Components that begin their useful life within atomic toleraces typically don't last long in a radioactive environment before they deteriorate out of tolerance.
See post #95.
Posted on 03/21/2004 9:52:31 AM PST by sonsofliberty2000
SYDNEY, Australia - Osama bin Laden's terror network claims to have bought ready-made nuclear weapons on the black market in central Asia, the biographer of al-Qaida's No. 2 leader was quoted as telling an Australian television station.
In an interview scheduled to be televised on Monday, Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir said Ayman al-Zawahri claimed that "smart briefcase bombs" were available on the black market.
It was not clear when the interview between Mir and al-Zawahri took place.
U.S. intelligence agencies have long believed that al-Qaida attempted to acquire a nuclear device on the black market, but say there is no evidence it was successful.
In the interview with Australian Broadcasting Corp. television, parts of which were released Sunday, Mir recalled telling al-Zawahri it was difficult to believe that al-Qaida had nuclear weapons when the terror network didn't have the equipment to maintain or use them.
"Dr Ayman al-Zawahri laughed and he said `Mr. Mir, if you have $30 million, go to the black market in central Asia, contact any disgruntled Soviet scientist, and a lot of ... smart briefcase bombs are available,'" Mir said in the interview.
"They have contacted us, we sent our people to Moscow, to Tashkent, to other central Asian states and they negotiated, and we purchased some suitcase bombs," Mir quoted al-Zawahri as saying.
Al-Qaida has never hidden its interest in acquiring nuclear weapons.
The U.S. federal indictment of bin Laden charges that as far back as 1992 he "and others known and unknown, made efforts to obtain the components of nuclear weapons."
Bin Laden, in a November 2001 interview with a Pakistani journalist, boasted having hidden such components "as a deterrent." And in 1998, a Russian nuclear weapons design expert was investigated for allegedly working with bin Laden's Taliban allies.
It was revealed last month that Pakistan's top nuclear scientist had sold sensitive equipment and nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea (news - web sites), fueling fears the information could have also fallen into the hands of terrorists.
Earlier, Mir told Australian media that al-Zawahri also claimed to have visited Australia to recruit militants and collect funds.
"In those days, in early 1996, he was on a mission to organize his network all over the world," Mir was quoted as saying. "He told me he stopped for a while in Darwin (in northern Australia), he was ... looking for help and collecting funds."
Australia's Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said the government could not rule out the possibility that al-Zawahri visited Australia in the 1990s under a different name.
"Under his own name or any known alias he hasn't traveled to Australia," Ruddock told reporters Saturday. "That doesn't mean to say that he may not have come under some other false documentation, or some other alias that's not known to us."
Mir describe al-Zawahri as "the real brain behind Osama bin Laden."
"He is the real strategist, Osama bin Laden is only a front man," Mir was quoted as saying during the interview. "I think he is more dangerous than bin Laden."
Al-Zawahri — an Egyptian surgeon — is believed to be hiding in the rugged region around the Pakistan-Afghan border where U.S. and Pakistani troops are conducting a major operation against Taliban and al-Qaida forces.
He is said to have played a leading role in orchestrating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
Components that begin their useful life within atomic toleraces typically don't last long in a radioactive environment before they deteriorate out of tolerance.
See post #95.
I was actually referring to refurbishing the entire bomb.
This would include replacing any parts which have expired due to nuclear decay, any damaged by the radiation environment, and any which are unreliable just due to age.
My point was & still is, that even with an expired nuke you still have known good fissile material and a known good design. Making one of these workable again is much easier that starting from scratch.
The other noteworthy aspect is that it may be possible to trade some of the non-working devices to a nation seeking nuclear capability in return for technical assistance with the remaining ones. This gets around the notion of bringing a horde of barbarian warriors up to the technical level necessary to maintain a nuke.
The nation make choose to rebuild them or extract the fissile material and make a larger weapon of its own design.
You are correct, there is no such thing as a "suitcase nuke"!X-FID
Congressmen Dan Burton and Curt Weldon beg to disagree with you.
