Nukes (your opinion wanted)

Originally posted by CookieMonster000
about that gun....ive already heard about it from a friend....it was an experiment and was mounted on a firetruck due to its size....million rounds per second

It�s called Metal Storm; the following is a link to videos of the technology in action, very impressive.

www.metalstorm.com...

btw - it doesn't take up much space and doesn't require a fire engine sized truck to haul around, it will be used onboard aircraft and UAV�s.

[Edited on 2-6-2004 by kinglizard]

Kiloton- One thousand tons of TNT.
Megaton- One million tons of TNT.

Regarding the explosive force.

Also, Fusion-based bombs are also extremely weak compared to Fission. It's only due to the increased amount of material that can be used to detonate, that the fusion bombs tend to have larger bangs.

Really bad information...Fusion bombs are more efficient and more powerful thus extremely larger explosive force can be released.

First off Abatu, please don't be so bold to tell me that I have a "complete lack of knowledge in the area of nuclear arsenals".

The emphasis of my major in Political Science is Defense Policy and my emphasis in that it Strategic Warfare. So whatever I say about Nukes far surpases whatever you have to say...off-the-cuff that is...research and presenting facts is another thing.

Considering you think "Fusion bombs are less powerful but more stuff" I don't think there's too much argument as to who really knows their stuff.

Originally posted by Abatu
Your post shows a complete lack of knowledge in the area of nuclear arsenals.

First off all the Nuclear weapons in the world can't destroy all or even most human life.
Yes, they can. If you had even a close estimate to the total power of blast, electromagnetic, heat, and radiation damage a nuclear device could cause, you would know this.

Please read the 1983 (?) study on "Nuclear Winter" which was the first time the "possibility" of world destruction by Nuclear Weapons was ever seriously proposed, it is a far fetched study requiring the earth to be nuked evenly ... Argentina, Antarctica...all of it, and the effect would maybe be Nuclear Winter, kicking enough radioactive dirt in the sky to cause a mini-ice age.

Furthermore, Nuclear Weapons do very little damage compared to how much energy they release, 1MT = 1 mile radius, 2 MT = about 1.5, 25MT = eh...maybe 10 - 15 miles radius. The problem is "over-pressure" drops dramatically as you move away from the center of the blast.

Basically, it takes one 500 KT nuclear bomb, hitting within 100 meters of its target to destroy 7 meters of reinforced concrete.

Nuclear Fortresses are far easier to construct, than bombs to destroy them.

There are at most some 20,000 opperational Strategic Nukes and that's even exagerating most likely.
Considering I don't wish to open the books nearest me- 'Weapons of Mass Destruction, by Robert Hutchinson' or 'Looking the Tiger in the Eye' but an author I cannot recall- I can stand to bet that the actual number is around 20,000, give or take several thousand. Also, as many countries don't so much destroy their weapons as dismantle them and place their still-operational parts in storage containers, several thousand, ten thousand, possibly hundred thousand more could be rebuilt within weeks, months, years respectively.

You can't destroy these weapons, you can only dismantle them, but after time they become useless, most of USA's Nuclear Arsenal that is in storage, is not even certain to be still usable or not.

Most of these nukes are between 300kt - 750kt. Which means they can not even devestate a full 1 mile radius from the area hit. First of all, the world opted for 300kt-750kt warheads, due to the ability of MIRV. To fit multiple warheads, independantely targeted, on a missle. I believe there are systems out there with capabilities of holding eighteen, perhaps more, small warheads. Also, a 750 kiloton would devestate .. though I'm only using basic knowledge of what devices such as the 'Davery Crockett' atomic-rocket launcher device used since I've never directly found references to this.. most likely three to seven miles. Yes, at seven the damage would be minimal. Concrete structures would be barely damage, steel structures may collapse, or partially bend, but it would still require large economical fixes.

The maximum capacity of warheads on any MIRV is 12, on the SATAN-22 Rocket, up to 12 500KT I believe, and then you can assort them in varying amounts that will add up to less than 12 but you will have higher yields for some and lower yields for others and so forth.

