Putin's headache

Englander2

Active member
According to the Czech newspaper Prague Post today, The head of the U.S. anti-missile program says North Korea is helping Iran develop missiles that could reach Europe. U.S. officials say a missile-defence system, with missiles in Poland a radar base in the Czech Republic, would protect Europe in the event that Iran developed long-range ballistic missiles.
It seems some high ranking Americans are ready to say anything in order to get Europe down on its knees to pray for a system which has the soul target of stopping rockets on the way to the USA. What happens to Europe itself, when these (possibly) atomic heads are brought to explosion in the air, does not seem to concern anybody. However it must be clear to many on these forums, that radio-active clouds could still reach America and these bring a slower but much more painful death to recipients.
 
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I have a question professor. :p

What if a Mufti from Iran, cleverly disguised as an Irish Tinker woman, travels west with a nuclear device cleverly disguised as an accordion in the back of "her" caravan.

How will Uncle Sam's anti-nuclear missle programme save old and new Europe alike?
 
Interesting query from my esteemed colleague of the clergy. Aye, well, see that's why all Irish tinkers will be forbidden to travel from Iran. All the Irish in Iran must stay where they are and die in place.
 
I don't understand why Russia is getting so nervous about this missile defense system. Do they really think we still want to nuke them? Or do they still want to nuke us?
 
BD, you're right about the warheads of today being extremely difficult to coax into going critical or supercritical on cue. First, processing the component materials to a level of purity is almost impossible. Then, the mechanics of critical assembly became Swiss watchmaking, just a figure of speech, when America completed minification of payloads. Now, clusters of small warheads could be combined as one large payload or many separately targetable ones.

The process has been stolen, copied, and prayed over, that they would work as designed but most will fizzle as high explosive triggers. There is still the brute force, simpler, but extremely destructive warheads that have a high success rate.
 
The possibility of a nuclear warhead going critical from being intercepted is almost null. As for concerns about this being a gambit just to protect America at the expense of Europe consider this: The United States and most of Europe are allied via NATO and it is therefore not too unreasonable to assume that an attack on America would target much of Western Europe also. The United States is the most powerful member of NATO and we have a unique ability to bring any war anywhere to our enemies thanks to our fleet of (14?) nuclear power aircraft carriers, if memory serves me correct the United States has 2/3's of the world's active aircraft carriers in our fleet. As a whole wouldn't it be in the best interest of the United States and our European allies alike if the United States survived such an exchange with as little damage as possible, even if it is at the expense of a Europe that is quite likely already being targeted anyways?
 
According to the Czech newspaper Prague Post today, The head of the U.S. anti-missile program says North Korea is helping Iran develop missiles that could reach Europe. U.S. officials say a missile-defence system, with missiles in Poland a radar base in the Czech Republic, would protect Europe in the event that Iran developed long-range ballistic missiles.
It seems some high ranking Americans are ready to say anything in order to get Europe down on its knees to pray for a system which has the soul target of stopping rockets on the way to the USA. What happens to Europe itself, when these (possibly) atomic heads are brought to explosion in the air, does not seem to concern anybody. However it must be clear to many on these forums, that radio-active clouds could still reach America and these bring a slower but much more painful death to recipients.

As bulldogg has stated through his links, nukes in its delivery stage generally do not fly "hot." From an engineering point of view, it's frankly unstable. The warheads usually arm themselves (undergo the fission process) when it is extremely close to the target and has split from the final delivery vessel. An explosion from an interceptor missile is not enough energy to start the fission process that causes the nuclear detonation. If the missile had a plasma tip then MAYBE it would set it off, but we aren't at that stage of technology yet.

Don't you think the EU saw your point, too? If what you say is remotely true or even possible, do you really think any of the EU nations would hop on board with the missile shield plan?
 
Only problem with this wonder system is that it protects us against the least likely delivey.

As Padre said, if/when a nuke finds it´s way through defences it´s not going to be a missile launch.

That however is NOT to say we don´t need to defend against such a possibility ALSO.

//KJ.
 
I don't understand why Russia is getting so nervous about this missile defense system. Do they really think we still want to nuke them? Or do they still want to nuke us?


Russia sees ANY NATO activity near Russian borders as hostile.
One of the points brought by them that a little anti-missile program could become a huge undertaking later and give the US a huge advantage (if it will be able to shoot down the Russian missiles right after the launch).

However, in my book, the main purpose of the Russian statements is internal. They want to show their people how threatened they are, so they should get more loyal to the Government and not pay too much attention to some pesky details like civil freedoms or corruption in the government.
 
Haha alright, one, I live in Los Alamos, where both of my parents work at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the same lab that creates the first nuclear weapon, and the same lab the has continued to create nuclear weapongs for the US today. Nuclear weapons hit in midair by other forms of weaponry (i.e. patriot missiles) would not create any type of toxic cloud. IN FACT, the only way a nuclear bomb becomes toxic is when to the two pieces of radio active material (i.e. uranium or plutonium) crash together, as one is shot towards the other with a precise speed at a precise moment. In order for this to happen, the trigger has to be activated, and this cannot happen from the weapon being hit or even destroyed. Nuclear weapons come from countries who abide by the Nuclear Technoology and Weapons Treaty, so they are all built to precise specifications. One such specification is that the weapons cannot be detonated by anyhting like dropping them from a plane from any height. One could theoretically drop a nuke from space and have it impact the earth and it would not detonate. They are built that way for a reason. A common misconception is that the bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, created by Oppenheimer were detonated on impact with the ground but in reality, they were detonated by the internal trigger. that alone, almost completely invalidates the argument that the US is worried about a nuclear clous driftig towads the US when the bomb is "detonated" in the air...
 
