alignment. So accidentally triggering the explosive (in the actual context of my remark) could indeed set it off, where a lensing design makes this basically impossible. Everything else you say I agree with (and was only semi-quoting Rutherford because U235 is much slower than Pu239 and you can indeed get it supercritical before it triggers, especially without an external neutron source to use as a trigger, although sure explosives and a trigger are going to work better and implosion much better). Indeed, these days the only hard part is bomb grade material, and honestly that isn't intrinsically difficult -- it is only made difficult by government controls and so on.

However, I should probably have known that the configuration used was implosion -- I just didn't look it up. So you caught me out being lazy...

rgb

9 Megatons

[csshelton]

Since it wasn't included in the synopsis...

Re:9 Megatons

[pnot]

Thank you, you beat me to it. I know that Hiroshimas are the standard unit of explosive force, but it's nice to state TNT equivalent just in case there happen to be any nerds reading this site.

Re:9 megatons

[anom]

Any projections of the casualties in megadeaths based on potential drop locations? You know, for the binder.

Re:9 megatons

[neoform]

According to wikipedia, this bomb causes a fireball 5km wide with a lethal heat-blast of 29km wide...

The number of people killed depends entirely on where you drop it...

Re:9 Megatons

[MachDelta]

Wait, I thought our standard unit of measurement around here was the LOC?
So, just how much damage does a LOC, when dropped from a great height, do to an urban area? Anyone know? This is Slashdot... someone knows.

Re:9 megatons

[Lev13than]

Interesting that it pales in comparison to the largest nuclear bomb ever detonated, the 50 megaton Tsar Bomba. However, the Soviets only made one of those while the Americans has 50 B53s, so what they lacked in tonnage they made up for in volume.

Re:9 megatons

[skrimp]

Try this... http://www.carloslabs.com/node/16

Re:9 megatons

[Luckyo]

The biggest portion causing fatalities would probably be heat emission and kinetic shockwave following it. Rather hard to say which one would demand more casualties, as it will depend on where it is dropped. Steel frame buildings will most likely protect from the heat of the blast outside epicenter at the very least though.

And of course, at epicenter you're going to be fucked even if you're in a bunker. That caliber of a bomb is the type that can change the maps.

Re:9 megatons

[Anonymous Coward]

wikipedia also suggests the intended target for this type was a bunker located near moscow with the sovjet leadership.

Re:9 Megatons

[egamma]

Wait, I thought our standard unit of measurement around here was the LOC? So, just how much damage does a LOC, when dropped from a great height, do to an urban area? Anyone know? This is Slashdot... someone knows.

p. Depends on how high the swallows were when they dropped it. And if they were African or European swallows. Also, are you including the bricks and stone, or just the books?

Re:9 Megatons

[Anonymous Coward]

Google doesn't know, so no one knows.

Re:9 Megatons

[bredk]

For the record, it's also only the most powerful in current inventory. The Castle bravo device was detonated with an estimated yield of 15 Megaton. The most powerful in the world is also still Tsar Bomba (50 megaton dialed down. Design yield was 100 megaton plus, but was not tested due to concerns of fallout). Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba

Re:9 Megatons

[Baloroth]

Well, the LOC has 147 million items, 33 million of them books. At, say an average of 1kg each, that would be, say 40 million kilos? Probably more. Lets say 50 million kg, falling from infinity to the Earth's surface gives a total energy of 3.14*10^15 joules, at 4.184Gj/ton of TNT gives a total of 750kilotons of TNT. That would be about 57 Hiroshimas. Note that the LOC probably weighs at least 2-3 times that, but Google doesn't seem to know, so whatever.

Re:9 Megatons

[dotancohen]

Also, are you including the bricks and stone, or just the books?

Actually, a unit of LoC refers only to the books, not to the bricks, stone, librarians, or other building materials. Just as a can of tuna refers to the fish inside but not to the tin.

Re:9 Megatons

[reub2000]

Like any of this talk about megatons means much of anything. After a certain point, the extra energy just goes up into the sky. Tis the reason why missiles contain multiple warheads instead of a single large one.

Re:9 Megatons

[SlippyToad]

Design yield was 100 megaton plus, but was not tested due to concerns of fallout).

After I read about the aftermath of the Tsar Bomba, I would think another concern would be cracking the fucking crust of the fucking planet.

A shock wave in air was observed at Dickson settlement at 700 km; windowpanes were partially broken to distances of 900 km. All buildings in Severny (both wooden and brick), at a distance of 55 km, were completely destroyed. In districts hundreds of kilometers from ground zero, wooden houses were destroyed, and stone ones lost their roofs, windows and doors; and radio communications were interrupted for almost one hour. The atmospheric disturbance generated by the explosion orbited the earth three times. A gigantic mushroom cloud rose as high as 64 kilometers (210,000 ft).

Rightly so the Soviets were accused of being incredibly irresponsible.

And frankly so is anyone who is still toying with nuclear weapons. There are no upsides to their use.

Re:9 Megatons

[khallow]

After I read about the aftermath of the Tsar Bomba, I would think another concern would be cracking the fucking crust of the fucking planet.

Don't know why that would be a concern. 100 megatons isn't that much energy geologically. It's somewhere between 8.5 and 9 moment magnitude as an earthquake. In other words, the recent Japanese quake or the similar quake in Indonesia of several years ago, were larger in terms of energy released than Tsar Bomba would have been, even at full yield.

And frankly so is anyone who is still toying with nuclear weapons. There are no upsides to their use.

An upside to their "use" (or more accurately, lack thereof) has been about 65 years and counting of global peace. There's still the occasional large war (such as the Second Congo War or the Iran-Iraq war of the 80s), but there's a whole lot less dying from wars than there was prior to the end of the Second World War.

Re:9 Megatons

[Anonymous Coward]

Tis the reason why missiles contain multiple warheads instead of a single large one.

MIRVs reduce the effectiveness of anti-ballistic missiles and increases the destructive power of a single ICBM.

Re:9 Megatons

[lgw]

That can't be, since the LoC is also a standard unit of distance and volume, both of which refer to the building itself.

Hmm, if we knew the mass of the LoC, we could calculate it's equivalent megatonnage on impact using one of those asteroid impact calculators ...

Re:9 Megatons

[SplashMyBandit]

Don't need antimatter. Ordinary matter converted into energy will do (in Hiroshima I believe it was 0.23 g of uranium was transmuted into energy).

Re:9 Megatons

[lgw]

Large bombs were designed to crack enemy missile silos from a distance, at a time when our missiles weren't very accurate. I believe the optimal bang for the buck for attacking cities and such is around 800 KT. Muke scale very poorly, with various destructive effects rising with the third root to the tenth root of yield, so the big bombs are fairly pointless except as buker busters.

Re:9 Megatons

[Wyatt Earp]

Hiroshima is a terrible standard of explosive force since thermonuclear weapons are much more efficient than Hiroshima or Nagasaki devices.

Plus more modern aiming, delivery and detonation techniques make even a similar yield device more destructive.

Grable shot showed the destructive power of the precursor wave against drag sensitive objects

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upshot-Knothole_Grable

So rather than detonate at 580 meters (Little Boy/Hiroshima), Grable is a similar yield and detonates at 160 meters and causes more damage to drag sensitive objects like buildings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_nuclear_explosions#Blast_damage

Re:9 Megatons

[lgw]

Nuclear weapons are used every day, and the result is fewer war casualties planet-wide per capita in the nuclear age than any other time since accurate records were kept. MAD is mad, but it does seem to work.

Re:9 Megatons

[Wyatt Earp]

Castle Bravo was never a deliverable nuclear weapon

Re:9 Megatons

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely in this case we should have a measurement of how many congress criters it would vapourise. As they would be the idjots whod caused it to be used at all?

Re:9 Megatons

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you mean 100g of matter and 100g of anti-matter in a perfectly efficient mutual annihilation?

Re:9 Megatons

[Carnildo]

So, multiplying it all out gives this bomb a destructive capacity of 12 LOC.

Re:9 Megatons

[tsotha]

I'm kind of surprised that's the biggest bang in the US arsenal. The Soviet/Russian R-36M in its single warhead configuration had a yield of 20 megatons.

Re:9 Megatons

[Baloroth]

Damn, can't believe I forgot that step. Meh, too much time spent studying physics. Thanks.

Re:9 Megatons

[lwsimon]

And frankly so is anyone who is still toying with nuclear weapons. There are no upsides to their use.

Not true at all. Nuclear weapons have uses in large construction projects, and in petroleum production. The Russians have done it in the past, although granted, they struggled to find a market for radioactive oil.

Re:9 megatons

[TapeCutter]

Most deaths occur in the first few weeks after the lucky ones are killed by the blast. Not just radiation poisoning but also the loss of infrastructure.

Re:9 Megatons

[GumphMaster]

So, just how much damage does a LOC, when dropped from a great height, do to an urban area?

One line of code? Not much, but you better make sure that line is appropriately licensed or the damage done by thousands of lawyers descending on your location will be devastating. :)

Re:9 Megatons

[CubicleView]

The books won't weigh much if they've been digitised, especially if you zip them.

Re:9 Megatons

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just the biggest one they admit to. You don't think the good stuff is public knowledge, do you.

Re:9 Megatons

[smithmc]

Well, the LOC has 147 million items, 33 million of them books. At, say an average of 1kg each, that would be, say 40 million kilos? Probably more. Lets say 50 million kg, falling from infinity to the Earth's surface gives a total energy of 3.14*10^15 joules, at 4.184Gj/ton of TNT gives a total of 750kilotons of TNT. That would be about 57 Hiroshimas. Note that the LOC probably weighs at least 2-3 times that, but Google doesn't seem to know, so whatever.

Of course, most of that would be dissipated as heat as the books/films etc. burned on the way down; very little of it would actually be translated into destructive force on impact.

Re:9 Megatons

[bryan1945]

How many Library of Congress's is that?

Re:9 megatons

[Luckyo]

That depends. If you blow it up above center of New-York, there won't be enough people left alive after initial blast to die from residual issues to top the initial casualties.

We're no longer living in the age of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, these bombs are several orders of magnitude more powerful, delivered far more accurately and people live far more tightly packed then before.

Re:9 megatons

[definate]

I recall reading that the American's weren't focused on sizes as large as 50 Megaton, they instead focused on delivery from afar, and accuracy of hitting their target. So, they could fire a comparatively smaller warhead from a very long distance away, and hit the Kremlin, where is the Russians would likely fly theirs in, and drop it when they got close enough.

It was their different strategies, where the Russians focused on having many weapons, planes, and people, where as the Americans focused on having fewer but better of the same.

Either way, the only way to win a cold war, was not to play. In this case the victor was the one which played the least, and had the comparatively better economic policy.

Re:9 Megatons

[RsG]

Don't be stupid, the whole point of a strategic nuclear weapon is deterrence and/or nationalistic posturing. Hiding your capabilities does not further either cause. Delivery systems may have some secrecy about them to prevent the development of countermeasures, but the actual bomb yields are no secret.

Plus, you don't know if a design works until you test it, and you can't test a nuke without essentially letting every other nation with an intelligence agency know the yield, since the math for determining TNT equivalence isn't hard, and the detonation isn't subtle.

