[doorgunner69]

Not useable as an initiator? Your reading is a bit out of date. Do you understand how tube type neutron initiators work? Or the weak D-T fusion compression type initiator? My comment was to tritium being used in initiators in general, not specifically to gun type devices. Don't try to narrow the focus to cover an incorrect statement, where you jumped all over the newbie for stating tritium was used in initiators.

If you address just 1st gen. weapons, then we indeed are talking Po/Be only, for gun or implosion. Backpack nukes are not gun types, as you know.

[Southack]

"Not useable as an initiator? Your reading is a bit out of date. Do you understand how tube type neutron initiators work? Or the weak D-T fusion compression type initiator? My comment was to tritium being used in initiators in general, not specifically to gun type devices. Don't try to narrow the focus to cover an incorrect statement, where you jumped all over the newbie for stating tritium was used in initiators."

Adding a pulse neutron gun to a nuclear weapon greatly hikes up the level of complexity...something that delays the deployment of a nuclear weapon...something that mandates extra engineering...something that requires extra testing and added expense.

So no, in the scope of an Al Qaeda or Iranian 1st generation nuclear weapon, tritium is **not** in any way useful as a trigger/initiator.