US military deploys new type of nuclear weapon seen as key to countering Russia

I thought this was very interesting...

Not radically new but definitely different.

And it's sub launched.

urlzs.com...


Thoughts?

Isn't it about time we do some more nuclear tests? I mean it's been decades since we actually tested a warhead.

originally posted by: face23785
Isn't it about time we do some more nuclear tests? I mean it's been decades since we actually tested a warhead.

Ummm...I know...

Right...?

Can I push the button...please...?

I wanna push the button...

Please let me push the button...

Kay...?





YouSir

originally posted by: YouSir

originally posted by: face23785
Isn't it about time we do some more nuclear tests? I mean it's been decades since we actually tested a warhead.

Ummm...I know...

Right...?

Can I push the button...please...?

I wanna push the button...

Please let me push the button...

Kay...?

YouSir

THE CANDY LIKE RED BUTTON!!

a reply to: YouSir

If I'm honest I just want to see the environmentalists lose their # as if a single nuclear test will make the slightest #ing difference.

There's been over 2000 of them since the 40s.

originally posted by: YouSir

originally posted by: face23785
Isn't it about time we do some more nuclear tests? I mean it's been decades since we actually tested a warhead.

Ummm...I know...

Right...?

Can I push the button...please...?

I wanna push the button...

Please let me push the button...

Kay...?

YouSir

For You

Sir

Buttons aren't toys.

originally posted by: Bigburgh

originally posted by: YouSir

originally posted by: face23785
Isn't it about time we do some more nuclear tests? I mean it's been decades since we actually tested a warhead.

Ummm...I know...

Right...?

Can I push the button...please...?

I wanna push the button...

Please let me push the button...

Kay...?

YouSir

For You

Sir

it was a SINGLE weapon that destroyed hiroshima and nagasaki Lord Human race is Doomed .
I am 54 and when I was a child the schools still had NUK war drills The sirion would sound being heard from MILES . The teacher telling me at 5 years old how ONE BOMB could destroy the WHOLE city then saying HIDE under the DESK .
Even at 5 I understood ONE bomb that could destroy a city a desk would not save me .
No test now yea its a GOOD thing Now if the FEW humans who are Sane can just get the FOOLS to DISARM every nuk then maybe humans stand a chance .
What having guns to kill your nabors isnt enough for you ? just how many country's should we GLASS ?? how many Lives will it take before you relize THE ONLY good NUK is the one they DONT build .
Lord knows I wish I had been born so many other places there are some were people dont live for death .
Even at 5 I was smarter then these replys OOO lets just blow up more of the deserts and oceans NEVER MIND the FACT it will be a area of DEATH for the next 50,000 years .
Pray to god no one ever digs In NV AZ or NM ,
Pray to god there are still fish left that we can eat in a 100 years all thanks to NUKS and power plants .

It was 2, fat man and little boy.

originally posted by: midnightstar
it was a SINGLE weapon that destroyed hiroshima and nagasaki Lord Human race is Doomed .
I am 54 and when I was a child the schools still had NUK war drills The sirion would sound being heard from MILES . The teacher telling me at 5 years old how ONE BOMB could destroy the WHOLE city then saying HIDE under the DESK .
Even at 5 I understood ONE bomb that could destroy a city a desk would not save me .
No test now yea its a GOOD thing Now if the FEW humans who are Sane can just get the FOOLS to DISARM every nuk then maybe humans stand a chance .
What having guns to kill your nabors isnt enough for you ? just how many country's should we GLASS ?? how many Lives will it take before you relize THE ONLY good NUK is the one they DONT build .
Lord knows I wish I had been born so many other places there are some were people dont live for death .
Even at 5 I was smarter then these replys OOO lets just blow up more of the deserts and oceans NEVER MIND the FACT it will be a area of DEATH for the next 50,000 years .
Pray to god no one ever digs In NV AZ or NM ,
Pray to god there are still fish left that we can eat in a 100 years all thanks to NUKS and power plants .

It is for protecting voting booths ?

originally posted by: face23785
Isn't it about time we do some more nuclear tests? I mean it's been decades since we actually tested a warhead.

No, it's not needed, at least not at full scale. Here's why.

At the peak of the Cold War, money was no object when it came to designing, building, and testing nuclear weapons. It was seen as literally a life or death race with the Soviets. The Soviets built big, dumb rockets with big, dumb bombs on them. The US had a much better industrial base in the sense that we could build almost any device with greater precision, with better materials, and with higher reliability. First, we figured out we could use that advantage to build missiles with better accuracy. That meant we could use warheads with smaller explosive yields. To take a random example, if it took a one megaton explosion to kill a target if the miss distance was a mile, it might only take a 125 kiloton explosion if the miss distance was a half mile. That meant that that you would need maybe only 1/8 as much nuclear material (Uranium, Plutonium, Tritium) to cover the same target set.

