Post #12,645
10/10/01 12:45:46 PM
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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
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Post #12,646
10/10/01 12:46:49 PM
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Some of our largest cities are ports...
Regards,
-scott anderson
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Post #12,768
10/10/01 8:10:52 PM
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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?
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Post #12,771
10/10/01 8:14:55 PM
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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
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Post #12,651
10/10/01 12:57:03 PM
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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"
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Post #12,652
10/10/01 12:57:56 PM
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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
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Post #12,723
10/10/01 5:07:51 PM
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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.
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Post #12,729
10/10/01 5:28:51 PM
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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
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Post #12,733
10/10/01 5:57:05 PM
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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.
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