The largest Nuke made by the Russians which is 25 megatons could only devestate about 12 miles of area, after that it lost a lot of power fast.
Actually, this is what made me laugh. The Russians BUILT and designed a 100+ megaton bomb, but they set of a bomb of 58 megatons, so the radiation of the world did not increase several fold. And, also, the power of a nuclear device is infinite. As long as you have more fuel, you can continue the layer-cake design, among others. The only problem is delivery. And by the way, the Russian bomb, 'Boom' went the penninsula/island/landmass they were testing on. It was devestated.

Ugh I see I've sorta repeated you, which makes me wonder why the hell you're even trying to refute me ~.~. Or I am confusing things I've written for things you've written in your piss-poor quoting system

Although, the Russians never set off a 58 MT, that's a hoax or "unconfirmed" I know...I looked into it. They only claim the did.

The fall-out from a 1 megaton nuke in 45 mile an hour winds is 250 miles, where the fall out about 100 miles away on to 250 is non-lethal unless you make snow-angels in it (I used a "nuclear fall-out calculator" it was probably reliable since I tested it on raw data from smaller yields to see if it could predict them accurately.)
Your lack of grammar and english here confuses me, but let me point out .. napalm bombings on rural areas in Japan provided (500? 1500? Near one of the two) MPH winds. Thsi created HUMAN MISSLES. Now, a megaton weapons can create several times the heat of the sun. THAT, creates fast wind.

Your inability to properly seperate what you write and what I write confuses me, I think your problems in writing skills is far worse than mine at least in this medium.

First off I'd have to see those claims that the bombs created such winds...1500 miles per hour? The lack of air-pressure in such a torrent would be equivelent to Mars at least, and everything that had a lid on it would explode before it even was ejected into the stratosphere. Tornados, the most powerful winds on earth, are only 300 mph.

Furthermore, Fall-out is based on prevailing winds...not on "shockwaves" created by the Nuclear Bomb which are travelling about the speed of sound or about 750 mph. The fall-out, rides the winds after the nuclear blast, and falls from the sky, hence "Fall-out".

If the winds are normal (7 or so mph) then there wont' be much of a fall-out hazard from anything below a few megatons.

The only people who ever said Nuclear War may destroy human life on earth were a few scientists who proposed the idea of "nuclear winter" which consisted of nuking the entire world evenly. Even then it was stretching it and who is going to Nuke kenya or Antarctica or Argentina?

The idea of nuclear winter, is a mass of radioactive dust rising into the air. This occurs plenty of times with volcanoes, such as Mt. St. Helen's (How many times did the dust travel the Earth? I believe it was .. eh .. three or more?) and that same idea, sans radiation, is what leading scientists believe obliterated the dinosaur population, in case you forget. That and the resulting shock/fire wave from the hit.

Again read the report about Nuclear Winter...they don't seem to agree with you that a concentration of Nuclear Fire Power in any region will cause a Nuclear Winter.

First off, something like Mt. St. Helens, is explosive force from within the earth, blasting debris into the sky, nuclear weapons at most can only penetrate about 100 feet into the earth, so the amount of material blasted into the sky is very insignificant.

Also Mount St. Helens was the equivelent of some million megatons, far more than we have in our arsenals. (That figure is off the top of my head it wouldn't surprise me if it were several millions of megatons).

Oh and don't even bring the dinosaurs into this.

The force that struck the planet 65 million years ago was equivelent to about 1x10^15 megatons of energy. We don't even come close to generating that much energy over our entire existence to date...I bet if you throw-in the energy created by our bodies during our life times our existence hasn't even created that much energy.

Nukes because they are generally small (compared to what we're capable of USA can make 9 Megaton nukes) are usually much safer than conventional weapons.
USA no longer deploys nine megatons, it's worthless. Yes, if there was an enormous command center, base of operations, or hardened area, we could drop something that large- but attacking a military base or the military infrastructure requires very small yields. And no, they are not safer than conventional weapons, unless you count how poor the accuracy for conventional weaponry is. (Nukes do not rely on accuracy, if you are required to launch them at a target. So what if you miss by a mile, everything will be eradicated or blown away, anyway.)

