Thread: New Nukes?
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Old 11-26-2003, 05:07 PM   #22 (permalink)
MSD
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The main problem I see with bunker buster nukes is the potential for serious complications if somehting goes wrong.

Every system has a possibility of errors. If a conventional bunker buster hits the ground, then detonates before it should, or doesn't penetrate the ground at all, the worst case scenario is that it's in or near a populated area whose residents would have been safe if the fround penetrator had gone down a few hundred feet, then taken out a bunker. In the case of malfunction, it bounces, or doesn't go all the way down, goes off on impact, or is a dud. In one of those scenarios, hundreds of civilians could die, civilian buildings could go down, or the enemy could crawl out of his hole and capture a weapon with an advanced computer, guidance system, and big-ass warhead.

No wwhat if the big warhead happened to contain a few kilograms of plutonium? Take the same scenarios as an example. Premature detonation blows hundreds of tons of fallout into the air, the intial detonation kills a few hundred or a few thousand civilians, and we have a big, glowing (not literally) mess to deal with, as well as the war crime of a WMD first-strike. In case of a bounce, you have the same situation, but with more initial damage. The dud is the big problem. The bad guys are sitting there in their bunker, engaged in whatever diabolical activities bad guys do. Suddenly, the walls shake. The guys up on the surface radio down and tell them to come up and help. They all get outside, and there's a big hole with smoke coming out of it. They wait a while, get a crane, and pull it out. Not only has an advanced guidance computer and detonator fallen into enemy hands, but they have a complete, assembled, nuclear warhead to use for their purposes.

The effects of reverse-engineering, or use of a nuclear weapon by a terrorist group or hostile "rogue nation" would be disatrous.
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