“All that you have mentioned were prototypes, one-offs, or experiments, except for the land mine, which was deployed in small numbers and never assembled into a workable configuration outside of the US. It was considered too dangerous to use offensively, and was slated as a denial weapon. Also, all of these “projects” were initiated in the 1950’s during a period of great advancement in nuclear weapons design in the US.
None of these lightweight and advanced implosion designs could be built by terrorists with a 3rd grade education using a hammer and a grenade pin in some cave somewhere, and none of these designs exist in any arsenal today. Security, storage, and usability make them impractical footnotes of history, nothing else.”
Nice rewrite of history, shame it isn’t true.
Here is what your “never assembled....” project became:
The Davy Crockett was deployed with U.S. Army forces from 1961 to 1971. Between 1956 and 1963, 2,100 were produced at an estimated cost (excluding the warhead) of $540 million (in constant 1996 dollars).
The point of bringing this up is that the hardware and knowhow exists here and most likely in the former USSR. Depending on who you believe there are many nuke devices missing around the world. The Universities churn out PHDs in Nuclear Physics every year.
The now aging hardware is around, and the know how to make it work is also around. Take some firebrand USA haters and some cash, you never know what they will come up with.
America needs to quit thinking our enemies are a bunch or uneducated camel jockies. Bin Laden, for one, is highly educated, and he isn’t the only one.
Sure, they have their wingnuts, but we do too.
Not trying to rewrite history at all.
The Davy Crockett was a complete system, and there were never that many warheads for the number of missiles. When deployed overseas, it was not uncommon for there to be zero warheads present (or in country, for that matter).
Understanding the design of a warhead is a far cry from actually building one. If you don’t believe me, go ask the North Koreans, and they supposedly had blueprints and everything.
Just trying to acquire the parts to construct one could draw the eye of the Feds.
When a weapon is decommissioned, it is not just shoved on a shelf in a back room, like iron bombs are. These are devices, and are quite intricate and complicated, even the relatively simple design of the Davey Crockett. The parts are meticulously destroyed and the pit is melted down or ground up, to be re-forged later, if needed.
Also, bear in mind that ALL nuclear weapons have FINITE shelf lives, and become unreliable without near constant TLC, something that even a PhD would have no clue how to do.
This reminded me of watching "Lockdown" on National Geographic channel. I was amazed at how the prisoners were able to make weapons. One guy even made a low power microwave oven out of a radio and a shoe box.