The smallest diameter US test device publicly known was the UCRL Swift device fired in the Redwing Yuma shot on 28 May 1956 . It had a 5" (12.7 cm) diameter, a length of 62.2 cm (24.5 inches) and weighed 43.5 kg (96 lb). The test had a yield of 190 tons, but was intended to be fusion boosted (and thus would probably have had a yield in the kiloton range) but its yield was insufficient to ignite the fusion reaction and it failed to boost in this test. This test may have been a predecessor to the W-48 design.
Later and lighter 155 mm designs were also developed -- the W74 (canceled early in development), and the W-82/XM-785 shell. The W82 had a yield of up to 2 kilotons and weighed 43 kg (95 lb), but included a number of sophisticated additional features within this weight. Since it was capable of being fielded with a "neutron bomb" (enhanced radiation) option, which is intrinsically more complex than a basic nuclear warhead, and was in addition rocket boosted, the actual minimum nuclear package was substantially lighter than the weight of the complete round. Its overall length was 86 cm (34").
It is reported that designs least as small as 105 mm (4.1 inches) are possible. A hypothetical 105 mm system developed for use in an artillery shell would be about 50 cm (20 inches) long and weigh around 20 kg.
Compact nuclear artillery shells (208 mm and under) are based on a design approach called linear implosion. The linear implosion concept is that an elongated (football shaped) lower density subcritical mass of material can be compressed and deformed into a critical higher density spherical configuration by embedding it in a cylinder of explosives which are initiated at each end. As the detonation progresses from each direction towards the middle, the fissile mass is squeezed into a supercritical shape. The Swift device is known to have been a linear implosion design.
It is quite likely, that should the suitcase bombs described by Lebed actually exist, that they would use this technology. It is clear that any of the 155 mm artillery shells, if shortened by omitting the non-essential conical ogive and fuze would fit diagonally in the package that Lebed describes, and the Swift device would fit easily. If the yield is as much as 10 kilotons, then the device would have to be fusion boosted.
A somewhat more sophisticated variation would extend the linear implosion concept to cylindrical implosion, in this case an oblate (squashed) spheroid, roughly discus-shaped, of plutonium would be embedded in a cylinder of high explosive which is initiated simultaneously around its perimeter. The cylindrically converging detonation would compress and deform the fissile mass into a sphere, that could be wider than the original thickness of the system. This type of design would make the flattest possible bomb design, perhaps as little as 5 cm. The only obvious application for such a device would be briefcase bomb, and would require a special development effort to create it.
I would argue that it is actually easier to start from scratch if the nuke has gone more than 6 months without laboratory-style clean-room maintenance.
You've got rust on your fissionable core and in your shell/case (uranium and plutonium attract rust rapidly). You've got radiation that has deteriorated your various electrical connections and components over that period of time. You've got radiation that has affected your conventional explosives. You've got terribly brittle metals that will have microscopic shatters affecting the ability of the shape to form everything just right for a chain-reaction blast (and that's if the amatuers involved are able to know -and act on- how to transport such devices with a minimum of micro-vibrations); ditto for the natural radioactive decay that creates "impurities" for lack of a better word in random places in what you wish to be a pristinely pure core and shell/case.
Reshaping your fissionable core alone is a metal-worker's nightmare (it's hyper-brittle, rusts if it touches much air, has hyper-toxic dust, etc.), and you have to reshape your core if you get rust in it, or if you get a micro-shatter, or if the natural radioactive decay has altered the "dependable" shape of your warhead's design.
Just look at how few socieities can currently do competent metal work for jumbo-jet wing assemblies, then divide that number by some ratio to arrive at an even smaller subset of *nations* who can cobble together the teams capable of reshaping a heavy metal atomic core that has either rust or natural decay or fractures in it.
These are *non* trivial technical hurdles. In world history fewer than a dozen *nations* have managed to overcome such difficulties, and only one of those countries was capable of doing it all from scratch (everyone else stole or borrowed technical know-how and/or personnel).
