Posted on 05/10/2010 7:55:33 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
The International Institute for Strategic Studies has just published a new study on Iran's missile programme. Here are some of the main conclusions.
* The Iranian government has diverted enormous resources to its ballistic missile programme and now surpasses North Korea in its capacity to produce missile components. Iran may soon establish a production line for making liquid-fuel engines, "if it has not done so already".
*The solid-fuel Sajjil-2 missiles, with a 2,000 km range, first tested a year ago, may be a "hedge" after engineers realised that any future Iranian nuclear weapon would weigh over 1,000 kg, and any liquid-fuel missile to deliver long distances it would be "very large and cumbersome", and would require large underground silos which would take a long time to build.
* Iranian engineers still have a long way to go to develop and test intermediate and long-range weapons. They have been hampered by improvements in controls on the transfer of missile technology, particularly from Russia and Ukraine. They would have to develop tracking and telemetry systems and develop technology to protect a warhead from atmospheric reentry.
Therefore, Iran is not likely to field a liquid-fuelled missile capable of targeting Western Europe before 2014 or 2015. A three-stage version of the solid-propellant Sajjil capable of delivering a one-tonne warhead 3,700km similarly is at least four or five years away from possible deployment.
* Iran would probably have to field an intermediate-range weapon prior to developing a long-range weapon capable of hitting the US mainland.
It is thus reasonable to conclude that a notional Iranian ICBM, based on Nodong and Scud technologies, is more than a decade away from development.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Manufacturing weapons grade Plutonium is not all that difficult compared to separating Uranium isotopes. It's the difference between the chemical separation of two different elements versus separation of isotopes of the same element with a vary slight difference in atomic weight. One is industrial chemistry and the other is a process of moving material atom by atom into different bins as it were.
Plutonium is the usual fuel of implosion devices which are fairly simple in concept but extremely difficult and demanding in actual construction. In comparison gun type bombs are much easier to construct once you have the Uranium to fuel them. It is possible to construct a gun type device with no electrical/electronic parts of any sort which is an advantage over the implosion devices as most of the switching/timing/detonators/neutron sources are dual use tech and are very tightly controlled.
Regards,
GtG
The NK still detonated a Plutonium device.
I guarantee that 1000 tons of high explosive will register on seismographs anywhere on the planet, that does not mean it was the real deal though.
Regards,
GtG
Why are you bothering me? Are you in love or something?
“...deliverable only by an ocean going ship.”
We should be watching to see if they’re developing a radiation-shielded shipping container.
If they have a plutonium nuke that won't do any good as Pu239 is an alpha emitter and can be shielded by wrapping it in newspaper. U235 is however delectable.
Regards,
GtG
By a weird coincidence, the same people have been saying that about the ANWR oil for over twenty years. Thanks sonofstrangelove.
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