Further to that, most of the really big designs are older and outdated, as miniaturization became the focus (smaller bombs equals more warheads per missile/bomber). Meaning the bombs from the end of the cold war are actually lower yield than the ones from the middle.

In short, you're letting knee jerk "the government is hiding secrets" paranoia get in the way of common sense, and you don't know nukes.

Re:9 Megatons

[cavreader]

The problem today is that MAD is no longer a sure thing. It was an effective means in keeping the 5 most powerful countries from initiating another WW2 type war. Hell the US and USSR were setup to destroy then entire planet several times over by pushing a few buttons. That potential holocaust was able to keep even the most rabid militarists on both sides firmly under control. However, the smaller countries seeking nuclear weapons today are degrading the effectiveness of the MAD theory. Countries like N. Korea, Iran, and Pakistan openly use non-state actors to project power in their regions. I can just picture some idiot in Iran, N. Korea, or Pakistan selling a nuke to it's proxies to use as they see fit. A nuclear device transported by ground to it's intended target area leaves no missile tracks to immediately identify who set it off. It wouldn't take long AFTER the detonation to figure out where the bomb was most likely manufactured but by that time an immediate reprisal would not be a foregone conclusion. Using non-state actors creates some wiggle room in the traditional MAD response.

Re:9 Megatons

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, roughly 200 grams of antimatter...

Pfft! That would only cost about 15 trillion dollars to manufacture. Lets make three.

"A rough estimate to produce the 10 milligrams of positrons needed for a human Mars mission is about 250 million dollars using technology that is currently under development"

source

Re:9 Megatons

[Rich0]

After a megaton or two the energy of the blast has basically punched a hole from the center of the explosion clear in to space, and almost all the energy above that amount tends to just get vented up into space. You can cause a lot more destruction with 100x100kT bombs than 1x10MT. Plus, you can aim those 100 bombs at 100 different targets over a wide area, instead of spending all your energy making the tundra surrounding some military base glow in the dark.

The smaller bombs are also easier to put on delivery systems like cruise missiles or SLBMs/etc.

100 smaller bombs are also much more survivable than one really big bomb - both on the ground and enroute to target. You can also target multiple warheads at a single target and have some redundancy in case a few don't get through. Smaller bombs also give you more political options - nukes aren't really surgical but if you have to use one it is nice to be able to wipe out areas smaller than Kansas.

You can read up on this stuff online - quite a bit of info is out there. The reason the military is getting rid of this stuff is that it makes for PR and isn't all that useful to them anyway.

Re:9 megatons

[Rich0]

The Russians just did that as a PR stunt - they weren't serious about it either. In fact, I think I read that they were originally going to double the size but considered it a waste of fissionable material.

Once you get above a few MT you blast a big hole in the atmosphere and much of the extra energy just gets spent competing with the sun for the job of warming outer space. You get a lot more effect if you split your fuel into a bunch of smaller bombs.

The Russians still tended to build bigger bombs. As you suggest, this might be because the Americans were more confident that they could actually get direct hits on things like bunkers or whatever.

Re:9 Megatons

[Rich0]

Yeah, but what does it cost to store 10 miligrams of antimatter? I wouldn't be surprised if we've made a fair bit of antimatter over the years - the hard part is keeping it in one place.

Re:9 megatons

[definate]

That makes sense. I read the wiki after, and was interested to read that they cut the bomb back from the planned 100 MT to 50 MT, because they were worried about the fallout. They did this by changing the type of... something... just blanked out. Fucking amazing either way.

Re:9 megatons

[Anonymous Coward]

The US made weapons more powerful than the B53, the Mk 41 had a maximum yield of 25 megatons. The Mk 41 was a practical weapon, at least in the sense that it would fit inside an aircraft in it's entirety and that aircraft could fly to and from the USSR. The Tsar Bomba was so large that it would not fit inside of it's Bear delivery aircraft. That's obviously not good for aerodynamics. I believe they had to remove some of the fuel to get it to fit as well, further decreasing range. With it's U238 taper, the design would have yielded around 100 megatons and would have vaporized the delivery aircraft as well. The tested version had a lead tamper instead, limiting the yield. 100 megatons is the practical upper limit for a nuclear weapon because if you go higher, the fireball starts to poke through the Earth's atmosphere.

Re:9 Megatons

[sa1lnr]

"has been about 65 years and counting of global peace"

Best joke I've seen so far today. ;)

Re:9 Megatons

[tehcyder]

Also, are you including the bricks and stone, or just the books?

Actually, a unit of LoC refers only to the books, not to the bricks, stone, librarians, or other building materials. Just as a can of tuna refers to the fish inside but not to the tin.

If I beat you to death with a large can of tuna it's not the fish inside that kill you.

Re:9 Megatons

[tehcyder]

An upside to their "use" (or more accurately, lack thereof) has been about 65 years and counting of global peace. There's still the occasional large war (such as the Second Congo War or the Iran-Iraq war of the 80s), but there's a whole lot less dying from wars than there was prior to the end of the Second World War.

Just taking the obvious ones, since 1945 we've had the Korean war, Vietnam war, Iran-Iraq war, two Gulf wars, two Congo wars, the Khmer rouge, Kosovo and Rwanda.

Re:9 Megatons

[tehcyder]

And frankly so is anyone who is still toying with nuclear weapons. There are no upsides to their use.

In the space documentary Armageddon they were used as a pretext to abandon Bruce Willis on an asteroid. So, every cloud has a silver lining.

Re:9 Megatons

[dotancohen]

If I beat you to death with a large can of tuna it's not the fish inside that kill you.

Tuna does not kill people. Crazy people with cans of tuna kill people.

Re:9 Megatons

[barry99705]

They've still been "smaller" than the world wars, and for the most part fairly contained in one geographic area. Since nukes have been invented no one has had the balls to pull a Pinkey and the Brain.

Re:9 Megatons

[tsotha]

Heh heh.

Dr. Strangelove: Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you *keep* it a *secret*! Why didn't you tell the world, EH?

Re:9 Megatons

[khallow]

And why do you think you're doing anything other than prove my point? It was a lot bloodier before the Bomb than afterwards.

Re:9 Megatons

[lgw]

Wel, that was the whole point of the Bush docterine, after all. We can't deter actual terrorist actors, but without state support they aren't that threatening. So we'll demonstrate to tinpot dictators that if you do give state support to some terrorist group who then attacks us, or if we think you might do so, or if we just make some press releases that you migh do so, the country will go to war and drag you out of your spider hole and execute you on live TV. It was actually pretty effective at establishing a new deterrent (IITC, Gadaffi preemptive caved on his own nuclear plans at some slight hints that he might be next on our list.)

Re:9 Megatons

[cavreader]

I feel that the non-state actors present a greater danger when their patrons start getting backed into a corner via sanctions and threats. The Iranian sanctions have damaged Iran more than they are willing to admit and unless they are willing to modify some of their policies they might think they have no alternative. The Supreme Council ruling Iran does not care about the effects on their citizens they are only interested in maintaining their power. regardless of the cost.

You must not shoot in that room!

[Anonymous Coward]

Setting the stage for Metal Gear Solid!

9 megatons

[WebManWalking]

What I wanted to know most wasn't in the summary. The Fine Article tells me that the B53 is 9 megatons.

Good

[afidel]

This is a good thing, the B53 was a last ditch weapon intended to take out the hardened bunkers of the Soviet leadership, except it was air burst which is a highly, highly ineffective was to take out a bunker. The replacement is a much smaller, much less dirty penetrator weapon, the B61 Mod 11.

Re:Good

[MightyYar]

While the logical part of me is glad this is gone, the engineering part of my brain is sad. :)

Re:Good

[Qzukk]

B61 Mod 11

Doesn't that make it the B6?

Re:Good

[0123456]

While the logical part of me is glad this is gone, the engineering part of my brain is sad. :)

They should have detonated them and charged for tickets; there's lots of space for grandstands at the Nevada Test Site.

Re:Good

[xMrFishx]

A bunker buster, providing your bunker is within a few hundred miles or so. It was a city leveller. This is the bomb you drop to lose, not win. Noone should have that much destructive power at the touch of a button. The idea of it being used is beyond scary.

Re:Good

[mapkinase]

Not B6, just 6 by rather remarkable coincidence...

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

>> They should have detonated them and charged for tickets; there's lots of space for grandstands at the Nevada Test Site.

They'll sell more tickets if they keep the show in Texas.

Re:Good

[geekoid]

Should detonate it on Mars, to uncover some fresh soil.you know, for science...you monster.

Ar the moon, because it would be coll to watch if the did it while the moon was in the Earth's shadow.

Re:Good

[geekoid]

Which is why we didn't have it at a touch of a button.

And there are perfectly valid scenarios for this weapon. Reduce navel forces, remove coastal facilities, and so on.

Of course you would never use it anyplace you wanted to use again for 100 years.

We don't seem to be living in the large countries at war world anymore. And that always causes me to be a little giddy.

Re:Good

[pspahn]

I prefer the tides, thank you.

Re:Good

[Luckyo]

You're correct, these are the part of strategic rather then tactical arsenal, and are a part of MAD deterrent far more then a bunker buster (though they could probably remove Ural mountains when needed). But these are old, and as ballistic missile deterrent came a bit later, it was upgraded to have MIRV payload where smaller bombs were scattered from a single warhead over larger kill zone.

They are far more efficient when it comes to MAD scenario then a single huge bomb.

Re:Good

[khallow]

A bunker buster, providing your bunker is within a few hundred miles or so.

Nonsense. I find it astounding how people can find ways to exaggerate the firepower of a nuclear bomb. For example, an airburst 9 megaton warhead centered on Manhattan Island in New York City would kill most people in NYC. According to Wikipedia, it'd cause lethal burns to any exposed people within 18 miles (incidentally including all of the city) of ground zero. But if you're in a bunker a hundred miles away? You won't even notice, aside possibly from some noise.

Re:Good

[xMrFishx]

I wasn't quite being as literal with the touch of a button statement, just the idea that it can be used is terrifying enough. You could probably drop it in the sea and create a tidal wave so big it would cover a medium sized country. It wouldn't just reduce navies near by, it would eradicate anything near the entire ocean.

I for one am glad I have only existed (for all intents and purposes) post cold war, which does make me a young-ling compared to some of you lot, but everyone should know about what could have happened. I always believe history is there to be told, known and learned from. I certainly appreciate not living in a radioactive mud pit. In fact I certainly appreciate existing.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

A few hundred miles? No. It'd probably have to hit within tens of meters to destroy what it was designed to destroy. It's designers built it for a reason, and the reason wasn't to indiscriminately level cities, although cities near the target would inevitably be destroyed.

Re:Good

[internerdj]

And so it should be, there was an article the year before last I think talking about how that a key component to some of our submarine launched nuclear weaponry was lost to us because it was so secret no one wrote it down. We need to be careful that we don't lose the engineering knowledge of these systems in case we have a critical, but more civil use for the devices.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

We need to remove the moon to debunk O'Reily.

I want future generations to ask what tides are.