Consider that for the nuclear math alone, the distinguished German scientist Heisenberg got it wrong. We still credit him with the atomic Heisenberg's Uncertainly Principle to this day, so he was rather brilliant...just not up to this particular challenge.
But--given the acceleration of Muslim terrorism throughout the 90's and up to our present dynamic of an ongoing Terrorist War--the liklihood of actual small nuclear devices in enemy hands is overwhelming.
The injection of untold millions of Saudi cash--not to mention heavy money flows from a multitude of other Islamic sources--has virtually guaranteed that nuclear devices, either updated older models or brand new, improved mint productions --are in the terrorist's arsenal as we post.These small nuclear devices are just one more item of inventory on the shelves of international weapons dealers who have no national allegances.
It's just a matter of when and where the highest command levels of Al Qeda decide to detonate one of these things.
Looks like even a misfiring "dud" would be the equivalent of a "dirty" bomb and create the kind of physical and mental damage these radical Muslims thrive upon.
That's certain. It is *certain* that the terrorists will set off a dirty bomb or get a fizzle from an old nuke (or from their attempt at a new nuke).
What makes you think they'd use an implosion device, when a simple gun device obviates all need for precision timing, triggers, shaped charges, electronics, blah blah blah?
Of course, the devil -- in this case -- in in only one detail: They'd need to get their grubbies on some HEU, which is why the US and Russia have been scrambling to get all of it under lock and key from a variety of research/edu/etc. facilities in Eastern Europe as of late.
Of course so much of the stuff has been manufactured over the years, much of which (courtesy of the $&#&*# USSR) has not been accounted for (and then there's North Korea, and other rogue nations capable of spinning some centrifugen), so no matter how much we and the Russians manage to get under lock and key, it still doesn't prove the negative, so to speak. In other words, we can go snarfing up HEU 'till the cows come home, but the only thing we'll know for certain is that the actual HEU the US/Ruskie teams captured is off the market. There's no way to know about any other HEU that might be out there.
Anyway, my point is that we should not take comfort in the difficulty involved in setting off a successful plutonium implosion device, because if the bastards get their hands on some weapons grade uranium, the only "technology" they'll need is a saw, to cut down the barrel of an old field artillery piece.
You're thinking of an implosion bomb (uranium or plutonium). A simple "gun type" bomb (uranium) has none of those requirements, and is crudeness personified -- but the Japanese can attest to the fact that even with its greatly reduced yield (compared to an implosion device) it can definitely ruin your day.
And while you're at it, someone should google up a copy of Christopher Hitchen's "Night of the Weak Knees" article from a couple of years back.
Good luck sleeping well after you read that little eye-opener!
My understanding is that the Russian bombs in question were designed for operation by people who weren't rocket scientists (to coin a phrase), and, to have a decent storage life (or indecent, depending on perspective).
I presume they'd either have managed a way to cram enough uranium into it to not need a booster, or, to have a handy-dandy "drop new tritium capsule here" hole on the top, or, there could be something to the "red mercury" stories besides the mountains of disinfo and flapdoodle. (At least one noted American -- the guy who invented the neutron bomb -- believes that "red mercury" is for real. It's hard to write him off as a nutcase.)
I expect you'll find the Soviet 152mm projectile to be very similar. 
It is quite likely, that should the suitcase bombs described by Lebed actually exist, that they would use this technology. It is clear that any of the 155 mm artillery shells, if shortened by omitting the non-essential conical ogive and fuze would fit diagonally in the package that Lebed describes, and the Swift device would fit easily. If the yield is as much as 10 kilotons, then the device would have to be fusion boosted.
Or the Soviet 152mm projectile innards. Even with the physics package remaining within the projectile casing, the Soviet 152mm projo would easily fit within a 55-gallon/200 liter fuel drum. The 125-pound weight might prove a problem, but there are certainly some individuals who could hand-carry such a package, particularly if the weight and bulk could be at all reduced further. If a *suitcase* might not be an ideal carrier, an industrial tool box would do the job.
-archy-/-
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