A bit ago, when I was new to the world of Nuclear Weapons, and believed they were the "doomsday device", I asked my professor this:

"Why do we even bother with targeting systems."

He laughed then replied.

"Well when you think of the fact that the over-pressure of a 500kt blast can not break 7 meters of hardened reinforced concrete if it is off by even 100 or 200 meters, that 100 meters begins to means a lot."

Or something to that effect, and I mentioned this fact a bit earlier in this post.

Remember, Nuclear missiles are used to fight other Nuclear Missiles. If you miss by 100 meters, and theirs survives, you have one less nuclear missile, and they have one more. That is very bad.

Nukes are safer than conventional weapons, because using them on civilian populations is suicide for any nation. So only suicidal nations will use it or nations who have no other form of deterrence than to say "we'll give you hell".

Oh and I've begun to figure out how you post so now I'm able to seperate what you say from what I say...at first it threw me off but I don't want to go back and correct it.

Remember almost 10 million people were killed in WW2 to conventional bombs.
Not sure on the statistics of this .. thought I heard recently that the U.S. lost One million plus alone, so, I may have to doubt this ... though, you do only get a fraction of total deaths, to the 'By bombs' reference..

The US lost an incredibly small amount compared to the world in WW2. 400,000 battle deaths and 600,000 wounded. Germany had some 3 million battle deaths and I don't know off the top of my head how many wounded.

Nukes are used against hardened Strategic Weapons facilities and therefore not against populated areas, fall-out can be avoided and cleaned. And when the war's over, it's over, there is no resistence left because all strategic forces of one of them is completely whiped out.

Fallout requires extreme sand-blasting and other such measures to 'cure.' Radiation can last millions of years, the contamination, half-life of Uranium and plutonium is quite long I believe. Well, Uranium at least. Nukes are not used against anything. They were used against two large, civillian-military control centers in WWII.

Fall-out can be cleaned and by more methods than just sand-blasting.

Radiation lasts thousands (not millions) of years. But Fall-out doesn't and I'll tell you simply why.

Actually an area irradiated by fall-out that can kill everyone in the area, will be back to "peace-time levels" by 10 years due to natural processes, that is peace-time levels deemed acceptable by the US government. Russia probably has lesser restrictions.

The reason irradiation is not a problem, note irradiation, is it is not "radioactive".

It is roughly...an item absorbing some radioactivity from a radioactive source, depending on the item will depend on how much is absorbed.

In fall-out, it is not uranium or plutonium or such raining down, it is simply dirt that's been irradiated. Dirt and debris. And that stuff will clean-up fairly easily and nature will do a lot of work fairly quickly.

The fuel for the bomb will almost completely be used.

Hiroshima today is a great city to live in, and only 1.5% of the fuel was fissioned...today our efficiencies are much greater. I think Nagasaki was 17%, to show you the improvement simply by method of detonation.

PS sorry if this post is semi-confusing, at first I thought he (the poster) quoted only one line from me, so I was reading his stuff thinking..."why is he first saying I know nothing, then saying things I would say?" I dont' want to go back fixing it, it's long been my method to just write, and post, and leave it as that...as if I spoke it. Also, I'm not in a mood right now to really bother correcting much things.

Originally posted by John McCarthy
I do believe the super megaton bombs dropped on the atolls of the Pacific give a hint as to permanent destruction. There was a proposed 7 megaton bomb dropped on a vacated section of an atoll. Unfortunately, the actual yield of the damn thing was over 13 megatons. The plume downwind was so massive, it required further mass evacuation of all humans hundreds of miles downrange, to the east. No one can enter the area today, fifty years later. That was one bomb. We have multiple (MIRV) weapons with five to seven warheads each independently targeted (or the same target) each with a 10 megaton yield. And there are thousands of those. So, if you multiply the area denied to human habitat from the 1954 screwup by thousands you will have an idea of the vastness of denied areas of inhabitable land, NOT ocean. If you strike every major city on the west coast of the US, the fallout will be similar to the 10 megaton equivalent blast of Mt. St, Helen's' eruption which dropped ash as far away as Chicago. That was just ONE blast. So if you program five or six 10 megatons per major city on the west coast and throw a few into Denver, Dallas, Kansas City, Chicago, Memphis and Houston, the area of contamination would cover the US. Now, where are we to move?

