Are Nukes dead ?

Just wondering with technology moving on with a lot of newer weapons that are or arent in development are Nukes dead as an air dropped weapon?Or have they matured into something else entirely..Found a whole list of stuff that may or may not have happened here with Nukes.
Possible Projects

a reply to: Blackfinger

Your list of "possible projects" is just a list of goofy stupid things the government has done, mixed with quite a bit of crap.

None of it looks a lot like a possibility of a super weapon, sad to say.

And I don't understand why it would be in Aircraft.

Skunkworks would seem a lot more germane for this.

originally posted by: Blackfinger
Just wondering with technology moving on with a lot of newer weapons that are or arent in development are Nukes dead as an air dropped weapon?Or have they matured into something else entirely..Found a whole list of stuff that may or may not have happened here with Nukes.
Possible Projects

Dead? Matured? They are barely used. I think outside of testing they have only been used twice.

I think we are moving towards laser tech as the next big thing in warfare.

a reply to: Blackfinger

Nuclear weapons degrade over time. There must be constant refurbishment and checks to ensure that the device will operate as expected and is otherwise safe.

Unless new material is made to replace the degrading warhead, the warhead must be decommissioned.

Most nukes only last 35 years max.

a reply to: Blackfinger

They've been integrated smart bomb tech with the latest gen of air dropped nukes.

Now you can PRECISELY blow the frak out of a sight.

www.nnsa.energy.gov...

originally posted by: chr0naut
a reply to: Blackfinger

Nuclear weapons degrade over time. There must be constant refurbishment and checks to ensure that the device will operate as expected and is otherwise safe.

Unless new material is made to replace the degrading warhead, the warhead must be decommissioned.

Most nukes only last 35 years max.

Actually, crystalline flaws in the pit material are something you could likely tolerate for about twice that before having to remanufacture the cores.

The boost gas and initiator system are something else entirely. You have to replace them more than once a year.

I don't think so, the "Tzar Bomba" (Hydrogen Bomb) released by the USSR in 1961 had a yield of over 50 megatons (more firepower than the cumlitive destructive force released by all parties during WWII) with a mushroom cloud over 40 miles high and would cause 3rd degree burns 60 miles away to any living organism. Not to mention windowpanes on homes and buildings were broken up to 560 miles... that's miles, away from ground zero.

No, I don't think we have anything close to this destructive power that any government will to disclose the existence of, much less deploy. If it did exist, it would no doubt be nuclear.

a reply to: Blackfinger

Consider the yield of weapons. The biggest "test" was the 50 M Ton "Tsar Bomba", such a large fairly heavy device had lots of delivery issues and so apart from its PR value, was impractical as a real deterrent.

So, what about antimatter weapons, are they possible? To make and store enough anti-matter, using the the best technology we know (a high energy collider like the LHC or SLAC) would take thousands of them centuries to just make a ton. So it really isn't practical to use antimatter as a weapon.

If we did have a ton of antimatter, it would only release as much energy as the Sun releases in 8 seconds. So a solar weapon would make some sense.

Think of a device, a long metallic rod, being fired into the sun and briefly 'lasing' in the x-ray band, briefly as it is vaporized. This would produce a directed beam of vast energies.

Consider also that the sun has internal magnetic cycles and is a fluid plasma. Perhaps resonant pressures could be applied to control solar energies to eject directionally? This might even create a weapon that would be effective over interstellar distances. Of course the energies involved would be beyond those available on Earth, even if you had all its resources available to you.

a reply to: chr0naut

haha, beat ya to it.

Your list of "possible projects" is just a list of goofy stupid things the government has done, mixed with quite a bit of crap.

Cool thanks Bedlam..Is interesting to start digging into Rabbit holes sometimes

a reply to: rexsblues

You've never heard of P******** then lol may cause damage to your camera.... and yourself if you get too close to a test.

Nukes aren't dead, you just can't test them on earth, they act as a good deterant ala MAD, you could never eliminate nukes either because mutuality assured destruction keeps the U.S. And Russia from going toe to toe with nukes, and neither side could trust the other to not have any nukes, one day they will be used and probably wipe out humanity but that's the nature of the beast, at the moment they're effective at keeping peace, if either side thinks they could have a pre emptive first strike capability with no retaliatory strikes then they would take it. In the end Robert Oppenheimer said it perfectly after the first test "I am become death, destroyer of worlds",

originally posted by: Blackfinger

Your list of "possible projects" is just a list of goofy stupid things the government has done, mixed with quite a bit of crap.

