Smallest possible nuclear weapon

[buka001]

What is the smallest possible nuclear weapon that can be practically built. Considering critical mass, and the related technology (i.e. neutron gun etc).

What kind of yield would one expect from this.

Want to try and confront troother claims about mini nukes etc.

[gumboot]

I believe the smallest nuclear weapon ever produced is the Mk-54 SADM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SADM) with a 23kg warhead and a 1 Kiloton yield. It was designed as a backpack.

-Gumboot

[Spins]

The smallest nuclear weapon developed by the US was the Davy Crockett (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W54) (a variant of the one posted above by Gumboot) artillery warhead. It had a yield of 10 to 20 tons or 0.01 to 0.02 kiloton, as a comparison the OKC bomb had a yield of about 0.002 kiloton. The Davy Crockett was very close to the minimum practical size and yield for a fission warhead.

[westprog]

What is the smallest possible nuclear weapon that can be practically built. Considering critical mass, and the related technology (i.e. neutron gun etc).

What kind of yield would one expect from this.

Want to try and confront troother claims about mini nukes etc.

I assume that this means a device that can cause nuclear fission/fusion. A device that could distribute radioactive material could be almost as small as wished.

[gumboot]

I stand corrected. Thanks Spins. :)

-Gumboot

[buka001]

The smallest nuclear weapon developed by the US was the Davy Crockett (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W54) (a variant of the one posted above by Gumboot) artillery warhead. It had a yield of 10 to 20 tons or 0.01 to 0.02 kiloton, as a comparison the OKC bomb had a yield of about 0.002 kiloton. The Davy Crockett was very close to the minimum practical size and yield for a fission warhead.

Thank you for the help.

Does anyone know what the minimum practcal size is? And what are the specific reasons that limit it to this size. Any nice references out there?

[bonavada]

Does anyone know what the minimum practcal size is? And what are the specific reasons that limit it to this size. Any nice references out there?

interesting question. i found this quote HERE (http://www.tinyvital.com/Misc/nukes.htm#Suitcase)


The Soviets supposedly produced "suitcase nukes" and there is a US DOE estimate that only 4kg of Plutonium is necessary to make a fission weapon. Some believe that only 1kg is needed.

some good links on that site about the subject.

BV

[Spins]

Thank you for the help.

Does anyone know what the minimum practcal size is? And what are the specific reasons that limit it to this size. Any nice references out there?
The word "practical" is used with regards to the military. They wouldn't go much smaller than this because you'd be able to get the job done with conventional ordnance and thus without any of the drawbacks associated with nuclear weapons such as fallout. For example a single fully loaded B52 strike would be able to deliver ~15 tons of high explosive.

You could probably build a nuclear device with a yield as low as 1 ton [1]. The bare minimum amount of un-reflected fissile material required to achieve critical mass is 10 kg of Pu-239 with a density of 19.86 gm/cc [1][2].

To be honest the claim that mini nukes were used on 9/11 is absurd regardless of the yield, nothing indicates their use.

1. http://www.isis-online.org/publications/terrorism/threat.pdf
2. http://www.nci.org/k-m/makeab.htm

[Cuddles]

It was designed as a backpack.

That's a bit careless really. It must take a really special sort of person to start designing a backpack and end up with a nuclear weapon.

[Hellbound]

That's a bit careless really. It must take a really special sort of person to start designing a backpack and end up with a nuclear weapon.
Feature creep.

[Belz...]

The smallest nuclear weapon developed by the US was the Davy Crockett (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W54) (a variant of the one posted above by Gumboot) artillery warhead. It had a yield of 10 to 20 tons or 0.01 to 0.02 kiloton, as a comparison the OKC bomb had a yield of about 0.002 kiloton. The Davy Crockett was very close to the minimum practical size and yield for a fission warhead.

Wow. Thanks for the info.

20 tons in a backpack. Gotta love those atoms.

[buka001]

I have realised I cannot debate against people who make statements like this -

like that guy said before, it doesn't matter if there was EMP or not.
it doesn't matter if it was nuclear demo or death rays from above or even the hand of god squashing it flat.
all that matters first is that NIST and the 911 commission and purdue obviously lied.
a case has been filed against NIST by real scientists.
and only a shill would pretend to be so blind.


A case against NIST?? First I have heard of this.

[Dave Rogers]

A case against NIST?? First I have heard of this.

There have been a couple of RFC's and a lawsuit - I thought I remembered a third RFC but I couldn't find it, may be in one of these threads.

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=91147&highlight=lawsuit
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=79311&highlight=lawsuit
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=79311&highlight=lawsuit

One of the RFC's is brought jointly by Steven Jones, who, I'm very sorry to say, has to be considered a real scientist on the basis of his history of work on catalysed nuclear fusion.

Dave

[~enigma~]

There have been a couple of RFC's and a lawsuit - I thought I remembered a third RFC but I couldn't find it, may be in one of these threads.

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=91147&highlight=lawsuit
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=79311&highlight=lawsuit
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=79311&highlight=lawsuit

One of the RFC's is brought jointly by Steven Jones, who, I'm very sorry to say, has to be considered a real scientist on the basis of his history of work on catalysed nuclear fusion.

Dave
Who put himself in the guano category willingly well before 9/11 by claiming there is archaeological evidence that jesus walked North America.

[Hamradioguy]

Some years ago I had a friend who worked with small tactical nukes in the Air Force. When, out of curiosity, I asked him just how small these were he of course gave me the, "That's classified", reply. When I persisted he finally spread his legs, reached down to the ground with both hands and slowly lifted up while grunting "Uggg, ummpff, phew..." I'd say that means a pretty heavy backpack or suitcase!

For more on small nukes get a copy of McPhee's "The Curve of Binding Energy" which profiles physicist Theodore Taylor. Interestingly, the book came out in the mid 1970s and contains a section on how a terrorist might bring down the WTC with a small nuke.

[buka001]

So whats the progress on the court case? Any dates for the hearing?

Although I do reckon that when they loose or never go to trial, they'll claim the courts are in on it.

[negativ]

When I persisted he finally spread his legs, reached down to the ground with both hands and slowly lifted up while grunting "Uggg, ummpff, phew..." I'd say that means a pretty heavy backpack or suitcase!

There are, of course, wildly different conclusions one could draw from such a demonstration. :shocked:

[beachnut]

The smallest blast from a nuke would have been seen. At 10 to 20 times the energy effects of flight 175, in an real explosion; the effects of the smallest nuke would have been seen as a blast, not a collapsing building, or some simple puffs.

No nukes were seen on 9/11. It takes a special group of 9/11 truthers to push this nuke stuff.

[Cainkane1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_artillery

[gumboot]

That's a bit careless really. It must take a really special sort of person to start designing a backpack and end up with a nuclear weapon.


:dl:

Kathmandu were looking to diversify into other markets.

-Gumboot

[defaultdotxbe]

Wow. Thanks for the info.

20 tons in a backpack. Gotta love those atoms.
the davy crockett was actually a shoulder-mounted missile launcher IIRC, the "backpack" variation of the W54 warhead had an even higher yeild (up to 1kton)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Atomic_Demolition_Munition

[ElMondoHummus]

The Davy Crocket was shoulder carried? Wow. Before this thread and the Googlewacking it inspired, I didn't know nukes got that portable. Although, judging from one of the returns I got, the US Army must've been real loose with the definition of the word "portable":

http://www.brookings.edu/FP/projects/nucwcost/davyc.HTM

I mean, if that's what the Army considers man portable, I feel sorry for our soldiers...

Well, anyway... don't know what I can contribute to this discussion besides a call to be wary of stories about suitcase nukes. The site Bonavada linked - http://www.tinyvital.com/Misc/nukes.htm#Suitcase - had a caveat regarding the genesis of such stories, and I've read other articles elsewhere - one example here (http://politicscentral.com/2006/10/10/was_north_koreas_blast_a_suitc.php) - that have tried to inject some reality into that myth. In short, there's evidence that claims of such weapons are exaggerations at best, actual fantasy at worst.

Not to derail the thread, but: Did the Davy Crocket warhead actually work? I read some work in a magazine - I'm sorry, I don't recall the magazine itself right now - that implied that just getting nukes down to the size of a refridgerator was already one heck of an accomplishment, nevermind getting one down to the size of a suitcase. But, the XM-388 was quite obviously much smaller than a fridge, so that sort of contradicts that magazine article I'm trying to recall. Although I do have to keep in mind that the this article was, IIRC, discussing fusion weapons, and the XM-388 was a fission weapon, right? So this isn't exactly apples to apples, I admit.

Also: From that PoliticsCentral (http://politicscentral.com/2006/10/10/was_north_koreas_blast_a_suitc.php) link above, there's some info that suggests that a small nuke has little longevity:


There are other technical problems: as the radioactive mass decays, it changes shape (a problem called “spalling”) which makes it harder to detonate. And the triggers last only six months before heat renders them inoperable. So as a matter of physics and engineering, the nuclear suitcase is an impractical weapon. It would have to be rebuilt with new radioactive elements every few months.


... so I'm wondering just how functional the Davy Crockett actually was, as well as any other light and portable nuke systems (assuming any others existed). Anyone happen to know?

