How vulnerable are we to a NUKE being delivered by boat?

When we hear of terrorism here on our soil, we tend to think of airplanes flying into buildings or trucks loaded with fertilizer blowing up a building or someone running around with a gun. I'm curious what our nation has done about securing our ports and major cities from a nuke or dirty bomb being detonated via boat by terrorists. Since 9/11 I've heard of the existence of suitcase nukes but never found out if there was any validity to that claim. While the idea sends a shiver through me, whats to stop someone or group from driving a boat into one of our harbors with something like this in it and detonating it?

I'm curious what you think about this...

Here in Boston TBTB are very cautious about terrorists targeting the natural gas carrying ships that come into the harbor. These ships are filled with about 35 million gallons of gas.

the Coast Guard coordinates an armada of protection for each trip — a helicopter, police divers, marine patrol, environmental police, firefighting tugs, city police boats, Coast Guard vessels. The Tobin Bridge, a major commuter pass, is closed as the tankers move below its 135-foot-high span.

I think it is much more likely that terrorists would target infrastructure like this to cause havok. Why go through all the trouble of building and delivering a dirty bomb when a conventional bomb will do?

Why think a boat. They can just come across the mexican border.

Originally posted by ventian
Why think a boat. They can just come across the mexican border.

It would be much easier to use a recreational boat. I live on the border. We have a zone that is patrolled, whereas the thousands of miles of coastline does not.

The answer is extremely easy.
And that is very scary to think about.

And it doesn't have to be a nuke. Imagine the chaos that could occur if terrorists wanted to slowly trawl around Manhatten with a Mortar or rpg's.
3 terrorists could cause alot of damage and wreak alot of terror launching explosives into nyc. How many people would they kill before being stopped. How would you know where mortars or rpg's were even comming from?
It would be ugly real fast.

If i remember correctly, there are like two cops responsible for patrolling the entire Oregon Coast.

Even if it was 50, or 100, or 1000 do you really think that someone with the willpower to bring evil into the country wouldn't be able to slip by? And that's just the coastline of one state.

It's about as easy as it gets, I would think.

I've always wondered why there hasn't been any Mumbai style terrorist attacks yet. Are Al-Qaeda or Hezbollah waiting for the right time to strike where they can go on a shooting & RPG rampage, release bio-toxins & chemical-toxins in the afternoon, and during rush-hour nuke a different city?

I have thought for a long time that sooner or later a large private yacht will sail into New York, Miami, Annapolis, or some other eastern port with a Nuke down in the bilge...

No way to stop it. Coast Guard cannot and does not inspect the big yachts in enough detail to ever find one.

Its a war... they are winning... because we refuse to admit it is a religious war by two cultures that are incompatible. The U.S. is toast... unless we seriously change our thinking and clean the enemy out of our house... starting at the White House.

reply to post by expat2368


We aren't there yet. It's the extremists that are doing this craziness.
It's like saying that we are in a holy war with the guys blowing up abortion clinics.

Now IMO those are terrorists and extremely dangerous too.

------ Didnt you see THE SINKING OF THE KIRST on HBO? Tells you that every top nation has underwater missles that are almost impossible to stop. Star wars do nothing to stop these. Missles can can be launched under water and never pop up till they want them to. Thats why the us sunk the kirst, to prevent the USSR from demonstrating them to the chinese. The USSR was, after we sunk the kirst, pissed so it sent lots of planes to atact the us. THE us got them to call off the attact with promises of wheat shipments to them. Aparently the planes were already at our north boarder befor they turned around. Go to HBO and search their documentury's. ISAWILD1, a must see and will enlighten you about underwater missles.

reply to post by grey580


You pretty much have no idea what you are speaking of.

First let me introduce you to this item.

Thermoluminescent Dosimeter.

There are remote devices working on this principle but VERY advanced mounted EVERYWHERE in the U.S.

Look around sometime when you are out in public.

Street signs, traffic lights, inside tunnels even mounted on vehicles that daily transit the streets.

All harbors have buoys that help control water traffic.Some are far out to sea.

They even "sniff" the air of planes flying over.

It is hard for some of you to believe but the government is more than a little competent when dealing with this threat.

The government can track the most minuet amount of radioactive material.




[edit on 4-2-2010 by calcoastseeker]

@calcoastseeker

I can only hope that what you say is true. Unfortunately I have two issues with it.

1)Assuming your correct- the areas that might have the named items

(sonar, radar, thermal, gieger, ect)

are not close to their relevant stations that process it. I checked for such areas quielty and found only two possiblities in san diego. Neither had enough incoming electronic traffic areas above the place to prove that the stations where there.

(by traffic areas - powerlines, radar, or satilite)

Hey I could be wrong.

1a)my reasoning, you need substations to act as a network for backup if parts of the system fails

1b)those coordinated systems require extra personnel and equipment

I got trouble for being nosy and they quietly let me go after I had a few words with them. Seems I guessed right about the interviewing officer and his friends wife. (hey when your backs against the wall you go into survival- plus he smelled like a woman???? assumed it was her)

2) I can never state or quote this enough times.

No war is ever won by technology alone. Those systems you mentioned are bypassed every day due to errors in the technology systems.

Examples I know of from a DEA friend-
Alcoves, Faraday shielded transports, Large bush and tree lines, uranium mines, bits and pieces strategy, discrepancies in inter-agency communication (all the DoHS has morphed into is its own dog with turf to defend), lack of man power

It is about as bad as the sensors systems they attempted to use in Nam and I believe Korea.

The government is not an entity. It is a fiction we agree at present to accept.

I know some of the people operating some of those systems. They are self centered careerist (sorry mark) who only care about insuring they get the cushy assignment and keep the 'easy day' job. Half of them spend more time climbing the ranks rather then doing the work.

It is a huge mess.

In that mess a huge opening is occuring. One the terrorist could exploit.

The original question was on nukes via boat. Yes.( and air, and land and home grown)

The easiest way to stop them.
rebuild friendships (not on your knees types Ive been seeing) get the rest of the world interconnected.

have a policy designed to bring prosperity to all of the classes of the middle east. Let money be your universal language. After all a wealthier middle class and wealthier poor can by more goods

I think if a Nuke was coming at you by sea, it would fall victim to pirates!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:

Not ON a boat, but UNDER a boat.

Let the hull and the sea shield the weapon from sensors.

And no one is going to search the underside of every ship in port.

There has been speculation of a terrorist attack from the sea from a large cargo container ship. Sections of a missile could be hidden in the containers, assembled at sea and fired when they got as close as they needed to be. The missile could have a nuclear warhead to detonate to destroy a city near the coast or fly far and high and detonate miles above the surface for Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) warfare.

Depending on who you talk to the EMP effect ranges in severity to that similiar to a large thunderstorm and nothing to worry about all the way up to destroying every electronic circuit and device within a several thousand mile radius. Iran is one country that is reported to have EMP knowledge. On one of their recent missile tests they had a missle go up and explode. Foreign commentaries called that test a failure, Iran called it a complete success; it did exactly what they wanted it to do. Whether EMP is what they are thinking of and the extent of their capabilities has yet to be conclusively determined.

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