Originally posted by American Mad Man
In fact, thats why the US developed the Nuetron bomb - to take out large tank formations from Russia invading Europe without destroying infrastructure and leaving large amounts of radiation.
Wrong, neutron bomb is nothing more than enhanced radiation nuke which just releases bigger part of its energy in ionozing radiation than normal nukes and destroys buildings same way like normal nukes.
And actually neutron bomb can even cause "induced" secondary radioactivity in exposed materials because of high neutron flux.
The design objective of the tactical neutron bombs developed in the 1960s and 70s was to create a low-yield, compact weapon that produced a lethal burst of neutrons. These neutrons can penetrate steel armor with relative ease, enabling the weapons to be effective against tanks and other armored vehicles which are otherwise highly resistant to the effects of nuclear weapons. A flux of several thousand rems were desired so that incapacitation of armored crews would be relatively rapid, with in several hours to a couple of days at most. In this exposure range death is inevitable. To minimize the effects of collateral damage, the effect of thermal radiation and blast outside the neutron kill radius, it was also very desirable to minimize the energy released in forms other than the neutron flux.nuclearweaponarchive.org...
The neutron flux can induce significant amounts of short-lived secondary radioactivity in the environment in the high flux region near the burst point. The alloy steels used in armor can develop radioactivity that is dangerous for 24-48 hours. If a tank exposed to a 1 kt neutron bomb at 690 m (the effective range for immediate crew incapacitation) is immediately occupied by a new crew, they will receive a lethal dose of radiation within 24 hours.en.wikipedia.org...
At the conventional effective combat range (690 m), the blast from a 1 kt neutron bomb will destroy or damage to the point of inutility almost any civilian building. Thus the use of neutron bombs to stop an enemy attack, which requires exploding large numbers of them to blanket the enemy forces, would also destroy all buildings in the area.
