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Originally posted by Tom Bedlam
However, a lot of initiators use tritium so they run out over time as well, they just don't do it quite so fast and they're invariably external initiators. So they're a lot easier to maintain. None the less, a couple of years and they won't work either.
As for the torpedoes, I'm not that informed on Russian weapon design. But most small nukes that need to have a fairly good yield are boosted. That means that such weapons will have to be maintained about once a year. If the torpedoes have gone without maintenance that long they probably wouldn't detonate.
Originally posted by Tom Bedlam
Polonium 210 initiators are in general only used by people that can't build surge tubes or zippers due to the life span issues and lack of weapon yield control.
Most Po210 initiators are Urchin type internal initiators, too, so you can't just replace the unit from the outside, you have to dismantle the physics package to replace them.
Po210 is also really tough to get, because you have to bake it up in a reactor out of bismuth. You can't just make some in a chemistry lab. In order for someone to create Po210, they'd have to have a good sized research reactor.
Thus most Soviet weapons don't use Po210 initiators.
However, a lot of initiators use tritium so they run out over time as well, they just don't do it quite so fast and they're invariably external initiators. So they're a lot easier to maintain. None the less, a couple of years and they won't work either.
As for the torpedoes, I'm not that informed on Russian weapon design. But most small nukes that need to have a fairly good yield are boosted. That means that such weapons will have to be maintained about once a year. If the torpedoes have gone without maintenance that long they probably wouldn't detonate.
Originally posted by Bhadhidar
The half-life of tritium appears to be about 12 years, so, indeed, any "boosted" nuclear device would require maintenence at least once every decade.
Originally posted by missed_gear
“Disinformation: 22 Media Myths That Undermine the War on Terror" by Richard Miniter addresses some of these very questions. The WSG ran an excerpt from his book a few years ago that touched on the “fact vs. myth” side of the “suitcase nuke” and much of the content of this thread. It’s really a fairly interesting view from various points about this topic.
WSG article here.
mg
Originally posted by Bhadhidar
Thing with tritium though, is that it has a number of non-weapons related uses. Per the above mentioned article, those uses include such mundane, and ubiquitous, items as non-powered "helicopter landing lights, airport runway lights and emergency "EXIT" signs".
Such wide-spread applications would seem to me to make tritium a rather easy item to acquire, even it one wished to do so legitimately.
Originally posted by BlackOps719
Wow Tom, you seem to have a great working knowledge on the subject. Just curious as to what field you are in? Ex or active military, physicist, scientist? Never seems to amaze me at the incredibly high level of knowledge that the visitors to ATS have from top to bottom. Very informative stuff.
Originally posted by Tom Bedlam
Nope, you generally have to do it about once a year. It depends on the weapon, if they have a bigger "neutron surplus" in their energy budget you don't have to maintain them quite as frequently as the ones that are more constrained.
Your post tells me you probably looked up tritium, saw it had a half-life of 12 years, and then jumped to the conclusion that meant you would have a 12 year maintenance cycle. Let's think about that one.
The more neutron cascades you can start, the bigger and more efficient the bang.
Tritium injection is used as a neutron multiplier. The heavy energy flux in the pit during the first few microseconds of the explosion actually cause T-T fusion in the tritium. This is a net energy loss, since it takes a lot of energy to get the tritium to fuse. The boost gas does not, therefore, contribute to the force of the detonation, at least not directly.
However, what DOES happen is that the fusing tritium spits out extra neutrons when they really count, right at the beginning of the reaction. These extra neutron cascades really contribute to the reaction. You can double the efficiency of a fission weapon with the extra neutrons. Most recent weapons are designed to depend on the neutron amplification and will fizzle without the boost gas.
Thus the half-life of tritium from a web site has 0.diddley to do with how often the weapon has to be serviced due to boost gas decay. It's certainly not a number you can just pull out and say, well, the half-life is 12 years, therefore that is co-equal to the maintenance required by that decay.
edit:
P.S. The loss of tritium combined with it becoming a reaction poison requires, again, a maintenance of about once a year. By the end of two years, you are in the red zone on most weapons and at five it ain't going off.
[edit on 21-1-2007 by Tom Bedlam]
Originally posted by Bhadhidar
Terrorists would not need to "pump a rod bundle" to achieve their ends.
Originally posted by Melbourne_Militia
The watch the latest series of "24" and watch this scenario unfolding.
I beleive that the show "24" is a warning to the pbulic and that it will happen.