John McCarthy
Chairman of The Board of VERPA
Veterans Equal Rights Protection Advocacy
www.verpa.org...
Blog: www.jenmartinez.com...

Ugh...no, the largest bomb exploded by the US is 9 megatons. It was an underground test in Nevada.

Nuclear bombs are not "let's try this and see what it does".

They know what it will do and where it will do it usually before they even build it. It is built to test a prediction, and then it follows that prediction nearly flawlessly, we were working out our math, not the bombs. Trying to improve efficiency. We never exploded a bomb that should be 7 megatons and go, "oh sh.it...it's 13 megatons". Not that it'd make much a difference because after 1 megaton you lose so much energy in the blast it's like the difference from a shot-gun at 50 yards and a shot-gun at 60 yards.

will be similar to the 10 megaton equivalent blast of Mt. St, Helen's' eruption which dropped ash as far away as Chicago.

First there are many physical reasons this explosion sent so much ash into the sky, mainly because of where it originated.

I can't begin to explain how much of a difference that made ~.~

And how it will never happen with a nuclear bomb today or ever.

And crap, I have to now go and debunk another post of yours too...

Originally posted by John McCarthy
The half life for Depleted Uranium is 4.5 Billion years, older than our planet.
U238, DU, is 99.5% of what is left over (waste) from the process to extract .5% U235, the business end of nuclear weapons, from natural Uranium.

The half-life is not older than our planet.

Half-life is not a factor since about 100% of the material is fissioned or fusioned in a bomb.

DU is used to harden warheads of weapons to enhance their penetration proficiency. It is also used as armor on tanks and such.

The problem occurs when DU is ignited or exploded. DU vaporizes into radiation gas containing nano (Billionths of a meter) sized particles that are omnicidal, they kill or contaminate every living thing, plants, animals, humans, the food chain and the water.

Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong.

DU has some fractional amount of radiaton compared to Uranium that is present in the soil beneath your feet. If DU is a problem then we should all be dying from Uranium that has been scatered through out the soil. Especially those in the deserts where the Uranium content is much higher.

1000 tons of DU have been dropped on Afghanistan and over twice that much on Iraq, so far.

Yeah and there's no evidence it has caused any problems, there is only speculation. But odd, the US government had been preparing and testing DU for 40 years before it was first used, and never did one of its tests reveal any cancinogenic or mutative problems.

[quote[Remember the "shock and awe" of the initial attack on Baghdad? That is now the "green zone", the recipient of many tons of DU that is still there.

So what? Your whole DU argument is flawed ~.~

The initial Contamination Zones around Kabul and Baghdad is a radius of 1000 miles. When DU is inhaled, the Alfa and Beta particles attack the cellular structure and act like mini-nukes. This is slooooooooow death. There is no antidote for Radiation poisoning. Kiss it goodby. The generations to come of those infected today will suffer grave medical abnormalities. It will be passed on by the men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan today. Remember the phrase "gulf war syndrome"? That's right, DU was first used in 1991 on the "road of death" north of Kuwait.
How many vets of that conflict are on 100% disability? Try over 100K.

This really shows that you don't know what you're talking about.

Alpha particles are blocked by even the most sensitive organs. Beta particles are not much stronger.

There is an antidote to radiation poisoning I forget the term for it but it is "recoverability" or something like that. Basically it's not "oh you're irradiated you're dead or sick".

It is how much radiation you accumulate before your body has a chance to recover, I was reading about this very thing when reading "debunking proofs" against Moon Hoax believers...mainly on why the radiation exposure that was received when going through the Van Allen's Belt did not matter.

Gulf War Syndrome is due to certain vaccinations...not DU. Way to make crappy assertions there.

