Post #12,642
10/10/01 12:39:26 PM
|
Same with nuclear weapons
People talk about the danger of a nuclear weapon being smuggled into the US in a suitcase. Problem is that, although the knowledge of how to build one is generally well known, the expertise actually needed to pull it off, as well as the equipment to fashion it, are very hard to come by
Tom Clancy illustrated some of what's required in "Sum Of All Fears". Although not completely accurate, it got the gist of it, and even in that story, the; terrorists had a working nuclear missle to start with
Jay O'Connor
"Going places unmapped
to do things unplanned
to people unsuspecting"
|
Post #12,645
10/10/01 12:45:46 PM
|
That's what I'm more worried about.
I'm not so worried about somebody building their own nukes as somebody acquiring somebody else's nukes *COUGH*Russia*COUGH* and using them on a city or port.
You don't need a suitcase either - a simple shipping container will do in any port city you need.
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche
|
Post #12,646
10/10/01 12:46:49 PM
|
Some of our largest cities are ports...
Regards,
-scott anderson
|
Post #12,768
10/10/01 8:10:52 PM
|
ALL our largest cities are ports:
[link|http://www.census.gov/population/documentation/twps0027/tab22.txt|Population of the 100 Largest Urban Places: 1990]: New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago (via GL/SLS), Houston, Philadelphia, San Diego, Detroit.
The first non-port is Dallas, it's followed by Phoenix and San Antonio. San Jose, part of the San Francisco - Oakland - San Jose conurbanation, hosting three major and several minor ports. The list continues to list Baltimore, San Francisco, Jacksonville, Memphis, Washington DC, Boston, and Seattle, in the 21 largest cities, all with ports or deep water sea access (including river access in some cases).
As much as we think of this as a modern age, the traditional mode of lugging things around by floating them over water is still a tremendously effective transportation mode. Too, marine climates are often more hospitable than inland ones.
There's also the mitigating fact that some urban areas are actually significantly inland. The Port of Los Angeles is connected to the city via a long thread of land. The city of San Diego now sprawls considerably inland, though downtown does lie proximate to the harbor. Seattle, OTOH, is completely surrounded by water, as is the SF Bay Area.
--
Karsten M. Self [link|mailto:kmself@ix.netcom.com|kmself@ix.netcom.com]
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
|
Post #12,771
10/10/01 8:14:55 PM
|
Yeah, we're screwed. :P
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche
|
Post #12,651
10/10/01 12:57:03 PM
|
Not too much to worry
I'm not so worried about somebody building their own nukes as somebody acquiring somebody else's nukes *COUGH*Russia*COUGH* and using them on a city or port.
In Clancy's "The Sum Of All Fears", the terrorists started with an Isreali nuclear missle (and hired a Russian scientist, I believe) and the level of effort to turn it into a bomb was *still* extraordinary (and Clancy didn't include everything)
The precision equipment needed is very expensive and very hard to get a hold of. The expertise to do it right is rare. Creating the working conditions is prohibitive.
Starting with a nuclear missle and building a bomb is like starting with just a computer chip and building an entirely functional PC. The general theory is easy, the details are daunting. You need to know a lot of specific information and get your hands on specific parts and equipment; and those specifics are not easy to come by with nuclear weapons
Jay O'Connor
"Going places unmapped
to do things unplanned
to people unsuspecting"
|
Post #12,652
10/10/01 12:57:56 PM
|
Yeah, read that book.
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche
|
Post #12,723
10/10/01 5:07:51 PM
|
Generally so, but..
Yes, over past decades, quite sophisticated electronic interlocks / coded links etc. are a part of all operational devices. And as about everbody realizes now, for an implosion device to work: simultaneity of the multiple detonators is - simply crucial.
Remember too, possession of a functionable 'missile' means that the difficult shaped charges of suitable er 'brissance' are in place. Replacing a sophisticated, coded initiating electronics with one designed for mere: simultaneous signals to the detonators - will do very well. (You might well screw up the extra pre-steps needed for fusion devices to operate optimally.. so ??) Simply scrap the appurtenanaces for arming, protection, prevention. Not 'simple' but: basic electronic theory with a plethora of semiconductor devices to assist one. All the intricate physics has been done.