[defaultdotxbe]

The Davy Crocket was shoulder carried? Wow. Before this thread and the Googlewacking it inspired, I didn't know nukes got that portable. Although, judging from one of the returns I got, the US Army must've been real loose with the definition of the word "portable":

http://www.brookings.edu/FP/projects/nucwcost/davyc.HTM

I mean, if that's what the Army considers man portable, I feel sorry for our soldiers...

not sure if you were being sarcastic but your link makes it clear that i did not in fact recall correctly about the crockett being shoulder-fired :-)

the SADM does appear to be backpack-portable though, if a bit cumbersome

[LTC8K6]

Yeah, don't forget atomic annie. Not the smallest nuke devices, but the added effect of the blast from an artillery shell is interesting.

http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=213

[BenBurch]

Davy Crockett was jeep-mounted and could be fired by a two-man crew, the ranking member of which was to be a Sergeant.

[geni]

Not to derail the thread, but: Did the Davy Crocket warhead actually work?

Yes test fired as part of Little Feller I in 1962.

[njslim]

Over on Usenet group alt.war.nuclear has short clip from declassified training film on
how to emplace a SADM (Special Atomic Demolition Munition). It was packed in case
weighing in over 150 lbs and took 2 men to move and place. Problem was in airdrops
one of the weapon crew was either injured or landed too far away from other member
and weapon making it impossible to move the SADM by himself.

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.war.nuclear/browse_thread/thread/50ecada90e54af2e/9ec48558a20eecad#9ec48558a20eecad

Davy Crockett had number of problems - weapon was fired by time fuse which had to be
preset before firing. Crew would consult range chart to determine time of flight and set
timer. It was vulnerable to winds, either head or cross winds, would mess up calculation
and launch crew could be caught in burst of own weapon. Weapon had minimum
range of 300m, lethal radiation would (for 20 ton, .02kt) extend for 400m giving
reputation as "suicide weapon".

Below is formula for calculating lethal range for nuclear weapons in terms of thermal
(burns), blast injury and radiation.



r_thermal = Y^0.41 * constant_th
r_blast = Y^0.33 * constant_bl
r_radiation = Y^0.19 * constant_rad


If Y is in multiples (or fractions) of
2.5 kt, then the result is in km (and all
the constants equal one). This is based
on thermal radiation just sufficient to
cause 3rd degree burns (8 calories/cm^2);
a 4.6 psi blast overpressure (and optimum
burst height); and a 500 rem radiation dose.


The Davey Crockett warheads were 10 or 20 ton yield
variants of the Mk-54 basic warhead design. 20 tons is
0.008 of 2.5 kt. Using the equations above, the results
are roughly:
r_thermal = Y^0.41 = 0.008^0.41 = 0.138 km (138 meters)
r_blast = Y^0.33 = 0.008^0.33 = 0.203 km (203 meters)
r_radiation = Y^0.19 = 0.008^0.19 = 0.399 km (399 meters)

[AZCat]

For interested parties, the Nuclear Weapons FAQ (http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq0.html) offers quite a lot of information about nuclear weapons in general. Sadly it is no longer maintained, but most of the information is still relevant.


ETA: The SADM, or W54 warhead, is not listed as part of the Enduring Stockpile of the U.S. One of the tables lists 154 SADMs disassembled between 1990-1997. I don't know if this was the total number constructed.

[defaultdotxbe]

r_thermal = Y^0.41 = 0.008^0.41 = 0.138 km (138 meters)
r_blast = Y^0.33 = 0.008^0.33 = 0.203 km (203 meters)
r_radiation = Y^0.19 = 0.008^0.19 = 0.399 km (399 meters)
for a 10 ton yield the radii are:

0.104km (104 meters)
0.161km (161 meters)
0.350km (350 meters)

the towers were each 63 meters across, so how does a 161 meter (and that radius, not diamater) nuclear blast get concealed within one?

[tacodaemon]

Here's some youtubery of the Davy Crockett:

khyZI3RK2lE

[Cuddles]

for a 10 ton yield the radii are:

0.104km (104 meters)
0.161km (161 meters)
0.350km (350 meters)

the towers were each 63 meters across, so how does a 161 meter (and that radius, not diamater) nuclear blast get concealed within one?

To be fair, those figures are for damage to humans in a blast in open atmosphere. Walls and things would tend to get in the way. Of course, whether the walls of the trade centers could withstand a blast enough to not only remain standing but also to hide any sign of the explosion is another question, and one to which I rather suspect the answer is "no".

[ElMondoHummus]

not sure if you were being sarcastic but your link makes it clear that i did not in fact recall correctly about the crockett being shoulder-fired :-)


I was poking some gentle fun at the Army, actually. Heavy loads is something I always read soldiers bitching about, plus I recall a real short news clip once on the buildup for the first Gulf War: An airborne soldier picked up a pack that, swear to God, looked nearly 3/4ths as big as he did. He heaved, and with a mighty effort swung the pack onto his back, then bent over and paused for a second, worn out by the simple act of lifting the load. At the end, he looked straight at the camera, and said "Light infantry... HA!".

So when I found that link and saw the weapon, I thought "What poor sap had to carry that??". It was somewhat of an amused thought at the time; I had a brief image in my mind of some officer asking for volunteers, and all the troops looking at each other in dead silence. Figured the poor guy that got "volunteered" to carry it would just be loving his job that day. Anyway... yeah, I can see that it's not a weapon that lends itself to being carried easily.

BTW, I didn't think that weapon was sholder fired; I merely thought it might be carried by an individual infantry soldier, then set up in the field. I'd imagine that the poor sucker who tried to shoulder-fire that would end up in the hospital right quick. Assuming he survived, that is.

[ElMondoHummus]

Damn, I just watched Tacodaemon's linked History Channel vid. Didn't know any of those facts about the Crockett. That was a scary weapon to contemplate using.

[jimbob]

A supplimentary question:

Are there any suitable radioisotopes that could be made in appropriate quantities wit half lives of the order of months or a few years. Wouldn't they need a lower critical mass?

[ZENSMACK89]

The Special Atomic Demolition Munition (SADM)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/SADM%28cropped%29.jpg

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/russia/suitcase/comments.html
Do "backpack" nuclear weapons exist?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,76990,00.html

Former Russian National Security Adviser Alexandr Lebed in 1997 alleged that up to 100 portable bombs that looked like suitcases were unaccounted for since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union. He said the devices have an explosive capacity of one kiloton — the equivalent of 1,000 tons of TNT — and could be activated by a single person, killing as many as 100,000 people.

[BenBurch]

A supplimentary question:

Are there any suitable radioisotopes that could be made in appropriate quantities wit half lives of the order of months or a few years. Wouldn't they need a lower critical mass?

The essential thing is neutron capture cross-section and whether the isotope can obtain more than one fission for every two neutrons produced. Just because a nucleus is unstable that doesn't mean you can make it go BOOM.

[Furi]

I don't think the isotope half life would really effect the physical size, or the theoretical limit. (a short HL would make it a bit more unplesant to be around, and also far easier to detect residue of)

the most stable small warhead would be the 0.1 - 0.3kt unboosted primaries used in staged devices. as these have been tested many many many times, and are designed to be small lightweight and reliable and have just enough poke to compress the secondary fuel.

<edit>
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:W87_MIRV.jpg (can't post links yet BAH!)

nice picture of what w87 MIRV Bus, Primaries would be at the bottom of each RV approx dia 25cm, boosted I believe these where at 0.3kt </edit>

you could make smaller by effecting a fizzle I suppse, possibly by allowing package dissasembly befor efficient compression possibly getting as low as 0.05kt, but that might actually be harder to achieve than just using a primary.

IIRC about the davy crocket, Morton Thiokol had an order for a rediculous number of rocket exhaust units that where only used on the Davy Crocket system, around 20k, whether they where all depolyed into active delivery systems is a different matter though

[jimbob]

Thanks ben,

[DRBUZZ0]

Okay. I can set you straight here - cuz I know all about this. There is a limit to how small a nuclear weapon can be because of the critical mass issues and such. This can be reduced somewhat from a standard critical mass by using such things as a "neutron reflector" which reduces the amount of fissile material necessary, but depending on the design, may increase the size of the weapon. Also, the process of boosting, which involves adding a tritium capsule to the center of the fission component can help reduce the weapon's size. The tritium creates a small amount of fusion when the weapon is triggered. Although this does not increase the yield by much directly, it provides neutrons to assure that the fission component does not "fissile"

The thing is there are two ways of looking at it. By small do you mean in size or in mass. In some cases, these may not be the same thing. Adding a beryllium neutron reflector can decrease the weight, by allowing for less uranium or plutonium, which is much heavier, but will increase the diameter of the device.

The W-54 was mentioned here. The W-54 is considered the smallest weapon the US ever created in both mass and yeild and is probably approaching the limits of how small you could make a weapon. The W-54 weighed about 50 pounds and was a very managable size.

The first variation was used on the "Davy Crockett" which was a man-portable launcher. This version was limited to the sub-kiloton range of about 100T-30T. However, that's only explosive yield. It reportedly had a decent kill radius from neutron dose.

But the W-54 is actually capable of considerably higher yields. The variable yeild weapon. It's sometimes known as "Dial-a-yield." The W-54 would later be the basis for the Special Atomic Demolition Munition. This variation allowed for a maximum yeild of at least 1 kiloton, although some reports put it higher: possibly 5 kilotons or so. The highest I've heard is that it could do 10 kilotons but I'd be highly skeptical of that.

