First posted deleted. How…nuclear

During the Manhatten Project, 1/4 of the entire US electricity production went to uranium enrichment in Oak Ridge, TN……


Today’s nukes are smaller with more efficient use of the fissile material-that’s where the research goes-smaller bombs with higher yields. It’s better to have 3-5 accurate, efficient warheads than 1 inefficient dumb bomb for the same price.

What you are not taking into account is the cost of that weapon and how efficient the use of the fissile material inside was.


And, frankly, a ground detonated SADM might have been useful for killing tanks coming thru the Fulda Gap but as nuclear weapons go they were pretty Meh.

With proper maintenance schedules, they last a long, long, long time.

Just guessing - I don't know, but I suspect that, whatever it was, it increased plasma production used in the X-ray compression of the fusion fuel.

If you're speaking about the GLCM, yes. But the "neutron bomb" in concept (which is what pop culture generally refers to) was different.

The physics package's yield was optimized for production of neutron and gamma radiation, rather than blast/frag/overpressure. It would have been a yield that you could have stood less than a mile from and survived the blast/frag/overpressure, but you would have been eviscerated by the neutron and gamma regardless of what you were standing behind for a radius substantially larger than that.

Just when I thought it was safe to take off my eclipse glasses...now this.

Thanks, jerks.

Well they didn't test a version of Little Boy, they knew it would work. The design was simple and the math sad it would work and it did.
Trinity test was the plutonium bomb (prototype of Fat Man) which was a more complicated design. Now that said hydrogen bombs are a hell of a lot more complicated than single stage implosion bombs, but we do know an awful lot about these now. I can see being able to get away with it.

God I wish that’s what they did. At least the brain drain would not have occurred. Instead they pushed everyone to fix the “climate” problem during the time of the “peace dividend” once the wall fell.

I'll take it.

Here's the facts: NATO knows if NK has a working nuclear weapon.
NATO also knows if they have mastered miniaturization/thermonuclear burns.
The US/UK absolutely knows.

The US and two other countries have spent a great deal of time and testing in underground testing looking at seismic effects and coupling to the dirt. They've spent a small fortune on nuclear forensics, and they are exceedingly good at it.

Opinion:

There is no positive for NK to have an actual weapon.
There are a TON of negatives for them to have an actual weapon.

SK is not going to sit around with their thumb in their ass when their ghey hat to the North can simply roll a nuc down one of the tunnels and obliterate them at will.

China is not going to allow them to have a working nuke. If they wanted it, they would have just given it to them. Or give them so much aid, it would have been relatively trivial. For them to be nuc capable would be entirely too disruptive to too many things China is trying to accomplish. They do not desire the loss of their buffer.

Once NK crosses that line, the only thing stopping them from sticking one in our ass is getting the FedEx label properly applied to it. USG is never going to allow that.

Theory:

NK has existed for years by 'saber rattling'; by that I mean they threaten, some weak-kneed leader sends them food/stuff. Lather, rinse, repeat. They are legends in lying. One can make a nuclear detonation signature via non-nuclear means. What they are looking for is semi-public knowledge, and having access to conventional explosives, a research reactor, and a work force puts the ability directly in their wheelhouse.

They fake a nudet. They trot out some shapes. Now they are... equals? Nope. Now, no one will fuck with us? Nope. NATO pounding the gavel / we have to do something? Nope. Japan shoots their missiles before they get overflown, repeatedly? Nope.

Sure Best Korea. You have a nuke capability. You've shown us an item you can credibly fly on the aerospace lifting ability you have. Ok buddy.

Compare and contrast: Israel will tell you they have no nuclear capability. People sure get twitchy when they get spun up though, don't they? Pay a LOT of attention when the IDF starts moving, don't they? Why? Tiny fucking country relatively, with a tiny military. Iran tells everyone they are getting the bomb, but they can shoot a thousand missiles and no one blinks....

See where I am going with this?

Oh - the IAEA is consistently, provably incompetent. They are a laughingstock around proliferants. Read Eating Grass for one example.

Shouldn't be news that if you don't use a skikll regularly you rapidly lose it. Same with the country building juclear weapons and nuclear plants for that matter. Can we? Sure? How large is the pool of skilled people in both of those compared to 40 years ago? Pretty small.

Call your local repairman to fix a rotary dial phone or a CRT TV. That skill evaporated and was everywhere 40 years ago.

They have programs to do that already, like WIP. This is happening. They've already passed a couple of critical decision points.






