> Popeyesays@aol.com wrote:
> From the Nuclear Weapons FAQ at:
<http://www.fas.org/nuke/hew/Nwfaq/Nfaq0.html>
> 4.2.3.1 Minimum Size
A thin
> beryllium reflector will reduce this, but the necessary high explosive
> 4.2.4 High Yield Weapons
> 4.2.3.2 Minimum Fissile Content
...
> Fusion boosting could produce yields exceeding 1 kt with this system.
> 4.3.1 Fusion Boosted Fission Weapons
> light weight fission bomb by introducing a modest amount of deuterium-
In a message dated Fri, 24 Sep 1999 10:56:09 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> Jeff Lyon <jefflyon@mail.utexas.edu> writes:
> Popeyesays@aol.com wrote:
> From the Nuclear Weapons FAQ at:
ahhh.....but that assumes TODAY'S technology...who knows what breakthrough
tomorrow holds (warp drive anyone?)
;-)
Hmm, I don't know about shoulder-launched, but I do know that the US
Army deployed a tactical weapon in the 50's called the Davey Crockett. It was
small enough to be (2) man-portable, but in order to fire it, the crew
had to dig a hole first, which they would jump into before they fired the
weapon so as not to get caught in the blast. I think I actually have a video
clip of the thing in action on tape somewhere.
> On Fri, 24 Sep 1999, Mark Reindl wrote:
> Hmm, I don't know about shoulder-launched, but I do know that the US
It wasn't really a man portable system. My Gunston book on Rockets and
Missiles shows it as a largish RR mounted on a jeep. The Rocket was spin
stabilized and unguided.
A quick search yielded the following...
www.brook.edu/FP/PROJECTS/NUCWCOST/DAVYC.HTM
it was a 54 lb warhead with a yield of.01 to.02 kilotons. 10 tons of TNT in
other words.
> On Fri, 24 Sep 1999, Ryan M Gill wrote:
> it was a 54 lb warhead with a yield of .01 to .02 kilotons. 10 tons of
> TNT in other words.
That should be the W54 warhead weighed 51 lbs.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> At 1:11 PM -0700 9/24/99, Mark Reindl wrote:
sounds tailor made for power armor troopers, they'd use a 2MP weapon
a sidearm :-)
In a message dated 9/24/99 10:01:19 AM Central Daylight Time,
> UsClintons@aol.com writes:
<<
ahhh.....but that assumes TODAY'S technology...who knows what breakthrough
tomorrow holds (warp drive anyone?)
;-)
> [quoted text omitted]
I will happily accept the possibility of another kind of bomb sometime in the
future. Perhaps sustaining and collapsing an artificial black hole of
significant mass, or a matter/ antimatter/ containment mixture or
anything else you might come up with, but the earlier specification was for a
nuclear
bomb man-deliverable weighing less than the necessary mass for creating
a critical mass and the package for fusing, and delivering it. To set off a
nuke takes a less than inconsiderabnle mass of explosives and intensely
sophisticated electronic triggers for the conventional explosive. Usually a
diffuse ball of nuclear material is made and then surrounded by explosives
that will detonate a spherical trigger which implodes (slams toegether into a
much more dense mass which results in the uncontrolled reaction. All that
takes weight (mass).
Apparently this didn't make it to the list before, so I'll try it again.
Who says your shoulder launched weapons have to be fissionables? There is no
critical mass for fusion, you just need to be able to compress the hydrogen
enough. And Gravitics could be one way to accomplish that.
Come on, are we throwing away the pee-wee nukes from Starship
Troopers? (The book, not the movie).
In a message dated 9/25/99 3:27:46 PM Central Daylight Time,
> Popeyesays@aol.com writes:
> nuclear bomb...All that takes weight (mass).
hmmm...I still think you have a 'blind-spot' on this subject. What
about
'grav-tech'? Races have the ability to levitate a 200 ton vehicle but
they can't artificially increase the mass of a small nuke or devise some
method to 'enrich' the fissable material to a greater extent? Not to mention
the 100s of much more obscure things that MIGHT be possible in a century or so
yet would make a device of this type possible.
I would be more likely to 'buy-in' to the argument (whoever stated it)
that the 'Generals' would not trust every other grunt with a nuke. But not
because of escalation of hostilities but because of the fear of friendly fire!
But that's just my opinion :-)
> UsClintons@aol.com wrote:
> I would be more likely to 'buy-in' to the argument (whoever stated it)
that
> the 'Generals' would not trust every other grunt with a nuke. But not
My thing is anything along teh lines I was talking about is of a very small
and "semi" clean yield.
Poor anaolgy but remember the partially ignition that vaporized half of Mile
High Sy=tadium in Sum all all fears. That would do nicely for a Power armor
weapon. And if we end up fighting Kra'Vak I'd irradiate half the fuckin'
planet to get rid of em. Who gives a shit we're dead anyway.
I think the point of my earlier post may have been overlooked; the first
paragraph described the minimum size of a fission warhead of conventional
design using 40's-era technology; about 10-15 kilos with a warhead yield
of about 20 kilotons.
