Nuclear Warfare

[Al_Masetti]

Nuclear warfare has changed a lot over the decades for three reasons:

1. newer strategies;
2. newer weapons designs; and,
3. asymmetric warfare.

One of the newer strategies is to use a nuke to generate EMP … electromagnetic pulse. A pulse generated over the United States at an easily-achieved height … a hundred miles up or thereabouts … would fry almost all the electronics in the United States … out to the visual horizon. [There’s tons of stuff on this on the internet, on Amazon, and also by a Congressional committee worried about exactly this issue.]

Another (not an new one) is to lower a nuke into the ocean off the Pacific Coast of the United States and detonate it about fifty feet down. The radioactive water mist would be carried over the United States by the prevailing winds (which travel from west to east). [A test of this was conducted in the 1940’s or thereabouts; it may be on YouTube.]

Newer weapons designs include very small “yields” (explosive equivalent) … as little as 50 tons of TNT … very small. Useful for cratering roads, demolishing bridges, and killing high-speed submarines built out of titanium. They can also be built into a penetrating heads that can go deep into the earth and collapse underground bunkers.

Back in the 1960’s there were nukes the size of a bowling ball. They could fit into an 8"diameter artillery shell. And into a small air-to-air anti-aircraft warhead … there were some actual operational units, carried by F-102 interceptors, for example. There were several nuke-tipped air-to-air missile designs … the Genie was one; and there was at least one other as well.

[Say … didn’t now-President George W. Bush then-Lieutenant George W. Bush fly F-102 interceptors back then??? I wonder if he had his actual finger on an actual nuclear trigger even back then???]

Asymmetric warfare means that a small country (like Iran) could do damage to a big country (like the United States) by doing something unconventional like sneaking a nuclear device into the country on an airliner or in a shipping container and detonating it as soon as possible, not waiting for an inspector to discover it.

 

[rpp]

Nuclear warfare has changed a lot over the decades for three reasons:

1. newer strategies;
2. newer weapons designs; and,
3. asymmetric warfare.

One of the newer strategies is to use a nuke to generate EMP … electromagnetic pulse. A pulse generated over the United States at an easily-achieved height … a hundred miles up or thereabouts … would fry almost all the electronics in the United States … out to the visual horizon. [There’s tons of stuff on this on the internet, on Amazon, and also by a Congressional committee worried about exactly this issue.]

Another (not an new one) is to lower a nuke into the ocean off the Pacific Coast of the United States and detonate it about fifty feet down. The radioactive water mist would be carried over the United States by the prevailing winds (which travel from west to east). [A test of this was conducted in the 1940’s or thereabouts; it may be on YouTube.]

Newer weapons designs include very small “yields” (explosive equivalent) … as little as 50 tons of TNT … very small. Useful for cratering roads, demolishing bridges, and killing high-speed submarines built out of titanium. They can also be built into a penetrating heads that can go deep into the earth and collapse underground bunkers.

Back in the 1960’s there were nukes the size of a bowling ball. They could fit into an 8"diameter artillery shell. And into a small air-to-air anti-aircraft warhead … there were some actual operational units, carried by F-102 interceptors, for example. There were several nuke-tipped air-to-air missile designs … the Genie was one; and there was at least one other as well.

[Say … didn’t now-President George W. Bush then-Lieutenant George W. Bush fly F-102 interceptors back then??? I wonder if he had his actual finger on an actual nuclear trigger even back then???]

Asymmetric warfare means that a small country (like Iran) could do damage to a big country (like the United States) by doing something unconventional like sneaking a nuclear device into the country on an airliner or in a shipping container and detonating it as soon as possible, not waiting for an inspector to discover it.

American ports are important to this nation. Destroying facilities at any of our major ports would have a significant and potentially long term effect if the facility is rendered unusable for a long period of time.

By the way, I have read about the potential for very small atomic bombs. I believe the smallest bomb the USA admits to testing was a 1 kiloton device intended as an artillery round. The small devices you described may be speculation. However, I do not think they are unrealistic.

 

[Wirraway]

Do not confuse a nuclear missile attack with a war in which nuclear weapons are used. In a missile attack, there is indeed limited time to respond.

Would a Catholic President be morally restricted from responding with nuclear missiles? That would depend on the target. If the targets are military and intent is to stop more missiles from being fired as well as limit collateral damage, then I think it may be remotely possible for a limited nuclear response to be morally justified.

However, I am racking my brain for just the right circumstance when a nuclear weapon might be licitly used and I just cannot come up with one. I do not want to exclude the possibility, but I cannot think of a justifiable situation. The aftereffects are so long term and so **utterly **devastating that I can see no practical application of these monstrous weapons beyond mere intimidation.