Can you read at night without a night light? :) LOL... thanks Lance Corporal, as you were, just do me a favor and put your geiger counter on silent, that noise is annoying as hell.
 
I'm shocked to see so many Phase III qualified Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technicians on one Board, and, so many willing to talk about the ins and outs of a Nuclear Weapon..... and, not just any a Nuclear Weapon, but a North Korean Nuclear Weapon.

Funny, if I were to post about such ins and outs of a Nuclear Weapon (besides being against the Law) I would be inundated for Official Links for things I Posted as "Fact".... Rule #6 would be invoked, with bump, after bump following.
 
Hah turn off my geiger counter eh? I guess youre right, all that radiation in the clouds comen our way, that Geiger counter is gonna be off the charts... You might need to let me know how to shut it off, and why its annoying as hell. And youre right, I don't honestly know anything but what we learned in school and what I've been taught by my father (who builds the triggers for nuclear weapons), and what I was taught in the 0352 explosives and disarmament course at the Marine Corps Infantry Training Battalion (and helped the Ordanance Disposal team in Iraq disarm countless IEDs during my first deployment to Al Anbar). I talk like I know what Im talking about, but youre right, I don't, but seeing as how this is an open forum, and everyone is allowed to put in their two cents, I found it legitimate to share what I've been taught, true or not. How about this, next time, I'll throw in that little disclaimer (that Im full of my self and I think im a Bomb Technician, and Ill try and convince everyone I know all there is to know about nuclear weapons). Thanks you all, for enlightening me, so I can better add my two cents that'll be discounted by everyone who clearly really knows everything there is to know about nukes and/or the subjects at hand.
 
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Being new to the Boreds Lance Corporal you may reference the title under a user's name for clarification of their comments. It was pretty clear to me you were stating a personal opinion. ;)

Cayman, you may reference my links, second post in the thread, its been cleared for public consumption.
 
I'm shocked to see so many Phase III qualified Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technicians on one Board, and, so many willing to talk about the ins and outs of a Nuclear Weapon..... and, not just any a Nuclear Weapon, but a North Korean Nuclear Weapon.

Funny, if I were to post about such ins and outs of a Nuclear Weapon (besides being against the Law) I would be inundated for Official Links for things I Posted as "Fact".... Rule #6 would be invoked, with bump, after bump following.

I'm sorry if my knowledge acquired in upper division nuclear chemistry and mechanical engineering classes aren't up to par as your vast and infinite wisdom on all that is true. I guess American universities just don't teach us young 'uns the same thing they taught the older generations huh?
 
Putin's Headache


There are facts and there are opinions, sometimes its difficult to notice the difference. However, there is certainly no need for ASTRALdragon to be in anyway ashamed of his youth or education. Were that the case, I should shut up for being to old, ( I was around before WW2), but despite all well meant insults I enjoy on these lines, they remain for me quite interesting, because they not only give opinions from people across the world, but also there is the chance to learn much, not known before.
I was up to now, under the impression, that nuclear reactions can be set off by a nearby explosion when thereby molecules are divided into other elements, causing more energy to be released than came from the original detonation.
It is pleasing to note, that the experts on this line are of the opinion, that this cannot take place by an explosion caused by (For example), patriot missiles. I just now wonder why various areas in Serbia are suffering radio active pollution, although the shells used did not cause an atomic explosion.
 
Thats an interesting question Englander. Once again, I don't want to make you believe that I know all there is to know about the subject, but one thing I think we'll all agree on is that radio active material does not need to be detonated to give off mass amounts of radiation. I, personally, do not know a whole lot about whats currently happening in Serbia, nor do I understand the circumstances that brought them to their dilemma, but I would assume that they have trace amounts of various radioactive materials at various places in Serbia. But, once again, this is purely speculation. I know that when I was in Iraq, due to the fact that many of the IED's we disarmed were unidentified (i.e. they didn't fit under a normal bomb design), there was the fear of nuclear material within the shell it self. Because of this, we wore our MOPP suites, which would help shield some of the radiation, because we were told that even before opening the shell, the radiation, if present, would already be seeping out. Luckly, we never encountered any "dirty bombs", but the fear was there. We were not allowed to detonate the so called "dirty bombs" because it would spread the radioactive material, if present. That could be why the serbs have a radiation problem, due to the shells impact with that harmful material.
 
When President Kennedy was killed in 1963, our Nike Hercs were refitted with nuclear warheads and we got a little heads up on what we were fiddling with every day. The Hercules was designed to climb above a formation of bombers and then arc down into the middle of the formation before being detonated. Even today, a lot of the information is still classified as to what would happen to a Tu-95 Bear loaded with nukes. When a nuclear explosion occurs close to anything electronic, the EMP is enough to overload and disable most electronic devices.

When a nuclear device detonates, we had 40Kt on the Hercs, there is a white hot, blinding flash that will melt human flesh as well as metal fuselages. Then the shockwave hits with the force of a hurricane and pulverizes what hasn't been burned. Any distortion of the mechanical structure in a bomb will render it unable to arm for the all important fission or fusion to occur. The components of older nukes had to be aligned at perfect angles and distances from each other.

When the material goes supercritical, most of the fissile material is converted to heat and blast so the chance of the radiation emission from one bomb setting up a chain reaction in a nearby critical mass is nil.
 
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