whats the easiest material to get (?) fusion?
what is the smallest amount you could use?

were the French trying to make tiny bombs when there were testing on that Atoll?

i think you mean fission. fusion is harder to do.

fission :) = bomb? fusion = power plant ?
Boris said:

i think you mean fission. fusion is harder to do.

all power plants in use are fission.. all bombs in use are fission.. fusion hasn’t really been accomplished well enough yet.

you can have a fusion bomb which has a fission device as a detonator, it is harder to force atoms together than to have an unstable atom decay.

fusion can be a bomb and there are experimental fusion reactor for power production.
you can have fission bombs, nagasaki and hiroshima and all nuclear power plants today are fission.

>all bombs in use are fission.

No. The bigger bombs are fusion devices, with a fission trigger.

plutonium bomb? there fusion but need a fission bomb to set them off?sibeen said:

>all bombs in use are fission.

No. The bigger bombs are fusion devices, with a fission trigger.

any way.
how small could you make a nuke?
carton beer size? smaller ?

roughbarked said:

all power plants in use are fission.. all bombs in use are fission.. fusion hasn’t really been accomplished well enough yet.

nuclear fusion has been used quite successfully in weapons development

It’s controlled fusion, of a useful kind, that isn’t yet here. Fusion weapons have been around since the 1950s.

size of smallest bomb?

Off the top of my head and relying on my photographic menory and not using Wiki I think the smallest nuclear bomb was the W54 the smallest nuclear warheads deployed by the United States. It was a very compact implosion-type nuclear weapon design, designed for tactical use and had a very low yield for a nuclear weapon.

The W54 was designed by Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory and built by the United States Atomic Energy Commission. Around 400 units were manufactured from 1961 until early 1962, and they were deployed until at least 1971.

Preproduction testing

The earliest identified nuclear tests of devices corresponding to the W54 characteristics were the Pascal-A and Pascal-B test detonations in 1957, in the Operation Plumbbob nuclear test series. These were both intended to be very low yield, but overshot to higher yields (tens and hundreds of tons).

These were followed by tests of the XW-51 design which evolved into the XW-54 in the Operation Hardtack I test series in 1958 (Hardtack Quince and Hardtack Fig). These were both described as fizzles, or test failures.

A number of XW-51/XW-54 tests followed in the 1958 Operation Hardtack II test series, including Hardtack II Otero, Bernalillo, Luna, Mora, Colfax, Lea, Hamilton, Dona Ana, San Juan, Socorro, Catron, De Baca, Chavez, Humboldt, and Santa Fe. By this time, the XW-51 / XW-54 design had been test fired more times than any preceding US nuclear weapon prior to its successful introduction in service, indicating the difficulty of successfully making this small and low yield design work reliably and safely.

Further testing followed in the 1961 Operation Nougat test series, probably including Nougat Shrew, Boomer, Ringtail, and possibly others. By this time the W-54 design was performing consistently as expected at low yields.

Variants

There were four distinct models of the basic W54 design used, each with different yield, but the same basic design. These were: Mk-54 (Davy Crockett) — 10 or 20 ton yield, Davy Crockett artillery warhead Mk-54 (SADM) — variable yield 10 ton to 1 kiloton, Special Atomic Demolition Munition device W-54 — 250 ton yield, warhead for AIM-26 Falcon air to air missile W72 — 600 ton yield, rebuilt W-54 (Falcon warhead) for AGM-62 Walleye

Specifications

All four variants share the same basic core: a nuclear system which is 10.75 inches diameter (270 mm), about 15.7 inches long (400 mm), and weighs around or slightly over 50 pounds (23 kg).

The W54 core, based on the available photos (particularly of the Davy Crockett) was neither spherical nor elliptical. The best interpolated photographic match to its external dimensions is a center cylindrical section 11 inches in diameter and 5 inches long, with roughly 5.5 inch radius hemispherical ends.

Thats all I can remember.

Peak Warming Man said:

Thats all I can remember.

your lying

robadob said:

any way.
how small could you make a nuke?
carton beer size? smaller ?

Yeah, carton of beer size or smaller. Both the USA and USSR developed nuclear artillery shells during the cold war. They weren’t very powerful compared intercontinental ballistic missile warheads, but they were still nukes nevertheless.

11 inches in diameter and 5 inches long

11 inches in diameter and 5 inches long

how odd.

About the size of 7 or 8 dinner plates.

now there were nukes built that would be delivered by artillery
that’s interesting .

robadob said:

About the size of 7 or 8 dinner plates.

now there were nukes built that would be delivered by artillery
that’s interesting .

Are you looking at building a nuke that would fit into a picnic basket or esky size container, Rob?