Re:Good

[GameboyRMH]

Possibly Chrisq, he's posted that kind of stuff in the open before.

If he's European I hope their FBI-equivalent is keeping tabs on him...if you're subscribed to Wired's RSS you'd know that the actual FBI is more likely to hire him to provide training.

Re:Good

[MtHuurne]

1 in 17, actually.

Re:Good

[the_other_chewey]

I wasn't quite being as literal with the touch of a button statement, just the idea that it can be used is terrifying enough. You could probably drop it in the sea and create a tidal wave so big it would cover a medium sized country. It wouldn't just reduce navies near by, it would eradicate anything near the entire ocean.

You seriously underestimate what is needed to cause a decent tidal wave.
If used as a "wave generator", this bomb could cause wet feet in a single harbour,
and only if detonated close enough (under 20km, lets say. It probably even needs
to be closer than that, I haven't done the math) but that's pretty much all.

Earthquakes triggering big tsunamis are vastly more powerful, and also work differently:
Big submarine earthquakes permanently displace huge amounts of water - in the case
of the Japan tsunami, over 100 cubic kilometers.

A big bomb just causes a pressure wave, and no permantent water displacement:
There is no hole in the ocean afterwards.

Re:Good

[Dishevel]

Personally I have never heard of a Tea Party Member advocate the destruction of Muslims as a whole.
Also. It might make you look a little less immature if you did not reflexively call them "Teabaggers".
Just because a group of people who value personal freedom over massive government makes you uncomfortable is no reason to resort to petty name calling.
You can disagree. Though I doubt that if there is a winning argument, you are in possession of it.

Re:Good

[nabsltd]

This is a good thing, the B53 was a last ditch weapon intended to take out the hardened bunkers of the Soviet leadership, except it was air burst which is a highly, highly ineffective was to take out a bunker.

The B53 had a reinforced nose that (along with parachutes) allowed it to be detonated on the ground, which should have been fairly effective.

But, I'm getting the mental picture of such a bomb lying there while the bomb squad attempts to disarm it.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

What's funny or sad (depending on how you look at it) is to hear Sean Hannity streaming while reading Slashdot. From his PoV, the fact that the next most powerful bomb is 1.x megatons is a proxy for Obama's penis size or something. He makes no mention of how the bomb is delivered or its strategic purpose. The sad part is that people vote based on what guys like that say.

Re:Good

[icebrain]

You could probably drop it in the sea and create a tidal wave so big it would cover a medium sized country. It wouldn't just reduce navies near by, it would eradicate anything near the entire ocean.

You're overstating that by a few orders of magnitude. Castle Bravo was 15 MT and didn't cause anything near the effects you postulate.

As powerful and terrible as they are, people still greatly exaggerate the power of nuclear devices. Blast and damage radii don't scale linearly with power.

Re:Good

[ckaminski]

Pah! 9 Megatons to the moon as a zit is to an elephants ass. Nothing.

Re:Good

[afabbro]

Should detonate it on Mars,

Should detonate it on the moon.

Re:Good

[xMrFishx]

Excellent point, I honestly hadn't considered how vastly different the idea of an explosion vs surface displacement was when it came to moving something like water. Now my sensationalist statements seem quite daft. Would it be possible then that an underwater nuclear explosion would be less devastating than an overground one due to absorption of energy by the water?

Re:Good

[rommi04]

Personally I have never heard of a Tea Party Member advocate the destruction of Muslims as a whole. Also. It might make you look a little less immature if you did not reflexively call them "Teabaggers". Just because a group of people who value personal freedom over massive government makes you uncomfortable is no reason to resort to petty name calling. You can disagree. Though I doubt that if there is a winning argument, you are in possession of it.

IIRC, the tea party people were calling themselves teabaggers initially.

Re:Good

[Waffle Iron]

But, I'm getting the mental picture of such a bomb lying there while the bomb squad attempts to disarm it.

There'd be no time for that. It would probably set to go off within a minute or two at the most. Your only hope to survive would be to start shooting at it.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

They go in, they go out. You can't explain that!

Re:Good

[lgw]

Maybe, but it's more likely that's an excuse spun by the big cable news channels after the realized in hindsight just how overt their bais was in covering that group. Of course, once they were caught doing stuff like photoshopping out black Tea Partiers from rally photos so they could claim the movement was racist, there was little point in pretending.

Re:Good

[lgw]

Mankind's biggest weapons are still feeble compared to a good natural disaster. Geology still has many orders of magnitude above our best.

Re:Good

[serviscope_minor]

I think you have underestimated the power of really big bombs. The Tsar bomba was rated at about 50MT when detonated, though there seems little debate that it would have reached its design yield of 100Mt if a uranium casing had been used rather than lead.

Anyway, taking into account the latent heat of vapuorisation of water, my back of the envelope calculation shows that it could vapourise a non trivial fraction (0.125) of a cubic kilometer of water. While that will return to the ocean eventually, on the timescale of a tsunami, it is effectively removed permenantly.

Also, according to wikipedia, 50Mt was about 1/4 of the estimated yield of the Krakatoa eruption which certainly caused decent sized tsunamis. The cause of the tsunamis seems to have been the volcano dumpig a lot of stuff into the sea. With a 50Mt blast in th eright place, one may be able to replicate a similar effect, magnifying the ability to generate a tsunami well beyond vapourising a lot of water.

Re:Good

[smithmc]

I for one am glad I have only existed (for all intents and purposes) post cold war, which does make me a young-ling compared to some of you lot, but everyone should know about what could have happened. I always believe history is there to be told, known and learned from. I certainly appreciate not living in a radioactive mud pit. In fact I certainly appreciate existing.

Gen-Xers are about the right age to have "enjoyed" the Reagan Era as young children - "evil empire" and "the bombing starts in five minutes" and all that...

Re:Good

[DerekLyons]

This is a good thing, the B53 was a last ditch weapon intended to take out the hardened bunkers of the Soviet leadership, except it was air burst which is a highly, highly ineffective was to take out a bunker.

The B53 was intended for laydown delivery - I.E. a surface burst, in the 'bunker busting' role.

Re:Good

[bejiitas_wrath]

I think you have underestimated the power of really big bombs. The Tsar bomba was rated at about 50MT when detonated, though there seems little debate that it would have reached its design yield of 100Mt if a uranium casing had been used rather than lead.

Anyway, taking into account the latent heat of vapuorisation of water, my back of the envelope calculation shows that it could vapourise a non trivial fraction (0.125) of a cubic kilometer of water. While that will return to the ocean eventually, on the timescale of a tsunami, it is effectively removed permenantly.

Also, according to wikipedia, 50Mt was about 1/4 of the estimated yield of the Krakatoa eruption which certainly caused decent sized tsunamis. The cause of the tsunamis seems to have been the volcano dumpig a lot of stuff into the sea. With a 50Mt blast in th eright place, one may be able to replicate a similar effect, magnifying the ability to generate a tsunami well beyond vapourising a lot of water.

Apparently a Saturn V rocket could deliver a 700 megaton warhead, that would obviously be overkill if a single 9 megaton warhead would be enough to destroy a single city. This gives me some hope that more nations will disassemble their weapons and find something more constructive to do with their nuclear material. The 1.3 Gigaton warhead mentioned on that page that the Antonov could theoretically carry would seem to have no real use apart from maybe deflecting an asteroid if we could get it into space that is.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

It's good to see someone checking in on replies, learning something and admitting it. Too bad I've never seen Space Nutters do that.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Many scenarios, including air defence. My all time favourite use of huge thermonuclear weapons is as ICBM defence. A wall of fire. A fuck of huge explodsion in the path in incoming is going to eradicate missiles or fuck them with EMP. Sometimes area effect surpasses accuracy.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a good thing, the B53 was a last ditch weapon intended to take out the hardened bunkers of the Soviet leadership, except it was air burst which is a highly, highly ineffective was to take out a bunker

Actually, the wikipedia article linked in the summary says that the B53 has a parachute deployment option - doesn't have to be airburst.

Re:Good

[gmhowell]

Pah! 9 Megatons to the moon as a zit is to an elephants ass. Nothing.

Next you're going to tell him that Armageddon had really bad (no) science in it.

Re:Good

[DaleSwanson]

Mehaute et. al. conclude in their 1996 overview Water Waves Generated by Underwater Explosion that the surface waves from even a very large offshore undersea explosion would expend most of its energy on the continental shelf, resulting in coastal flooding no worse than that from a bad storm.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_explosion

Re:Good

[Rich0]

If you're in a bunker a few hundred yards away you might get by unscathed, assuming you had an independent air supply. That is, if the weapon is used as an airburst - most of the energy travels along the surface of the ground and doesn't really dig it up much, and a bunker would be underground for this reason.

Now, a bomb that penetrates the earth of that size would certainly make a big hole, and the shock waves would travel much further still. However, in that case the above-ground damage would be far less.

Nuclear bombs are great for wiping out cities, but they're less effective than some might think at destroying hardened targets. Now, a direct hit will destroy virtually anything, but the whole r^3 thing adds up quick if you don't get a direct hit.

Re:Good

[Zontar The Mindless]

...except it was air burst which is a highly, highly ineffective was to take out a bunker.

Incorrect. I don't know where you get this notion, because the Wikipedia article clearly states (emphasis added),

It was intended as a bunker buster weapon, using a surface blast after laydown deployment to transmit a shock wave through the earth to collapse its target. Attacks against the Soviet deep underground leadership shelters in the Chekhov/Sharapovo area south of Moscow envisagedmultiple B53/W53 exploding at ground level.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect OP is doing this in hex if anyone was puzzling, or if anyone wanted a decent joke trampled to death.

Re:Good

[tehcyder]

Personally I have never heard of a Tea Party Member advocate the destruction of Muslims as a whole. Also. It might make you look a little less immature if you did not reflexively call them "Teabaggers". Just because a group of people who value personal freedom over massive government makes you uncomfortable is no reason to resort to petty name calling. You can disagree. Though I doubt that if there is a winning argument, you are in possession of it.

As long as it annoys them, it is worth calling Tea Party Members teabaggers. You have no idea how crazy you appear to those of us outside the US, you really don't.

Re:Good

[arielCo]

It was also meant for designed for surface detonation, which is not as good as sticking it into the ground but better than a shock wave from above:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B53_nuclear_bomb#Specifications

The B53 was 12-foot-6-inch (3.81 m) long with a diameter of 50 inches (1.27 m). It weighed 8,850 pounds (4,010 kg), including the 800-to-900 lb (360-to-410 kg) parachute system and the honeycomb aluminum nose cone to enable the bomb to survive laydown delivery. [...] Chute deployment depends on delivery mode, with the main chutes used only for laydown delivery. For free-fall delivery, the entire system was jettisoned.

[...]

It was intended as a bunker buster weapon, using a surface blast after laydown deployment to transmit a shock wave through the earth to collapse its target. Attacks against the Soviet deep underground leadership shelters in the Chekhov/Sharapovo area south of Moscow envisaged multiple B53/W53 exploding at ground level. It has since been supplanted in such roles by the earth-penetrating B61 Mod 11, a bomb that penetrates the surface to deliver much more of its explosive energy into the ground, and therefore needs a much smaller yield to produce the same effects.