That said, and given that Pu is unsuitable for a vastly-simpler gun-type device (Pu will pre-maturely explode the device, because of its neutron capture cross-section) - U-235 still abounds: what else ya gonna do with all the Oak Ridge effluent?
THAT is a design project much easier to accomplish with garden-variety materials and no PhD (though that would help). One can imagine it all to death, of course - and the amateur could *never* construct a functional attache-sized device! But.. Even a crummy say "70 ton" yield, in any number of places -
"Not to worry" is the ostrich position. To worry into distraction - the ignorant alarmist's. Something in between seems appropriate.
A.
|
Post #12,729
10/10/01 5:28:51 PM
|
Re: That's what I'm more worried about.
You don't need a suitcase either - a simple shipping container will do in any port city you need.
More viable than a suitcase, for certain.
And I don't know how much of an effect such a shot would have. It would definately take out the port - but the effect would be very limited. Since it will be at Sea level, the blast will be largely dissapated up, the radiation (including heat) will be concentrated closely, and absorbed.
I suppose I'm thinking in terms of Charleston, SC and the like.. hitting NY with something like that would expose (I think) a lot of the towers/skyscrapers to the blast... How effective that would be is still a question, but it would be far more effective in cities with high-rises next to the port than those ports without...
I'd think you'd have a mile or so area of total destruction at ground zero, all the ships would be sunk... Depends on the target/attempt. I don't know what the effect of the container/ship around it would have, either... sure, its an atomic explosion, but that's got to soak up a lot of the get-going power to vaporize it.
Addison
|
Post #12,733
10/10/01 5:57:05 PM
|
Did you see that '80s movie on NBC?
It was quite well done.
A group of US anti-nuclear activists (or some such) had some how stolen a bunch of plutonium and fashioned a crude bomb and had it on a boat in Charleston, SC's (IIRC) harbor. They intended to use it to force the US to disarm its weapons, or something of the sort.
They had a portable TV camera which let them broadcast their demands, etc., (and let the movie take place). It becomes a media circus, as you might imagine.
The main actor had gotton plutonium poisoning, so he was a gonner no matter what happened....
The bomb on the boat is booby-trapped. Anti-terrorist commandos raid the boat, but are unable to disarm the bomb...
It goes off. Thousands are killed....
A few days pass, and life goes on...
It was a good show. I wish I could recall the title. :-( I think it was on NBC in the very early '80s, when the nuclear missile debate was very intense, especially in Europe.
Cheers,
Scott.
|
Post #12,691
10/10/01 3:01:45 PM
|
uh, actually no
to make a fissionable device yes, but to create a nuclear weapon all you need is certain material, a file, a willngness to die and a tall building to blow it off of. Dont want to get too specific here.
thanx,
bill
tshirt front "born to die before I get old"
thshirt back "fscked another one didnja?"
|
Post #12,809
10/10/01 11:01:53 PM
|
No So
You don't put it in a suitcase, you put it in a trailer - it can be as big as you want. Easy.
|
Post #12,930
10/11/01 2:19:18 PM
|
Tsk, tsk, why bother with a bomb?
Take out the nuclear material. Grind some of it up. Proceed to contaminate several major transportation centers. Send in anonymous letters to major media outlets saying that you did so, bragging about some (but only some) of the contaminated areas, and include some nuclear material to make them take you seriously.
If your goal is to cause maximum terror with minimal effort, that will do it. You didn't cause enough damage for people to nuke random cities. But you caused a lot of fear. Millions will worry that perhaps they will die an early death of cancer. And sure, it won't be that effective in killing people. But it is easily doable, and represents an excellent fear/terror point.
(Compare with the anthrax case. You can kill a few people with it fairly easily. Using it for mass destruction is a different story.)
Cheers,
Ben
|
Post #12,936
10/11/01 2:26:29 PM
|
For that matter, why bother with nuclear material?
Just offhand, I can think of a half dozen ways to inflict serious damage to our infrastructure that would also scare the hell out of people. And none of them require anything more than what you can buy at any Walmart. I decline to give details, but this is a smart crowd. I bet y'all can think of dozens more than I can.
For every human problem, there is a neat, simple solution;
and it is always wrong
H. L. Mencken, Mencken's Metalaw
|
Post #12,943
10/11/01 2:35:11 PM
|
Fear.
