Question about suitcase nukes

I was wondering if anyone has any knowledge as to whether or not a suitcase nuke is an actual functioning weapon system or is it just a theoretical construction ?

Heres a link I found on a Google search, hope it helps.

www.nationalterroralert.com...

W54- SADM But as of 1997 it says 145 of them were destroyed.

Life expectancy is 8-15 years and most of them on both sides were produced in the late '60's.

The Russians as far as I have read were a 1kiloton device were the US had a model MADM that was up to 15 kilotons.

They range from 100kilograms to 400 kilograms in weight.

And in addition to the radioactive material they required a "firing" box and most had anti-tamper controls that if you did not arm them the right way they would either instantly self destruct (GO BIG BOOM) or fizzle and shut down making them inop.

It seems to me that we should have little to worry about "lost" mini-nukes going BIG BOOM but more about their use as a "dirty bomb"

If anyone else has some credible data I would love to check it out

Yes, they exist. We called ours "backback nukes" as the SOC guys would carry them in ontheir backs, emplace them and then clear the area.

The Soviets had their equivalent, we called suitcase nukes. Whether or not theirs had PAL devices or codes, I am unknowledegeable. However, I imagine that is immaterial, as the people who sold them to third parties during the sudden downfall of the Soviet Empire would have certainly sold the code/PAL device along with them. The buyers would certainly have had the knowledge to demand it as well.

Im not sure if it's capable of being used in a suitcase, but you would be quite surprised how small the 'can of sunshine' is in a B-61 nuclear weapon.

No, unless you have a suitcase that'll hold several hundred pounds' worth of bomb, it is not applicable.

you could also concievably use the smallest of the Atomic Shells used for artillery as a back-pack nuke

By detonating them how?

www.abovetopsecret.com...


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/\/ight\/\/ing

Originally posted by Thomas Crowne
By detonating them how?

I think he meant just using the warhead and jury-rigging a detonator.

The smallest possible bomb-like object would be a single critical mass of plutonium (or U-233) at maximum density under normal conditions. An unreflected spherical alpha-phase critical mass of Pu-239 weighs 10.5 kg and is 10.1 cm across.

single critical mass cannot cause an explosion however since it does not cause fission multiplication, somewhat more than a critical mass is required for that. But it does not take much more than a single critical mass to cause significant explosions. As little an excess as 10% (1.1 critical masses) can produce explosions of 10-20 tons.

A mere 1.2 critical masses can produce explosive yield of 100 tons, and 1.35 critical masses can reach 250 tons. At this point a nation with sophisticated weapons technology can employ fusion boosting to raise the yield well into the kiloton range without requiring additional fissile material.

We can now try to estimated the absolute minimum possible mass for a bomb with a significant yield. Since the critical mass for alpha-phase plutonium is 10.5 kg, and an additional 20-30% of mass is needed to make a significant explosion, this implies 13 kg or so. A thin beryllium reflector can reduce this by a couple of kilograms, but the necessary high explosive, packaging, triggering system, etc. will add mass, so the true absolute minimum probably lies in the range of 11-15 kg (and is probably closer to 15 than 11).

This is probably a fair description of the W-54 Davy Crockett warhead. This warhead was the lightest ever deployed by the US, with a minimum mass of about 23 kg (it also came in heavier packages) and had yields ranging from 10 tons up to 1 Kt in various versions. The warhead was basically egg-shaped with the minor axis of 27.3 cm and a major axis of 40 cm. The test devices for this design fired in Hardtack Phase II (shots Hamilton and Humboldt on 15 October and 29 October 1958) weighed only 16 kg, impressively close to the minimum mass estimated above. These devices were 28 cm by 30 cm.

The W-54 nuclear package is certainly light enough by itself to be used in a "suitcase bomb" but the closest equivalent to such a device that US has ever deployed was a man-carried version called the Mk-54 SADM (Small Atomic Demolition Munition). This used a version of the W-54, but the whole package was much larger and heavier. It was a cylinder 40 cm by 60 cm, and weighed 68 kg (the actual warhead portion weighed only 27 kg). Although the Mk-54 SADM has itself been called a "suitcase bomb" it is more like a "steamer trunk" bomb, especially considering its weight.

