TERROR OF BIN LADEN'S 20 BACKPACK NUKES developing

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[Travis McGee]

Fission, not fusion!

[Travis McGee]

SADM Team Bump!

[Mixer]

If they know he bought this then they must know where he is.

I doubt OBL would have been there personally to make the purchase.

[PianoMan]

I give up. Gave myself a half-hour. :)

[InterceptPoint]

The half-life of the triggers for such atomic weapons is typically 60 days, after that, the weapon requires new radioactive material (as well as specialized electronincs maintenance).

I've heard this story before. I hope it is true. But how about a little reference material for the skeptics on this forum.

[Travis McGee]

Folks are confusing fusion and fission devices and their needs.

[Diddle E. Squat]

I'm just practicing my Debka-ese (ultra double-secret decoder-ring language), so I'll be prepared when the Russians invade (or is it the Chinese now? I've lost track.)

[Vinnie_Vidi_Vici]

"Little Boy" did not have a fast neutron trigger and it seemed to work OK.

[2nd Amendment]

Would those be called lunchables? or nukables?

[Stefan Stackhouse]

I understand the so called suitcase nukes to actually be the size of large foot lockers, 4' by 2.5' by 2.5'.

We had several threads about this a year or two ago, and the pooled expert opinion was that we are really talking about something approximately the size of what was once known as a "steamer trunk" -- not too much different in capacity from your example above, though perhaps not so long and narrow. The estimate was that the total weight might be in the range of 100-200 lbs -- a little heavy for one person to carry, though not impossible, but also certainly something that would be a little bit noticeable in most public settings. Putting it into the back of an SUV or a station wagon would definitely be within the realm of possibility, however, and that is bad news.

[Fiddlstix]

...dang I forgot the name of that internet rag that churns out stuff....

DEBKA?

[freepersup]

Call me picky, but doesn't the caption under the picture say U. S. B 54- as in United States B 54, as does the article to the left (se my post) ?

Agreed- it's cumbersome, buy hey, when you need a portable nuke and this is the best thing going, you take it. I suspect that this is an early version and has been refined to an art form.

[Oztrich Boy]

I didn't know George Bush and Tony Blair were renegade KGB agents </Grammar snark>

[Squantos]

With respect Southack's information is incorrect.

Stay Safe !

[Semper Paratus]

Here's the picture of the Russian backpack nuke.

Looks like the device that fried the turkey I had tailgating.

[babygene]

" This is correct, as the physics package and associated electronics have a "limited shelf life"."

That's what I've heard as well, except 8 years and not 60 days.

[Southack]

Little Boy: Gun-type uranium bomb

To prevent spontaneous detonation of an atomic bomb, the fissile material is kept in a subcritical configuration. It is then rapidly assembled into a supercritical mass using conventional explosives. Once the bomb has achieved this mass, any neutron introduced into it will be likely to initiate a chain reaction. The mechanism for "Little Boy", the U-235 bomb, was a gun that fired one subcritical piece of U-235 into another to form a supercritical mass. The pieces had to be assembled within a time less than the average time between appearance of a spontaneous neutron from either U-235 or cosmic radiation. A conventional explosive in an artillery barrel could fire the U-235 mass at speeds of a few millimeters per second, fast enough to prevent a fizzle caused by a spontaneous neutron setting off a premature chain reaction.

Originally, the gun-type mechanism was planned for both the U-235 and Pu-239 weapons. However, a problem arose with the Pu-239 bomb that required a different assembly mechanism. A small amount of Pu-240 is produced with the Pu-239 in the reactor.

Pu-240 emits large numbers of neutrons spontaneously: 1,030 neutrons per gram per second compared with 0.0004 neutrons per gram per second for U-235. Even at a concentration of 1% Pu-240 in the fissile Pu-239, the required mass of Pu emits 52,000 neutrons per second or one neutron every 20 microseconds. Thus, it is very probable that a neutron from Pu-240 will initiate a premature chain reaction during the critical last 100 microseconds in a gun-type assembly. This problem was discovered in mid 1944, well after the start of construction of the massive Hanford plutonium production facilities.

Fat Man: Implosion-type bomb

Removal of the Pu-240 was impractical. So the scientists and engineers looked for a faster method of assembling the plutonium. A mechanism based on implosion provided the solution to this problem. In this design, the fissile material is shaped into a single sphere with a mass slightly less than critical. Layers of carefully shaped high explosives surround the sphere. When the explosives are detonated, the force of the shock wave compresses the fissile material into a smaller volume, forming a supercritical mass. This method of assembly is much faster than the gun-type mechanism and thus eliminates the problems resulting from spontaneous neutron emission of Pu-240. The spherical mass resulted in a pumpkin-shaped weapon called "Fat Man".

To assure that a chain reaction occurs, an initiator is placed at the center of the sphere of fissile materials. It consists of a source of alpha particles, radioactive polonium, surrounded with thin aluminum foil. The foil-wrapped source is then surrounded with beryllium powder. When the initial explosion squeezes the fissile material into a supercritical mass, the foil breaks, allowing the alpha particles to reach the beryllium and produce the initial neutrons.

[Wait4Truth]

I saw his small pox speech. There was more than a cold going on there. He looked angry, somber and exhausted as well as sick.

[freepersup]

Greetings sailor,

While serving on the USAPT-GK's at Ft Bragg, NC, my team mate / room mate was SF diver and SADM qualified. You know the rest...

Blue skies black death

[Stefan Stackhouse]

The half-life of the triggers for such atomic weapons is typically 60 days, after that, the weapon requires new radioactive material (as well as specialized electronincs maintenance). This is correct, as the physics package and associated electronics have a "limited shelf life".

You are referring to the tritium neutron generator, which becomes essential in very small plutonium/implosion types of bombs, which is what we might be talking about here. I'm not sure about 60 days -- I've seen others post times as long as a few years. There is nevertheless a very real "limited shelf life" issue. My hypothesis is that this might actually be part of the reason why these might end up available on the black market -- the sellers knew that they would be duds without a recharge of fresh tritium.

The nightmare scenario is if: 1) AQ gets the suitcase nukes minus tritium from source A, because source A is convinced that without fresh tritium they are just selling duds to suckers; and 2) AQ gets fresh tritium from souce B, because source B is convinced that without the nukes they are just selling expensive but useless tritium to suckers. It is this scenario that really worries me. It should be worrying plenty of people in high positions in our government, too.