Reuters: 33 lbs of weapons grade Uranium seized....

[Dr Mordrid]

Yeah...just what we need. The UN owning such a technology

Dr. Mordrid

[Technoid]

Speaking about exotic weapons:

Has there been any developments in "rail gun" technology ?

[Dr Mordrid]

Yeah....you can make a magnetic one on a tabletop using just magnets and ball bearings;

http://www.scitoys.com/scitoys/scitoys/magnets/gauss.html

OkOk...I know that's not what you wanted

The main problem with rail guns is the sliding electrical contact between the rails and the armature. If the armature is a solid metal conductor the high currents can weld it to the rails before it moves.

One solution to this is to use a very thin aluminum armature that vaporizes when the current is switched on. This forms a plasma "armature" as soon as current is applied. This, however, has a negative side effect: the plasma erodes the rails.

A second problem which can occur is arcing between the rails, which prevents the applied energy from being converted to motion.

These and other problems have kept it in the laboratory.

Magnetic coil guns are also capable of very high speeds, but timing the flux advance can be problematic. A coil guns weakness is that to get maximum effect (as in military) superconducting magnets are the best option. Issue: weight and power sourcing.

In my mind one of the more devastating devices to a nations infrastructure or to a military command is the E-BOMB, or electromagnetic pulse bomb. I could type on it forever but these links should give you an idea of what they're about;

http://www.physics.nwu.edu/classes/2001Fall/Phyx135-2/19/emp.htm

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/kopp/apjemp.html

http://www.milnet.com/milnet/e-bomb.htm

Just note that an E-BOMB can be either conventional or nuclear. If nuclear then it has to be exploded at high altitude. This accomplished it can take out the un-hardened electronic infrastructure in entire regions.

Dr. Mordrid

[Gurm]

So, a question. Anyone know if the Neutron Bomb is a reality or just cold-war invention? Scared the beejeezus out of me when I was a kid.

- Gurm

[Agent31]

Originally posted by Technoid
Speaking about exotic weapons:

Has there been any developments in "rail gun" technology ?

bring on the BFG

[Wombat]

Yes, rail guns are real. Electromagnetic rail guns, Gauss cannons, whatever you want to call them. They're not yet practical though. Fixed ones in experimental setups are doing amazing damage in the mile or so range. I've seen some really cool footage of a concrete target wall taking a gauss hit, but I haven't been able to find it again no matter how often I look.

[Agent31]

I'm more impressed with the lasers they're testing as we type, now if only they didn't need to be kept so damned cool

[Dr Mordrid]

Originally posted by Gurm
So, a question. Anyone know if the Neutron Bomb is a reality or just cold-war invention? Scared the beejeezus out of me when I was a kid.

- Gurm

Stay scared.

Neutron bomb = ERW = Enhanced Radiation Weapon

They are very real and are a modification of the basic thermonuclear bomb (Teller-Ulam) design.

A thermonuclear bomb consists of a small fission bomb (A-bomb) at one end of a cylinder as the "trigger" (yeah, an A-bomb is just the fuse :-P ). A portion of the cylinder is also packed with lithium-6 deuteride or some other fusible material. This entire assembly is in turn surrounded by a casing. This can be aluminum in a 2 stage weapon or enriched uranium or plutonium if more power is required (3 stage).

When the trigger goes off it emits a huge x-ray flux (80% of the total energy released by the trigger) which through several means causes the lithium deuteride to fuse, producing both a huge neutron flux and tremendous amounts of heat and blast.

In the 3 stage devices long before the fusion event can disassemble the weapon the neutrons it emits produce a third blast when the fissionable casing goes off.

This all happens in 20-40 ns.

Because of this 3 stage design the typical thermonuclear bomb isn't really a fusion bomb but is instead a fission-fusion-fission bomb. The total energy released can be enormous. Examples:

Tactical A-bomb: .5 to 5 kilotons

Hiroshima A-bomb: 15 kilotons

Typical strategic H-Bomb (US): 50-350 kilotons

Largest H-bomb (Russian): 100,000 kilotons

In an ERW the fissionable casing is left off and other changes are made to enhance radiation and neutron output vs. kinetic energy production. This results in fast neutrons (14.1 mev) being released in addition to the usual gamma pulse, both of which dissipate very soon after detonation.

End result: lots of dead lifeforms and little damage below because ERW's are exploded at relatively high altitude vs. conventional nuclear devices. The high altitude detonation also limits fallout since fallout consists mainly of irradiated soil etc. that has been sucked up into the blast.

Using various means of neutron generation one can detonate a normally sub-critical mass (as little as 54 grams) in the trigger, allowing very small tactical thermonuclear weapons to be produced. Some of these only produce .2 kilotons.