So the W-54 takes the prize as the lightest weight weapon and the lowest-yield weapon, or at least, has an option for the lowest yield of any nuclear weapon.

The W48 however was a bit smaller. The W48 nuclear artillery shell was a 6.1 inch diameter artillery shell. It was tested at a yield of about 72T or .0072 kilotons. That's pretty damn small. Later variations with additional boosting may have been able to have a somewhat higher yield, but the design is certainly limited to sub-kiloton yields.

http://depletedcranium.com/W48_155-millimeter_nuclear_shell.jpg

the W-48 was small but heavy. The sucker weighed in at a good 130 pounds. The thing about the W-48 is that it used something called "Linear implosion" this method of triggering is rather ineffecient. It actually needed three times the fissile material than a standard multi-point implosion weapon. The linear implosion system has only one advantage: it allows for smaller diameters. But because so much material is wasted, and ultimately can contribute to fallout, and because the yeild is so unimpressive, the design only went into limited production.


There is actually a considerable amount of effort which must be put into creating reliable weapons that function at such low sizes and yields. It's beyond the capabilities of any besides major nuclear powers like the US or Russia.

Could a smaller bomb be made? Perhaps the W-54 could be lightened a bit if the safeties exterior shell and other incidental non-critical parts were stripped off.


I doubt many of these exist anymore (if any). The W-54 was taken out of active duty in 1989. Whether they still exist or not, I do not know. But the whole disassembly of nuclear weapons is a bit backed up and behind schedual. I have little doubt that the soviets made similar weapons. However they probably do not have them in active service anymore either. They're just not that useful. Too small to do much other than esculllate a conflict.

[geni]

I don't think the isotope half life would really effect the physical size, or the theoretical limit. (a short HL would make it a bit more unplesant to be around, and also far easier to detect residue of)



It does. With no reflector californium 254 has a critical mass of 4.27Kg by comparison for good old Pu-239 you are looking at about 10KG

http://europa.eu.int/comm/energy/nuclear/transport/doc/irsn_sect03_146.pdf

As far as I know only Uranium and plutonium bombs have ever been built


If the more avialible californium 252 (a bit under 6 KG) and useing the price here:

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_329a.html

that gives us a price of $6,000,000,000,000

could probably get it down to $2,000,000,000,000 with reflectors and stuff.

[defaultdotxbe]

somethging ive been thinking about after reading this thread, is there any real chance a terrorist group could successfully detonate a nuclear warhead?

asuming they cant make their own warhead from scratch anything they have would be soviet-era, and probably 20+ years old at this point correct? what are the odds of a device that old functioning?

or is it more likely al-qaeda would just want the nuclear material for a dirty bomb?

[geni]

somethging ive been thinking about after reading this thread, is there any real chance a terrorist group could successfully detonate a nuclear warhead?

asuming they cant make their own warhead from scratch anything they have would be soviet-era, and probably 20+ years old at this point correct? what are the odds of a device that old functioning?

Given the payoff it would be risky to bet against them. Fushion weapons would be unlikely to work although you could use the primary for a yield of a few kilotons. Imposion weapons might or might work depending on how they had been treated. I would be suprised if gun type didn't work.

[DRBUZZ0]

I do not believe that much ca-254 has ever been produced and separated in the entire history of the US, Soviet, British, Chinese and French nuclear programs combined. That stuff needs a real lot... a REAL LOT of bombardment to get to, considering that the heaviest natural stuff you can start off with is U-238.

Also, you'd need to separate that several times during the process to get the proper material. And even then, you will likely need to do several courses of isotope enrichment to get the proper proportions.

Ca-252 is a powerful neutron emitter by spontanious fission. I believe Ca-254 would probably be as well. This presents a huge problem because excess spontanious fission or neutrons will cause a "fissile" making the device become critical too soon and blow itself apart before it actually achieves the full yield.

I think that making a bomb out of anything heavier than plutonium would be a massive technical challenge.

[njslim]

Here are some calculations for critical mass of substance - Californium
while seeming to make possible "pocket nuke" the high level of radioactivity,
spontaneous fission rate would emit some much heat as to melt the core
before detonation.

The dimensions of a bare critical sphere can be calculated using the total
neutron mean free path (average distance travelled before a collision), and
the average number of secondary neutrons produced per collision (designated
c):
c = (cross_scatter + cross_fission*avg_n_per_fission)/cross_total;
where the total cross section, cross_total, is equal to:
cross_total = cross_scatter + cross_fission + cross_absorb

The total neutron mean free path is given by:
MFP = 1/(cross_total * N)
where N is the number of atoms per unit volume, determined by the density.

From neutron diffusion theory, the critical radius of a bare (unreflected)
sphere in terms of mean free paths is determined by c:

c value r_c
(crit. radius in MFP)
1.0 infinite
1.02 12.027
1.05 7.277
1.10 4.873
1.20 3.172
1.40 1.985
1.60 1.476

The actual size can be calculated by multiplying the radius by the MFP
value which is simply:
MFP = 1/(cross_total * N)
where N is the number of atoms per unit volume, determined by the density.

Eyeballing the Cf-251 chart gives an estimate of:
cross_scatter: 4 barns
cross_fission: 2.5 barns
cross_absorb: negligible
Assuming 3.9 neutrons per fission (about equal to the neutron emissions of
Cf-252 and Cf-254 from spontaneous fission) we get:
c = (4 + 2.5*3.9)/6.5 = 2.11

Unfortunately this is off the scale I have handy, but extrapolating the
critical radius curve gives an estimate of 0.88 as the critical radius.

I don't know the density of californium from actual measurement data, but
it is unlikely to be dramatically different from other transuranics.
Assuming an atom density of 5x10^22 atoms/cm^3 (similar to uranium,
neptunium, and plutonium) we get MFP = 1/(6.5 x 10^-24)*(5 x 10^22) = 3.08
cm.

Result: a bare sphere critical radius of 2.7 cm, and a critical mass of 1.7
kg. This is one-sixth that of plutonium-239, and if surrounded by a good
reflector should get pushed down substantially below 1 kg - arguably in the
"gram range". With a good implosion system, explosive yields from as little
~200 g are conceivable. Of course, reflectors and implosion systems add
weight - far more than the reduction in fissile mass.

Even leaving aside such factors as thermal output (this sucker should still
be very hot, though maybe not quite red hot), and extravagant cost, we are
basically looking at medium (maybe light) artillery not handgun
projectiles.

Commercial californium production has always been from irradiating other
transuranics in high flux reactors, not particle accelerators. A mixture
of isotopes is produced, so isotopic separation is also required.

[njslim]

Above was copied from Nuclear Weapons Archive

http://yarchive.net/nuke/micronuke.html

[defaultdotxbe]

Given the payoff it would be risky to bet against them. Fushion weapons would be unlikely to work although you could use the primary for a yield of a few kilotons. Imposion weapons might or might work depending on how they had been treated. I would be suprised if gun type didn't work.
well one thing i was considering was that they do require conventional explosives to compress the nuclear material, and those tend to have a shelf life in the sub-decade range, so i wonder how easy or hard it would be to replace those charges and still have the device function

although i guess for the terrorists its win-win-win, acheive a chanin reaction and mission accomplished, trigger goes off with no fission and you have a dirty bomb, nothing happens and you still get a lot of people scared

[DRBUZZ0]

well one thing i was considering was that they do require conventional explosives to compress the nuclear material, and those tend to have a shelf life in the sub-decade range, so i wonder how easy or hard it would be to replace those charges and still have the device function

although i guess for the terrorists its win-win-win, acheive a chanin reaction and mission accomplished, trigger goes off with no fission and you have a dirty bomb, nothing happens and you still get a lot of people scared

Well there are some things to consider. Most modern nuclear weapons in the US and Russia would not be simple fission weapons. They would generally be "boosted" which means that they will not achieve anywhere near the design yeild without the tritium capsul which provides additional neutrons. Without it they fissle. This would give you little more than a large conventional explosive. The capsules and sometimes the initiator pit are not always stored in the weapon. They may be removed to render it "safe"

Even if left in place, tritium has a half life of 12.3 years. It has to be replaced regularly. Also some weapons may use neutron generators or other components which utilize isotopes of limited lifetimes.

As far as "dirty bombs" go, a nuclear weapon isn't that great. If it uses highly enriched uranium and little or no plutonium, which many do, then you really don't have much of an issue. Uranium and even HEU (which is basically U-235) is only mildly toxic and not radioactive enough to be a huge hazard.

If we're talking plutonium, things might be worse, but the implosion mechanism is not designed to spread it around. In a "Dirty bomb" you want the radioactive isotope mixed in with the explosive or around it, for maximum dispersal. Even though some Pu-239 might get dispersed, it's not *that* bad as far as radioisotopes go. It's heavy and won't spread as much as others. It's primarily an alpha emitter and not very harmful outside the body. When alloyed with gallium, as it usually is, it's not that prone to pulverizing into a fine dust.

Yes, dispersing plutonium would be bad. If people were to breathe in even a small amount of dust it could be dangerous or deadly. But compared to something like Cs-137 or Co-60, Pu-239 is not an optimal material for a dirty bomb.

