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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."
The final components will be accidentally dropped Tuesday at the Amarillo Crater...
Since it wasn't included in the synopsis...
They should have at least tried to sell it on eBay first to recoup some of those tax dolars -- pick up only, of course.
B61 Mod 11
Doesn't that make it the B6?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
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)
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
"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.
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