At any rate, one big bad sword less. When do we get the plowshares? :)

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

While the logical part of me is glad this is gone, the engineering part of my brain is sad. :)

We didn't "uninvernt it", we simply dismantle the last 25 B53's in the Stockpile :)

Re:Good

[tehcyder]

As powerful and terrible as they are, people still greatly exaggerate the power of nuclear devices. Blast and damage radii don't scale linearly with power.

So we should all learn to stop worrying and love the bomb?

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laydown_delivery

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

If Wikipedia is to be believed, the B53 could be used in laydown, i.e., ground-burst, mode. Not as effective as an earth-penetrator, but not airburst, either.

Re:Good

[barry99705]

Heh, unless it hit the bottom first, then you'd get a (little) wave and then you'd have a little tiny bit more ocean front property.

Re:Good

[Patch86]

Are you suggesting that a country should defend its territory from nuclear bombs by setting off huge nuclear bombs on the edge of its territory?

I like your style.

Re:Good

[icebrain]

No, but silly overstatements (like a 9MT device wiping out everything within hundreds of miles, including underground bunkers) make it hard to hold rational discussion about deterrence policy.

Re:Good

[Dishevel]

Well. I guess as long as your point is to annoy others more power to you.
I wish you well in life. Though you may want to make some changes. Normally those out to injure others do not in the end enjoy happiness.

Re:Good

[nabsltd]

Think unexploded bomb in a sitcom, like "Hogan's Heroes", only with a really big bang for failure.

Re:Good

[the_other_chewey]

Would it be possible then that an underwater nuclear explosion would be less devastating than an overground one due to absorption of energy by the water?

If you are above the water surface (and outside the immediate blast zone of the
big splash), this is certainly the case. There's also less fallout.

If you are below the water surface - e.g. in a submarine - it's an unhealthy place
to be: the pressure wave propagates much better in water than in air and will just
crush the hull in the broader vicinity of the explosion.

This again is different from a tsunami: a sub in deep water doesn't really care about
a tsunami rolling by, and might not even notice it at all.

Re:Good

[jwhitener]

I don't think it was air burst. It had a parachute system to lay down gently on the ground and then detonate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B53_nuclear_bomb#Specifications

It was also shown touching down on the rachael maddow show.

Rather unfair

[Lucas123]

They should have at least tried to sell it on eBay first to recoup some of those tax dolars -- pick up only, of course.

Re:Rather unfair

[JTsyo]

Wonder how much it would go for in the open market.

Re:Rather unfair

[Anonymous Coward]

Because everyone can pickup a 5t, mini-van sized bomb :)

Re:Rather unfair

[Anonymous Coward]

pick up only, of course.

I don't know. There are some countries that the US might not mind dropping it over for no charge at all.

Re:Rather unfair

[Anonymous Coward]

No, delivery can be arranged, but you have to pay for the ICBM (shipping) too. No refunds.

Re:Rather unfair

[mortonda]

not air mail?

Re:Rather unfair

[tehcyder]

They should have at least tried to sell it on eBay first to recoup some of those tax dolars -- pick up only, of course.

Message to seller: how much would P&P be to Iran? also, do you have a Buy It Now Price? Thanks.

Most Powerful?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The Mk/B- 53 was the oldest and highest yield thermonuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal until 2010. It was one of the most powerful nuclear weapons ever built by the United States with a yield of 9 megatons of TNT (38 PJ)." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B53_nuclear_bomb

2010? And was? Is this implying there is a more powerful nuclear weapon or is this speaking in the tense that they have been disabled and no longer exist?

Re:Most Powerful?

[0123456]

Is this implying there is a more powerful nuclear weapon or is this speaking in the tense that they have been disabled and no longer exist?

Western nukes have been shrinking for years; there just isn't much use for a really big nuke other than destroying cities. A small one with precision guidance is much more useful if you actually intend to fight a nuclear war.

Re:Most Powerful?

[Luckyo]

All nukes have. Ever since ballistic missiles have formed the backbone of MAD for both sides, it was judged that having MIRV warhead with a large amount of smaller yield bombs was far more destructive then a single huge bomb that can do more damage at its single hit site, but the total kill area is far smaller.

This is the same for USA, USSR/Russia, China, GB and France. Can't really speak for India and Pakistan as I haven't looked at their arsenals much, but logic would suggest that they would want small tactical weapons over big strategic ones in general, as they are simply too close to each other to employ multi-megaton level weapons without getting badly hit by the fallout from their own weapons.

Israel is a big question mark.

Re:Most Powerful?

[MachineShedFred]

More to the point, having a big ass nuke like this thing requires a big ass rocket to lift it. There are no countermeasures to prevent someone from shooting your one big ass nuke into bits before it can deliver it's yield; and it costs more to build and maintain than more modern designs.

Oh, and putting 3 to 10 smaller nukes on top of a smaller rocket with better guidance packages and available space for dummy warheads delivers way more destruction for way less money. Capitalism at it's finest!

See:
inverse cube law, as it applies to expanding spheres
Titan-II ICBM
Minuteman-III ICBM
Trident D3 SLBM
Peacekeeper/MX ICBM (though these have since been retired as well)

Re:Most Powerful?

[Nimey]

Oh yes, at least one bomb more powerful than that existed: the Tsar Bomba. Designed for 100 Mtons, detonated at 50 Mtons, and then cancelled.

It was the cleanest nuclear explosion ever, since over 90% of its power was generated by nuclear fusion.

Re:Most Powerful?

[Amouth]

this was the largest that is currently in service but by no means the largest we ever made.. that falls to

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Weapons/B41.html

where this one is a mear 9 Mt.. the B41 was a 25 Mt weapon. i do wonder about the people who where building these things.. and what was going through their minds.. from the person who signed the checks/orders to the guy who was tightening the bolts.

Re:Most Powerful?

[khallow]

More to the point, having a big ass nuke like this thing requires a big ass rocket to lift it. There are no countermeasures to prevent someone from shooting your one big ass nuke into bits before it can deliver it's yield; and it costs more to build and maintain than more modern designs.

Launch plenty of decoys on other big ass rockets. And a few low Earth orbit bursts from large nukes will clear out most of the space-based assets for spotting rocket launched nukes.

Re:Most Powerful?

[SplashMyBandit]

B53 is carried by the B52, not an ICBM.

Re:Most Powerful?

[Nyder]

More to the point, having a big ass nuke like this thing requires a big ass rocket to lift it. There are no countermeasures to prevent someone from shooting your one big ass nuke into bits before it can deliver it's yield; and it costs more to build and maintain than more modern designs.

Oh, and putting 3 to 10 smaller nukes on top of a smaller rocket with better guidance packages and available space for dummy warheads delivers way more destruction for way less money. Capitalism at it's finest!

See:
inverse cube law, as it applies to expanding spheres
Titan-II ICBM
Minuteman-III ICBM
Trident D3 SLBM
Peacekeeper/MX ICBM (though these have since been retired as well)

But it's texas, they always do everything bigger there.

Re:Most Powerful?

[Kagura]

Launch plenty of decoys on other big ass rockets. And a few low Earth orbit bursts from large nukes will clear out most of the space-based assets for spotting rocket launched nukes.

This. State-of-the-art decoys and anti-ICBM countermeasures are one of the most highly classified aspects of strategic nuclear weapons.

Re:Most Powerful?

[MachineShedFred]

Yes, this particular gravity bomb was carried by a B52. However, the "physics package" was originally designed to be a warhead on a Titan missile, and then modified for the B52 and put in service during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Re:Most Powerful?

[tehcyder]

. i do wonder about the people who where building these things.. and what was going through their minds.. from the person who signed the checks/orders to the guy who was tightening the bolts.

"I'm proud to be defending my glorious scientifically-advanced nation from the evil capitalists/communists on the other side."

Re:Most Powerful?

[Amouth]

but someone had to realize what they where doing. they where not building weapons of defense or even offence but rather weapons of genocide.

Fun

[Anonymous Coward]

I can image someone there blowing up a brown bag and popping it behind one of the workers who's dismantling this.

Re:Fun

[Anonymous Coward]

I may finally register an account here simply to not be associated with idiots like you.

Re:Fun

[SplashMyBandit]

There is a Far Side cartoon of just that.

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v122/smadurski/toons/?action=view&current=farside-nuclr-boom-paperbag.gif&newest=1

And in color (on a mug):
http://www.ebay.com/itm/VTG-Far-Side-1983-mug-Larson-bomb-paper-bag-popping-/320716382907

Re:Fun

[werewolf1031]

Registering an account to dissociate yourself from those who try to engage in a little humor seems an odd motivator, but hey, whatever floats yer boat.

I'm sure you'll be the life of the party. :)

Does it still work ?

[Arlet]

They should try it first, see if all the mechanisms still work after all these years.

Re:Does it still work ?

[realxmp]

That would be fun, but the trouble is if it fizzled, or only the conventional explosives detonated, the fallout would be a right mare to cleanup.

Re:Does it still work ?

[FlyingGuy]

Hmmm disassemble, remove the core, install dummy core, then re-assemble and drop. That would test everything but the actual nuclear bits.

Re:Does it still work ?

[BlueParrot]

That would be fun, but the trouble is if it fizzled, or only the conventional explosives detonated, the fallout would be a right mare to cleanup.

Quite the contrary. Weapons grade plutonium, while toxic , is only moderately radioactive. The highly radioactive fission products from a full yield detonation is WAY worse, and in addition the neutron flux would transmute the nitrogen in the air into radioactive Carbon-14.

Re:Does it still work ?

[Rich0]

Yeah, that will do wonders for the levels of radiation in the atmosphere.

If it works we all get to breathe in a few more nanocuries of fission products. If it doesn't work then the US will have to blow up a hundred more of the things to prove to everybody that we still know how to make nukes so that nobody messes with us, and we'll breathe in even more radiation.

goodby bombtown

[Anonymous Coward]

Well i guess i won't see the days of bombtown in fallout. with a large undetonated bomb is just sitting in town square.

Re:goodby bombtown

[Anonymous Coward]

it was called megaton, bro

Re:goodby bombtown

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean Megaton? I clearly remember blowing that up.

Re:What a dumb idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't we just drop it on the Middle East instead?

Your thirst for blood is powerful, young Teabagger.

Sounds more like Hilary Clinton to me.

Whoa, WHOA there cowboy!

What Hillary does in her private time is no concern of ours. Let's keep it classy here.

Re:What a dumb idea

[Amouth]

so drop it on LA or Chicago?

Re:What a dumb idea

[Luke has no name]

Trolls replying to trolls. My first /. article to view in months, and I see nothing has changed.

Sir, please do not ride the bomb

[Anonymous Coward]

(obligatory simpsons reference)

Re:Notable part of American history here.

[FoolishBluntman]

A 9 megaton bomb would not end all life on this planet, nor would 100 of such weapons. Not even 1000.
1000 wouldn't even end all human life, which is probably what you meant.