There were four distinct models of the basic W54 design used, each with different yield, but the same basic design. These were: Mk-54 (Davy Crockett) — 10 or 20 ton yield, Davy Crockett artillery warhead Mk-54 (SADM) — variable yield 10 ton to 1 kiloton, Special Atomic Demolition Munition device W-54 — 250 ton yield, warhead for AIM-26 Falcon air to air missile W72 — 600 ton yield, rebuilt W-54 (Falcon warhead) for AGM-62 Walleye

would a bomb with a 20 ton yield destroy a large air craft carrier?

no

smaller

like the size of a round out of a 50mm gun like what you might have on an attack helicopter

was thinking that if you could shoot 10 or 30 so at a large air craft carrier.
delivered by a plane of shot out from the nose of a missile as it approached

twenty tons of explosive would i imagine be enough to sink a carrier. depends on where you exploded it. underneath and break its back would work.

now a bomb works by squishing the uranium equally from all sides in on its self ?
and i think at the moment we use explosives to do this squishing?

whats the easiest material to get (?) fusion?
————————-
Yes, fusion material is very common and easy to get. Fission material is much harder and rarer.

Doesn’t any element up to iron fuse quite easily?

I don’t think even the youngest of us will see cheap fusion power in our lifetime.

robadob said:

no

smaller

like the size of a round out of a 50mm gun like what you might have on an attack helicopter

was thinking that if you could shoot 10 or 30 so at a large air craft carrier.
delivered by a plane of shot out from the nose of a missile as it approached

Wouldn’t like your chances of getting close enough to a large aircraft carrier to be within cannon range. They tend to have pretty good anti-aircraft missiles and guns, plus they usually travel with a few cruisers and destroyers to provide extra defensive cover.

sibeen said:

Doesn’t any element up to iron fuse quite easily?

correct.. it doesn’t ..

:)

true , but its just an idea for a book or story thats forming in my head
would a bomb that yielded 100 tone be enough to destroy an aircraft carrier ? .party_pants said:

robadob said:

no

smaller

like the size of a round out of a 50mm gun like what you might have on an attack helicopter

was thinking that if you could shoot 10 or 30 so at a large air craft carrier.
delivered by a plane of shot out from the nose of a missile as it approached

Wouldn’t like your chances of getting close enough to a large aircraft carrier to be within cannon range. They tend to have pretty good anti-aircraft missiles and guns, plus they usually travel with a few cruisers and destroyers to provide extra defensive cover.

what is the easy-st material to get to go nuclear?

robadob said:

true , but its just an idea for a book or story thats forming in my head
would a bomb that yielded 100 tone be enough to destroy an aircraft carrier ?

Yes. As someone else said, the best place to explode it is underneath the carrier, rather than hitting it directly and blowing it up.

robadob said:

plutonium bomb? there fusion but need a fission bomb to set them off?

Hydrogen bomb is the fusion one.

I hope you know Rob, that if you’re out to get WA the bomb, the eastern states will have to get Israel to blow you up.

robadob said:

now a bomb works by squishing the uranium equally from all sides in on its self ?
and i think at the moment we use explosives to do this squishing?

I think that’s the most common way, but the gun-type is probably easier to make, in which two pieces of fissionable material are fired towards each other at high velocity.

party_pants said:

robadob said:

true , but its just an idea for a book or story thats forming in my head
would a bomb that yielded 100 tone be enough to destroy an aircraft carrier ?

Yes. As someone else said, the best place to explode it is underneath the carrier, rather than hitting it directly and blowing it up.

I think that placement is the most efficient in terms of the amount of explosive power required to destroy the vessel. But is is not all that easy to get the weapon to that place. A small nuke should have excess of amounts of explosive power and would be easier to hit the vessel from above, or even nearby.

Witty Rejoinder said:

I hope you know Rob, that if you’re out to get WA the bomb, the eastern states will have to get Israel to blow you up.

Rob is just exploring options for ‘blowing the dams’ when the invasion comes from the north :)

Stealth said:

Rob is just exploring options for ‘blowing the dams’ when the invasion comes from the north :)

does that plan also include flying small planes into dams?

neomyrtus_ said:

Stealth said:

Rob is just exploring options for ‘blowing the dams’ when the invasion comes from the north :)

does that plan also include flying small planes into dams?

Hmmm, if so then I see that the invasion has started.

:) ARRR THIS IS KIND OF THE IDEA.
The projectile will be very hard material with the fissionable been on the inside in a cavity. The tip of the projectile will work as a plunger pushing the fissionable material further back in to the cavity were it is stored. The cavity would be tapered in such away that as the fissionable material is pushed back wards into the cavity it will also be compressed from the side giving a uniformed compression form all side.
Angus Prune said:

robadob said:

now a bomb works by squishing the uranium equally from all sides in on its self ?
and i think at the moment we use explosives to do this squishing?

I think that’s the most common way, but the gun-type is probably easier to make, in which two pieces of fissionable material are fired towards each other at high velocity.

and as stated it would be all but impossible to place a bomb there as the security would be too great. but a 50mm automatic weapon could from several km away hit that air craft carrier a lot easier. especially if it was coming in to port on a feel good exercise as they do from time to time.party_pants said:

robadob said:

true , but its just an idea for a book or story thats forming in my head
would a bomb that yielded 100 tone be enough to destroy an aircraft carrier ?