The military also has experience cleaning up from mishaps which have lead to a nuclear weapon being destroyed. It's not easy to do, but it's not impossible or even close. Basically guys with respirators and tyvex suits and cleaning stuff and then hauling off the residue and soil to be buried somewhere. It's happened a few times.

[geni]

well one thing i was considering was that they do require conventional explosives to compress the nuclear material, and those tend to have a shelf life in the sub-decade range, so i wonder how easy or hard it would be to replace those charges and still have the device function


In the case of implosion type very hard. In the case of gun type it would likely be posible.

[geni]

I do not believe that much ca-254 has ever been produced and separated in the entire history of the US, Soviet, British, Chinese and French nuclear programs combined. That stuff needs a real lot... a REAL LOT of bombardment to get to, considering that the heaviest natural stuff you can start off with is U-238.

I would be extreamly suprised to discover anyone makeing Cf-254 above the gram level (I would be somewhat suprised to discover someone makeing it in that amount).


I think that making a bomb out of anything heavier than plutonium would be a massive technical challenge.

It wouldn't be easy but I've suggestions that it might be posible to make an Americium based weapon (won't help you mind since you would need more Americium than plutonium to get up to critical mass).

[cludgie]

In the case of implosion type very hard. In the case of gun type it would likely be posible.

Thing is though, i'd have thought that gun-type weapons would be an absolutely minute proportion of the weapons that ever made it into service. Even with the first nukes, only 'Little Boy' was a gun-type device with 'Gadget' and 'Fat Man' both being more complex implosion devices. Most old-skool Soviet warheads I believe would similarly be fusion devices with an implosion-based fission primary.

And personally i've always been a bit dubious about terrorists being after nukes that much. They're going to be hideously difficult and expensive to obtain and also not exactly the easiest things to move around undetected.

[DRBUZZ0]

Thing is though, i'd have thought that gun-type weapons would be an absolutely minute proportion of the weapons that ever made it into service. Even with the first nukes, only 'Little Boy' was a gun-type device with 'Gadget' and 'Fat Man' both being more complex implosion devices. Most old-skool Soviet warheads I believe would similarly be fusion devices with an implosion-based fission primary.

And personally i've always been a bit dubious about terrorists being after nukes that much. They're going to be hideously difficult and expensive to obtain and also not exactly the easiest things to move around undetected.

Nearly all of the early production weapons from the US were implosion triggered. This is necessary for plutonium based weapons. A gun triggered plutonium-based bomb would be highly unreliable and prone to fissile. The gun-triggered design was used in a few specialized nuclear weapons, such as artillery shells. However, it's been totally phased out since at least the 1960's. No modern US weapons use the gun-trigger system.

From an engineering perspective it's much easier because you almost can't go wrong with a gun triggered system. Assuming the "projectile" is fired at a reasonable speed into the properly sized mass of U-235 it will go off.

But it's less efficient than implosion based systems. It's less fail-safe. It's not well suited to tritium-based boosting. It's more prone to partial mechanical failure. It's limited to very high grade highly enriched uranium.

I don't believe any of the current Russian weapons use gun-triggering either, and I believe you'd find that the Soviets came to similar conclusions about which method is superior.

The same goes for the British and French. I highly doubt that the Indians would have any gun-triggered devices. The pakistanis might, but I would tend to think probably not, because they have limited materials and would want to have the highest efficiency and not waste any materials unnecessarily.

It's possible the Chinese still have some old gun-triggered weapons. That I don't know, but their program was always way behind the US and Soviet Union and to date they don't have that huge a stockpile, so possibly they're holding onto some older designs.

Also, the North Koreans would not have used gun-triggered nukes because they went with a plutonium-based program. Also, their pu-239 bombs are not exactly reliable, as their only test was a fissile, which is generally considered a failure, by US and Russian standards. I'm hesitant to say that they have the bomb, because evidence is that they have one, but it doesn't really work... or barely does.


The implosion systems are rather complicated. At the end of the second world war the US had very limited resources to build nuclear weapons. However the implosion mechanism on even the crude mark-2 design was questionable enough to demand a test. Even after the test, it was decided to use the "Little Boy" bomb first, because it had the lesser chance of failure.

Gun triggers are the simple way to go and are more "Idiot-proof" but they're also pretty much obsolete. Also, you need HEU for them, which is a bit of a problem to get in big quantities.


Also, if you happen to get sufficient HEU, for Christ sake don't be one of those people who goes around saying "Why did someone open another bottle of milk? That's so ineffecient when we already have one that's nearly half full. I'll save some space and combine them" That logic does NOT work with HEU... seriously DO NOT DO THAT

[BenBurch]

That was fun!

I'm an old reactor safety systems guy... I did the A-Model systems for two BWRs in the midwest long ago and far away.

[geni]

Thing is though, i'd have thought that gun-type weapons would be an absolutely minute proportion of the weapons that ever made it into service. Even with the first nukes, only 'Little Boy' was a gun-type device with 'Gadget' and 'Fat Man' both being more complex implosion devices. Most old-skool Soviet warheads I believe would similarly be fusion devices with an implosion-based fission primary.



Pretty much. The south african weapons program was based on gun type weapons but that is about it.

[Furi]

Wasn't the Grable test (Artillery Shot) a Gun-Type , and the only other weaponised Gun system deployed by the US, the later large Calibre Artillery shells going over to implosion systems.

A bit like the Classical Layer Cake type "Fusion" device, although systems where tested by many countries I think it was only the UK that weaponised it briefly before replacing it with a US designed-UK Built Staged device

[Disbelief]

somethging ive been thinking about after reading this thread, is there any real chance a terrorist group could successfully detonate a nuclear warhead?

asuming they cant make their own warhead from scratch anything they have would be soviet-era, and probably 20+ years old at this point correct? what are the odds of a device that old functioning?

or is it more likely al-qaeda would just want the nuclear material for a dirty bomb?

I think that the terrorists would be after more of a biological/chemical weapon since that is much cheaper. I did a paper on this back in college, and the cost for C/B is way less than conventional or nuclear. While it can be difficult to use successfully, it has been done on large scale (Saddam) and small scale (Tokyo subway).

[cludgie]

The big problem you have with biological/chemical though is effective delivery. Although I grant that in a terrorist attack context it doesn't need to be properly/efficiently delivered in order to be effective.

I don't see how you can argue though the cost is less than a conventional terrorist attack. Explosives are alot more easily obtained and/or DIY manufactured than the majority of chemical agents and pretty much any biological agent and have been the very backbone of terrorism for decades.

[Furi]

But if you can imagine the spreading of a nice persistant Vesicant in a public area, as well as the immediate havoc, you have a woo of a cleanup operation. Imagine the havoc you could cause just as an intidiction depoyment of even good old HS.

Single Crop Duster with 200L HS on board with little to no wind, even if carried out on a low density Suburban area, the financial cost and chaos would be unbelievable, a couple of 1000kg HME loaded Transits might cause Havoc for the same cost. but the Fear factor would be no where near as high (mind you the reprisals would be something to factor in as well)

[cludgie]

But if you can imagine the spreading of a nice persistant Vesicant in a public area, as well as the immediate havoc, you have a woo of a cleanup operation. Imagine the havoc you could cause just as an intidiction depoyment of even good old HS.

Single Crop Duster with 200L HS on board with little to no wind, even if carried out on a low density Suburban area, the financial cost and chaos would be unbelievable, a couple of 1000kg HME loaded Transits might cause Havoc for the same cost. but the Fear factor would be no where near as high (mind you the reprisals would be something to factor in as well)

What do you mean by HS? Hydrogen Sulphide?

As for bombings, the effects can often be more lasting. For instance it took a few years before my home city of Manchester got rid of the physical scars from the IRA bombing and the economic damage from that was huge.

[Furi]

HS - Early Persistant Mustard Gas, Named after Hun Stuff.

Although probably as moved on Di-Chloro-Ethyl, Di-Sulphide I think although the designation has been used for many other Persistant Vesicants or combinations thereof, Used in WWI,

Edit, Just remembered HS was Non persistant well same stuff less solvent ;)

[cludgie]

Ah, fair enough.

[Disbelief]

The big problem you have with biological/chemical though is effective delivery. Although I grant that in a terrorist attack context it doesn't need to be properly/efficiently delivered in order to be effective.

It is why I noted that it is dificult to use effectively, though I showed two examples where it has been done. I should have also talked about mustard gas from WWI.

I don't see how you can argue though the cost is less than a conventional terrorist attack. Explosives are alot more easily obtained and/or DIY manufactured than the majority of chemical agents and pretty much any biological agent and have been the very backbone of terrorism for decades.

You want me to go back too many years and find my source? I don't even know where my paper is with all the moving I've been doing lately. However, it showed what the cost per square mile was, and it was less for C/B than either conventional or nuclear. While explosives are more easily attained, it does not take much more to get C/B ingredients either. I can think of a few that would not be hard to produce.

[DRBUZZ0]

Wasn't the Grable test (Artillery Shot) a Gun-Type , and the only other weaponised Gun system deployed by the US, the later large Calibre Artillery shells going over to implosion systems.

A bit like the Classical Layer Cake type "Fusion" device, although systems where tested by many countries I think it was only the UK that weaponised it briefly before replacing it with a US designed-UK Built Staged device


Yes, grable was a gun-triggered device. That's the only one I know was a weaponized gun-triggered device that had any kind of production. I'm not sure but there may have been other gun triggered devices used for testing or design evaluations. I doubt there were any later gun-triggered designs seriously considered for weapons. Some of this stuff is still classified, but I know the US shelved gun triggering completely by the early 1960's.