Tactical thermonukes can in turn can be modified into compact/limited range ERW's that would only affect an area with a radius of a few hundred yards with a fireball of only 100 meters or so. These smaller ERW's are the most likely to be used in theater warfare.

The "holy grail" of ERW's is the so-called "Fission-Free" bomb, which completely eliminates the fission trigger device. No one in civilian life knows if this design has been made to work yet, but if it ever is perfected very small explosions with huge radiation fluxes would be available in quite small devices.

The US, Russia, China and France are known to have deployed ERW's, but just about anyone with small fission devices could make one since both lithium-6 and deuterium are very easy to get.

Why do I get the feeling I haven't exactly allayed your childhood fears?

Dr. Mordrid

[mutz]

...ya know, I can't figure out for the life of me what Saddam thinks he can accomplish. If he were to use a nuke or WMD anywhere, he and his whole country would be reduced to a crisp in a second.

I don't think there is any danger of igniting the world's second largest oil reserve, so a few small, clean nukes and poof! CleanSweep.

With whatever he does have or can scrape together, he's still a military pygmy. So it seems to me his strategy is psychological/political, not military.

Everybody, including GWB, who confirms what a threat Saddam is, is helping Saddam inflate his balloon.

I get the image of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff in a heavy duty conference, when a wasp flies in the room...

[Wombat]

so a few small, clean nukes and poof! CleanSweep.

And nuke what, exactly? One of the worst things about Saddam is his nasty habit of burying military positions in civilian enclaves. We already have a hard enough time with the bad PR from the Gulf War, after we killed 60,000-80,000 civilians -- but a lot of histories omit that part of what happened when we disabled the desalination plants.

[Dogbert]

The biggest problem fighting tyrants is the method.

I'll explain: most armies develop weapons and fighting methods for all kinds of warfare. Well, not exactly all kinds. More likely - western warfare. When weapons and methods are developed, the developers keep on mind Geneva and Warsaw agreements etc.

Now, when you go against a tyrant who's liked / worshipped by his people, he can do things the western world would find 'wrong' with full support from his people.
The west isn't prepared in any way to face armed soldiers shooting from a school full of children, or disabling a command post which is nothing more than an apartment in a huge civilian block.

This isn't a war of who has the better technology and weapons, it's a war between two different moral systems.

The lowest example I can give is this: usually here at school, when two guys beat each other, nobody will tear hair or grab/hit the other guy's balls. In extreme cases they'll use chairs and knives before doing any of those two things. Crazy, I know, but it's some kind of unwritten rule. (You don't beat girls either ofcourse.)
Now let's assume we have this big guy armed with a chair against a small unarmed guy who doesn't give a shit about the rules. So the small guy grabs a girl to put between the big guy with the chair and himself. The big guy can't use his chair now so he tosses the chair away and tries to grab the small guy who in turn kicks the shit out of his nads. GAME OVER.

Now guess who's who.

[RedRed]

This uranium plot smells worse than a 5 day caught fish!

This is a setup, plain and simple. - we will find out next week that it wasnt weapons grade, but medical grade or some such twaddle.....

Dont believe the crap.

RedRed

[trousers]

Anyone else getting slightly concerned about Dr Mordrid's familiarity with the tech being discussed in this thread?

Is there no hardware this guy won't beta-test?

[mutz]

...no, I'm saying if Saddam uses even so tiny a WDM, he just gets himself wiped off the map, and he knows it, so that's not what he's after.

I just see that it's just about power. Saddam wants power in the Middle East and we-know-who doesn't have a majority of power "at home", so these two are made for each other. And once Saddam is gone, we-know-who will have to find someone else.

The power bug is insatiable. There's no power in peace. The last East-West power struggle collapsed, so now a new one is founded in the same insatiable quest.

If you page back through history, you'll find the same old script played over and over just with different actors. The oldest ploy to power is "You make me king, and I'll protect you against your enemies" even if you didn't know you had any.

Saddam Hussain builds 300 palaces to show off his power, but has no one to show them to that counts. He gets bored, and power is insatiable. Greed too.

It's no different either side, it just looks outwardly different. Each invents his justifications and raises up the banners.

It's an old game. Impotence seeks potence, victims seek perpetrators, perpetrators seek victims, a hunger that can never be stilled, because it is a psychological hunger, not a real one.

Nothing new here. Before it was who had more troops, more horses, better armor, steel arrowheads, gunpowder, ICBMs, more money...

What's new?

[Dogbert]

Parhelia ! People now have 3(!) monitors !!!
Muhahahahahaha