Yes. As someone else said, the best place to explode it is underneath the carrier, rather than hitting it directly and blowing it up.

YES :)Stealth said:

party_pants said:

robadob said:

true , but its just an idea for a book or story thats forming in my head
would a bomb that yielded 100 tone be enough to destroy an aircraft carrier ?

Yes. As someone else said, the best place to explode it is underneath the carrier, rather than hitting it directly and blowing it up.

I think that placement is the most efficient in terms of the amount of explosive power required to destroy the vessel. But is is not all that easy to get the weapon to that place. A small nuke should have excess of amounts of explosive power and would be easier to hit the vessel from above, or even nearby.

I KNOW HOW TO DO THAT, been spending a lot of time with the blast boys at work, amazing how much you can learnStealth said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

I hope you know Rob, that if you’re out to get WA the bomb, the eastern states will have to get Israel to blow you up.

Rob is just exploring options for ‘blowing the dams’ when the invasion comes from the north :)

Boris said:

twenty tons of explosive would i imagine be enough to sink a carrier. depends on where you exploded it. underneath and break its back would work.

you wouldn’t try to sink the carrier just kill its crew

a number of fuel air bombs going off in close proximity would be enough to knock out the chain of command and kill any of the crew that weren’t buried inside the carrier. the pressure wave is enough to kill people. the carrier would most likely survive but would be a ghost ship

no ship is of any use unless its got a crew to man it. after knocking out the crew the damage caused by planned maintenance not being done would be enough to finish it before any useful man power could reach it.

its why i put forward the startegy that you don’t bother with buying the latest aircraft just have a conventional ICBM armed with a fuel air bomb device you kill the crews that service the aircraft and the pilots by striking the airfields where the aircraft are based. in this case the only mission the aircraft carries out will be in effect its last because there will be no airfield operational when they return.

wookiemeister said:

its why i put forward the startegy that you don’t bother with buying the latest aircraft just have a conventional ICBM armed with a fuel air bomb device you kill the crews that service the aircraft and the pilots by striking the airfields where the aircraft are based. in this case the only mission the aircraft carries out will be in effect its last because there will be no airfield operational when they return.

Which is how the Bismark was effectively taken out of play with the “St Nazaire“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Nazaire_Raid raid.

Carmen_Sandiego said:

wookiemeister said:

its why i put forward the startegy that you don’t bother with buying the latest aircraft just have a conventional ICBM armed with a fuel air bomb device you kill the crews that service the aircraft and the pilots by striking the airfields where the aircraft are based. in this case the only mission the aircraft carries out will be in effect its last because there will be no airfield operational when they return.

Which is how the Bismark was effectively taken out of play with the “St Nazaire“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Nazaire_Raid raid.

really? i might have a read

You lot think bank queues are bad?

Try standing in a Centrelink queue

Carmen_Sandiego said:

wookiemeister said:

its why i put forward the startegy that you don’t bother with buying the latest aircraft just have a conventional ICBM armed with a fuel air bomb device you kill the crews that service the aircraft and the pilots by striking the airfields where the aircraft are based. in this case the only mission the aircraft carries out will be in effect its last because there will be no airfield operational when they return.

Which is how the Bismark was effectively taken out of play with the “St Nazaire“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Nazaire_Raid raid.

personally i would have knocked out germany by knocking out the railway system

if they had knocked out the railways it would have meant the machine would have ground to a halt

germany was a land based military power and never came close to having the same navy and projection as britain.

knock out the railways and things like weapons and equipment would have forced the germans to transport everything the expensive way by road, more diesel being used to move stuff around. if you were malicious enough you could have knocked out the coal fields as all power was probably based on coal – the germans had no oil fields i would say.

instead of blowing up cities they should have concentrated on key points, a powerstation can’t be built in a few weeks for example.

blowing up cities was a waste of time and money

wookiemeister said:

if they had knocked out the railways it would have meant the machine would have ground to a halt

All you needed to repair railways was manpower – and they had plenty of that. Near the end of the war the bunker busters were more effective at knocking out railyards than the older bombs, and the “Dam Busters” also knocked out very important infrastructure.

Skeptic Pete said:

You lot think bank queues are bad?

Try standing in a Centrelink queue

i have once or twice

its easier to get a job

Carmen_Sandiego said:

wookiemeister said:

if they had knocked out the railways it would have meant the machine would have ground to a halt

All you needed to repair railways was manpower – and they had plenty of that. Near the end of the war the bunker busters were more effective at knocking out railyards than the older bombs, and the “Dam Busters” also knocked out very important infrastructure.

but to get that manpower means you have to take them by road meaning more fuel would be wasted doing that instead of fuelling tiger tanks

the germans were using the autobahn to take tanks from germany but the railways were the cheap way of moving stuff

without railways being knocked out the next target would be bombs that take out bridges over the autobahn, blocking all roads crossing the main arterial routes.

you could always use mosquitoes to shoot up tank carriers on the main highways them

machine gunning railway tracks is enough to do enough damage you don’t always need bombs

supplying small bombs to partisans would be another way