Warning to trick-or-treaters issued.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Children in Amarillo are advised not to shout "boo" too loudly, lest they startle the workers just as they are disassembling B53.

Re:Warning to trick-or-treaters issued.

[mbone]

Have you ever seen Pantex ? It is rather... large.

It was designed to handle kilotons of chemical explosives at a time, and those just might go boom, so each building is separated by a very wide gap to the next. Even if trick or treat in Amarillo Texas involves hundreds of pounds of dynamite, I doubt the workers would hear it.

Re:Warning to trick-or-treaters issued.

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be from Amarillo, your missing sense of humor gave you away. /Glad I got far away from there.

Re:Warning to trick-or-treaters issued.

[mjwx]

Children in Amarillo are advised not to shout "boo" too loudly, lest they startle the workers just as they are disassembling B53.

Yes the bald children around the nuclear weapon assembly plant in Amarillo are already scary enough.







Isn't Amarillo Spanish for yellow?

amusing quote

[snarkh]

From the article:
Today's bombs are smaller but more precise, reducing the amount of collateral damage, Kristensen said.

Amusing, considering that he is talking about bombs tens of thousand times more powerful than the largest non-nuclear munitions.

Re:amusing quote

[geekoid]

True, non the less. And I' not sure that statement refers only to nuclear weapons.

If I did it over again, I would choose weaponeering.
WE have bombs that are self guided, can go through several stories, and only explode 4 nano seconds after they hit the ground. This bomb destroying the inside of a building, while only shaking the windows of building across the street. How fucking cool is that?

We can look at a naval ship yard, cripple it my destroying only a few specific buildings.

 

Re:amusing quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, sometimes you want to take out a city's downtown area but leave the rural area unscathed.

Re:amusing quote

[Anonymous Coward]

I fail to see your point. Try taking out hardened underground bunker targets with non-nuclear munitions.

Minimising collateral damage is risky business. Tactically I might prefer 90 100 kiloton warheads over a single 9 megaton warhead. With would give flexibility in choice of targets and even if I lost a few there would still be an impact.

Strategically however, precise collateral minimising weapons do little to deter parties from going to war. We're no longer talking mutually assured destruction and suddenly world war 3 looks more enticing to a population at large. Nothing deters a population from supporting national behaviour that may lead to all out war more than the knowledge that every major city and town, will be vaporised.

Re:amusing quote

[Solandri]

Mutually Assured Destruction (holding each others' cities hostage) may have gotten the most publicity, but you only need a few hundred nukes to accomplish MAD. The reason the U.S. and Soviets built thousands of nuclear weapons was because each one was targeted at an individual hardened missile silo or mobile launcher (and to account for a percentage of your missiles failing or being taken out). Usually those aren't located in cities, so reducing the amount of collateral damage is somewhat relevant. (This was also one of the reasons the military wanted GPS - improved accuracy was more valuable than increased explosive yield).

Re:amusing quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Buildings are like paper. In total war it isn't made so easy. Complexes are built deep inside mountains and can be virtually impossible to destroy with conventional weapons. The Germans did this to protect their production capability. The North Koreans do the same. A significant drive behind America's current nuclear weapons development is to create devises to allow them to achieve military objects should they attack North Korea thought there is no doubt the American's have been looking at the problem in general since WW2.

Re:Traitorous

[hort_wort]

Once again Barack Hussein Obama, the traitorous Muslim he is, is significantly weakening the defenses of this country for the benefit of his al qaeda brethren. Impeach Obama in 2012!

Is Colbert trolling slashdot now? Must be a slow week. :D

Re:Weakened nation

[kevinNCSU]

How does this help our nation? Oops I said the N-word, my apologies to the offended parties.

By recycling it into something useful (weapons into plowshares and all that) instead of it sitting around costing money through expensive guarding, monitoring and maintenance not to mention Russia under the treaty dismantling nuclear warheads that were meant for killing us. Oh, and 0% chance of it accidentally going off once it's dismantled versus the extremely small percentage chance beforehand.

Spending

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose it's just a happy coincidence that the project raked billions of dollars through the hands of the elite who made it happen.

9 Megatons

[MyLongNickName]

Or, roughly 200 grams of antimatter...

Titan II Missles

[cdrguru]

The warhead on a Titan II missle was also 9 megatons, just for reference. Not sure if it was the same design, but 9 megatons wasn't really all that large a weapon. While it may be the largest weapon deployed, the Russians had a test device that would have yielded 100 megatons.

I suspect a far more interesting value for nuclear weapon ratings would be the effective blast radius, both as an airburst and at ground level. 9 megatons might be something that would wipe out an entire large metropolitan area, or it might be something that would just take out a city center. The difference is significant.

In today's climate, it is unlikely any state-level actor would really want to take out an entire metropolitan area. And certainly, anything that would be able to be moved by non-state-level actors would be unlikely to have a yield big enough to do that.

Re:Titan II Missles

[JTsyo]

9MT ~ 29km diameter
Try the following link, it doesn't have the 9MT though
http://www.carloslabs.com/projects/200712B/GroundZero.html

Re:Titan II Missles

[mbone]

While it may be the largest weapon deployed...

You be wanting the B41, at 25 megatons.

I suspect a far more interesting value for nuclear weapon ratings would be the effective blast radius, both as an airburst and at ground level. 9 megatons might be something that would wipe out an entire large metropolitan area, or it might be something that would just take out a city center. The difference is significant.

It is more efficient to use a bunch of "small" bombs than one monster one if you want to take out a city. This is described in detail in The Effects of Nuclear Weapons.

Re:Titan II Missles

[NouberNou]

It was the same physics package. B53 (bomb) and W53 (warhead). Also for anyone interested the largest yield nuclear weapon the US ever deployed was the B41 with a yield of 25 megatons. It was retired over an 11 year period starting in 1963.

Re:Titan II Missles

[Anonymous Coward]

In today's climate, it is unlikely any state-level actor would really want to take out an entire metropolitan area.

No I can't think of any nation-state that would want to do that. Not one. Cough.

Re:Titan II Missles

[Anonymous Coward]

Wikipedia has lots of information on things like this.

The highest-yield nuclear weapon ever detonated (or built) was the USSR's "Tsar Bomba", at around 57 megatons at Novaya Zemyla in October, 1961. The design was originally for 100 megatons, but they decided to replace the uranium casing with lead to reduce the massive amount of fallout the "dirty" design would have caused, and also because the crew of the test plane would likely have been killed by the test. This design was purely to make a political statement - the bomb was so large that it required a large, slow-moving transport aircraft to carry it.

In the early 1960s, both the US and USSR had bomber-deployable weapons in the 20-25 megaton range. I think the 9 megaton weapon you mention may have been the most powerful weapon deployed via missile.

Re:Titan II Missles

[DerekLyons]

The warhead on a Titan II missle was also 9 megatons, just for reference. Not sure if it was the same design, but 9 megatons wasn't really all that large a weapon.

Yes, the B53 and the W53 used the same physics package. (C'mon folks, this is the second correction I've had to make that could have been answered with a 30 second Wikipedia search. Is that too much to ask for?)
 

I suspect a far more interesting value for nuclear weapon ratings would be the effective blast radius, both as an airburst and at ground level. 9 megatons might be something that would wipe out an entire large metropolitan area, or it might be something that would just take out a city center. The difference is significant.

A megaton or so is more than sufficient to take out a city. (I.E. more than just the city center, but less than the entire metro area.) Taking out the entire metro area of any significant city is pretty much a pipe dream anyhow, as the damage radius of the bomb rises roughly with the (IIRC) square root of the yield. That's why both sides emphasized accuracy (though Soviets were late off the mark and lagged the whole time), explored MRV delivery, and standardized (more or less) on sub megaton to megaton range weapons. (Though both sides did have small numbers of larger weapons.) Big bombs are just not all that efficient and are no longer required once you can get CEP below half a mile or so except for hard targets.
 

In today's climate, it is unlikely any state-level actor would really want to take out an entire metropolitan area. And certainly, anything that would be able to be moved by non-state-level actors would be unlikely to have a yield big enough to do that.

Why would they want to do so? Even a relatively small weapon (say, around 20KT) is more than sufficient to cause tens-to-hundreds of thousands of casualties and to destroy non hardened targets over several miles radius.

Re:Titan II Missles

[Anonymous Coward]

They were the same warhead, but the missile version had the parachute for the "lay-down" removed.

Re:Titan II Missles

[Anonymous Coward]

Looking at the rating of individual devices loses meaning after a point. What matters is that the cumulative of your deployable devices can eradicate > 99.9% of human life within your opposition's territory.

Re:Titan II Missles

[Anonymous Coward]

The warhead on a Titan II missle was also 9 megatons, just for reference. Not sure if it was the same design, but 9 megatons wasn't really all that large a weapon.

The Titan II Warhead was the W53 - the linked Wikipedia article explains: "the same physics package as the B53, without the air drop-specific components like the parachute system ... With a yield of 9 Megatons, it was the highest yield warhead ever deployed on a US missile."

So yes, same design. And no, it really was all that large a weapon.

So true

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot is totally stagnated. Where is the fresh pasture?

Not the largest

[Anonymous Coward]

Without being specific I can tell you that I helped maintain 15 megaton TN weapons

Re:Not the largest

[mbone]

The B41 was 25 megatons and the largest bomb we deployed.

Asteroid killer ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't you keep something like that around, just in case a large lump of space rock heads in our direction ?

Re:Asteroid killer ?

[JTsyo]

nah, any asteroids coming this way, we want to pull into a large orbit and mine.

All the money they used to spend on Nukes

[Deliveranc3]

Will now go into monitoring communications between people!

When government's don't need to worry about each other they have more time to worry about their citizens!

I love you big brother, can I borrow your car? I'll spy on your GF (Canada) and report back to you I promise!

It was also laydown

[Quila]

It would land with parachutes, wait for the dropping plane to clear the area, and explode. This would send a shock wave through the ground to the bunker.

Even the new B61 has an airburst option, and dial-a-yield too (actually, even some older warheads had dial-a-yield, such as the Lance).

How this is in the USA's Interests

[realxmp]

How does this help our nation?

I know you're trolling but ask a semi-legitimate question. A better question is what value is there in keeping it around? And the answer is none, it's been replaced and we can't afford to keep it around. Fortunately neither can the Russians, thus the New START treaty enables both sides to get rid of their warheads, whilst inspecting that the other side got rid of theirs. This means it's in America's national interest for the warheads that are active to be the most useful ones, and that's not necessarily the ones with the biggest boom.

Also a dismantled rusting nuke is better than a rusting nuke. These things are getting old and it either needed upgrading or replacing. Interestingly it's already been replaced by the B61, so why it was still sitting around I'm not entirely sure. Anyway as you probably know old bombs with decaying conventional explosives in them sometimes go off by accident because the conventional explosive gets unstable. Now nuclear bombs have safeguards against that accidental detonation, especially the more modern ones, however you would NOT want to have to clean up the mess one of these made even if it was just detonated with a conventional explosive.

Re:Traitorous

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahahahahaha! This one is fit for the loony bin! :-)

Re:Traitorous

[Hatta]

Of course not. Colbert is funny.