How many of their children were born horribly deformed? Try many thousands. DU is still being found in the urine samples of those vets.

No DU is not. We have numerous friendly-fire victims who have significant amounts of DU in their bodies and are not affected by it. Those children in Iraq were not given proper health care by Saddam, nor food, and were growing-up in Saddam's old Chemical and bio weapons research areas.

DU was known to the US Government in 1942 when the Manhattan Project proposed using DU as a backup weapon of mass destruction in the event the atom bomb failed to function as designed. Is this some kind of idiocy?

It was never proposed as a back-up WMD...god more assertions.

Eventually, the DU will encircle the globe. We all have bulls eyes on our backs.

No it won't, DU is denser than air and de-aerosolizes very quickly, thus it is only aerosolized immediately after impact and then settles to the earth where it stays...forever.

Don't think so?

Kind of a stupid question now don't you think?

www.awakenedwoman.com...

Oh god yes...The light has been revealed to me oh lord!

Sleep well, my friend.

John McCarthy
Chairman of The Board of VERPA
www.verpa.org...
Blog: www.jenmartinez.com...
Email: [email protected]

[Edited on 2-6-2004 by John McCarthy]

Oh...I will....

Obviously, you attended a few lectures in your political science major classes. Also obvious, you never had the opportunity to debate. Your rudeness comes shining through. You have contempt for everything and everyone else's opinion.

Would it shock you terribly to know that the 15 KT bomb dropped on Hiroshima was detonated at an altitude of 5k feet? And only the bottom of the fireball touched the surface and that killed over 80K Japanese civilians?

So what if a 500KT 200 yards off target doesn't "kill" a concrete structure?
Who cares, YOU?

This is my last response as I see you have a knot in your knickers and are off to debunk my other posts. You must not have a life. Too bad.

Just for grins, are you male or female, and when were you born?

Too bad you find it necessary to hide behind your political aspirations. Don't you have a name?

Originally posted by John McCarthy
Obviously, you attended a few lectures in your political science major classes. Also obvious, you never had the opportunity to debate. Your rudeness comes shining through. You have contempt for everything and everyone else's opinion.

Would it shock you terribly to know that the 15 KT bomb dropped on Hiroshima was detonated at an altitude of 5k feet? And only the bottom of the fireball touched the surface and that killed over 80K Japanese civilians?

So what if a 500KT 200 yards off target doesn't "kill" a concrete structure?
Who cares, YOU?

This is my last response as I see you have a knot in your knickers and are off to debunk my other posts. You must not have a life. Too bad.

Just for grins, are you male or female, and when were you born?

Too bad you find it necessary to hide behind your political aspirations. Don't you have a name?

Hide behind my political aspirations?

I have one thing to say to you that puts your ignorance in its place.

Had the Bombs in Hiroshima or Nagasaki detonated on the surface they would have killed far fewer people. Why? Simple, the Earth acts as a great shield and shock absorber, deflecting and absorbing a great deal of the force unleashed in the bomb. The ideal expolsion is about right where they dropped those two bombs, 1000-5000 feet. Give or take depending on size.

Oh and...those bombs the fire ball did not just "barely" touch the surface. Ugh...and numerous other things such as over-pressure and what not, that flattend 40% of the city...you are way out of your league.

I debate fine, this isn't a debate. This is a case where one side knows exactly what they are talking about, and the other side knows nothing. It's annoying if anything.

I think someone just got taken to task by free mason!

Id like to go back to that meteor like weapon someone mentioned earlier, would you find that acceptable if it was used on city centers?

Oh and the fact that you have to ask whether or not I am a male or female only more greatly shows your ignorance.

Oh I remember why I was so harsh with you, you're the one spouting that there are "zones of radiation" around Kabul and Baghdad...really now what is your evidence for this besides your obvious hate for America.

Originally posted by Agent47
Id like to go back to that meteor like weapon someone mentioned earlier,

It�s called Rods form God that is the link to my ATSNN story.

Originally posted by kinglizard
It�s called Rods form God that is the link to my ATSNN story.