It's not a complete secret. You can read the safety documents adn DNFSB unclass reporting and EIS for the Y12 purification facility and get a really, really good idea as to what it could be.

And, it wasn't a real problem. Not all systems are believed to have used that particular interstage material. SEABREEZE was another material.

The problem is the lack of testing capability. They could improve all of it. Think of all the materials science that has transpired; the amount of computing ability. All going to waste because unless they test it heat soaked, and then frozen, they cannot in good conscience certify the changes. They go through a shitload of contortions just upgrading stuff outside of the NEP.



That is exactly what I believe happened, and reading and listening to the cold war warriors that worked the systems, they saw the same writing on the wall. Some stuff they did the combloc couldn't care any less. Special ADM? Meh. But Pershing though, Jupiter... W79ER... nope. Didn't like that shit a bit. Hammering their shoe on the table.

You would think so.

I know a little about Y12's efforts to preserve the oral history. Also, I know from being a prolific FOIA requestor. I live 30 minutes from OSTI.

There are gaps in the documentation.

Current production - the problems were the contractor (Mason-Hanger) not keeping up with as-built changes to the design agencies original books. Go back through the Pantexan and the Nuclear Weapons Journal. There's a lot of unclass discussion about the problem. Ton of powerpoints on osti.gov.

Deprecated systems - There is a ton of shit missing. Or they are glomarring the hell out of stuff. A lot of mound stuff, and a ton of burlington docs are flat gone. Try locating any documents on the NEMO and R-NEMO. Even correctly classified and withheld in entirety. It's gone.


You shut your filthy mouth!

That was an amazing, pinnacle design. I could go on for hours about it. I wish I knew anything about the 79. Another amazing, incredible design.



That's exactly how it felt in Oak Ridge. It went from war machine, to granola eating botany and we don't say bomb anymore, how can we help Mother Earth. Almost like they were ashamed of what they did. It felt, as a kid, sickening to me.

The legit forgot how to make fogbank iirc.

I don't know about anyone else, but I for one am excited that my kin will be able to watch a Gen-Z directed second cold war submarine movie in 15 years.

1 gender only, Comrade.

Would you carry a gun into a live firefight you had never actually shot? Brand new, inspected by #14, here you go, that way is where the gun fire is coming from, get some?

Now, imagine the entire free world relies on that one, lone single unit.

I love this stuff. I would have real issues being the certifier that all these old pits would work to DOD rated outputs in all weather.

This is more in line with America first.

Than wide open borders and emptying out our SPR or perpetual war & noble lies

nah

What had happened was...

80's/ 90's came, and the buildings that made the material were in Really Bad Shape. So, they essentially got rid of them. (There are still places in the enterprise that haven't really changed much since the 50's).

Then came the LEP where they wanted to rebuild these warheads. They built a pilot plant. It was almost impossible to do. Because, now here is TOSHA and OSHA. Everything is hazmat. You can't just claim Q anymore. There was a ton of work done out there to make a small facility to make this stuff. They made it. It was perfect.

It did not perform the same in testing.

They went back, and found that using the naughty chemicals of the day, there was a contaminant present. It was tested and certified with that contaminant, and the computer codes are based on those results.

The stuff they made, no one has ever said it didn't work. They said the curves didn't match. (Or something opaque to that effect).

So, they figured it out, had a small fire, then added the stuff back in, and it lined up. (Shrugs) acetonitrile is good stuff.

Some light reading. Get on a list!:
https://www.nuclearinfo.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/SCND_Ainslie_Fogbank_Summary_09_February_2008_volume_1_of_1..pdf

https://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Weapons/Allbombs.html
says it's an 8 inch artillery shell, either fission or ER. Pu linear implosion which is kinda scary.

The rumored egg shaped primary (or whatever it is) that's in the W88 should have been able to fit into an 8 inch shell, if you look at the size of the W88 RV.

Never really liked the idea of delivering nuclear weapons from standard tube artillery.

That’s an ignorant statement.  You obviously been keeping up on our space exploration missions.  We are doing increasingly complex missions with greater success.  Just because we don’t fly space shuttles into orbit doesn’t mean things are dead.

It is an idea with a distinct air of, "fuck you and fuck me too!" To it.

I'm going with this.

I just finished Nuclear War by Annie Jacobsen, it will scare you as it did me.

This is just madness.

Nuclear warheads are the only things in the US military inventory that do not have national stock numbers or dollar amounts assigned.

