Nuclear Grenade

Or what about a nuclear blowgun? Or an atomic pea shooter?

The point being that with no minimum - unlike fission - the explosion can be made as small as you like. A nuclear bullet containing 1/1000 of a g of isomer with a yield of 50g TNT would be quite enough to make a mess or the target without affecting the person standing next to them.

Interesting, just did some research on Nuclear Isomers and found this:

"Another reasonably stable nuclear isomer (with a half-life of 31 years) is hafnium-178m, which has the highest excitation energy of any stable isomer. One kilogram of pure Hf-178-2m contains approximately 900 megajoules of energy, or about a quarter of a kiloton of TNT."

That equates to a single gram having the explosive power of 250 Kg of TNT.

Now that's a big bang for a tiny amount of material - the only problem is that they haven't figured out how to make it go BOOM unless the soldier with the hand grenade is pulling a high energy X-Ray machine around with him.

Easier to just call in some arty.

[edit on 1-8-2005 by Winchester Ranger T]

Two words: Physically Impossible! You Can't build one because of Critical Mass! Critical Mass is the minimum amount of a fissionable material that is needed to sustain a chain reaction. Also, remember the material needs to be seperated until it is triggered. The smallest Nuclear warhead (sute case Nuke) is slightly larger then a large bolling ball.

Also, it wouldn't serve a purpose, because noone could throw it beyond the blast radius. the explosion will kill the thrower and everyone around him or her! So it would be pointless, even if it were possible!

Tim

P.S.: The mini battlefeild Nukes that were discussed earilier in this thread are Not Grenades, they are called Motar Shells, and have a range of 6 to 12 miles!

"Mass is the minimum amount of a fissionable material that is needed to sustain a chain reaction"

...but triggered release of energy from isomers is not fission and so this doesn't apply.

I know there are for this one = 155mm


[edit on 08/03/2005 by Locutus]

First off, could everyone who is saying that nuclear grenades are impossible because of minimum critical mass size please shut up, the thread starter was obviously referring to nuclear isomer decay munitions made of Hafnium, he just didn't know the proper term so he just called them "nuclear grenades" And secondly, yes Hafnium isomer decay bombs the size of grenades are easily possible if a small enough X-ray detonator can be developed but are unlikely due to gamma ray discharge after the explosion. It is far more likely that small Hafnium isomer devices would be used as cluster bombs dropped from aircraft and strewn accross an area of land or sea to wait to be detonated by either radio control or triggering by enemy action in the area mine style.

[edit on 3-8-2005 by Mabus the Forsaken]

Originally posted by simtek 22
Nuclear Grenade Instructions
Model M-25(N)

1. Pull pin.
2. Throw towards enemy.
3. Locate yourself outside the 1km blast radius, quickly.
4. Enjoy enemy free afternoon.

That's the funniest thing I've herard today... And it's partly true... No nuke grenade at least yet...

the ability to create them may not be so crazy as it seems. We have all heard about the US developing "mico-nukes) typically talked about for use as bunker busters.

At least an a shell, it could be fired 20-30 miles away, as a hand held device, you probably could not get it more than a couple hundred feet away.

As to the miniaturization of Nuclear Devices, don't be fooled into thinking it can't be done with a small amount of material, have a look at this device which produces "tiny visible nuclear explosions for at least 60 years." www.unitednuclear.com...

Critical Mass is a misnomer with modern technology and newly discovered Isotopes. Miniaturization as proliferation is expressly forbidden Internationally, but it is fairly common knowlege that several countries, Russia, USA and Israel have carried on dilligently researching and lobbying, if not manufactoring and even using them anyway. There is a good deal of circumstantial evidence to suggest this.

Originally posted by Hyperen

Originally posted by E_T
Yeah, here's video:
www.vce.com...

This video clip is from Trinity and Beyond and I recommend watching it.

I never get tired of watching that amazing video clip.

Trinity and Beyond is a great documentary which is an absolute must see.

That is amazing. Sometimes when I sit back it just awes me to look at all the things we have done and made. I would love to see one of the 666mm artillery pieces the Russians used during the Great patriotic war.

