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

[Dogbert]

By the way, a former mistress of saddam said that his favorite passtime is to sit with a cigar and a drink, wearing cowboy's hat watching videos of his political rivals being tortured to death.

Maybe all those "presidental palaces" hold people who know a little too much ?

[Dr Mordrid]

UPDATE:

Less material in the container than first estimated. Now they say 500-850 grams.

Not that it matters much though since one could just ship lots of small containers instead of putting all their eggs in one basket to improve the odds of most of it getting through. Drug dealers do this all the time.

Dr. Mordrid

[Dogbert]

Exactly: Less material in the container (that they caught) than first estimated. How many slipped by ?

[Dogbert]

Dr. Mordid,

According to the link I posted before (I have no idea about the information's accuracy):

After invading Kuwait, Iraq attempted to accelerate its program to develop a nuclear weapon by using radioactive fuel from the Osiraq reactor. It made a crash effort in September, 1990 to recover enriched fuel from this supposedly safe-guarded reactor, with the goal of produced a nuclear weapon by April, 1991. The program was only halted after Coalition air raid destroyed key facilities on 17 January 1991.

Seems like they had some radioactive fuel already in there.

[K6-III]

Originally posted by Dogbert


Thank god the arrow was invented...

I found this a bit interesting: " Israel has found and tested a new anti-missile system that will provide a sense of security for Israel's population."

Really, it is what any one of these systems is for. We know that no system can give us 100% reliability, but with this people still go to work and go on with their lives....

[Dogbert]

It's just this article. I looked for "Arrow anti missile" and put the 1st link about the subject without really reading into it.

Actually the system as been tested and the good think about it is that unlike the Patriot missile, it is supposed to destroy attacking missiles outside the atmosphere. So in the case of nuclear warheads, if they're already armed, the nuclear explosions would be in space, thus "minimizing" the damage.

[Dr Mordrid]

Let's also not forget that the YAL-1A Attack Laser (airborn in a 747-400 chassis) and THAAD (Theater High Altitude Area Defence) are very close.

The first YAL-1A platform was built last year and had its maiden flight last July.



One of THAAD's components (THEL - Tactical High Energy Laser) has been shooting down multiple missile attacks for two years at White Sands.

Both systems can engage multiple targets, but the YAL-1A can engage them in the boost phase. Both use COIL lasers, which in the YAL-1A AL can burn a target at ranges of over 500 km. Since COIL lasers are rather large the YAL-1A is the most practical platform at this time.

Interestingly TRW and Boing's most recent pages on these systems seem to have evaporated since their programs went onto an accelerated schedule last year. Same goes for their pages at MilNet

For the future:

Work continues on high energy solid state combat lasers. It's estimated that by 2015 an uncooled continuous beam solid state laser will be mounted on armored vehicles for use in the field against other hard targets. Concept image;



They already have prototype solid state lasers generating ~15% of the power required, so evolution should take care of the rest.

Now....if a solid state combat laser can be put into a tank for melting other tanks then what's stopping one from being put in side or shoulder mounted arms for softer targets?

Dr. Mordrid

[K6-III]

What's to stop someone from using battle-subwoofers to run at the heart's frequency and cause the heart to stop???

[Dr Mordrid]

Better done with microwaves. Infrasound's effects decrease rapidly with distance as it propogates.

Perhaps the best option for battlefield (or riot) immobilization is the use of low energy microwaves. It's called "Active Denial Technology"

ADT does not penetrate the body enough to do lethal damage (penetration is only about .5mm) but it does activate every pain receptor in ones skin at once

Needless to say 99.99% of humans will drop to the ground screaming (or they would pass out) immediately. The rest just stand there crying.

These can not only be vehicle mounted but can also be used in hand-held devices.

Chalk up one more for Gene Roddenberry.

Dr. Mordrid

[Wombat]

I was reading about that a while ago. Seems to have the high potential to cause blindness as well, and gets non-combatants along with the rest. What seems to work better, and is closer to battlefield ready, is the ultrasound setups that induce severe nausea.

[Dr Mordrid]

The only way ADT could cause blindness would be by damaging the tissue over the cornea. It couldn't penetrate any further.

While it could cause slight damage to this tissue it would heal a lot better than a bullet to the same region. OTOH infrasound can burst eardrums and internal organs...neither of which would heal near as well once the "distuption" had been settled.

Infrasound does, however, have it's "advantages". The work of Vladimir Gavreau proved that

Dr. Mordrid

[K6-III]

Once you make the infantry unable to fight you completely eliminate war....

[thop]

UPDATE:

they now say that it is 140g, probably only 10g.

deja vu anyone?

[Wombat]

Once you make the infantry unable to fight you completely eliminate war....

Completely wrong. You just change the battlegrounds, or the soldiers. Besides, this would only disable one side's infantry.

[K6-III]

Not if the technology is simple enough...or is controlled by the UN....