The soviets had a few "Layer Cake" based fission-fusion weapons.

[Furi]

The soviets had a few "Layer Cake" based fission-fusion weapons.


I know they had performed a few Tests on that design, But I don't recall any named deployed system, as after the Mike test they where able to also working on radiation implosion, either through parallel development or by analysis of Spectrum Generation and Isotope Collection from US Tests helping them along as I believe there was research on the fusion level of weapons running alongside on the manhatten project either intentionally or as new branches and data presented themselves (on a side note re nuke secrets<woo>Klaus Fuchs was a Patsy</woo> :catfight:)

But then again, there was an awful lot of Sov Era weapons we know very little about and given the one upmanship it wouldn't suprise me that a couple of stopgap systems were deployed.

[cludgie]

It is why I noted that it is dificult to use effectively, though I showed two examples where it has been done. I should have also talked about mustard gas from WWI.

I know you cited Tokyo and the use of nerve agents on the Kurds. However the latter isn't what i'd call traditional terrorism. As for the Tokyo Sarin attack, i'd agree that was fairly effective for want of a better word.


You want me to go back too many years and find my source? I don't even know where my paper is with all the moving I've been doing lately. However, it showed what the cost per square mile was, and it was less for C/B than either conventional or nuclear. While explosives are more easily attained, it does not take much more to get C/B ingredients either. I can think of a few that would not be hard to produce.

I'll take you at your word, no worries. It just surprised me a little, thats all. I do wonder though if its as easy now, I know in the UK at least from family members in the chemical industry its alot harder to obtain a great number of compounds these days (and especially in the last five years) without licence due to their alternative uses.

[geni]

Yes, grable was a gun-triggered device. That's the only one I know was a weaponized gun-triggered device that had any kind of production. I'm not sure but there may have been other gun triggered devices used for testing or design evaluations. I doubt there were any later gun-triggered designs seriously considered for weapons. Some of this stuff is still classified, but I know the US shelved gun triggering completely by the early 1960's.

All of South Africa's 6 nuclear bombs were 6 gun type.

[Furi]

I'll take you at your word, no worries. It just surprised me a little, thats all. I do wonder though if its as easy now, I know in the UK at least from family members in the chemical industry its alot harder to obtain a great number of compounds these days (and especially in the last five years) without licence due to their alternative uses.

I suppose it depends what you are going for, I suppose if want to produce a super lethal Nerve Gas then Yeah it would be a bit difficult to obtain certain reagents, however, if you merely wish to cause mass financial and social disruption and panic through real or perceived fear, then with a little ingenuity and a few well publicised incidents of non toxic but unpleasant compounds, it shouldn't be long till you can bring a shopping centre to a standstill because of a rancid bottom burp after a night on the porter.

Some Shellfish, some chicken Lemon juice and Sugar, a warm windowsill, a fermenting bucket hydrometer and a fish tank aerator, could give you an unpleasant compound, Aerosol delivery of DiMethylEther /industrial Paint Strippers or CCl4 in a tube station or enclosed area could also be unpleasant and attention grabbing. or go back to the old food / brand market terrorism, it doesn't take much, just think how many town centres didn't have Litter bins (or still don't) due to the IRA bombings, even years after the last mainland attack

[Furi]

All of South Africa's 6 nuclear bombs were 6 gun type.

IIRC They are also the only country that has given up there Nuclear capability, essentially they went "nyah nyah nyah we ken do it to, so tek that you med super puwers" and then withdrew from the Nuclear club.

Plus they did have access to all that wonderful Uranium Ore :p may as well put it to some use eh!

[geni]

As for the Tokyo Sarin attack, i'd agree that was fairly effective for want of a better word.


Death toll below the 7 July 2005 london bombings. It is posible that explosives would have had a bigger impact.

[Furi]

Death toll below the 7 July 2005 london bombings. It is posible that explosives would have had a bigger impact.

but nowhere near as memorable or newsworthy, and that is what it is all about really, have a look at the Warrington 1993 bombings, 2 Fatalities (not trivialising just making a point) so hardly what you would call a truly effective use of explosives, however the effect reached a lot further, espescially in light of the earlier Gasworks bombing, where it then looked also like a major campaign was flaring up again.

It is mostly a reprisal issue that I believe stops groups going down the BC route, because once you cross the acceptable boundaries of terrorism, Belgium are you in a pile of dingos kidneys.

Sep 11 Attacks where way beyond the Acceptable boundaries

[Sword_Of_Truth]

If we are discussing the asinine "micro-nukes" theory put forth by Spooked911 and Anonymous Pus-filled Cyst (I will not call him "physicist" under any circumstances), then it should be pointed out that they have specifically stated that fusion devices were used to destroy the twin towers. (http://wtcdemolition.blogspot.com/2007/05/wtc-nuke-thesis-from-anonymous.html)

The anonymous Finnish military expert—- to whom all real 9/11 truth seekers are indebted—- appears to believe that only one fusion device in the 1-kiloton range was used in each tower. This may be so, but it should be debated. I believe the evidence indicates several fusion bombs went off during the destruction of the two towers.

I'm not a nuclear engineer, but I believe that the minimum size a fission device needs to be in order to produce fusion temperatures is substantially larger than what one needs for a fission bomb that just goes "BOOM".

[defaultdotxbe]

I'm not a nuclear engineer, but I believe that the minimum size a fission device needs to be in order to produce fusion temperatures is substantially larger than what one needs for a fission bomb that just goes "BOOM".
well i think even very small fission bombs are capable of inducing fusion, of course the whole idea of a fusion stage is to boost the yeild to the megaton range (or at least hundreds of kilotons) and a 100kton bomb most certainly did not go off in new york on 9/11 or ever

ive pointed this out to several nuke proponents, mostly they ignore it, sometimes theyll posit a pure-fusion (cold fusion) bomb, and which takes it to the realm space lasers as far as im concerned

[Corsair 115]

but nowhere near as memorable or newsworthy, and that is what it is all about really, have a look at the Warrington 1993 bombings...It is perhaps good in a way that Al-Qaeda and their ilk have a preference for large scale, set piece type of attacks. Because if their concern was just spreading the maximum amount of fear with the smallest possible effort, I can think of one way: emulate the D.C. area sniper attacks of several years ago.

Remember the enormous amount of news coverage and general fear that event caused? Now imagine if that same style of sniper attack started occurring in five or six major American cities at the same time. Think of the huge amount of law enforcement resources such attacks would consume, and how difficult it would be to catch such snipers — the D.C. area pair got caught by making some dumb mistakes. Assuming terrorist snipers avoided such mistakes, it seems to me such sniper attacks would be a very difficult thing for authorities to stop.

[cludgie]

Death toll below the 7 July 2005 london bombings. It is posible that explosives would have had a bigger impact.

Possibly, although I seem to recall the number listed as injured in the Tokyo bombing was very high. How that broke down into severity I don't know though.

Like you say though, swap the Sarin for a decent size bomb and it'd probably had killed more outright.

[cludgie]

ive pointed this out to several nuke proponents, mostly they ignore it, sometimes theyll posit a pure-fusion (cold fusion) bomb, and which takes it to the realm space lasers as far as im concerned

It takes it far beyond space lasers i'd say! And I believe the cold fusion bomb idea is popular amongst the nutters because it means they don't have to explain the complete lack of nuclear fallout or injuries consistent with exposure to said fallout.

[DRBUZZ0]

If we are discussing the asinine "micro-nukes" theory put forth by Spooked911 and Anonymous Pus-filled Cyst (I will not call him "physicist" under any circumstances), then it should be pointed out that they have specifically stated that fusion devices were used to destroy the twin towers. (http://wtcdemolition.blogspot.com/2007/05/wtc-nuke-thesis-from-anonymous.html)



I'm not a nuclear engineer, but I believe that the minimum size a fission device needs to be in order to produce fusion temperatures is substantially larger than what one needs for a fission bomb that just goes "BOOM".

Well, a one kiloton fission bomb is a challenge in itself, as noted earlier. You could use a very small fission bomb to get a small amount of fusion of tritium, as in a "boosted" weapon.

But you don't necessarily need a fission reaction to trigger a fusion explosion. If you could get enough initial fusion of a tiny amount of highly compressed fusion fuel you might be able to create a pure-fusion weapon. This could possibly be done by a multi-exawatt pulsed power generator or maybe a huge array of chemical lasers or something like that. The Z-pinch is not actually large enough to create enough fusion for a self-sustaining explosion, but if you scaled it up a few hundred times...

Okay... that sounds ridiculous, but has that ever stopped CT'ers in the past?

How do we know that the towers even had people and offices and elevators and such in them? Perhaps they were just too massive shells packed to the roof with pulse capacitors! What? You were in them before? You know people who were there? You must be part of the conspiracy!

[cludgie]

This thread reminds me of that all time classic looney tunes nuke-related WTC theory. Ladies and gentlemen I give you http://www.nucleardemolition.com.

[BenBurch]

Some Polish scientists claimed to have initiated fusion with a high explosive implosion device back in the early 80s. I wonder what happened to that claim?

[DRBUZZ0]

Some Polish scientists claimed to have initiated fusion with a high explosive implosion device back in the early 80s. I wonder what happened to that claim?