The second paragraph went on to say that using more advanced design
techniques, it is possible to create a warhead that uses as little as 1
kilogram of fissionable material. (Oh, and BTW, although I didn't mention it
early, this could be *reactor* grade plutonium, and not necessarily weapons
grade.) Such a device would normally have a yield of about 0.1
kiloton or over a kiloton if designed as a "fusion-boosted" device.
Since a Stinger missile can carry a 3 kilo (conventional) warhead, a
shoulder-launched missile with a small nuclear or thermonuclear warhead
seems entirely possible with today's technology.
The "Davy Crockett" or W54 warhead that has been discussed quite a bit
recently is a whole 'nother critter; it was a '50's-era device which had
just as much fissionable material as a 20 kiloton warhead, but was designed to
produce a lower than average warhead yield. No doubt this was so that the
weapons crew might have some chance of surviving the blast.
So while the W54 was the smallest nuke in terms of warhead yield, in terms of
smallest warhead size we should not use it as our yardstick of what
would be possible today, much less 200+ years in the future.
And as others have mentioned we're not even considering some of the other
possibilities; anti-matter, thermonuclear warheads with laser fusion
initiators, or some extension of the DFFG technologies.
Anyway, the point of the original thread was that using a single large
dropship in a hot LZ might be unwise due to the potential threat of even a
single man-portable AA weapon.
Actually speaking as an end user of said product, I don't care if it's nuke or
not. I'm not looking to vaporize nebraska with it but I'd love to have a
shoulder fired weapon that would blow the back end off a battleship. (Future
use of course).
Los
> Jeff Lyon wrote:
> I think the point of my earlier post may have been overlooked; the
Speaking as a resident of Nebraska I am glad Los isn't looking to vaporize it.
:-)
Bill
Actually speaking as an end user of said product, I don't care if it's nuke or
not. I'm not looking to vaporize nebraska with it but I'd love to have a
shoulder fired weapon that would blow the back end off a battleship. (Future
use of course).
Los
> Jeff
Jeff Lyon (on the topic of "how small can you make a nuke") wrote (and I
paraphrase heavily):
> [A "40s-era" nuke needs 10-15kg of fisisonables]
> [An advanced design with fusion boosting and/or "flying plate"
While it is true that exotic compression schemes and boosting can reduce the
amount of material require, exotic compression schemes would likely be heavier
and bulkier than the traditional
"explosive-shell-around-a-fissionable-ball" of the 40s-era design. So
even though you'd need less plutonium, you'd probably need more mass for
explosives, tamper, tritium reservoirs, or whatever. Bottom line is that a
nuke probably can't get much lighter than 10kg or so, but isn't that light
enough? Just game-balance-wise, would we want every PBI able to cart
around a dozen Hiroshimas? Well, maybe if PA was as tough as Cheyenne
Mountain, but this is only the 2180s, after all...
Anyhow, as others have pointed out, insert your own PSB to justify 5kg
nukes, or nuke-like bombs. Maybe there's a one-use grav compensator
that
overloads to hyper-compress a small amount of fission or fusion fuel and
set
it off. Hell, if you've got a direct-fire fusion gun, why not a
nuke-like
fusion grenade? Why not a matter/anti-matter bomb, in finest sci-fi
tradition?
And the main point about the risk of using One Big Lander is still
well-taken. Whether the "golden BB" is nuclear or conventional, the
more you eggs you put in the basket, the more that get spilled when the handle
breaks (if I may insert my metaphors in the blender and hit "puree"...).
Keep 'Em Flying,
Of course it is possible. Try a solid projectile of Californium 252 in a large
caliber rifle or heavy machingune. It will reach critical mass if it impacts a
solid object such as a tank, concrete wall, etc. The down side is the
half-life
of 6 months. If you don't use them within 6 months of manufacture, their
useless as a micro-nuke, but they'll still punch nice and extemely
expensive holes through soft objects...
In a message dated 9/27/99 5:16:29 PM Central Daylight Time,
nyrath@clark.net writes:
<<
What if you used Californium as your fissionable material? (the classic
Traveller "collapsing rounds")
> [quoted text omitted]
What is the half-life of Californium? Would it last long enough to make
the warhead storable?
The half-life of Californium 252 is 6 months, so you have at most 6
months to use it, and probably only 3 months.
> At 04:27 PM 9/25/99 EDT, you wrote:
Usually a
> diffuse ball of nuclear material is made and then surrounded by
Ahh... unless the fissionable material is embedded on the inside of a shell of
memory plastic. Given a trigger signal, the memory plastic contracts...
bringing the fissionables into contact at high speed. Memory plastic (which,
of course, blocks radiation) and the control circuit couldn't weigh too
much...
> Jim 'Jiji' Foster wrote:
> At 04:27 PM 9/25/99 EDT, you wrote:
Usually a
> >diffuse ball of nuclear material is made and then surrounded by
I don't know if I like the idea of the memory plastic. If you block the
radiation, whatever you have will heat up...