Not the most powerful

[Deuxsonic]

The B53 was not the most powerful bomb the US had in service. the B41 (https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/B41_nuclear_bomb) had a theoretical maximum yield of 25 megatons, making it more powerful than even the Castle Bravo Shrimp device which had a yield of 15 megatons. The only stronger detonation was the Soviet RDS-220, or "Tsar Bomba", which had a yield of 57 megatons, reduced from 100 by replacing the uranium tamper with a lead one in order to reduce fallout.

US'ses?

[Anonymous Coward]

What would the proper possessive format be?

Useless since...

[climenole]

... this so called "most powerful bomb" is useless like all the other nuclear weapons except for "global suicide" .

Re:Useless since...

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it great, for the last century, we've been working out how to render the planet unihabitable at the press of a button!

Re:Useless since...

[Anonymous Coward]

Folks overestimate the power of nuclear weapons. And it wasn't useless if it prevented a direct war between the US and the USSR.

But yes, these days, a country only needs a handful of nukes as a preventative measure. Couple hundred is perfectly fine, instead of thousands.

Re:Useless since...

[smithmc]

... this so called "most powerful bomb" is useless like all the other nuclear weapons except for "global suicide" .

You're assuming that all people are sane and want to live long, happy lives...

Re:Weakened nation

[Luckyo]

Same way it helps your "N-word" when you scrap old aircraft carriers in favor of new ones. You don't have to pay upkeep costs for weapon system that is utterly outdated and unlikely to ever get used (as ballistic missile arsenal has long picked up that slack).

Granted it's pretty damn scary when idiots who honestly think that bigger nuclear explosion is better, and it should be "dropped on [x]" as there have been multiple suggestions in this discussion, which rather efficiently dispels the question marks over why most of the world views US as a bigger threat to world peace then Iran. You may wish to moderate yourself at least a little bit, so you don't end up looking too much like the people you hate so much. Two sides of the same coin and all.

Re:Weakened nation

[MachineShedFred]

This helps our nation because this weapon was doing nothing but spending money for the last 50 years. It will never be used - you can do much more destruction with a modern Minuteman-III than you could ever do with this thing; and cheaper too.

There's a reason why our nuclear weapons propellerheads started going for less yield rather than more in the late '50s. Big explosions are neat, and all that; but you can blow up a lot more shit with MIRV, it's easier to maintain, costs way less to manufacture, and allows for neat stuff like dummy warheads and ABM countermeasures with the weight savings.

Oh, and our missile crews have their performance measured in yards from hitting an oil barrel 9,000 miles away during a launch test, so they can put a 450 Kt bomb through your bedroom window if they really want to. With those kinds of capabilities, why do we need this huge piece of shit from the dick measuring contests of the 1950s?

Check it out

[Anonymous Coward]

What? No country invaded the US for having weapons of mass destruction?, what?, ahhh, they have to be imaginary in order to get yourself invaded, damn Saddam, if you'd only had one of these you'll still be alive.

Re:Check it out

[Anonymous Coward]

Cause if you invade someone with a WMD they might use it on you... duh

Re:What a dumb idea

[UziBeatle]

Waste of a good bomb.

  Better bang for the buck and investment would be:
Drop it on Los Angeles or San Francisco.

  Middle East is mostly sand.

 

US'

[Anonymous Coward]

US' is plural possessive

What happen???

[ggambett]

Somebody dismantled us the bomb :(

Re:What happen???

[Captain Spam]

All I was wondering was if U2 was called in to discuss the proceedings...

techs training on the bomb:

[Anonymous Coward]

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/most-powerful-nuclear-bomb-being-dismantled-1319554769-slideshow/b53-bomb-photo-1319554682.html

Re:Notable part of American history here.

[couchslug]

"I was a child when the Cold War ended but even a decade and a half later it seems so pointless."

Moderate nuclear wars were and remain quite practical. That was proven by atmospheric testing. Militaries on both sides developed procedures for continuing the fight near areas which had been nuked, including driving through them buttoned up in APCs and tanks.

Given the context of Total War which was fought in WWII, destroying enemy nations was a very reasonable option to have in the toolbox. Japan and Germany had, LITERALLY, tried to destroy many of the Allies. This wasn't some game of Risk, it was real. In that context, being able to obliterate similar threats was flawlessly RATIONAL.

Had Imperial Japan refused to surrender, it was reasonable to keep striking it until there were no more Japanese. The entire population was a weapon. The current geek weaboo view of Japan has nothing to do with the reality of what Imperial Japanese Army did to much of Asia. Japan worked long and hard to deserve every casualty it sustained, and don't forget it. The Japanese people pretend differently, but their victim neighbors are under no such delusions.

Nuclear weapons finished WWII, and deterred nuclear war thereafter.
That's a pretty good record. Don't use current PC fashion to judge history. Learn the details of why things came to be that you might better understand. Because the Cold War was fought "well enough", you enjoy tasty freedom and so does much of the former Soviet Union. Detente worked (praise be to Nixon!) and China is far freer than under Mao.

Willingness to kill billions coupled with restraint and diplomacy over time worked. Apart from a few minor scuffles the Cold War was quite peaceful. Thank atomic weapons in the hands of RATIONAL, not "insane" actors.

Without the power to kill, diplomacy means nothing because enemy power can dictate terms.

Wish granted.

[MachineShedFred]

Here. http://www.carloslabs.com/node/20

An approximation of thermal pulse radius, overpressure, and fallout drift for several bomb yields, including Ivy Mike (10 Mt), overlaid on Google Maps.

Re:Wish granted.

[halcyon1234]

Awesome tool! Not looking forward to tonight's dreams, though. =)

Re:Wish granted.

[Neil Boekend]

The fallout is a bit strange. It calculates the largest distance against the (normal) wind here in the Netherlands. Dunno about the Rossby waves.

Re:Wish granted.

[MachineShedFred]

You can click on the ordinal on the lower left to change wind direction.

recycle the plutonium to NASA

[scharkalvin]

NASA is running out of plutonium for RTG electric generators for deep space probes. They should recycle the weapons grade plutonium to make RTG fuel.

Re:recycle the plutonium to NASA

[getagrip]

RTGs for science missions require P238 which is manufactured in a completely different process. The major recycling use for weapons grade plutonium is to blend it down as fuel for nuclear plants so less uranium needs to be mined.

Re:recycle the plutonium to NASA

[Mashiki]

Nah the US has this irrational fear of plutonium. Just keep sending it to Canada, we use it as part of our MOX fuel mix for our reactors, so does S.Korea.

Near Amarillo, eh?

[Tweezak]

The part about this that alarms me is that it is public knowledge where "the nation's only nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly facility" is located. Whether or not it is actually the only one, expect this to be on the short list of our enemies' targets.

Re:Near Amarillo, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who has lived around Amarillo has known that for the last 40 years. Same for anyone who lives in DC, New York or around ICBM sites.

Re:Near Amarillo, eh?

[mbone]

Pantex has been doing this sort of stuff since World War II. I suspect anyone who cares knows about it.

Re:Near Amarillo, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Its not a secret. You can find the facility of Google maps. Just look NE of Amarillo.

Re:Near Amarillo, eh?

[shutdown -p now]

As a terrorist target, it's kinda tricky - almost no civilians, and lots of armed people that know how to use what they have...

As a conventional military target, it'd be quite tricky for a bomber to get past AA defenses all the way there. And there's no way there would be enemy ground forces in north Texas before it'd all escalate to nuclear war.

As a potential target for a nuclear strike, well... should it come to that, I don't think you'll need to assembly any more nuclear weapons at that point - you just launch all that you already have in the silos.

Re:Near Amarillo, eh?

[HeckRuler]

Repeat after me: "Security through obscurity isn't security".

The people who would want to know, will know. Especially for something like this. Where things and people have to come in and out on a regular basis. Of course this is a target for our enemies. The same way that our president is a target. And yet we still have a president. AMAZING how that works.

Re:What a dumb idea

[dan828]

I've never quite gotten why "teabagger" is supposed to be an insult....I mean, you'd be the one doing the teabagging, right?

Seems like such a waste

[Timmy D Programmer]

All that work, just to tear it apart. Why not find the worlds largest dog doo, and blow it up!

Re:What a dumb idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Waste of a good bomb.

  Better bang for the buck and investment would be:
Drop it on Los Angeles or San Francisco.

  Middle East is mostly sand.

Los Angeles, take out those pesky MPAA and RIAA mafiosi.
Its the only way to be sure.

On the other hand dropping it on the middle east is just a waste of materials.

And imagine if they succeeded...

[fantomas]

Me too, except I was imagining the Soviet bomb squad de-activating it, and some US general going loopy as he realises that's the only one they've got and the danged Russkies have just switched it off... "... so whadda we going to do now?!"

Re:What a dumb idea

[lgw]

"Teabagger", like "necon" before it, means only "person who must be a drooling moron, since they disagree with my political world view, and I couldn't possibly be wrong". Any original meaning has been left behind.

And nothing...

[daem0n1x]

...of value was lost. Let's move ahead and invest time and money in useful things.

Re:What a dumb idea

[jgtg32a]

The first one was an AC so I'd be willing to bet they are the same person.

Re:What a dumb idea

[dan828]

Oh, I get that it's just name calling at this point, I just think it's a particularly stupid one-- I mean, it's someone that's in the dominant position in a sex act meant to humiliate the one it's being done to. This is supposed to be an insult?

Re:What a dumb idea

[El Torico]

I don't get that one either. In the case of teabagging, it's definitely better to be the "er" than the "ee". Then there's Douchebagging, which I just don't want to go into right now (if ever).

Horrible mistake

[Anonymous Coward]

China is now producing new warheads. In addition, if you pay attention, all of the 'rouge' nations producing nukes are around China. And ALL are friendly to China. If we drop our nukes too far, then China will at some point, realize that they CAN win a nuke war.

Re:Notable part of American history here.

[Squiddie]

Considering significant destruction of portions of human infrastructure, nuclear winter, and all sorts of other fun side-effects of detonating a group of these bombs, I can see how we could potentially end all life, or at least all known life, on earth.

Re:Weakened nation

[blindseer]

He who beats his swords into plowshares plows for the one that did not.

If you wish for peace, prepare for war.

That's a couple sound bites that describe a complex situation in an overly simplistic fashion. They do get real close to the real point though. We cannot dismantle ALL of our weapons and turn them into something useful. We cannot get rid of ALL of our nuclear weapons either. I do see the point in dismantling these old and, with current military thinking, exceedingly large warheads.

This dismantling of the warhead does not, IMHO, reduce the cost to the government in any significant manner. The uranium core will still exist and need to have all the same precautions in keeping it safe as did the intact weapon.

The matter of compliance with weapon treaties is an entirely different matter than the costs involved and any real or theoretical usefulness of the uranium core.

Re:Notable part of American history here.

[khallow]

First, read couchslug's reply. If you think the US's nuclear arsenal was "insane", then you don't understand what was going on.

Will people then truly understand the insanity that led a democracy to create war machines powerful enough to end all life on this planet?

