One would assume not, the design in the Fourth protocol is basically the same as that utilised in the Hiroshima bomb, and from what I have read to make that work took firing one half of the neuclear material at the other down a discarded 8" naval gun. If less force was used the two halves would blow themselves apart in the initial stages of the reaction causing the reaction to stop.

Later devices have relied on some form of explosive compression of a subcritical lump which is assumed to be a necessary technology to build miniaturised weapons.

However take this all with a grain of salt because I'm not a physicist with any real expertise in building these things, and much of the information in public literature is probably misleading.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

By building, you mean actually designing, and making the parts at the factory, or just putting them together after they've been made ? The latter is easy, depending on where you "cut". The explosive polyhedron for a compression bomb is on a carefully adjusted lattice, you can't rebuild it like lego, but after all it's only 20cm or so in diameter. Of course, it's also the heaviest part with the Pu in the middle, but in all it's probably less than 50 kg. All the rest is power electronics, with circuit board full of capacitors and boost convertors. You can take it apart and rebuild it in any place reasonably clean. The wire length are carefully adjusted to carry the impulsions so that they all arrive at the same time at their target point on the sphere, but all that matters is that you don't mix them up when reconnecting. This is light stuff, except for the battery which will be very high power in a real bomb (you need very high energy accumulated in HV condos, a bit like for a giant flash light, because there is no intermediate fuse: in order to have a synchronous compression, the explosives are triggered directly with an electric arc). Of course, a stripped down bomb could replace the battery with a mains supply or a car alternator.

Pierre

If it's government by penis size surely miniaturisation is not what we could expect?

"Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky