Suitcase nukes - what size?

[RacerX]

Interesting info

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/050624.html

[YetAnotherOne]

Re: Suitcase nukes - what size?

IIRC the US produced at least several hundred nuclear weapons that weighed around 50# and many thousands more (artillery shells, ASW warheads, demolition munitions, etc.) that fell in the 100-200# range.

[lerxstcat]

Re: Suitcase nukes - what size?

disturbing stuff...

[OnlineStageGear]

Re: Suitcase nukes - what size?

[ QUOTE ]
IIRC the US produced at least several hundred nuclear weapons that weighed around 50# and many thousands more (artillery shells, ASW warheads, demolition munitions, etc.) that fell in the 100-200# range.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's pretty accurate. General McArthur wanted to use 20 or so of them on the North Koreans.

That article was good in pointing out that thier probably aren't actually Nukes being toted around in suitcases. Every time I have heard them being refered to, they always say Suitcase-Sized nukes. And that's the first time I have heard of 100 missing. Every time I hear it they always refer to 10 or so, but that's still bad. On the ther hand, the Russians were known for totally exadurating thier capabilities and we found that out when we had the U2's fly of the USSR and found out they only had about 1/10th of what they were claiming. It's entirely possible they exadurated what they had.

Matt

[YetAnotherOne]

Re: Suitcase nukes - what size?

And if they weren't exaggerating it's not really a big deal anyway. Smaller nukes require more highly enriched fissile material which decays into an unusable state faster. For the smallest wearheads those isotope problems can render the warhead unusable in a matter of months at which time you have to pull the pits and re-enrich them. That's a massive industrial operation and as such is something we (or someone else) would likely notice.

[lerxstcat]

Re: Suitcase nukes - what size?

That I didn't know! Makesz me feel a little better, though I wonder if the military ever tried to detonate an "expired"
nuke to test that theory. You'd think they would, wouldn't want to count on tactical nukes in battle and have themn be duds...

[Final Sacrifice]

Re: Suitcase nukes - what size?

As far as we know (conspiracy theory guys, feel free to chime in) we don't blow anything up anymore, but use computers to simulate what we think would happen. I think it was Harper's that had a big article on it some months back, could be wrong.

[OnlineStageGear]

Re: Suitcase nukes - what size?

[ QUOTE ]
As far as we know (conspiracy theory guys, feel free to chime in) we don't blow anything up anymore, but use computers to simulate what we think would happen. I think it was Harper's that had a big article on it some months back, could be wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you are refering to testing Nuke's, then no, we signed a treaty banning the testing of them. We only tested probably a 1000 of them in Nevada though, so we pretty much know what they will do.

Matt

[YetAnotherOne]

Re: Suitcase nukes - what size?

[ QUOTE ]
That I didn't know! Makesz me feel a little better, though I wonder if the military ever tried to detonate an "expired"
nuke to test that theory. You'd think they would, wouldn't want to count on tactical nukes in battle and have themn be duds...

[/ QUOTE ]

I believe the last of our battlefield weapons were retired and disassembled in the early 90s leaving us with inventories of only the larger strategic weapons that have a much longer shelf-life. That said there's definitely a difference between "usable" in a military sense and "usable" in a terrorist sense. In the latter case a fizzle that flattense a city block or two is almost as good as a successful detonation.

Similarly SCUDs can be launched from containers the size of normal shipping containers so it'd be relatively easy for terrorists to load one on a ship, sail to within a few miles of the US coast and launch a large conventional strategic warhead at one of our cities. Militarily that's not a useful thing to do as SCUDs aren't all that accurate but if you're a terrorist, your target is lower Manhattan, and you miss by a mile or so do you really care? Probably not.

There're a boatload (no pun intended) of way to hit us, so-called "backpack" nukes just distract from more probable scenarios.

[Ripley7t]

Re: Suitcase nukes - what size?

What about the old FEMA docs that existed on civil unrest? I do believe they condoned the use of tactical nukes on the US population. Like the old zombie movie where they use the 155 howitzer to lob a nuke into the city. Be afraid, very afraid....

[buzzsaww]

Re: Suitcase nukes - what size?

Those were executive orders that predated FEMA by 40 or 50 years. Bill Clinton created FEMA to consolidate the powers of those executive orders, via executive order of course [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]