Excellent. Thank you very much.

My opinion is the more we stay away from making "doomsday weapons" the more humane we stay.

Yes, you may have spent some time in your major or political science without graduating, of course, but you skipped all your classes in diplomacy. Do you have a curricullum vitae in nuclear matters or is that too much to ask?

Where do you get the bogus idea that I hate America? This is a forum for ideas on the matter of terrorism. So, why do you act like a terrorist with your smart ass attitude toward everyone on this site?

I was once watching Discovery Channel, and I *think* I heard that the blast of an atomic bomb travels at speeds of 200+ mph. I'm pretty sure this suggests under 300.

Also, I've been wondering. Does an atomic/nuclear blast affect anything above or below the impact point? (Meaning... will it travel down or up a hill?).

Sorry, I also forgot something else. At my school we read a book related to the Hiroshima bombings and it said in many parts that people wearing black incinerated instantly because of how bright the flash was. (Meaning, their clothing absorbed the intense light radiation). I'm not sure if this is truthful or not...

Originally posted by FreeMasonDU has some fractional amount of radiaton compared to Uranium that is present in the soil beneath your feet. If DU is a problem then we should all be dying from Uranium that has been scatered through out the soil. Especially those in the deserts where the Uranium content is much higher.

Wrong

Depleted uranium is essentially the same as natural uranium, which is considered to be chemically toxic and radioactive. It occurs naturally in soil and is present in trace quantities in food, and is not considered under these circumstances to be unusually hazardous. It is called depleted because it is the waste from uranium processing, designed to remove the isotope U 238 from the natural mixture so as to concentrate the more fissionable U 235 atoms. Removing the U 235 from natural uranium does little to change its nature since that isotope is normally less than 1% of the mixture. Uranium is radioactive and decays spontaneously into other radioactive elements. Depleted uranium also contains radioactive thorium, protactinium, and other radionuclides. This concentrated mixture of radionuclides can deliver a significant dose of radiation to handlers and those in near proximity to there place of storage.

Originally posted by FreeMasonYeah and there's no evidence it has caused any problems, there is only speculation. But odd, the US government had been preparing and testing DU for 40 years before it was first used, and never did one of its tests reveal any cancinogenic or mutative problems.

What have you been smoking?
www.geocities.com...

Originally posted by FreeMasonNo DU is not. We have numerous friendly-fire victims who have significant amounts of DU in their bodies and are not affected by it. Those children in Iraq were not given proper health care by Saddam, nor food, and were growing-up in Saddam's old Chemical and bio weapons research areas.

In 1991 Doug Rokke went to the Middle East as a US army health physicist to clean up uranium left by the Gulf War. He helped decontaminate 23 armoured vehicles hit by shells in "friendly fire" incidents. Today he has difficulty breathing. His lungs are scarred and he has skin problems and kidney damage.

Rokke, a major in the US Army Reserve�s Medical Service Corps, has no doubt what made him ill�contact with radioactive metal.Three years after he worked in the Gulf, the US Department of Energy tested his urine. They found that the level of uranium in his sample was over 4000 times higher than the US safety limit of 0.1 micrograms per litre.

www.firethistime.org...

Originally posted by FreeMasonNo it won't, DU is denser than air and de-aerosolizes very quickly, thus it is only aerosolized immediately after impact and then settles to the earth where it stays...forever.

The aerosoled DU has been known to travel 42km, irradiating civilians all the while, oh joy!

In know-it-alls previous post he/she points to the fact that his major IS political science and he/she IS studying nuclear topics. Well, well. We have a student who believes everything thing he/she reads or is told by his learned professors. How Quaint! See post previous to this one to observe "slam dunking" of baseless theory's and uncorroborated innuendo.

nuclear weapons are too dangerous to be in service in my eyes .
nuclear weapons balance nothing in war. if one side fires its weapons then all it will do is kill the people not the government and the government controls the armed forces and weapons so against a determined enemy its useless

The US will never get rid of nukes for as long as the technology is out there. Because although other nations might follow suit, rogue nations will not.