I've heard of such things but the conclusion is generally that the amount of explosives necessary to generate sufficient energy for even a small amount of fusion is too large for an effective weapon and that a "pure fusion" bomb based on any current energy storage mechanism would have an energy to mass ratio no better than conventional explosives.

The proposals I've seen involve explosively pumped flux compression generators. That seems like it might be possible for a VERY small amount of fusion which would be far bellow what would be needed to get a full scale H-bomb set off.

Perhaps those scientists are still mining coal in Siberia today...

[BenBurch]

DRBUZZO - Totally a topic derail, but have you ever looked into the device known as a Farnsworth Fusor?

It has a real cult following, possibly because it is the only hot fusion device you can build in your home, and it really does make neutrons and helium.

I keep wondering if there isn't some way of getting the intensity of this device up to a usable level?

http://farnovision.com/chronicles/fusion/index.html

[tacodaemon]

This thread reminds me of that all time classic looney tunes nuke-related WTC theory. Ladies and gentlemen I give you http://www.nucleardemolition.com.


Is it even conceivable that someone could set off nukes underneath the WTC, even little bitty Davy Crockett ones (let alone the "clandestine nuclear reactors" going critical that nucleardemolition.com posits), without it being really obvious?

Imagine for a second that there actually were big bombs set off in the basement like Willie Rodriguez thinks, and that everybody noticed the basement explosions. Could you conceal the explosion of even a 20-ton nuke under the WTC, such that people outside the buildings would think at first that it was just a big conventional bomb?

[DRBUZZ0]

Already wrote about it here: http://depletedcranium.com/?p=138

A nuclear explosion like that, even a very very small one would produce fallout from fission products (and likely unfissioned plutonium) which would be way way way more radioactive than anything you'd otherwise expect. It could be very very very brutally ridiculously easily proven with a simple gamma spectrometer.

Even a 50 dollar surplus geiger counter would light up a block away. And yes, the rubble was tested for radiation.

NO NO NO! NO NUKE! NO!

[Furi]

how a bout a 100T of hiex footage

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1763156

If I can dig it out I have trinity and beyond somewhere I'll see if I can edit out some of the smaller explosions such as
100T test conventional, Ranger Able (1kt), Ranger Easy (1kt)
the aftermath of the Jangle (http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Busterj.html) shots, Sugar and Uncle should be looked at. only a mere 1.2kt Surface and subsurface produced intense local Radioactivity and fallout.

whichever method of device is propsed Cold Fusion Hot Fusion Staged, (un)boosted Fission, Antimatter annihilation, Neutron Compression charge. Even excluding the lack of localised EMP High neutron absorbtion into surrounding materials, Mass prompt Xray emission (That I believe certain satelites would have picked up especially) the micronuke claims do infact have a use.. it helps to show just how much diligeance, thought, research and care, goes into a CT proposal, and brings to forth the mark of woo

and remember kids bert the turtle says :duck::covereyes:relieved:
(time passes depending on distance)
:yikes::shocked::flamed::faint:

[DRBUZZ0]

how a bout a 100T of hiex footage

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1763156

If I can dig it out I have trinity and beyond somewhere I'll see if I can edit out some of the smaller explosions such as
100T test conventional, Ranger Able (1kt), Ranger Easy (1kt)
the aftermath of the Jangle (http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Busterj.html) shots, Sugar and Uncle should be looked at. only a mere 1.2kt Surface and subsurface produced intense local Radioactivity and fallout.

whichever method of device is propsed Cold Fusion Hot Fusion Staged, (un)boosted Fission, Antimatter annihilation, Neutron Compression charge. Even excluding the lack of localised EMP High neutron absorbtion into surrounding materials, Mass prompt Xray emission (That I believe certain satelites would have picked up especially) the micronuke claims do infact have a use.. it helps to show just how much diligeance, thought, research and care, goes into a CT proposal, and brings to forth the mark of woo

and remember kids bert the turtle says :duck::covereyes:relieved:
(time passes depending on distance)
:yikes::shocked::flamed::faint:


What kind of blasts are you looking for? I have nearly the whole DOE archive of nuclear blasts on a series of data DVD's. Images, movies and all the data tables. It took me years to collect some of this, as some was not released in digital form until recently.

The stuff on Trinity and Beyond may be dicey to post online. I know VCE hasn't been copyright nazis with it, probably because they realize that nobody's going to forgo buying their movie in favor of a few 320x240 resolution 2-minute clips.

However, the original stuff, which may/may not be as much eyecandy (VCE did an amazing job of digitally remastering some of the faded footage) and it won't have the same background music. But the original DOE/AEC stuff is public domain so posting is no problem.

[DRBUZZ0]

I might reiterate again: There is no way that you can set off even a very small nuclear weapon without any indication of the fallout. At least, the only way you could do it would be to have it down a very deep and well-sealed borehole. Obviously this is not what is claimed.

Any bomb with a fission component will produce very noticable and easily detectable fallout. Even if it's well bellow "danger" levels, any bozo with a geieger counter will know something is up. Any half-decent community college will have the equipment to determind that there is nuclear fission bibroducts above what would be expected from past nuclear testing/chernobyl and so on.

There is no way of detonating any nuclear weapon that does not involve a fission component. The exceptions of antimatter/pulsed power/isomers and so on are beyond any systems in current existance. We cannot make ANYWHERE NEAR the amount of antimatter needed, and if we could we don't have a reliable means of safely storing it. We can't make enough halfnium isomers. We don't have large enough pulsed power generators.

It simply cannot be done without fission. The only exception might be some sort of massive impulse generator, which would cost on the order of billions and take up a huge amount of space.

Ontop of this, fusion is not necessarly fallout-free. Although by itself it's basically "clean" (aside from possibly a small amount of tritium) it can produce fallout by neutron activation of other materials (such as iron) the only way of having fallout-free fusion would be to use a very low-neutron fusion material such as helium-3 or boron fusion. This makes it even more difficult. Even then, there would be some neutrons, so you'd have to have the whole thing surrounded by tons and tons of boron or halfnium-based neutron sheilding.

Can't be done. Sorry. Just not within the relhm of possibility.


IF there were a nuke set off there, lower manhattan would still be a bit more radioactive than expected today. Even nuke sites from 40 years ago still have traces of fallout if you use sensative enough equipment.


If it will shut up any CT'ers, I'll happily take my spectrometer and a couple good scintillation detectors down to NYC next time I go. The only radiation I would expect to find is some thorium, radon, maybe a touch of uranium and some potassium-40. Of course, these are what you find ANYWHERE!

[Furi]

What kind of blasts are you looking for? I have nearly the whole DOE archive of nuclear blasts on a series of data DVD's. Images, movies and all the data tables. It took me years to collect some of this, as some was not released in digital form until recently.

The stuff on Trinity and Beyond may be dicey to post online. I know VCE hasn't been copyright nazis with it, probably because they realize that nobody's going to forgo buying their movie in favor of a few 320x240 resolution 2-minute clips.

However, the original stuff, which may/may not be as much eyecandy (VCE did an amazing job of digitally remastering some of the faded footage) and it won't have the same background music. But the original DOE/AEC stuff is public domain so posting is no problem.

I was thinking of some of the smaller surface tests, Moth, Bee, boltzman (sub kiloton types) a lot of these were physics tests, I think there was a few very small MET/WET at around the 0.8 -1kt, or maybe some of the small primary underground tests, the video of even these tiny (relative) explosions, with shockwave, Blast duration, and Altitude of shroom cloud (subsidence crater), should pretty much convince anyone who doesn't accept any fact unless it presented in video format. plus let's face it Nuke explosion are cool (at a distance :p )

Good point about the TAB video, although I also have seen a lot of that footage from open sources. but I will see if I can find any of the pd stuff

[DRBUZZ0]

I was thinking of some of the smaller surface tests, Moth, Bee, boltzman (sub kiloton types) a lot of these were physics tests, I think there was a few very small MET/WET at around the 0.8 -1kt, or maybe some of the small primary underground tests, the video of even these tiny (relative) explosions, with shockwave, Blast duration, and Altitude of shroom cloud (subsidence crater), should pretty much convince anyone who doesn't accept any fact unless it presented in video format. plus let's face it Nuke explosion are cool (at a distance :p )

Good point about the TAB video, although I also have seen a lot of that footage from open sources. but I will see if I can find any of the pd stuff

Oh sure. I'll find you some of those no prob. They're mostly in the form of longer films in higher quality. So give me a day to get it cut down to size and transcoded to something youtube would like.

[DRBUZZ0]

Okay. First here are some tests from the 1950's in some AEC/DOE footage. These are one kiloton nuclear tests, which is about the smallest you can get without resorting to stuff like linear implosion and compound neutron-reflector designs as mentioned above.

351zid4NHKI

Now it's important to note that one kiloton does not mean "as much energy as a kiloton of TNT." It is a measure of "blast equivalence." In reality, the total energy released in terms of thermal energy/x-rays/neutrons and such is MUCH MUCH MUCH higher.

Some description of seeing a (small) nuke from within 1-5-2 miles:

Light:

The initial blast produces an enormous flash. For those closeby it will be much brighter than the sun. I recall an interview with a camera man who was in a high altitude aircraft filming a small few-kiloton blast. He described how just before the blast he was adjusting his goggles when they fell off. He immediately slapped his hand over his eyes and when the flash appeared he could see the outline of the bones in his hand. But he was quite close.