Don't let it.

Anything with 'nuclear winter' as an element of the story isn't credible.

Well, all that CAD and modeling makes the process take a lot longer than drawing it by hand on drafting tables ya know.

If ya'll want some fun reading, check out second_to_fun 's post on reddit
Example:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AtomicPorn/comments/1c6zw4l/heres_another_speculative_poster_this_time_its/

Targeting is so much more accurate now you don't NEED 9 megatons.

Standing next to the hole for what would have been the next test at the NNSS is an eerie and depressing feeling. Everything set up just as it would have been before a test, and then we walked away. 30 years, and no testing. It was to be a cryogenic shot - wonder how it would have turned out.

Go look up declassified docs on decoupling blast signatures using salt domes. Based on what's known, and Chinese tendency to engage in large scale utterly classified strategic work in remote areas, I'd wager the CCP has done plenty of underground testing in the past 30 years...while we've done absolutely jack shit.

Theoretically.

You might be willing to bet the farm on that. I'm not.

And not only from the normal, let's call these the "mechanical" issues with any new design, the sheer amount of money involved lends itself to any number of greed and grift issues.

Then throw in any added difficulties caused by the EPA and/or any other entity not primarily tasked with the success of this exact item multiplied by the pressure of budgetary and scheduling concerns.

And let's not forget the need to spread the damned project WAY out further than it needs to be just so everybody gets a piece of the pie so the whole program can get enough votes to stay alive.

And we haven't factored in the security and sabotage possibilities both external and internal.

All this and more when talking about the ultimate bottom line defense of not only this country but the single most important item that deters even the most ruthless of those who would cause death and destruction of so many around the world.


I want absolute proof of function. There can be NO doubt by ANYONE for ANY reason.

Um yeah, I want live testing.

ymmv

Additionally,
The many levels of necessary bureaucracy to check the checkers and verify the watchers, not to mention provide adequate supervision for such an august and somber endeavor at a level befitting a World Sooper Pow'r.

I live 12 miles away from SOCOM, I am sure one of the Russian nukes is pointed at that chunk of land.

I just hope that I will be on vacation at a remote cattle ranch in Argentina when it all goes off.

Well, the 93 year old white guy down the street from me apparently worked on "things" and is still very lucid but long since retired.

None of what you posted makes sense. Why would the entire World be in on this deception? How would the Norks go about faking a 100Kt+ test?

Is it really that hard to believe that the Norks have mastered technology which India/Pakistan mastered in the late 90s or China in the 60s-70s?

Sometimes this place scares me.

My point was, the old stuff was huge. A modern 9 megaton device is a lot smaller and lighter.

This was in response to simply using old warheads because they worked.

Hence the MIRV remark, which should indicate that I know the newer stuff is light years better than the older stuff. I was pointing out what I believed was an absurd position

9MT is going to be very heavy, modern doesn't change the physics.

Tactics changed such that the high yield devices were recognized as being less useful and effective.

The Ripple devices were substantially lighter but larger in size for a high-yield device.

It is super cool you had that privilege. I have had those feelings on DOE and TVA tours, too. 'What's that over there?' 'dunno, no one has been in there since I started in the 80's'

It's one of the reasons I would like to learn how to dive. I wonder what buildings and cars and things I can see here where the government flooded the valley for all the dams. Just people getting up one day, walking out, and never returning, things frozen in time, now in murky green water.



I have! There's a lot of data there. They wrote them from a certain perspective; I read every one of them like they were trying to see how hard it would be to hide seismic events and moderate isotope releases. Why would they care if they shook the planet at Johnston Atoll? They wanted to see what they could learn from suppressing seismology; some of that research is used in mining applications now to reduce ground shock.

I agree completely that china has been doing stuff underground. The only reason they've stopped testing is they have their stuff refined to the point that the pain from trying to make it smaller/better/more efficient isn't worth what money they don't have to earmark for it. No point in gilding their lillies; they've proven their point.



Sure it does, if you understand it.

Because, they all have something to gain? Same way they pay off other countries to not Do Nuclear? Because no one wins with a truly nuclear north korea??

