I know very little about bombs. We're obviously not talking about Hiroshima-type bombing. Are we? Not that I think smaller bombs are somehow more acceptable. But shouldn't the whole fucking entire world be up in arms about the suggestion of anyone "nuking" anyone else?
Oh, and on topic. I might be calous, but to all of you non-Americans out there: Yeah, we ARE a rogue nuclear state. What are you going to do about it?
Not a rhetorical question. Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. -Voltaire
But using the mushroom cloud ... well, you can understand why I'd question the validity of such imagery.
The piece is not specifically about Iran.
What are we going to do? Wring our hands, as usual. The world's northernmost desert wind.
http://ue.eu.int/cms3_fo/showPage.asp?id=874&lang=EN&mode=g "The USA appears destined by fate to plague America with misery in the name of liberty." Simon Bolivar, Caracas, 1819
Thank you, Ritter, for sharing this.
McNamara has been pounding the table on arms reduction for a long time. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
The Hiroshima bomb was 20 Kt. During the 50's and 60's massive hydrogen bombs were built, with an explosive power of several Mt's. Biggest was the Soviet "Tsar bomba" of 50 Mt.
During the 70's and 80's the precision of the weapons increased and the warheads were downsized to a few hundred Kt's.
In paralell we had the tactical weapons which were always relatively small, from the sub-kiloton range to a few hundred kilotons.
The smallest nuclear weapon ever built was the wonderfully cute American Davy Crocket which could be mounted on a jeep or on a tripod launcher. It had a variable yield. The minimum yield was 10-20 tons. For a comparison, the biggest non-nuclear bomb in the world, the American MOAB, has a 12 ton yield. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
The struggle of man against tyranny is the struggle of memory against forgetting.(Kundera)
Nuclear Warfare
There are also some comments on the other thread.
The huge problem really is the fall-out. It's unavoidable even for relatively low yields. And it isn't going to respect national boundaries.
Still Jack Straw says it's not going to happen. So we can all sleeply soundly now.
But then he also thinks there's no civil war in Iraq.
Nuclear penetrators are small yield, sub-surface detonated, shock-nuclear weapons. The delivery system is engineered so the weapon burrows into the ground before exploding. Thus some of the energy released is passed as a ground shock wave to destroy deeply buried installations.
It is worth noting a sub-surface explosion is the most 'dirty' of all nuclear detonations.
A direct result of this is the release of quantities of alpha and beta particles into the atmosphere, Chernobyl-on-purpose. The force of the explosion will force some percentage of these radioactive particles high into the atmosphere where they will rain down upon the earth (lucky us) for weeks, months, or decades. The uncertainty stems from the yield, how deep the bomb goes before exploding, and so on. In general, the more secure the target, the deeper it is buried, requiring a higher yield, deeper penetration, greater production - if that's the word I want - of radioactive particles, and the longer the persistence of these particles.
Persistence also depends on the chemical composition of the ground and sub-ground of the target. I no expertise in this, Migeru, DoDo, kcurie, and the other physicists here are your people to go to for that. What I do know is there would be some large-ish area requiring de-contamination.
De-contamination requires vast quantities of water, unavailable in large parts of the world, and a place to store vast quantities of slightly radioactive water, unavailable in any part of the world.
A further uncertainity is the number of targets that would be hit and whether the affects and effects of multiple targets are linear or non-linear. I haven't a clue and I don't know if anyone else does either.
I'm going to have to disagree with Jerome on this. I'd rather read by candlelight, bike to work, and communicate by pony express than live with this nuclear technolgy. The cons just do not outweigh the pros for me.
Unfortunately, what is done is done... Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. -Voltaire
I agree with you on "yield" but I would caution you on the option of "deeper penetration". Simple physics tells us that we can´t "plan for" or "arrange" for deeper penetration.
Assuming the same material and bomb structure, the only way you can penetrate deeper is a higher velocity of the bomb. That of course will place a higher stress on the bomb equipment. Meaning that you run the risk that a part of the equipment might malfunction or - in a worst case - the bomb will simply break up.
Meaning that for a target buried deeper, you would have to use a higher yield nuclear bomb. Which will of course mean a much higher level of radioactive contamination above ground. :(
From what I´ve read on the Internet, all current American nuclear bunker busters rely on gravity to accelerate. Meaning that they don´t have a rocket engine, you simply release them from a high flying airplane and rely on gravity to build up velocity. There´s no way that such a bomb could bury deep enough and not release radioactive contamination even at low yields.
Second I'm guessing that bunker busters and the like have several stages. The first probably blows a hole into the ground so that the main part of the bomb can penetrate further. It is also possible it just could sit there and drill down. Who is going to stop it? Policies not Politics ---- Daily Landscape
I never intended to leave the impression you could bury the weapon such that no radiation would escape into the atmosphere. As you say, that can't happen.
I´m not sure...
But if the Bush administration actually attacks Iran with nuclear bunker busters without really, really solid evidence of an Iranian nuclear bomb program and evidence of an imminent threat, I´m not sure if the NATO alliance would survive. (And yes, I do know that such evidence doesn´t exist right now.)
Obviously, European governments could be against the Iraq war while still supporting US armed forces. See Germany for example. :)
The first-use of nuclear weapons, even small ones, however would cross a line. I can´t speak about other European countries but I would expect a total freeze of military cooperation in Germany. The public here is already pretty much anti-Bush. Now imagine media reports about American nuclear bombs, even small ones, detonating in Iran. It would be political suicide for any German government to be even remotely connected to such an act.
So - in such a case - forget free use of German air space (Ramstein air base and Landstuhl hospital) and free movement of troops and equipment.
