Posted on 11/10/2007 1:01:10 PM PST by zencat
Members of Congress have warned about the dangers of suitcase nuclear weapons. Hollywood has made television shows and movies about them. Even the Federal Emergency Management Agency has alerted Americans to a threat — information the White House includes on its Web site. But government experts and intelligence officials say such a threat gets vastly more attention than it deserves. These officials said a true suitcase nuke would be highly complex to produce, require significant upkeep and cost a small fortune.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I should have said “deployed”. 25 MT was the largest weapon the USA has ever deployed. In testing however, there were much bigger yields.
Absolutely. As I said, that chevy truck wouldn’t be the best delivery system. A tall building or plane would give max damage and dispersion of a small dirty nuke, which is the most likely type of device Islamowacko’s would use.
They do. This little fact escapes many who talk about their use. There are many drawbacks to the handling and use of nuclear weapons. They require constant maintenance and testing by highly trained individuals to ensure they are safe. Bear in mind that these are devices, sort of like a car. Lots of complex moving parts, batteries, fuel.
Stick either one in your garage and leave it alone for 3 years, and it probably won't work. Leave it there for a decade, and it definitely won't work.
Are you familiar with the arming system requirements of arty shells? Do you really believe that they can just be stuck in a suitcase and detonated, like on "24?" Do you really think they have a decades-long shelf life, and can simply be taken from some ancient cold-war bunker, and exploded?
Thank you for your sanity on this subject.
Even way underground doesn't stop the emission of detectable particles, such as neutrinos.
Build a boat with a huge lead keel like a private yacht, conceal the nuke in the keel as its being built.
Rodents of unusual size?
I don’t think that they exist.
Sure, it’s NOT a “suitcase nuke” the way this writer is trying to pretend - but two men can carry it in a single case. Or mount it in the back of a VW or small aircraft easy enough. Or put it in a backpack and pack horse over the border ....
Shhhh...we have overcome the terrors of the fire-swamp.
Billthedrill beat me to it. The Davy Crockett is now 50 year old tchnology. It had a yield of 20 tons of TNT, and the warhead by itself weighed 51 lbs. I think the missle used something like a 106mm recoiless rifle tube and could be mounted on a jeep.
Do you have a link to more information about that?
"Most frightening for Cohen is the relative ease by which neutron bombs can be created with a substance called red mercury. Red mercury is a compound containing mercury that has undergone massive irradiation. When exploded, it creates tremendous heat and pressure - the same type needed to trigger a fusion device such as a mini-neutron bomb.
Before, an obstacle to creating a nuclear bomb was the need for plutonium, which when exploded could create a fusion reaction in hydrogen atoms. But red mercury has changed that. The cheap substance has been produced in Russia, Cohen said, and shipped on the black market throughout the world.
Cohen said that when U.N. inspectors went to Iraq to examine the Iraqis' nuclear weapons capabilities, the U.N. team found documents showing that they had purchased quantities of red mercury. The material means a neutron bomb can be built "the size of baseball" but able to kill everyone within several square blocks."
Cohen, the father of the neutron bomb, has stated that such a bomb could fit inside a lunch box and upon detonation kill everyone above ground level within several hundred yards. The timer, battery and other initiating devices would probably take up more room than the actual bomb.....................
Of course, the neutron bomb is a very efficient EMP weapon............it has many applications........
Cohen advocated using tactical neutron bombs in Vietnam to win the war and save American lives.............the radiation (tritium) is short lived and kills the enemy quickly, how quickly depends upon how close to the detonation the enemy is............
should read......the radiation (tritium) of a pure fusion bomb is short lived and kills the enemy quickly, how quickly depends upon how close to the detonation the enemy is............during Vietnam we may have only had fission triggers, making it politically damaging to use the neutron bomb then..........
Probably in this enviro age they would consider the cleaner blast as better.
I don't think this is correct. I think that lead shielding is adequate to conceal any radiation produced by nuclear devices that is likely to be detected. I have heard about neutrino detectors, but so far as I know such detectors are huge and immobile.
I hope that I am wrong about this. If anyone has better information please respond.
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