Cool thanks Bedlam..Is interesting to start digging into Rabbit holes sometimes

There's a big drive for very small nukes, "sub ton" size, and "wooden warheads" that require no maintenance, ever, that you could do unfriendly things with, like putting them underwater around your less favorite neighbors. One could, with the right signal, tell them to start monitoring for signatures of your neighbor's oceanic assets, and have them pop out and go a'huntin'.

Or one could mine river mouths, and with one sonar signal issued from hundreds of miles away, trigger a bright glowing tidal wave of doom sweeping over some unfortunate person's coastal assets.

Or one could, I suppose, orbit them. If one were inclined to do so.

Perhaps even deposit them carefully in some neighbor's cities, one here, one there, taking one's time, leaving little gifts all over. And in such a case, it would be the act of a moment to set them off, no missiles needed.

Hey Bedlam, tell me if you think I'm right or wrong but I can't help but think that hypersonic delivery systems are a bit of an end game. For some reason I've always imagined the last word in strike capabilities might be submarines launching ridiculously speedy missiles. I'd love to hear what you think of the idea anyhow.

a reply to: Bedlam

as you would already know the U.s can monitor the telltale signs of a nuke from a satellite, wouldn't Russia have the same sort of things regarding depositing them into cities?

We'll have the nukes for as long as the MIC, it's lobbyists and military brass advisers are making lots of money from them.

I have always laughed at the fear mongering that goes on whenever talk of scrapping comes around. Listening to some people in power, the moment we scrap them, we'll be overrun / invaded. Do we really need such paranoid and obviously delusional people with their fingers on the launch buttons of mass death machines?

originally posted by: B2StealthBomber
a reply to: Bedlam

as you would already know the U.s can monitor the telltale signs of a nuke from a satellite, wouldn't Russia have the same sort of things regarding depositing them into cities?

The monitoring recognizes the telltale signature of a nuclear detonation, NOT the signature of a warhead or bomb in it's normal state. Simple localized radiation monitoring would show them up, unless they are sufficiently shielded within a building.

a reply to: B2StealthBomber

somewhere in north korea.

security guard #1: "hey Babo your glowing!"

security gaurd #2: "you're glowing too Gomul!!!"

security guard #1: "it's like we're magical fairies! look at me! weeeeeeee"

(both guards start gleefully spinning around, giggling like school girls)

guard #1: (stops suddenly, looks around) "hey what's with the fog?"

gaurd #2: "great leader no say bad weather tonight?"

originally posted by: mrwiffler
Hey Bedlam, tell me if you think I'm right or wrong but I can't help but think that hypersonic delivery systems are a bit of an end game. For some reason I've always imagined the last word in strike capabilities might be submarines launching ridiculously speedy missiles. I'd love to hear what you think of the idea anyhow.

Well, if you're using nukes at the end, then that would be a good thing.

If they're planted in place already, and work, no point.

I thought it might be interesting to have something like a shkval that popped up and farted out a cruise missile at the coast. Probably impractical. But hard to intercept.

originally posted by: B2StealthBomber
a reply to: Bedlam

as you would already know the U.s can monitor the telltale signs of a nuke from a satellite, wouldn't Russia have the same sort of things regarding depositing them into cities?

We've got nuke detonation detectors all over. Some are in the GPS sats.

They pick up gamma bursts, x-rays and the characteristic double flash of a nuke. But they can't find a nuke that's just sitting there.

Well designed nukes don't emit a lot of radiation. You won't find them easily. The Hollywood meme that they're just crawling with radiation is a script-writer's mistake.

originally posted by: BASSPLYR
a reply to: B2StealthBomber

somewhere in north korea.

security guard #1: "hey Babo your glowing!"

security gaurd #2: "you're glowing too Gomul!!!"

security guard #1: "it's like we're magical fairies! look at me! weeeeeeee"

(both guards start gleefully spinning around, giggling like school girls)

guard #1: (stops suddenly, looks around) "hey what's with the fog?"

gaurd #2: "great leader no say bad weather tonight?"

guard #1: "I don't feel so good"

guard #2: "I feel sunburned all over"

guard #3: "What's that light in the sky..."