Why this focus on the US? Where's the USSR in your narrative? Will people then truly understand the insanity that led to the USSR? The subjugation of perhaps a quarter of the world's population to a brutal and soulless ideology? The creation of an even larger nuclear force than the US had in the late 70s and early 80s in terms of raw destructive power?

The history of the USSR is one of conquest and expansion from the end of the Russian Civil War in 1923 through to the end of 1945. After the demonstration of the US atomic bombs and the end of the Second World War, the USSR switched to a strategy of war via proxies. They managed to install communist governments in China, various places in south Asia, and a number of other places. The nuclear bomb forced them to cut back on their approach to global conquest and may have saved hundreds of millions of peoples' lives and billions of people from slavery in the process.

I think there's a good chance that the world of 50 to 100 years from now may well envy the stability and peace of the Cold War era. The current proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East (by Pakistan and Iran) may well cause arms races not just in the Middle East, but in Africa, Europe, and South America as well. We might start seeing nuclear weapons in the hands of small groups.

And we may see a new Cold War start between China and the US. The future may not just understand us, but go through the same thing we went through a few decades ago.

Asteroid deflector ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how fast we could reassemble it if we really needed to ?

Re:Why waste it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mods, please "Troll" this...

really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Im all for open government and all, but I could do without people knowing exactly where this is done and stored

Bomber...

[Frosty Piss]

More to the point, having a big ass nuke like this thing requires a big ass rocket to lift it.

The one in the picture has fins. I believe the delivery is done by bomber...

Re:Bomber...

[MachineShedFred]

The physics package was originally designed for the Titan series of ICBMs. It was then put into a steel case the size of a car, and put in service on B52 strategic bombers during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The B52 could actually carry two of these things - one in each bomb bay.

Re:Notable part of American history here.

[Carnildo]

Apart from a few minor scuffles the Cold War was quite peaceful.

"Minor scuffles"? You mean, like the one that killed my grandfather and two to four million other people? Or the one that killed upwards of a million? Or the one that killed anywhere from 800,000 to 3,000,000? Or...

The Cold War was not particularly peaceful. I suspect that if you add up all the proxy wars, you'll get a death toll that easily exceeds that of World War I.

What for?

[JSBiff]

Why would you hit an asteroid with a nuke? So you can crack it in half and it makes 2 craters instead of one?

Re:What a dumb idea

[lgw]

I just found it funny that it's effectively liberals calling conservatives "perverts" - bit of an ironic twist for those who remember the old televangelists,

Tzar bomba

[eyenot]

That's pretty amazing. Knowing that Russia's "Tzar Bomba" test utilized only half of the real weapon's 100 megaton charge, and that the subsequent explosion scared nuclear science into setting a goal of eventually not doing that any more (at least as I interpreted it), I expected our own "biggest bomb" to be some ginormous dinosaur we were too cautious to reveal let alone keep on stock. Here we have this modest, naval warfare weapon. That speaks volumes about America's conservativism towards nuclear weapons. Not only is its disarmament a nice show for people who want to believe nukes never happened, it's also a good mark for the people who are often accused of being trigger-happy, gung-ho, and sci-fi.

The last of the nation's most powerful bombs?

[makubesu]

The well ordering principal disagrees.

Re:Notable part of American history here.

[couchslug]

"I suspect that if you add up all the proxy wars, you'll get a death toll that easily exceeds that of World War I."

Those are squat next to WWII, still far lighter than WW1, as well as having less impact on important modern nations and therefore less impact on modern man. Loss rate were far less traumatic too. There was nothing in the Cold War to match the First Day at the Somme or Verdun, not even in Korea or Viet Nam.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Verdun

The proxies are easy enough to add up, and while internal fusses like the Cultural Revolution and the Khmer Rouge follies in Kampuchea are considerable they were internal matters and not between combatants.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties

Protection

[Anonymous Coward]

Well there goes our protection from asteriods :) I figure 6 of these detonated at a particular timing/pattern would do a nice bit of work to any rock more than 24months out from hitting earth.

Re:Notable part of American history here.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Cold War was not particularly peaceful. I suspect that if you add up all the proxy wars, you'll get a death toll that easily exceeds that of World War I.

And much smaller than World War II, much less a hypothetical MAD-less world war fought with the improved killing technology of the cold war.
You'll also be looking at a much longer timescale compared to how closely WWII followed WWI*.

So yeah, it was particularly peaceful -- thanks for pointing it out.

* It's certainly true that the Treaty of Versailles sucked, and the next major war could have been postponed significantly if it were done right. Still, there's no reason to suspect the next major war would have been significantly less bloody, or more than a couple decades later -- besides, if we're dealing in the subjunctive, every war ever could have been avoided if the right people made the right choices.

Reason is delivery

[Sycraft-fu]

The Tsar Bomba was more of a dick-waving move by the Soviets than anything else. It was too large to be reasonably used. You could put all of one of them in a very, very large plane it wouldn't work on a missile. That would mean that delivery would be very impractical and the chance of it getting shot down would be high.

The bombs the US has could be fit on to B2s which means that it is feasible they could actually be delivered to targets.

you tube video about b53

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UspUEjMLsdA

Re:Notable part of American history here.

[khallow]

"Minor scuffles"? You mean, like the one that killed my grandfather and two to four million other people? Or the one that killed upwards of a million? Or the one that killed anywhere from 800,000 to 3,000,000? Or...

Why do you think the answer is anything other than "yes"? I'd have to run the numbers, but I imagine the Second World War killed more people than all the wars that followed it, including the Second Congo War, the various proxy wars of the Cold War (including the big fights such as the Chinese Civil War, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc), Iran-Iraq war, etc.

So looking at the first half of the century, we see the two largest wars of human history, the 1918 Influenza pandemic (for which the First World War appears to be a major contributing factor to its severity). several other major wars (particularly the Russian civil war, which by itself had a higher death toll than any conflict since the Second World War, the Mexican civil war, and the first part of the Chinese civil war), and a number of major genocides.

The 65 years since the end of the Second World War has not seen a return to the destruction of the two world wars. Nor have we seen a continuation of the escalating violence and destruction that culminated in the Second World War.

Sniff

[Anonymous Coward]

Sniff. RIP bomb, the giver and the taker, the maker and the dismemberer. Sniff.

Economics of big bombs

[Anonymous Coward]

Little boy bomb == 15kt. B53=9MT. That's _6000 times more powerful_, not " a few hundred". Classic /. math.

Big bombs like this are not designed to take out hardened targets, as an early poster asserts, but rather to compensate for inaccurate delivery systems like aircraft without GPS or missiles that might miss by miles. If your accuracy is instead within a few dozens of meters, it makes a lot more sense to use the same resources ( expensive missiles and plutonium, etc. ) to make a larger number of smaller weapons. This is why our most sophisticated warheads like the w88 are a few hundred kilotons in yield - they're a few hundred pounds instead of 9000.

For some scary destructive potential, realize that a single Ohio class missile sub can carry 24 Trident II SLBMs, and each Trident II can hold 12 warheads. That's 288 separate, independently targetable warheads for the math challenged, or about the same size as the entire nuclear deterrent force of France or Britain or China. The B53 has just been obsolete for a long time.

Re:Notable part of American history here.

[Anonymous Coward]

So looking at the first half of the century, we see the two largest wars of human history,

I agree with you in general, but it's dubious to claim WWI as the second largest war of human history without specifying what "largest" means. Geographically, yes. Definitely not second bloodiest (Wikipedia has a page on "largest wars" or somesuch, there's a couple ancient wars in Asia that had more deaths, I think they put WWI fifth or so), which I think most people would assume you meant.

Re:Notable part of American history here.

[don.g]

I can't believe I just read that.

...as well as having less impact on important modern nations and therefore less impact on modern man.

Yeah, those subhumans in less affluent nations don't count for squat -- which is also, coincidentally, what they get paid for assembling your consumer electronics and running shoes.

Let Me Be the First to Say ..

[tobiah]

I'm glad it's gone, and hope the others disappear soon too (shelf life vs cost being what it is, they probably will). It afforded us a form of winning which was indistinguishable from losing. In fact losing a conventional war would be preferable to winning a nuclear one...

Re:Notable part of American history here.

[khallow]

Eh, I don't buy the Wikipedia estimates. The Chinese conflicts seem based on very loose census data So they would include deaths from famine and disease as well as some deaths from outside the time of the wars in question. It'd also include people trying to evade census takers or merely getting missed. I doubt the first census after a major war is going to be all that complete.

If we're going to count all those, then we need to do the same for the First World War. Here, the 1918 influenza epidemic (which is firmly tied to the war due both to its start in a US military training camp and to its spread through the troops on both sides of the conflict early on in the pandemic) would secure the First World War as at least the second deadliest war on record. It killed at least 20 million and perhaps as many as 100 million (Wikipedia claims 50-100 million).

Neither Obama Nor Obama White House In the Loop

[Anonymous Coward]

Some report like the Washington Post paint that the recent happening of B53 is the work of Obama and his merry Men.

Rubbish.

Barak Obama nor anyone in the White House Staff have a clue in Hell about the B53.

May Obama and his White House Staff die in a Fire Storm on DC from Russian nuclear missles.

Good Riddense.

Re:What a dumb idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Mighty good idea! I suggest Iran, go straight for the Tehran! Surely those towelheads will be damn glad that you've got rid them of their monkey president and mullahs and brought them democracy, just like japs before them. Who knows, in time they may even learn to make some good cars!

Re:Notable part of American history here.

[shutdown -p now]

The problem with your numbers is that they count all deaths that "followed from" the war - including due to starvation or illness in a collapsed society. On the other hand, most numbers given for WW1 and WW2 are death from combat or other direct action (like death camps); if you actually count indirect civilian casualties in those, then WW2 alone accounts for 60+ million, and that's a fairly conservative estimate.

So, yes, compared to what we had before, those are fairly minor scuffles.

Re:Notable part of American history here.

[shutdown -p now]

Will people then truly understand the insanity that led to the USSR?

You mean, the insanity of the last years of "old-style" capitalism, before we started to moderate its excesses? It had to blow up somewhere; consider yourself lucky that it was unindustrialized Russia, rather than somewhere in Western Europe - that way, commies spent a lot of time just catching up.

The creation of an even larger nuclear force than the US had in the late 70s and early 80s in terms of raw destructive power?

One thing that has to be understood about USSR - for all the fear it instilled in many Westerners, Soviet leaders themselves (at least, after Stalin) feared the West much more. That's because they knew the actual strength of their armies - rather than Western over-estimates - and realized that they couldn't match up to the combined might of NATO in conventional arms. Overcompensating in nukes was relatively easy, and pursuing MAD was the only effective survival strategy.

Of course, at the point when USSR has gone beyond MAD capabilities, US would be insane not to keep theirs up just in case, so this goes equally for both sides.

The nuclear bomb forced them to cut back on their approach to global conquest and may have saved hundreds of millions of peoples' lives and billions of people from slavery in the process.

I think you pay too much consideration to early nukes. They were impressive weapons, but they couldn't knock out a strong opponent entirely. What forced the USSR to cut back was death of Stalin with his ambitions; the leaders that followed him were much more down-to-earth, and were mostly content with what they already had, nor anywhere near as bold in their actions.