The flash is breif but the bright light continues as a "fireball" of superheated gas/plasma begins to rise. This will remain bright for at least several seconds, at the minimum. How long will depend on the atmospheric conditions/daylight/weapon yield/whether it kicked up a lot of dust and many other things.

The glow of the blast cloud can be visible for minutes afterward, especially at night. This is both due to the incandescence of hot rising gas, the chemical reactions of combustion and of ozone being created and decaying, atmospheric gases bonding and so on. There is also a more faint glow which (generally at night) can leave a hazy light to the cloud. This is caused by the rapid decay of short-lived fission products ionizing the air.

Heat:

The blast is accompanied by an immediate wave of heat in the form of thermal radiation. For those a "safe" distance away it still be very noticable. Imagine standing in front of a bank of IR heat lamps and having them imediatly all come on full power and then slowely fade after the burst. It would be stronger than the feeling of the sun. Perhaps similar to being near a big bonfire, but it comes all at once.


Here is some footage from Operation Cue which tested structural effects. These structures would obviously be much closer than observers. Notice something: Even before the blast wave occurs there's smoke coming off of structures. The powerful thermal radiation immediately heats materials to the point of combustion. Structures are scorched, paint is vaporized and grasses begin to smoke and char.

tr76hNngqts


The blast wave:

The flash is silent. Obviously sound travels much more slowely than light. The first sound that (may) be heard from the blast is the sound of the materials closer to the observer burning. It can range up to a small crackling roar, but its not that loud. This sound may be so brief as to not be noticable before the blast sound. It very much depends on the conditions and what is in between the blast and the observer.

The ground may shake or rumble before the air pressure wave arrives. This depends on factors like the altitude of the blast and the ground density, but earth tends to transfer acoustic energy faster.

The blast wave can often actually be seen approaching. It spreads in a circle and kicks up dust. Occasionally it may condense moisture in the air. Generally it can be seen approaching faster and faster due to the illusion of speed/distance. But it will seem like a far off wave that comes slowly then rushes you.

It's less a "bang" than a "FROOM!" or a big thud that you may as much feel as hear. The rapid change in pressure could cause your ears to "pop" and it could knock off your hat or ruffle papers.

Dust which is seen rising is not from the blast. That's just nearby dust kicked up. The radioactive dust comes later.

Here's the best video I've ever seen illustrating the blast wave. This is ripped from "Hollywood's seceret studio" VCE is usually pretty lenient about letting clips and tidbits be posted and it is originally AEC footage. Buy the movie... seriously. Don't watch this and think "Okay now I have seen it" The movie is very good

dU2ewpBvpow

[DRBUZZ0]

You know... i'm really disipointed that this lively thread has had zero responses to what I posted today.

I'm just saying because I went to some trouble to get those videos up and stuff. ANd I thought they were interesting and whatnot.

Oh well.. guess not

[BenBurch]

Dude, its a FRIDAY.

[grmcdorman]

I enjoyed them, DRBUZZ0. Your posts have been very informative and interesting; I'm learning new stuff. Please don't be discouraged. (As an aside, I borrowed Trinity and Beyond from the library once, and watched it with my son; he said it was interesting but a bit disturbing.)

[jhunter1163]

I always enjoy watching things get blow'd up.

[DRBUZZ0]

ah good. I always liked those "shockwave" movies. They're pretty unique in showing what that is like.

[BenBurch]

I've always thought that the nuclear bomb was one of the more beautiful on man's creations. Seen as fireworks, of course.

[DRBUZZ0]

I've always thought that the nuclear bomb was one of the more beautiful on man's creations. Seen as fireworks, of course.

Yeah. Trinity and Beyond is one of the most amazing documentaries I've ever seen and I think that there's really huge value to the fact that they show jaw-dropping eye-candy of the bombs and the effects.

The reason I think this is valuable is it puts things into a perspective that you might not readily appreciate. To the developers of these weapons they're more than just calculations on paper. There's a psycological factor and cultural perspective.

There's a conflict because you know the terrible power and purpose of the weapons. They're designed to kill and they cause such devastation. Yet, as a scientist you're trying to push things further, to expand human capabilities and understanding and harness forces. The power of the weapons is almost beyond comprehension. While they're a scientific pursuit, a deadly serious game, they are also a novel toy, an amazing display of power and beauty and an opportunity to control and operate something with power never before dreamed of by mankind.

Seeing the power like that there's an understanding of how it must have seemed like a culmination of harnessing the forces of nature. The desire to take it further and flex the nuclear muscle is obvious.

It's like having the fastest car around. You want to drive it fast. You want to see what it can do. You're amazed by it's performance. And then when you find there's a mod-chip or air intake that can make it even faster, you can't resist the temptation. People think it's irrational.... but then they take a spin in the car and understand.


The images in Trinity and Beyond take you closer to this than any verbal or written account ever could.

[phaed]

Seriously, why don't people do 5 minutes of research before posting a question? The minimum size for a nuclear weapon depends entirely on the substrate:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_mass_%28nuclear%29#Critical_mass_of_a_bar e_sphere

[DRBUZZ0]

Seriously, why don't people do 5 minutes of research before posting a question? The minimum size for a nuclear weapon depends entirely on the substrate:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_mass_%28nuclear%29#Critical_mass_of_a_bar e_sphere




NO. You're oversimplifying a complicated physics and engineering problem which must include other factors in practice. It also is not as simple as the bare critical mass.

You are assuming that you're talking about only a sphere of the fissile material. Neutron reflectors, fusion boosting, external neutron generators, the composition and purity of the material.

This is not taking into account how the critical mass is stored in a non-critical configuration, the explosives needed and so on.

[Drs_Res]

You know... i'm really disipointed that this lively thread has had zero responses to what I posted today.

I'm just saying because I went to some trouble to get those videos up and stuff. ANd I thought they were interesting and whatnot.

Oh well.. guess not

Interesting stuff here. Thanks for taking the trouble to edit and post it. :)

[Furi]

:yahoo

Dr Buzz0, What can I say, apart from :woo,

Excellent coice of videos showing the important features, some wonderful low yield footage, and an informative post as well.

A lot of people seem to forget what blast equivalence is in relation to published yields, and also just how LARGE even a 1kt explosion is.

Playing about with Brian Davis' spreadsheet (it's quicker than using WE or Blast) some startling results arise from 0.1 < 1kt figures at 500m ground distance, given a height of 380m (I know that the blast equiv where derived from free air explosions and that thermal / blast would be affected if enclosed (Say tiddlypeops can you spell Fallout?)). might play with WE(and blast) later later to gain some results from a radiological POV (prob have to use unboosted modern primary as a model though)

But tyvm for that post, I will prob get distracted now and start watch my test footage fims, or TAB, Threads, Failsafe, Dr Strangelocve etc LOL

:thanks

=^..^=

[OldSchool]

Have these mini-nukes been used, by our military, during any faze of the Iraq war?

[DRBUZZ0]

Well, for the really small nuclear detonations in the single kiloton range, you're not talking about disastrous amounts of fallout. You would not want to be at ground zero right after the smoke cleared (at least not without a respirator and coveralls) but within a day it would be very reduced. Within a couple of weeks it would be well bellow 1%.

The most dangerous fallout component would be I-131. It's dangerous because it's rather radioactive and it exists in both vaporous and solid form, making it easy to absorb. Once in your body it goes to the thyroid, which, as it happens, is a very radiation-sensitive organ. Luckilly it's pretty short lived, so the hazard only exists right after the blast and isn't a long term issue. Also, administering potassium iodine can help reduce it's uptake.

So lets say you set off a 1kt fission bomb in lower Manhattan. Blast effects aside, my one concern would be people in the very immediate area could be exposed to enough I-131 to cause a significant increase in thyroid cancer risk. Although we probably would not be talking of an epidemic of thyroid cancer: Just quite a bit more than you'd otherwise have.

Now in the longer term, you've got stuff like Pm-147, Cs-137, Sr-90 and whatnot which hangs around for years. But the total amount produced by a one kiloton blast would not be that huge. A few good rainfalls and the area would be basically okay. (But again we're talking a very small nuke).

Of course, you need to realize that any fission explosion is going to create a lot more radioisotopes than you'd expect to see otherwise. Even if it's at "safe" levels, it'd still be more than enough to detect easily.

Let me give an example: A fiestaware orange plate is perfectly safe to handle. It's even safe to eat off of, but it contains enough uranium that it make a good geiger counter light up from several feet away. With a scintillation detector you could pick out out from the other side of the room. With a good scint you'll even notice a jump if you walk by a smoke detector.

The thing about radioactive substances is they're so extremely easy to pick out and detect, even in tiny tiny amounts, that they're used all the time as "tracers" in medicine and science. Even in industry they are used to find leaks in pipelines and such.

So it's inconceivable to me that you could set off a nuclear explosion, even one with relatively little fallout and not have it noticed by a simple instrument. If an area is, lets say 10 uR/hr background radiation level and then you start walking with a geiger counter and the area goes up to 20uR/hr then to 80uR/hr and then 300uR/hr, well you're going to notice. Eventhough by most standards that's still perfectly safe it's still WAY above normal.