Originally posted by Mabus the Forsaken
First off, could everyone who is saying that nuclear grenades are impossible because of minimum critical mass size please shut up, the thread starter was obviously referring to nuclear isomer decay munitions made of Hafnium, he just didn't know the proper term so he just called them "nuclear grenades" And secondly, yes Hafnium isomer decay bombs the size of grenades are easily possible if a small enough X-ray detonator can be developed but are unlikely due to gamma ray discharge after the explosion. It is far more likely that small Hafnium isomer devices would be used as cluster bombs dropped from aircraft and strewn accross an area of land or sea to wait to be detonated by either radio control or triggering by enemy action in the area mine style.

[edit on 3-8-2005 by Mabus the Forsaken]

Well, excuse me for having an opinion. The original post nor any subsequent posts by the original poster says nothing about nuculear isomers or halfnium. And there isn't a poster, including you, who really knows anything about radioactive isomers and whether or not they can be used as an explosive device. In fact, it is my understanding that halfnium would be good for power generation BECAUSE YOU CAN'T CREATE A WEAPON OUT OF IT. And what the heck is an X-RAY detonator? Similar to a FLUX CAPACITOR and just as real IMHO.

lol, I had to edit my post. The link above to www.unitednuclear.com is a company run by Bob Lazar.

[edit on 6-8-2005 by CaptAvatar]

"And there isn't a poster, including you, who really knows anything about radioactive isomers and whether or not they can be used as an explosive device."

Well, the Pentagon thought enough of the idea to spend a few million on the Stimulated Isomer Emission program with the express aim of creating explosive sorders of magntitude more powerful than chemical explosives. This may be an indication

OTOH, funding was cancelled last year shortly after the NewSci article. O either they changed their minds and decided it wouldn't work, or it went black and they didn't want anyone else following the same lines. Take your pick and place your bets - it might be a longshot but think of the payoff...

A fissile nuclear weapon and the supposed "metastable isomer bomb" are different entities.

In a fissile nuclear weapon, one which generates energy from chain-reaction fast fission reaction, there are "potentially" other isotopes and elements besides the usual Pu-239 and U-235. But most of them present huge practical difficulties.

The problem is not merely the expense and critical mass. A central problem, already identified by the Manhattan project, is that many such fissile elements have too much fission. That's right, the *spontaneous* fission rate is too high so that when you try to implode the core to get a substantial energy release, spontaneous neutrons will set off the chain reaction and pre-detonate the assembly well before energy release.

This fact is precisely what distinguishes "weapons grade" Plutonium 239 from "reactor grade" which has the more radioactive Pu-240 mixed in.

There is more to a weapon than a critical mass. There is the "getting there". An element with a very high spontaneous fission rate, like Pu-238 (used in thermoelecric generators), and from what I take it, this supposed Californium bomb isotope, would very likely be unsuitable for this reason.

There is major technology involved in minimizing spontaneous fission in nuclear weapons, and then precisely and accurately injecting neutrons at the right time for energy release.

The Hafnium metastable isotope business has never shown independent replication of antyhing like a chain reaction which has any practical value. At the moment it is mythical. That Hafnium has a metastable istotope is without dispute---but whether it has any major use is a different story. So far the reputable scientific organizations have looked at it and said "bogus".

Mabus,

>>
It is far more likely that small Hafnium isomer devices would be used as cluster bombs dropped from aircraft and strewn accross an area of land or sea to wait to be detonated by either radio control or triggering by enemy action in the area mine style.
>>

Most submunitions have antitamper and _randomized_ cookoff systems ontop of a 5-7% dud rate. As such, it is easier to think of them as area/passage denial _mine_ systems than as 'bombs' of any particular sort (even among those which, unlike the GATOR are not intentially to be used as such).

I hate to think with what contempt the idea of killing with 'live nukes' would be met if we already have poison-dust problems with DU rounds both on impact and as leaching from expended air and ground AP rounds.

IMO, you folks are also mistaking the true purpose of a _hand_ grenade.

While a stick grenade (aka Potato Masher) could easily be flung the 25-30 yards necessary to clear a 500lb explosion in open field combat (one of the many tradeoffs between lighter weight and easier carriage vs. greater fragmentation and preprimed detonator/safety mechanism that such weapons make with heavier 'egg' types). And a 30-40mm rifle or blooper (or heck, auto Mk.19 if it thrills you) equivalent system could clear it out to about 400.

The fact remains that if I want to go into a room _ten feet_ in front of me, I will be bouncing that sucker off four or five walls and in combination with two or three companions shooting and tossing their own weapons to MAKE SURE that the /random/ 2-3 second fuzing, along with high-energy trajectory keeps them from being tossed back in my face.