“mere intimindation” is the whole purpose. look at two examples. India - Pakistan. both sides have nukes, neither side has the capability of effectively targeting each other’s nuclear forces (sufficient such that risk of nuclear retaliation is eliminated). thus, each side targets each other’s population centers – 4 of the 20 largest cities in the world are in Pakistan or India, some 50,000,000 at risk, probably double that number in practice. perfect nuclear deterrent.

no power on earth can risk a nuclear strike against the US without facing total annihilation by retaliation in kind. but this kind of deterrent works only if the other side believes it that this destruction is automatic and inevitable. no president, Catholic or not, would ever rule out this threat. this is like telling a home invader, “I’ve got a shotgun, but I’m never going to use it”.

the US targets leadership, government offices and military command centers, arms factories and does not target population centers, per se. draw your own conclusions.

 

[wabrams]

I have read these follow up posts and they certainly give me some food for thought. Do not get me wrong. I think agree that America’s large nuclear arsenal has prevented war.

However, I also have intimate knowledge of how nuclear weapons work (dad talked a bit too much) as well as their effects.

Nuclear weapons are designed to detonate in the air. Depending on the type and yield this can be anywhere from 200 feet (Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 600 feet) for fission (two-stage) weapons (2-100 kiloton range) to 2000 feet or greater for thermonuclear (three and four stage) (1 megaton to ???) devices. The air burst maximizes the yield and blast radius, and actually reduces the height fallout is thrown because the concussion bounces back and disrupts the heat circulation.

Hiroshima was detonated at 1900ft and nagasaki was at 1540ft

But what is really the problem is that it generate several orders of magnitude more radioactive fallout than an air burst. In addition, because there is no secondary concussion wave to disrpt the expansion core, all the unrestrained concussive force goes up and that carries the fallout higher, and therefore, farther. This fallout is dangerous whether it falls on a city, a desert or the ocean.

Fallout wouldn’t last long do to the half-life of the nuclear material.

BTW, my grandad was a nuclear engineer at ORNL from 1951 to 1983; he helped design nuclear weapons in the 1950’s.

 

[7_Sorrows]

i had no idea that nuclear weapons are set to detonate in the air.

bunker buster bombs, dirty bombs, suitcase bombs - there are so many different types that i get confused when they use certain ones.

does anyone see nuclear warfare in our lifetime again?

i hope not.

i do worry about india and pakistan and russia.

 

[JimG]

i had no idea that nuclear weapons are set to detonate in the air.

bunker buster bombs, dirty bombs, suitcase bombs - there are so many different types that i get confused when they use certain ones.

does anyone see nuclear warfare in our lifetime again?

i hope not.

i do worry about india and pakistan and russia.

Nuclear weapons, like any weapon, can be fused to detonate at whatever altitude is desired. As pointed out by Wirraway, deterrence (aka intimidation) is the strategy. Deterrence requires that a counterstrike be credible and inevitable.

As to the possibility of nuclear warfare, I keep quoting Mother Teresa: “The fruit of abortion is nuclear war.”

If we wish to prevent war, we must end abortion. So far that hasn’t been very successful.

 

[7_Sorrows]

thanks JimG. i had just read that quote by Mother Theresa recently. i pray someday that we will become a civilized society and realize how we are allowing the murder of unborn babies daily
and abortion will once more be made illegal. and that it will diminish throughout the world.

thanks for giving me the facts on the bombs.

would be nice someday also if we did not have to worry about war and bombs.

 

[Al_Masetti]

American ports are important to this nation. Destroying facilities at any of our major ports would have a significant and potentially long term effect if the facility is rendered unusable for a long period of time.

By the way, I have read about the potential for very small atomic bombs. I believe the smallest bomb the USA admits to testing was a 1 kiloton device intended as an artillery round. The small devices you described may be speculation. However, I do not think they are unrealistic.

According to that most reliable of references, Wikipedia, the smallest was the “Davy Crockett” at 0.01 KT. Or about ten tons.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_yield

• and for the B-58 Hustler supersonic bomber to carry a “nuclear cluster bomb” … by which they probably meant that the plane was so fast it could attack multiple targets in a single attack. So it would have had a nuclear bomblet dispenser in the belly-pod. Anyway, those were some of the designs those folks were discussing 40 years ago. The designs would be probably refined by now. The B-58 bomber was delivered to museums decades ago and the notion of a nuclear hand-grenade was just the idea that they could be made very small if desired.]

For the benefit of folks who may never have seen a B-58 Hustler, check out Google or click on this link:

aviation-history.com/convair/b58.html

Of course, nowadays, a terrorist would not be interested in the politically correct design of minimal blast.

Terrorists would make their nukes as destructive and as indiscrirminate as humanly possible.

Either for an EMP attack which would be almost untraceable … we would simply wake up one day and nothing electronic or electrical would work any more.

Or a nuke/ device in a forty-foot long shipping container with a crew on board. And when the ship reached New York or Los Angeles, they would set it off … long before any customs inspectors got anywhere near it.*

 

[Al_Masetti]

Got timed out.

Here’s a better Web site for the B-58.

members.cox.net/dschmidt1/