Compact nuclear artillery shells (208 mm and under) are based on a design approach called linear implosion. The linear implosion concept is that an elongated (football shaped) lower density subcritical mass of material can be compressed and deformed into a critical higher density spherical configuration by embedding it in a cylinder of explosives which are initiated at each end. As the detonation progresses from each direction towards the middle, the fissile mass is squeezed into a supercritical shape. The Swift device is known to have been a linear implosion design.




A somewhat more sophisticated variation would extend the linear implosion concept to cylindrical implosion, in this case an oblate (squashed) spheroid, roughly discus-shaped, of plutonium would be embedded in a cylinder of high explosive which is initiated simultaneously around its perimeter. The cylindrically converging detonation would compress and deform the fissile mass into a sphere, that could be wider than the original thickness of the system. This type of design would make the flattest possible bomb design, perhaps as little as 5 cm. The only obvious application for such a device would be briefcase bomb, and would require a special development effort to create it.

They exist? Yes quite possibly.

Yes they exist, as well as MADM's, and yes, the DC was a very light round, but was not "suitcase", but a form of artillery. It was jeep-mounted, truck-mounted, fired from a platform on the ground, etc. But again, was not designed to be emplaced and set to detonate at a certain time by hand. The SADM's and MADM's were.

my point was that nuclear devices can be made to that required size, and would most likely have been manufactured or are a actual designed weapon that can be deployed, as im sure it would prove very effective in a war.

Ah, I see.
And I'm telling you that there is no need to surmize that they "most likely would have been manufactured" as I've left fingerprints on them. They are not a myth, or a possibility.
And SADM & MADM technology is decades old. I wonder what we have today that none of us here know about?

Originally posted by Thomas Crowne
Ah, I see.
And I'm telling you that there is no need to surmize that they "most likely would have been manufactured" as I've left fingerprints on them. They are not a myth, or a possibility.

You too???

There is no better feeling than pulling a warhead from the nose of a Pershing II, doing the required maintenance, and putting it back in.

Almost just as good is pulling tritium tubes, neutron generators, and the thermal battery from a Lance missile system.

And just under those are nuke-loading a M423Ca1E1 with a breechblock fuse, loading the uranium rings and setting the dashpots.

Boy, was my momma proud!

Okay but is it concievable that units built back in the 60's would still be functioning ? It seems to be the decay time and the amount of secondary radiation they would give off would be enough that they would be inoperable by now ?

I agree that there are probably new variants of small demolision nukes out there. But I am wondering just how reliable they are.

LOL! You weren't in Heilbronn when that little incident occured, allegedly due inproper grounding?

I was stationed several clicks away when that happened. Man, did the Germans have an absolute cow over that.

About a week later, some CS got out of the chamber and floated into a neighborhood. Build magazine made it sound like it was a chemical attack! LOL!

www.atsnn.com...
some info

Originally posted by Thomas Crowne
LOL! You weren't in Heilbronn when that little incident occured, allegedly due inproper grounding?

I was stationed several clicks away when that happened. Man, did the Germans have an absolute cow over that.

About a week later, some CS got out of the chamber and floated into a neighborhood. Build magazine made it sound like it was a chemical attack! LOL!

No, I was at Fischbach Army Depot. The Germans thought we had poison gas there. They used to protest all the time.

I almost forgot about being ground! We had those little wrist straps, with velcro, and a wire leading with an alligator clip.

Talk about memories!

The lifetime of the small nuke depends essentially on whether it was designed to use tritium boosting.

Tritium boosting lets you have more bang for smaller mass.

Tritium though decays with a half life on the order of 10-15 years (forgot the number). The tritum will be contaminated with helium.

You can only manufacture tritium in a large nuclear reactor. Osama isn't doing this in a cave.

On the other hand if you have a fair amount of technology you might be able to take two or three warheads worth of tritum+helium, and extract the remaining tritium and stick it back into one warhead.

This is not simple though as it would be quite radioactive and it is very easy for the extremely valuable tritium gas to escape.

Most likely an artillery warhead, which has a strictly limited diameter, would be tritium boosted, and hence require maintenance.

However, it's not obvious that a demolition mine would be so designed. If they wanted reliability and low maintenance as opposed to maximum portability, then they might have designed some without boosting.

Note that a non-boosted warhead may stiill work but the yield might be significantly lower. If the warhead was designed "on the edge" of criticality (in order to use minimum fissile material) then without the tritium it would probably be a dud, just a radioactive dispersal device.

A somewhat more robust design migth still make a hell of a bang by conventional explosive standards even with decayed tritium, not to mention the contamination.