"America's conservativism towards nuclear weapons"

[Anonymous Coward]

That speaks volumes about America's conservativism towards nuclear weapons.

Genuine LOL
I do suggest you educate yourself on this topic before commenting further :-)

Hydrogen Bomb?

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't they build any of those?

I mean, there was a number of combination devices but they didn't got beyond 50 megatons, but I seem to recall hearing about a test blast yielding over 200 megatons... it was an underground test and still resulted in a primary fireball that extended clear out of the atmosphere.

Anyway, we should keep a few of the big ones around. Not for rogue asteroids as someone (clearly inspired by Hollywood movies) suggested, but for those special occasions where nothing else will do. Like the probable forthcoming war with the Islamic world where the ultimate powermove would be to drop a 100+ megaton device on Mecca during the Hajj, vaporising Masjid al-Haram, the Kaaba and everything for many miles, including many millions of Muslims.

Re:What a dumb idea

[tehcyder]

If two people are indulging in teabagging, they are both teabaggers. It is an act of mutual consent, you wouldn't exactly choose to rape someone by sticking your balls in their mouth.

Re:What a dumb idea

[tehcyder]

I just found it funny that it's effectively liberals calling conservatives "perverts" -

I think the idea is that liberals wouldn't be bothered about someone saying they had unconventional sex, whereas the stereotypiical conservative Christian would.

Re:Notable part of American history here.

[Alioth]

1000 probably would make humans extinct or nearly extinct.

Calculations made *independently* by western scientists and Soviet scientists in the mid 1980s reached the conclusion that an exchange of this order would create a nuclear winter. Except nuclear winter is really a misnomer; more like nuclear 6 month long night (a 3000 megaton exchange would result in so much stratospheric soot that the light levels at mid-day in the northern hemisphere would be that of a moonlit night).

The nuclear winter was revisited only three or four years ago, and the report published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. It turns out that the 1980s calculations were too optimistic, it would actually be worse. Calculations were also done for a hypothetical regional nuclear conflict of subtropical countries each with 50 Hiroshima-sized weapons. The conclusion is that it would cause a "decade without a summer", and a reduced growing season in the US midwest of 60 days in the immediate years after the war - the hypothetical war would kill 2 billion people not due to radioactivity or blast effects, but starvation (think severe food shortages in the west, and famine everywhere else).

Nuclear weapons are suicide. We need to be getting rid of as many as we can.

Re:Notable part of American history here.

[khallow]

You mean, the insanity of the last years of "old-style" capitalism, before we started to moderate its excesses?

No. Why would you even think that? The formation of the USSR had nothing to do with the excesses of capitalism. In fact, it's interesting that communism doesn't thrive in the presence of "excesses" of capitalism.

It had to blow up somewhere; consider yourself lucky that it was unindustrialized Russia, rather than somewhere in Western Europe - that way, commies spent a lot of time just catching up.

I think it more likely that, just like every other country where communism took root, it'd set back the western European country.

I think you pay too much consideration to early nukes. They were impressive weapons, but they couldn't knock out a strong opponent entirely. What forced the USSR to cut back was death of Stalin with his ambitions; the leaders that followed him were much more down-to-earth, and were mostly content with what they already had, nor anywhere near as bold in their actions.

Nuclear deterrence has that way of making leaders "down-to-earth" and a little bit more cautious. Even in the early days, atomic bombs would negate the USSR's military advantage in Europe. One nuke trumps one tank division and the US could make nukes faster than the USSR could make tank divisions.

Re:Notable part of American history here.

[khallow]

Yeah, those subhumans in less affluent nations don't count for squat -- which is also, coincidentally, what they get paid for assembling your consumer electronics and running shoes.

Which is something they'd be doing anyway. You have to show a difference in outcome for "impact" to exist.

Re:Notable part of American history here.

[shutdown -p now]

No. Why would you even think that? The formation of the USSR had nothing to do with the excesses of capitalism. In fact, it's interesting that communism doesn't thrive in the presence of "excesses" of capitalism.

The revolution and the formation of the USSR followed from the radicalization of early workers' movement, which in turn directly followed from the unholy mess that economic system has been in all industrialized (or industrializing, like Imperial Russia) countries at the turn of the century. In Russia, it culminated in the revolution. In some other countries (like Germany) it did as well, but they failed there due to presence of other forces ready and willing to counter it. The rest of the West took that as a clue, and started heavier business regulation and implementing various social welfare programs to appease the lower classes.

I think it more likely that, just like every other country where communism took root, it'd set back the western European country.

An inevitable civil war would set back any country, but in case of Russia the setback was applied to something that was already lagging significantly behind other industrialized countries. Bolsheviks first had to recover from the very significant damage caused during the fighting, and then finish industrializing the country (it was pretty far from completion when they took over). In fact, many brutalities of their early rule stem directly from that - they were effectively paying with people's lives to finish this process earlier and be fully prepared by the time the "crusade against communism" began - and the events and outcome of WW2 show that it was not an unfounded fear at all.

Re:What a dumb idea

[dan828]

You haven't been to a keg party in a while, have you?

Re:Notable part of American history here.

[khallow]

and the events and outcome of WW2 show that it was not an unfounded fear at all.

Needless to say, the USSR was one of several countries who could have stopped Nazism in its early days. For example, they could have occupied East Prussia as a response to Hitler's remilitarization of the Rhine. Or they could have prepared for a Nazi invasion. Or Stalin could have just not purged most of his competent military leadership prior to the largest war in history.

I guess it's easy to rationalize those deaths, the brutality, and the greed, with the outcome. But not so easy to rationalize the foolishness that led to the necessity.

Re:Weakened nation

[kevinNCSU]

Don't the uranium cores get recycled into nuclear fuel and thus become profitable/useful? Would assume it would get sold to some nuclear facility and thus no longer need upkeep by the government itself. Even if they theoretically boxed it storage of a uranium core should be a far less costly matter than maintaining a functional nuclear warhead.

Re:Notable part of American history here.

[shutdown -p now]

For example, they could have occupied East Prussia as a response to Hitler's remilitarization of the Rhine.

That would be kinda tricky to do for as long as Poland remained an independent state.

It was a real problem - USSR was actually thinking of suppressing the Nazis early on (because the only other major power in German politics at the time were communists), but it did not have means to invade German territory, and all Eastern European countries - notably, Poland - refused to provide passage for Soviet armies, being afraid of getting occupied themselves in the process. They were likely right about that part - I can't believe Stalin would have missed that opportunity - but, nonetheless, it prevented the USSR from meaningfully intervening into Nazi affairs until it was too late to do so unilaterally.

Or they could have prepared for a Nazi invasion.

It was in progress, but Stalin refused to believe that the country would be attacked before 1942, and hoped that Germany would bleed out a little bit more (and Soviets would use that time to prepare further) before stepping into the fight. Yes, that was his single biggest personal mistake, most likely, as everyone else was convinced that the attack was imminent in 1941, and even specific dates were already provided by intelligence services.

Or Stalin could have just not purged most of his competent military leadership prior to the largest war in history.

It's a popular myth, but, in truth, the officers that were purged were not really any better than those who weren't, if you look at the background. Problem is, Soviet Russia had very few good officers in its ranks to begin with - in civil war, a lot of the old officer corps was on the other side (and either fled or was purged for their participation after it, and in any case they were not trustworthy to the new regime), and the new Red Army corps had little experience outside of civil war, which was a very different thing from the likes of WW1 and WW2. In fact, the entire military doctrine was completely unrealistic and messed up, which is why Stalin started Winter War as a readiness test of sorts, and initiated a series of army reforms afterwards - they just didn't complete fully by mid-41.

I guess it's easy to rationalize those deaths, the brutality, and the greed, with the outcome. But not so easy to rationalize the foolishness that led to the necessity.

Rapid industrialization was not something that was compensating for Stalin's mistakes, though. It was a matter of fact that Imperial Russia was severely lagging behind in that department, and would have not caught up with Germany come WW2 even if there were no civil war and war communism to set back the economy even further, if existing development rate would have been maintained. Of course, it's kinda pointless to pursue that what-if, since God knows how WW1 would have even ended if power in Russia would have taken by some other party that was not so hostile to the war effort (but then most people in the society were war-weary, so the likelihood of that wasn't so big... there are good reasons for why it was specifically Bolsheviks who ultimately seized power).

Anyway, already by 1918, it was crystal clear that it was only a matter of time before a war between Soviet Russia and a bloc of major capitalist countries was imminent in long term, and that the only way to get the country to be a match in such a war was to rob the village to feed the cities (collectivization), while the cities themselves rapidly build up heavy industry (industrialization). Some Bolsheviks actually advocated that much earlier than Stalin ended up implementing it. So I don't think it could have been seamless even if fewer mistakes (esp. in the "war communism" period) were made - it may have saved some, but the death toll for such a thing would still be in the millions. The course for that was set at the moment the upcoming conflict

Re:Weakened nation

[blindseer]

The article says the uranium will be stored at the facility. This would mean that the government is still in charge of guarding and maintaining the material. If the government did sell it off as fuel they would first have to dilute it down (mix it with depleted uranium, natural uranium, or something similar) so that it is no longer weapons grade. This costs money. Considering the military value, and the cost in disposing of the material, I'm a bit doubtful the government would ever sell it off. The government has already done some serious downsizing of their nuclear arsenal, I suspect there is considerable reluctance to downsize it more.

Also, why do you claim the storage cost would be "far less"? I doubt the size and weight matters much since the warhead is unlikely to be moved. It is still one item on a list that needs to be tracked, guarded, etc. Considering the value of the item, and the danger it poses to those that handle it, this uranium core is not just going to be dropped in a box with the rest of the uranium cores. It is going to be placed in a very expensive enclosure, monitored for radioactivity or something, and given ample room around it so someone can't just go running in and grab it.

Unless I read otherwise I'm going to assume this uranium is going to be kept in the government inventory.

Re:Notable part of American history here.

[khallow]

That would be kinda tricky to do for as long as Poland remained an independent state.

Actually, I was thinking through Lithuania, but the USSR didn't yet occupy that country either (they did so in 1940). A sea invasion or perhaps a blockade of German ports would probably have worked. Germany didn't have a serious military at the time.

Or Stalin could have just not purged most of his competent military leadership prior to the largest war in history.

It's a popular myth, but, in truth, the officers that were purged were not really any better than those who weren't

Uh huh. You ignore three things. First, you'd have to be a real worm to get out of being purged. That is, the purge wasn't based on the level of incompetence of the officer. Doesn't mean that you couldn't be a good officer, but it's far from being a positive trait. Second, whoever replaced those purged officers would both be near completely demoralized and less experienced. The USSR could have just dismissed these people, not executed or sentenced them to gulag. And third, everyone would be afraid to take any risk or initiative whatsoever. End result is a vastly worse off officer pool.

If Joe thinks Germany is going to invade in 1942, you do too, even if you know the enemy is building up right now on the other side of the border.

Oops WMD

[Anonymous Coward]

were actually in USA! But good that no need invade countries to search for it anymore ;-)