How? I'm not going to go into the maths here, but you could absolutely, by picking the correct dirt, correctly coupling the system to the dirt, and using microsecond delay caps, with enough explosives in the correct geometry, reproduce what others would interpret as a single stage or, (theoretically, but stretching it with a double pulse) thermonuclear underground detonation. You add to that a strategic release of isotopes that would be expected to be seen, and you seal in all the workers so that none of them can ever tell about this lie. (shrugs) Looks like I have a nuc, but the security council knows that I do not, but still caves into my demands instead of invading and putting me back to factory settings. (shrugs) everyone wins




You are missing the point. It's not even China circa 1970. I have said, in this thread, anyone can master 1950 American nuclear design. They *absolutely*, from a technical standpoint, could build a simple nuclear weapon. They, like China/India/Pakistan, cannot master making a 2mm thick plutonium shell shaped like Hey Arnolds' head.

So could a ton of other places. *Arf* could build one.

It is not about technical capacity. For about 20 years it was about lack of fissiles. Now it isn't even that.

It is completely about political will. If you make it, can you keep it? If you make it, can you make enough to keep everyone from steamrolling you? Can you afford to not have multiple layers of security? What keeps your troops from lighting it off under your white house? What keeps another country from popping yours off, or one of their own, and making it look like you own goaled yourself?

You keep asking me questions. I pose this one to you before I elucidate further. Given the fact that nk has bought (by counterfeiting us currency and saber rattling) lift vehicles that work well enough to put a satellite into an orbit, if they have nuclear weapons, why would Japan allow them to launch any kind of missile in their direction?

Why would NATO allow them to continue to exist, with them asymmetrically holding SK at risk?

We've gone over this multiple times over the years, with actual people that did targeting and had access to countertargeting. The unclass math doesn't add up.



Give him my email, tell him he will feel better about everything he did unburdening himself to me. I promise I will not take notes and drawings. nope.

I have asked this before. Last time someone posted that, of course they have miniature, deployable weapons. Then posted a link to a paper by a think tank that simply speculated that they could. Not saying it's not accurate, but hardly proof.

I suppose the folks that know for sure won't be saying.

You know, I don't think I ever learned your background in all this stuff. You are pretty smart with it though.

It is sort of out of my lane.

I wonder, however, if a lightweight gigaton device could not be produced knowing what they know now. Especially if it didn't have to fit in the constraints of a cone. My knowledge of thermo stuff steals a lot from unclass fusion work. It's the same thing, I suspect, just the weapon stuff uses inertial confinement where they are using other schemes. Even then, SAUSAGE, I think with modern refinements could have been made into a monster.

My reading says the upper limit in the US got clipped pretty quickly once they figured out how to point a rocket. I feel like they left a lot on the table, and changed course trying to find out how much bang they could get in the smallest footprint they could put it.

This part would be more in hesperus' wheel house, but, at the temperatures and pressures you could generate, I even wonder what you could do to some of the newly-found heavy elements. Money isn't the limiter, it's just weight in this thought experiment.

Send the IAEA ninjas. They surely will get to the bottom of it

Attached File

Makes me wonder how much tritium and deuterium they might need for maintenance and new weapons development.

I missed this nuance rereading.

First off, no, it really doesn't if you know what you're looking at. The single stage one does, you can see where they took their design cues from the Brits.

Second, I can build one better. The math is already out there. Someone buy me a garage, and a 3d metal printing machine, and I'll build some shit NNSA will swoop in and seize. No question. A truck driver built a model that's in a museum now. The documentary true lies made a really, really good model.

But that's all it was, and without anything more, that's all the norks did.

Here is what you should be asking, can you see if the 8-10 thousand magnox rods are in there, corroded and sludgy in the pool, or have they been raped for their plutonium?

Attached File

open source intelligence gathering says...

https://fox40.com/business/press-releases/ein-presswire/691542118/nuclear-regulatory-commission-paves-way-for-increase-in-production-in-commercial-reactors-of-tritium-for-nuclear-weapons/

It's a trick question though. SRS takes all the LLC components and recovers the materials for purification and eventual reuse. It's not publicly known how many curies they keep in storage, much less in holdup/process.

I, without benefit of knowledge, doubt DT is going to be the stumbling block for what they're doing. It is certifying a modern-era made pit. I have no idea how that will happen. Even obama helped the program along, and they still (apparently) struggle.

No all-up test, no surety in my tiny crayon strewn book.

Well it would be “mostly harmless”…

This is why the B53 is gone and the B61-11 is here.

In a strategy sense I'd suggest it should have stayed, for a gravity bomb.

Multiple lower-yield warheads were the ticket for MIRV ballistic missiles. If you're talking about making a single pass with a B2/B21 to hit some very hard target with one bomb, you might need a megaton yield bomb.