What happens if you bomb a nuclear weapon?

With all this talk of NK's possible nuclear weapons test, and in the past we've heard chatter about the possiblity of premptive strikes on Iran's nuclear fascilities, i have a question.

When they talk about bombing the nuclear fascilities, does this mean the actual launch sites? More to the point, if a nuke was there ready to go and it was bombed, would it detonate with the same effect as if it went off through the normal launch proceedure?

So in summary incase my question has made no sense at all.......would a premptive strike cause as much of an explosion as if it went off normaly?

CX.

as far as i know
and please someone correct me if im wrong

to detonate a nuke is very difficult
irans first bomb would be more than likely a fission bomb rather than a more complex fusion bomb, for a fission bomb you need specially designed implosion detonators or a gun detonator

gun detonators launch a piece of subcritical material into another causing the nuclear reaction wherea imposion detonators compress a chunk of subcritical material and inject neutrons casing the reaction

they need to work perfectly in sync on both designs for nuclear reaction to occur
simply bombing a nuke would not detonate it, if the nuke was full assembled and well built a convetional bomb may not even crack the bomb itself

that is all assuming the iranians would simply have the bomb laying around in an unprotected shack before testing it, a pre-emtive strike would be targeting facilites where bombs would be constructed and parts of bombs assembled the bomb probably wouldt be fully preped to detonate until it was about to be tested

For an implosion bomb for instance it takes a massive amount of explosive force, entirely surrounding the 'grape fruit' plutonium core, and it all needs to be detonated precisely at the same instant.
A conventional bomb would be more of a threat to the radioactive material whilst it is in storage and even then would simply cause a leak so no explosion would happen.

But if you were to destroy the nuclear/atomic weapon you would still have kilograms of fissile material floating around, which would be kind of like the radiation aftermath of a nuke detonation anyway, just a lot more concentrated in one spot. The wind could take this anywhere.

In general, don't blow up bombs

Makes sense.

Besides, I'm pretty sure that the United States has or is in the process of developing an EMP system that would destroy all of the electronical components rather than the entire warhead it’s self. Therefore effectively disabling the weapon.


[edit on 7-10-2006 by funny_pom]

Originally posted by watch_the_rocks
But if you were to destroy the nuclear/atomic weapon you would still have kilograms of fissile material floating around, which would be kind of like the radiation aftermath of a nuke detonation anyway, just a lot more concentrated in one spot. The wind could take this anywhere.

In general, don't blow up bombs

It's not that bad. Surely plutonium is extremely dangerous when ingested but there is not that much of it in one bomb, and not all of it would disperse in large distance. Nuclear reactor accidents are much worse because there's more radioactive materials.

Also there was some accident with nukes falling from B-52 somewhere in Spain, I think...
Quite a lot of sand was contaminated and removed but it was not catastrophe.

Bombing a nuke will pritty much give the same effect as a dirty bomb.
A dirty bomb is regular ordinance exploding and subsequently spreading radionic garbage materials across an area, this can be cleaned up by removing the garbage and objects contaminated by contact radiation in the area.

A nuclear device on the other hand explodes with a nuclear reaction giving radiation and fallout as a result from the nuclear reaction, the radiation from a nuclear reaction will contaminate everything in the effected area, including soil.
To clean this up, you'd have to remove !everything! in the effected area, including several meters deep of soil.

To blow up a nuclear facility in such a way that the nukes or nuclear materials there would also go into a cascade effect would require a nuke.

So if you want to take out a nuclear facility, bomb it, don't nuke it.

There are some threads speculating that Israel would use Nuclear force to attack Irans nuclear facilities. If they do so, they'll make large portions of Iran uninhabitable for decades.

If they just bomb the area's, considering the nuclear facilities are underground, Irans nuclear facilities would just be burried and removed.

im quite worried as to the fact that 40 years ago anyone with this level of knowledge about nuclear arms would of been arrested immediatly or paid insanse ammounts of money by the russians or americans to work for them

nowdays an 11 year old can click on wikipedia and get a basic design of an imposion type weapon or a H bomb

Double-Post

[edit on 8-10-2006 by Iblis]

Fourty years ago, no one knew anything about nukes, other than that they won us a war the year before. ;]

i do apologise that was a mistype i meant to say 30 years ago

the time when nuclear weapons were something to be feared and protested against that known about

Popek--

Try 62 years ago--WW2--and Nuclear Wepons are still something to be feared. Why on earth do you think so much H is being raised with N. Korea and Iran at the moment?

Now, to answer the initial question regards conventionally "bombing the Bomb"--you would end up scattering highly radioactive (Gamma-source) material in a rather contained area on the ground, and in the atmosphere to fall into other areas according to the wind and weather. You would get the same effect as Chernoble, which contaminated 1800 square miles of prime Russian Farmland, rendering it highly radioactive and totally useless for any purpose for the next 25,000 years.

Developing Countries like Iran and N. Korea do not have the technology to produce a Clean Bomb (neutron), so, to detonate and device that they can currently manufacture would sign their own Death Warrant -- IOW--it would quite literally be suicide. Retaliation, tho it would certainly ensue, would be unnecesary, as the contamination of the environment alone, and over the entire Middle East, would suffice to do the job by itself.

Nuclear Devices (WMD) are an insane weapon, the user of which kills himself in the process. Whether Iran (whom I think is well aware of the implications) or N. Korea
(who has proven to be unpredictible), the user of a nuclear Device is Doomed, as retaliation like-in-kind will occur, and cannot be circumvented or prevented from occuring. Such is, in fact, an automatic function.

The main danger in Nules is proliferation to those who are already insane--like Terrorists. Think about it.

[edit on 8-10-2006 by Ed Littlefox]

and talk of the devils

welcome NK to the suicide game!

Originally posted by Ed Littlefox
Now, to answer the initial question regards conventionally "bombing the Bomb"--you would end up scattering highly radioactive (Gamma-source) material in a rather contained area on the ground, and in the atmosphere to fall into other areas according to the wind and weather. You would get the same effect as Chernoble, which contaminated 1800 square miles of prime Russian Farmland, rendering it highly radioactive and totally useless for any purpose for the next 25,000 years.

Uhm, no. It would be NOT so bad as Chernobyl. In Chernobyl there was tens of tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste. Normal nuke has under 50 kg of radioactive materials. Also the convetional explosion would never throw plutonium so high so only surrounding area would be contaminated. As I alreadu said there were accidents with nuclear bombs when those bombs fell from high altitude and desintegrated, yet there was no widespread contamination perhaps not more than square kilometer.

from Longbow:

As I already said there were accidents with nuclear bombs when those bombs fell from high altitude and desintegrated, yet there was no widespread contamination perhaps not more than square kilometer.

Not that you know about, anyway.

Yes, Chernobyl may have been a bad example to use, but it relates. Chernobyl was also a graphite-controlled open pool reactor--IOW--lacking a containment vessel.

I do feel that an unarmed nuke disintegrating on impact and still contaminating a kilometer is pretty telling, considering that contamination wasn't boosted by a 2k conventional bomb. I'd suspect that one would find the contaminated area to be rather a bit larger in the later case. Eithe way, I wouldn't want to be involved in cleaning up the mess.