So the US went flat out in the direction of miniaturized warheads (compared to the Soviets) and smaller missiles. Among other things, that meant that we could use smaller, solid fueled rockets (like Minuteman and Polaris). That meant that we could put them in submarines and in relatively small tactical missiles and bombs.

As one weapon designer explained it to me, our warheads were like Ferrari F1 engines; the Soviet warheads were like Ladas. Just like formula I engines, those warheads were tuned to within an inch of their lives in order to get the absolute most bang out of the smallest amount of nuclear material. That meant that components had to be checked and replaced relatively frequently (because some of the materials decay, with time) and they had to be randomly tested also. That's why there are so many craters out at the Nevada test site.

After the Cold War ended, it was clear that there was no longer any need for the 27,000 or so warheads we had built, and there would no longer be enough budget to keep the nuclear weapon production line in the manner to which it had become accustomed. So, we and the Russians negotiated treaties that let both sides slowly and steadily reduce the sizes of our nuclear arsenals, while still maintaining stability. We also both shut down our Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) production facilities. That means that both sides are each living with 500 tons or so of surplus Plutonium and HEU that's in storage. And we will have to do so for the indefinite future.

In the US, we decided to control costs by a strategy of reducing the number of different warhead designs to the bare minimum and make each design versatile so it could be used on different platforms. They also decided to use proven component designs that are not very finicky, don't require as much fine tuning, and don't require test firing. Instead of Ferrari F1 motors, we will have Chevy rat motors. So a few years ago, the weapons labs went through an exercise where they proposed what those components should be and designs were selected. The W-76 is one result of that exercise. It has a variable yield, which probably means it's a fission weapon that is "boosted" by varying the amount of the fusion component in it. Because it is capable of being based on a submarine, it has to use extra pure Plutonium so that it doesn't give the submarine crew too big of a radiation dose. The Air Force wouldn't usually be concerned about that because their crews don't have to live in close proximity to the warheads for long periods of time.

It is also true that in order to test a nuclear core these days, it is no longer necessary to compress it all the way to criticality. In other words you don't have to make it go boom in order to assure that it will go boom when you want it to.

By the way, I did not reveal any classified information in this discussion.

a reply to: face23785 In the 1950s infant mortality rates rose in the United States because of nuclear testing,why would we explode hundreds of nuclear weapons on our own citizens? ..oh ok

originally posted by: InTheLight

originally posted by: Riffrafter

I thought this was very interesting...

Not radically new but definitely different.

And it's sub launched.

urlzs.com...


Thoughts?

Nuclear weapon...F U C K us all.

Our enemies have them. We need to have them too.

It's that simple.

originally posted by: midnightstar
it was a SINGLE weapon that destroyed hiroshima and nagasaki Lord Human race is Doomed .
I am 54 and when I was a child the schools still had NUK war drills The sirion would sound being heard from MILES . The teacher telling me at 5 years old how ONE BOMB could destroy the WHOLE city then saying HIDE under the DESK .
Even at 5 I understood ONE bomb that could destroy a city a desk would not save me .
No test now yea its a GOOD thing Now if the FEW humans who are Sane can just get the FOOLS to DISARM every nuk then maybe humans stand a chance .
What having guns to kill your nabors isnt enough for you ? just how many country's should we GLASS ?? how many Lives will it take before you relize THE ONLY good NUK is the one they DONT build .
Lord knows I wish I had been born so many other places there are some were people dont live for death .
Even at 5 I was smarter then these replys OOO lets just blow up more of the deserts and oceans NEVER MIND the FACT it will be a area of DEATH for the next 50,000 years .
Pray to god no one ever digs In NV AZ or NM ,
Pray to god there are still fish left that we can eat in a 100 years all thanks to NUKS and power plants .

Nukes are the least of our problems. All the nuclear power plants on fault lines should be enough to push us to figure what to do if nuclear power goes south.

But, you know how that goes.

originally posted by: YouSir

originally posted by: face23785
Isn't it about time we do some more nuclear tests? I mean it's been decades since we actually tested a warhead.

Ummm...I know...

Right...?

Can I push the button...please...?

I wanna push the button...

Please let me push the button...

Kay...?

YouSir

How do you get the job of that one poor soul deep down in remote mountain, couple miles deep, with his finger on the red button? What is it, minutemen?