Tiny Nukes (Here's to Saddam Alert)

PM.Zone ^ | 2002 | Jim Wilson

[sonofatpatcher2]

Tiny Nukes
America's first-strike nuclear weapons: How they work. Who's in the crosshairs.

As a horrified nation watched the twin towers and Pentagon dissolve in flames, a realization more chilling than the audacity of the attack gripped the nation's defense planners. The Saudi and Egyptian terrorists who turned hijacked airliners into human-guided missiles had attacked far more than the edifices of the nation's financial and military power. Although not obvious to most watching the unfolding drama, the assault also pulverized the keystone of America's strategic defense policy--the concept of nuclear deterrence. "Deterrence, the promise of massive retaliation against nations, means nothing against shadowy terrorist networks with no nation or citizens to defend," President George W. Bush told the West Point class of 2002. "We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans, and confront the worst threats before they emerge." Even before he spoke, designers were at work creating a weapon to deter terrorists. It would be a new type of nuclear weapon that could, at least in theory, hurt foes without harming friends. It would be a weapon of precise destruction.

Using the Global Positioning System, the United States has the ability to deliver a conventional or nuclear warhead within inches of its target, anywhere in the world. Our adversaries have responded by burying key command and control installations and nuclear and bioweapons laboratories deeper and deeper underground and inside mountains. The only ground penetrator in the current nuclear arsenal is the 1200-pound B61-11 gravity bomb, a wind-tunnel test model of which is shown above. It can penetrate about 20 ft. into a dry lakebed. To reach deeper required weapons designers to strengthen the package used to deliver warheads.

The solution would come in the form of an old weapon, a gun barrel. Artillerymen call the barrels of their guns "tubes." Dating to ancient China, these metallurgical marvels have steadily improved to the point at which they can withstand the forces needed to propel a projectile to the very edge of space. Looking at these historic weapons, scientists at the Department of Energy's (DOE) Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., realized they had the perfect enclosure for a deep-penetrating nuclear weapon. They took their idea to the field and dropped a mock bomb based on a "retired" artillery tube.

[sonofatpatcher2]

Dig deeper, Saddam. Real deep.

[show me state]

[BenLurkin]

YEAH Ba-by!