Strength of Today's Nukes?

I fear zero point energy bombs more than anti matter.

Originally posted by Magickesists
the anti matter thing has been totally bashed to death but hey who know it maybe that someone has figured it out and how to produce a viable solution to the problems.

All it's going to take is money, brains, and time. The USAF has the first two in large quantities.

The problem is can they get it done in time?

[edit on 22-1-2006 by American Mad Man]

Originally posted by tomcat ha
I fear zero point energy bombs more than anti matter.

Fair enough, but is there any publically known project to develope them like there is an anti-matter bomb?

imagine a subspace magnetic containment feild holdin anti matter fog that would just randomly either cancel certain matter out or explode. That would be friggin mad or a black hole grenade from zero point energy capable of interacting with a magnetic feild. Or the neutron bomb would be pretty mad combined with an antimatter explosion.

Originally posted by Magickesists

How big was the nuke in the video in kt or mt compared to this super nuke you just mentioned shadow?

Thats was I believe a video of the Tsar Bomba (King of Bombs) code name "IVAN". Early US estimates of it strength were 57 MT but I think it was closer to 50 MT.

About 6,500 times the power of the crude Hiroshima bomb

I'd sy the russians win in theory for power of nukes then. They would test a 50mt nuke and yet not keep one, I doubt it. So that 9mt nukethe states has is pretty dinky eh?

I saw a tv special on this test. No bomb is expected to ever be tested which is bigger.
The shockwave was measurable on its third pass around the world.

Regarding the US's biggest bomb, who knows anything about the rumoured 'Cobalt bomb' said to be somewhere in the US southwest, buried in the desert?
It is said it would rip a hole in the atmosphere, ending any war, and likely all life as well.
I have had US army folk agree that it exists, though I have very little information on it.

Originally posted by Magickesists
I'd sy the russians win in theory for power of nukes then. They would test a 50mt nuke and yet not keep one, I doubt it.

50 MT or 100MT bombs are just not practical. There was only one slow flying bomber that could even carry it.

Then there is the fact that if the USSR ever used in in Western Europe fallout could go all the back into Warsaw pact countries. If they used it in Germany fallout could even reach the Russia.

Russia had problems with accuracy of it nuclear missiles for a long time and compensated with massive warheads. A few hundred KT nuke can be just as effective at destroying a target if it hits a a bullseye as a 20MT that lands miles away from its target.

Its much better to have many smaller accurate nukes on a missile then one large one. It dosent take close to 50MT to destroy a city if you spread that power into 5 10MT bombs you could destroy 5 seperate cities very far apart.

If not by air, then by land or sea. If not by those means, then build it onsite. A semitrailer could conceal a mighty big bomb. I don't know the dimensions, but I bet you could get a 100 megaton one onto a lowrider flatbed truck, throw a tarp over it and park it in Manhattan....
Or hidden in the hold of a ship, anchored in San Francisco Bay.
Sure it would be less effective than an air detonation....but still.

Originally posted by BlackGuardXIII
I don't know the dimensions, but I bet you could get a 100 megaton one onto a lowrider flatbed truck, throw a tarp over it and park it in Manhattan....
Or hidden in the hold of a ship, anchored in San Francisco Bay.
Sure it would be less effective than an air detonation....but still.

Tsar Bomba was 8 meters long by 2 in diameter and weighed in at 27 tons.

that would fit nicely inside a tractor trailer box.
It is something to keep in mind.

Originally posted by BlackGuardXIII
If not by air, then by land or sea. If not by those means, then build it onsite. A semitrailer could conceal a mighty big bomb. I don't know the dimensions, but I bet you could get a 100 megaton one onto a lowrider flatbed truck, throw a tarp over it and park it in Manhattan....
Or hidden in the hold of a ship, anchored in San Francisco Bay.
Sure it would be less effective than an air detonation....but still.

Thats a interesting example but think of it this way. You can with ease wipe out a city with 5MT bomb. Now instead of your massive 100 MT nuke you split that up into 20 5MT nukes each in its own smaller panel truck heading for a different city.

You destroyed 20 US cities rather then 1 and since your eggs are not in one basket you lowered that chance that something goes wrong with your single nuke be it getting discovered or failure to go off. If you lost 5 you could still take out 15 cities. If your single 100MT was discovered or failed to work game over.

[edit on 25-1-2006 by ShadowXIX]

[edit on 25-1-2006 by ShadowXIX]

Damn good point, Shadow, of course that is a far more effective plan. I am no good at some things and great at others, and clearly if I was planning something like this I'd want to find you first. But I had one other thought, and that is the dirty bomb threat. How many lethal radiation spreading dirty bombs would the Tsar bomb break down into.
I bet you could kill damn near everyone in North America except the very rural folk.
And of course you still keep the buildings.
I hope that if that much material was owned by a nasty bunch, they do the first one, and make a Tsar bomb, cuz that sounds like the least deadly in the end analysis.

The Dirty Nuclear bomb concept is interesting. Russia had plans at one time for a giant Doomsday cobalt bomb that was going to pretty much be a super massive dirty bomb that would spread so much radioactive material into the atmosphere it would kill most surface life. It was going to be constructed inside a massive tanker I believe.

So if you encased your 100MT nuke in a jacket of cobalt it would become far more deadly as the cobalt is transmuted into Co-60 which produces very bad radiation worst then any normal nuclear weapon.

Didn't know that. Did you see my cobalt bomb post? I recalled another thing about Russia that my uncle told me in the 70's. He said they have an array of antennae or radio towers that they are using to manipulate the weather. I later read about HAARP and the similarities in the potential and description made me think that there might have been some truth to the story he told me.
Now it sounds like both sides have rumours circulating about their having this cobalt device. I heard a slightly different account of the effect, but yours sounds more informed than the one I had heard before.

Both sides have tried to use the weather as a weapon in various ways from the more mundane clouding seeding as in the Vietnams project "POPEYE" to the more advanced methods. I have heard theories on how a system like HAARP could work to control or change the weather but all the theories I have seen require massive amounts of energy like 10 percent of the US energy production.

Weather manipulation for hostile reason has since been banned under international treaties so if either side is still working on it its been hushed up.

Cobalt bombs to my knowledge have never been built or tested but would work in theory. Russia and im sure the US have drawn up plans for such devices. They could have made some they for sure both have the resources and know how to make them.