Really the only way you can hide a nuclear explosion would be to have a very small nuclear weapon and put it very deeply underground. Deep enough that it would not create a subsidence crater.

But then again... that doesn't accomplish much does it? I mean how the hell do you use a nuke to destroy stuff when it has to be isolated under one thousand feet of granite?

[DRBUZZ0]

Have these mini-nukes been used, by our military, during any faze of the Iraq war?

no.

[OldSchool]

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20060217&articleId=1988

For what reason are you so curtain?


"If Saddam was arguably the highest value target in Iraq, then a good case could be made for using a nuclear weapon like the B61-11 to assure killing him and decapitating the regime" (.Defense News, December 8, 2003).

There is no documentary evidence, however, that the B61-11 was used against Iraq.

[beachnut]

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20060217&articleId=1988

For what reason are you so curtain?


"If Saddam was arguably the highest value target in Iraq, then a good case could be made for using a nuclear weapon like the B61-11 to assure killing him and decapitating the regime" (.Defense News, December 8, 2003).

There is no documentary evidence, however, that the B61-11 was used against Iraq.
Drape it, you got us now.

[ElMondoHummus]

Really the only way you can hide a nuclear explosion would be to have a very small nuclear weapon and put it very deeply underground. Deep enough that it would not create a subsidence crater.


Well, then you'd have seismic data revealing its presence, I'd think. Right?

Anyway, slightly changing topics... or rather, direction of topic, since I'm still referring to the conspiracy fantasy of mini/micro nukes: You see that stuff published about elevated levels of tritium being pushed by the fantasists? I'm just so continually disappointed in their ability to ignore facts in order to build their arguments. How can they push stuff like what's published here:

http://www.rense.com/general76/wtc.htm


The single sample was extremely minimal for adequate sampling of the massive damage left in turning 3 buildings into steel and particles, but may be enough to give irrefutable support for the origination of Tritium Levels present in the WTC buildings and prove beyond any doubt there was a nuclear reaction in the WTC buildings.


... and completely ignore the information in this paper:

http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1678&context=lbnl


Traces of tritiated water (HTO) were detected at [the]World Trade Center (WTC) ground zero after the 9/11/01 terrorist attack...

Several tritium radioluminescent (RL) devices were investigated as possible sources of the traces of tritium at ground zero. It was determined that [the]Boeing 767-222 aircraft operated by the United Airlines that hit WTC Tower 2 as well as [the]Boeing 767-223ER operated by the American Airlines, that hit WTC Tower 1, had a combined 34{.3} Ci of tritium at the time of impact, contained in emergency signs. WTC hosted several law-enforcement agencies such as ATF, CIA, US Secret Service and US Customs. The ATF office had two weapon vaults in WTC Building 6. Also 63 Police Officers, possibly carrying handguns, died in the attack. The weaponry containing tritium sights was therefore a likely and significant source of tritium. It is possible that some of the 2824 victims carried tritium watches, however this source appears to be less significant than the other two.



I mean, am I missing something in the analysis that makes the Rense article supercede the Lawrence Berkeley paper (Yeah, yeah, I know... it's Rense. I'm completely familiar with their "journalism". I'm just trying to make a rhetorical point)? DRBUZZO (or anybody else) you see anything wrong with my comparison of information here? Have I made any mistake in judging the Rense info by what I found in the Lawrence Berkeley paper? I mean... the information is so easily accessible that I can't believe it would merely be missed, I believe it would be out-and-out ignored in order to make the Rense article's point.

Anyway... half rant, half debunk, half ;) request for someone to review my comparison (I'm tellin ya, I always try to give 150% :D).

[DRBUZZ0]

nuclear explosions do have characteristic seismic signatures. These tend to be different than even conventional large blasts, because they occur faster. That having been said, if the nuke were very very small and there were no seismoniters especially closeby, it might be possible to have a situation where it is difficult to determine a nuclear blast has gone off by the seismic waves alone. I have also heard some talk in the past of how setting off a nuclear explosion and a large number of conventional explosions in the area simultaneously might be able to "hide" the provable nuclear blast pulse in all the "noise" Mining and excivating blasts also cause seismic activity, but they are distinct because they are usually staged into a series of pulses. Perhaps you could somehow combine this with a nuclear explosion to make it unclear.


As far as tritium. Tritium is generally very very low in the environment in general and 55x "Above average" is still much lower than you would ever expect as an indicator of fallout from any fusion weapon. Remember that radioisotopes can be measured at extremely minute levels, so if the general amount of tritium is very nearly zero than 55x is still a tiny tiny tiny itty bitty amount. The fact that they don't give an absolute amount of tritium (only "55X") is probably because it would look a lot less impressive if expressed in parts per billion or even parts per trillion.

Now as far as what could account for the increased tritium. Even before I read the report I immediately thought "radiolumonescent devices" because thats the most common use for tritium and would more than account for the amount found. Basically these are self-powered glowing items which glow brightly and continuously in the dark, even without the need for "charging" with light. The amount of tritium in the, in terms of curies is quite high. They are common in emergency signs in aircraft. I actually think the amount of 34ci on the aircraft is a tad bit lower than I would have thought.

Also, as mentioned, in the sites of weapons, tritium is commonly used. It's found in higher-end glowing watches, but I doubt that would be anything signifficant. I have an exit sign which is labeled as containing 80 Ci of tritium as of manufacture. That's actually a lot. Most emergency exit signs have 20-40 or something like that.

But that having been said, they are quite common for emergency exit signs, especially because they can be installed and meet qualifications for emergency lighting without the need for any wiring or drilling of holes etc..

I do not know of any in the WTC or surrounding buildings, but I would not be surprised if there were. You would not need many to account for these levels. Anyone can buy these things. They're common. They have them in the library in my town and the walmart. They range from $150 up, but that can still be cheaper than a standard battery-backed exit sign and an electrician to wire for it. So, if you look around you see them a lot.

The world trade center was a HUGE office complex and since you don't need to have any sort of special licence for one of these, there may have been some.

Add in the weapons sites. The tritium signs on the aircraft. Possible broken signs in nearby buildings. It can more than account for the modest increase.

[buka001]

Thank you very much for the extensive and highly valuable information on nuclear weapons.

Love the videos!!!

Learnt alot from this post!! Much more than what wikipedia et al have to offer.

[Slayhamlet]

Drape it, you got us now.

:D

[DRBUZZ0]

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20060217&articleId=1988

For what reason are you so curtain?


"If Saddam was arguably the highest value target in Iraq, then a good case could be made for using a nuclear weapon like the B61-11 to assure killing him and decapitating the regime" (.Defense News, December 8, 2003).

There is no documentary evidence, however, that the B61-11 was used against Iraq.

A) You don't use any nuke on the battlefield because it might possibly be helpful. You set off a nuke and you've escillated things dramatically. It has not been done since 1945. It would cause an international uproar and it sets a president that you don't want to. You use nuclear weapons in war under the most extreme circumstances or in response to extreme attacks or in defense from extreme attacks with weapons of mass destruction.

B) If they had used nuclear weapons to get Sadam they would not have pulled him out of a "spider hole" a year into the invasion. You don't really need to know where someone is to get them with a nuclear weapon. You just need to know the general vicinity. Your aim can be off by a lot.

C) If the plan (or at least hope) of the operation was to try to come out looking like the liberators and hopefully be well received (granted this wasn't really what seems to have happened) then a nuclear weapon would pretty much destroy any hope of that or of any "hearts and minds" campaign

D) Are there any cities in iraq that aren't there anymore and have been replaced by a shallow crater and some scorch marks and glassified desert sand? No. Well then... are there any big radioactive glass craters in the desert? No. The only hope you could have of using a nuclear weapon without it being IMEDIATLY apparent is if it were very small and set off in the badlands of the Iraqi desert, away from perminant settlements. Hardly seems tactically useful.

E) Neighboring nations would know immediately. Probably would not be well received either. Fallout is easily detected often thousands of miles away. A nuclear weapon is about as subtle and low-profile as... um... a nuclear weapon. Honestly... I can't think of anything less low-profile.



The "nuclear bunker buster" you are talking about might be semi-contained by being partially underground, but it would still be obvious. The use of such a weapon is generally overkill for most bunkers. The places I've heard of it being potentially used would be very large deeply buried and protected structures of extremely high value, such as missile silos or chemical weapons stores. In this case a nuclear weapon might actually be the safest thing to do for the population downwind. If you are attacking a chemical weapons facility, the nuclear fallout may not be that bad compared to the possibility of releasing massive amounts of nerve gas. The nuclear option would assure that any chemical or biological weapons are thoroughly incinerated.

Comparatively speaking, a small semi-contained nuclear blast and the resulting fallout may be small price to pay, even for civilians downwind. That is, if the alternative is several thousand tons of nerve agent and a few hundred gallons of anthrax and smallpox culture.

[Newtons Bit]

A nuclear weapon is about as subtle and low-profile as... um... a nuclear weapon. Honestly... I can't think of anything less low-profile.

Britney Spears in a bikini.

:boggled:

[ElMondoHummus]

Britney Spears in a bikini.

:boggled:


As a weapon. A weapon.

Oh, wait...

[BenBurch]

As a weapon. A weapon.

Oh, wait...

A weapon of mass distraction.

[DRBUZZ0]

Maybe a few years ago. She's not even hot anymore.