Posted on 12/02/2004 2:51:47 PM PST by Paul Ross
Better start immediately.
Ha ha ha ha haha!...Scranton huh?(I'm from Binhamton,NY about an hour north) I could just see the army training amongst the abandoned coal slag heaps and junked cars. Ha ha ha ha ha !
350, 250 whatever!
It depends on what kind of punch is thown.
If you throw jabs, then it is 350.
If you throw a few left hooks, like a one megaton nuke here and there, just two or three will do the trick before what is left of Iran throws up its arms and says . . .
"no mas", or however you say that in Farsi.
I thnk there may come a night where our fleet commanders suddenly find their radars lighting up like Christmas trees as 400+ missiles are launched their way. I'm willing to bet that the balloon will go up before we can sell any Aegis's or Pac-3's to Taiwan. My gut says that an announcement of such sale(s) would be the final trigger.
Oh, you're saying that China would actually take on the US at the same time that they're trying to invade Taiwain.
There's stupid...and then there's suicidal. That strategy fits the latter description.
I'm willing to bet that the balloon will go up before we can sell any Aegis's or Pac-3's to Taiwan. My gut says that an announcement of such sale(s) would be the final trigger.
Why?
Ballistic missiles are militarily worthless, unless you're arming them with nuclear wearheads, in which case they're still militarily worthless, but they get you considered to be (and treated as) a rabid dog.
my guess is that quite a number fewer hits would be necessary to do the trick -- the remaining sites would be "useful" to the Iranians if they tried to restart their nuclear program, but it would take time to recover, enough for a more leisurely set of additional strikes each of which would put the Iranian WMD goal further and further out of reach...
Perhaps. The Chinese have stacked in excess of 500 missiles across from Taiwan, however, so perhaps they at least consider them useful. I suppose most could be conventional, with some of the nuclear or neutron bomb type. At any rate, Aegis + PAC-3 would be the usual method of defending against inbounds, and if the ChiComs think their missiles are useful or important for a Taiwan invasion then I see them reacting poorly to such a sale.
Actually, this is a somewhat more ominous development than some might think. The crisis currently focuses on the centrifugal refinement of Uranium hexafluoride. Fissile Uranium reaches lethal criticality so "slowly" that a gun type device is adequate for nuclear detonation, as you note. But there are different technical challenges for an implosion device, which is required for plutonium. There is no open-source information available that I know of that would indicate that the Iranians have been able to master the high explosive technology necessary for this: that might well indicate that their technology is better hidden than we know. It might also be evidence of a bluff, or an indication that they've bought this technology from someone who probably has been testing high explosives for implosion: North Korea (or perhaps Pakistan's network, before it was shut down).
What most people don't realize is that unlike uranium, ALL plutonium is "weapons grade." The plutonium extracted from a reactor can be used to make a few kiloton device with no further refinement. While this would be a very low yield weapon, if the Iranians have actually mastered the implosion technology, they could be much closer to testing a bomb than has been hitherto speculated.
One encouraging thing: it is DEBKA.
Those ballistic missiles may be politically useful, but they are not militarily useful.
I suppose most could be conventional, with some of the nuclear or neutron bomb type.
If most are conventional, then they're worthless--miss distances will be much wider than the blast radii of the warheads. Nukes and neutron bombs may kill targets, but they're liable to convince Russia to nuke China before China nukes them.
At any rate, Aegis + PAC-3 would be the usual method of defending against inbounds, and if the ChiComs think their missiles are useful or important for a Taiwan invasion then I see them reacting poorly to such a sale.
Because it takes away the one real threat China poses to Taiwan--the threat of randomly throwing high explosive onto the island.
But those weapons are useless against warships. And attacking the 7th Fleet will trigger the three words from the US that no nation ever wants to hear.
It's gonna be an open question if the ChiComs will have the jet fuel for a fight. :)
"And attacking the 7th Fleet will trigger the three words from the US that no nation ever wants to hear."
Just curious, what are those three words?
Kind of makes me wonder if the Iranians were betting on more than one horse -- one team works the Uranium angle and another team works on the more difficult implusion+Pu bomb.
Just curious, what are those three words?
"Unrestricted submarine warfare."
You never hear of the US military dabbling in the derivatives market with their OPTAR funds.
And people are worried about these mooks actually being able to fight a war?
It's exactly the same misdirection that was used by the North Koreans, as a matter of fact.
BTW: implosion isn't necessarily more difficult. In fact, producing the metal is a lot easier than refining uranium. The bomb technology itself is the sticking point.
It's called strategery. No one would think to look for a top secret desert warfare center in Scranton.
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