If I toss three or four 250kg IHE equivalent detonation yield devices that close, I will be _lucky_ if the whole damn house doesn't come down around my ears.

OTOH, I can foresee, eventually, multiple conditions by which the employment of small nuclear munitions might come in handy.

1. Space.
Ain't know air and the distances are such that the fragment cloud gets thin pretty quick. If you even want to risk holing a pressurized cabin. Depending on what you want to do with it (electronics or hard kill) a highly radioactive weapon might be capable of either 'clouding' a given facility so that it could not communicate (or was in fact rendered uninhabitable) or generate a high energy 'flash' device which destroyed optics etc.
2. ABM.
If you want to catch a 6-8km/sec ICBM flying up and out, from boost phase through midcourse, you may well need a weapon flying TWICE as fast to make a crosstrack intercept. Even as you will likely only have one physical window per AEGIS cruiser (or whatever VLS capable ship) you fly over.
If you use a nuke, particularly a nuke which can either have a salting to generate X-Rays or use some kind of sacrificial thermal lensing system to get conventional lasing from a giant synthetic NdYAG type crystal. Things get a lot simpler as the missile simply exists to take the DEW above the atmosphere (ala Excalibur) while, rather than trying for some kind of mechanical intercept, you can shoot from 200-300 miles away.
3. ASW/ASUW.
In his book _The Sixth Battle_; Barrett Tillman mentions the use of 'SKINC' or Sub KT Insertable Nuclear Components. As a cheap method to up the yield of shallow diving ASW torpedos and depth charges against Soviet subs without dialing up the yield to the point where you get lasting radiation effects due to bottom uplift or surface broach of a 'hot bubble'. I believe his estimates were a shock value equivalent to either four or five Mk.84 (2,000lb) bombs.
Since hydrostatic shock values are so incredible in an incompressible fluid, this could obviously be taken across to (blue water if not littoral) mines and AShM as well, allowing for deep lay in channels or pre-inner zone attacks on well defended battle group centers.
Obviously, with miniaturized cruise systems like the Israeli Delilah being sold to China and elsewhere; smaller is better IF it allows you to load more ranged attacks on limited payload fighters. And IF those attacks are sufficient, not only in numbers to saturate a deep missile defense. But also in warhead to ensure that individual detonations do critical damage.

Thus the notional prospect becomes one of a nation defending against outside intervention ala a Cuba like 'blockade' effect underway between mainland parent and 'rebel province'.

Especially in the case of a USN force which suffers strictly _non-civillian_, blue water, casualties a preponderance of 'how do we strike back?' questions arise.

i.e. would a U.S. president make a full scale nuclear response to limited naval excession of the threshold? The likely answer is 'NOT' given the world view of attacking landward targets as counter-value (China's navy is pathetic at the moment) leveraged force protection. Especially 'after the fact'.

Even supposing a given nation did not have conventional nukes by which to guard it's rights in using micros, the option to halve a weapons size and treble the yield would be very tempting just for the terror effect of "If you sail through the Formosa Straits again, the sun may rise fifty times in the West over your flight deck..."

CONCLUSION:
If I want anything in a grenade, I want smaller and more target-focussed/less lethal technologies which attack the senses (DD), electronics (HPM) or provide continuing _intelligent_ sensor coverage as much as active denial of a mixed collaterals/hostile, CLOSE IN, fighting environment (better a video camera before me).

I sure as hell do not want to be calculating radiologic safe distances in my head while chasing some yutz through a vegetable market or back alleyway in New Babel. Because if he turns and starts to return fire, he is gonna be eating whatever I have to hand that will suppress and/or kill him
from an 'interchangeable' level of horseshoe/handgrenade/H-bomb _accuracy_.

Not yield.


KPl.

"That Hafnium has a metastable istotope is without dispute---but whether it has any major use is a different story. So far the reputable scientific organizations have looked at it and said "bogus"."

Indeed. but the military research continues. And from a security point of view, one would hope that a major breakthrough (one potentially gave nuclear capability to other states without the need for all that messing about with Uranium enrichment) would recieve a certain amount of screening.

It would clear the building all right; of any life in it.

reply to post by ch1466


Ha! Thanks, new quote.

Just a quick question for those versed on the application of theoretical hafnium isomer explosions:
What byproducts would be expected apart from the intense burst of gamma radiation and heat/blast effect?

IE what would be the signature, in the way of isotopes, of such an explosion having taken place say days earlier?