That's the point. More appropriately, Terror.
"Atomic", "Nuclear" are bugaboos that inflict fear far beyond their real force.
Witness the debate about atomic bombing Japan - despite the fact the bombs did *less* damage than conventional raids. Over atomic plants, weaponry, etc.
Other attacks would piss people off, hurt some, but they don't carrry the fear of "atomic", and even "cancer".
Witness the anthrax scare - despite the fact its almost a zero probabity as a Weapon of Mass Destruction.
Addison
|
Post #12,946
10/11/01 2:40:35 PM
|
What was really scary about Hiroshima/Nagasaki...
...wasn't that it caused less devestation than a conventional bombing raid, at least not for me.
It was that ONE BOMB from ONE PLANE did all that, where to do that much damage you needed a whole wing of bombers with a full load.
Now, take a whole wing of bombers equipped with a full load of atomic bombs...
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche
|
Post #12,978
10/11/01 4:24:18 PM
10/11/01 5:10:18 PM
|
Doolittle
Jimmy Doolittle's [link|http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/history/wwii/dtr.htm|Tokyo raid] (come-uppance for Pearl -- we could strike back) was a one-way affair. Sixteen B-25s were launched from 800 miles out (from carriers, no less) to bomb Tokyo. That was 400 miles further out than initially planned, and the Chinese landing sites weren't attainable for most of the crews, many of whom bailed out or ditched their birds. It was a token raid, but to great psychological (and strategic) effect.
The one plane, one bomb, nature of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki raids was significant, and plays into the survivors recollections. Many heard the plane but dismissed it without a thought -- what damage could one plane do? By contrast, the [link|http://tvtokyo.com/Burning.html|Tokyo firebombing] involved 300 aircraft.
[Edit: comeuppance for Perl has yet to be extracted.]
--
Karsten M. Self [link|mailto:kmself@ix.netcom.com|kmself@ix.netcom.com]
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
Edited by kmself
Oct. 11, 2001, 05:10:18 PM EDT
|
Post #12,985
10/11/01 4:38:30 PM
|
Um, that is spelled "Pearl"
Turnabout from my usual version of that spelling correction...
Cheers,
Ben
|
Post #12,993
10/11/01 4:49:14 PM
|
To be fair..
(gotta pick the nits with WWII. :))
The one plane, one bomb, nature of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki raids was significant, and plays into the survivors recollections. Many heard the plane but dismissed it without a thought -- what damage could one plane do?
If they say they only heard one - then they're wrong. :)
There were 3, plus a weather scout.
The first went a couple hours ahead, and reported on the weather (and other planes were scouting other areas, and then went back. (The plane debated weather to stick around for the "big bang" and decided to get back to a poker game instead).
The Enola Gay was accompanied by 2 other B-29s, carrying instrumentation, and air-dropped instruments to measure and analyze the blast. They broke formation just before the Enola Gay dropped the bomb, so they were further back (in case the shock wave damaged the Enola Gay, etc).
But since there were only 3, the all-clear in Hiroshima was sounding when the bomb did explode.
Addison
|
Post #12,970
10/11/01 3:58:47 PM
|
Exactly, fear
It is not just that it is a bugaboo.
Imagine if the material sent in the envelope was from a real nuke, and was therefore verifiably weapons grade. They could claim this, and this claim is readily verified from the observed radioactivity per unit weight.
Now in point of fact, they might not be reasonably able to create a nice city-levelling explosion. But proof that they actually have a source of the necessary materials (the single biggest obstacle for the do it yourself approach to building nukes) would have tremendous impact.
Cheers,
Ben
|
Post #12,949
10/11/01 2:55:24 PM
|
Anyone reading or posting in this forum could,
(I'd bet $$) create a list of 1000 things.. which could create havoc: each list a bit different, drawing from all experience, personal interests - and degree of personal depravity-quotient.
Why is this not seen as a given? YES:
Destruction of ALL complex machines / systems / civilizations.. is far easier than their construction.
Is this not the crux of how this 'situation' is much *different* from all those 'wars' we imagine our technology has fitted us to 'win' ???
Soon it shall dawn that we have entered the: rethink Everything! Era - and nobody likes that or can do a damn thing other than somehow.. adapt. Mode:
Pandora Box Opened.
{sheesh guys}
|
