Posted on 03/26/2014 10:10:56 PM PDT by 7thOF7th
What if a Middle East country wanted to build a nuclear bomb but they knew that it could not be done indigenously. They could build it in a sympathetic ideologically aligned country where no prying eyes from space are turned to see what is happening. When the bomb is completed, how can it be transported to a staging area? It would be impossible via normal shipping methods because of the radiation detection net at all ports of entry. A novel idea is hatched to use a commercial airliner to transport the device without any alarm or detection of the bomb. What could be next? Having served it's usefulness the 777 would be melted down and all traces of evidence disposed of. Now what should we be paying attention to, the plane or the bomb????
Why would the 777 need to be melted down, given it would be vaporized in the process of delivering the weapon?
Of course, first you'd need to rescue the 777 from Davey Jones's locker, South Indian Ocean District.
The plane can’t be used to deliver anything. It would be shot down well before it reached any target. Governments are on the look out for it. The bomb is untraceable and that is the threat. As long as it is shielded well it can be deployed later using conventional delivery methods.
Shipping doesn’t work that way, all ships are prescreened prior to arrival at other ports. Additionally, a nuke of small size would not destroy an area much bigger than the Port of LA. Not saying it wouldn’t be bad but it would not be destructive to the city of LA.
Yes, a hot 777 is not your first choice if you are up to something.
The bomb is untraceable and that is the threat. As long as it is shielded well it can be deployed later using conventional delivery methods.
Well, so you could just use a standard shipping container.
Of course, it would be wise to endow your gadget with some situational awareness to complement its deadly agenda. E.g., GPS, so it knows where it is. Sensors to detect if its being searched. A cell phone link, so it can call home to report on its progress and surroundings and accept modified orders. It needs a goal, so it can prioritize when to go off, e.g., close to the target, ideally and if possible, but right now!, if it's discovered and about to be disarmed.
Where are these ships prescreened? At the port of departure? If so it seems to be a practical possibility to arrange a rendezvous at sea with a fishing smack bearing a bomb and transfer it to a freighter bound for New York City.
If the pre-screening is done at sea it would be more effective but it seems to me hardly feasible in terms of manpower and technology.
Who writes this crap?
Commercial airliners are no longer one of the "normal shipping methods?
I must have missed the memo!
Its plausible and to my mind a fact that our Islamic enemies will construct nuclear weapons to use against the USA.
Its plausible that they would attempt to steal a commercial jet, to possibly deliver a weapon or two. However, the attack with the most bang for the buck and will be a simultaneous attack on 10 or more port cities that are easily reached by normal shipping.
I’ve looked at the data and the 777 is at the bottom of the Indian Ocean and it will likely take nearly 100 years for its discovery much like the Titanic....
I work in Nuclear Medicine.
A few weeks ago, I received a telephone call from an 84-year old patient of mine that I did a bone scan on a couple of days earlier. He told me that he was on line at a 7-11 buying a lottery ticket when a police officer came into the building with a radiation detector, walked right over to him and started interrogating him to find out why he was setting off his Geiger-Muller meter.
Even after 20-plus years in the industry, his phone call stunned me. The fact that they had detectors that could sense a very tiny amount of (almost-decayed) radiation circulating the blood stream of a man almost two days after his procedure was amazing to me, as even the detectors that I use in my office stop beeping the minute a patient moves just a few feet away from them.
This incident convinced me that there’s just no way that anyone can get any weapons-grade isotopes into this country, as our satellites and other detectors that we have will probably spot them the minute they depart for one of our coasts.
At least I hope so.
Why not post a “do it yourself” blue print?
Next, could you post articles on how to poison reservoirs and shut down power grids? There’s so much to learn.
Hate to disappoint you, but recent tests, using DHS-approved detection equipment, failed to identify some containers that were used in controlled tests. The problem with identifying containers is two-fold. First, the container can use large amounts of shielding material, as in the DHS test. Second, so many containers enter our ports that DHS cannot hope to test all of them. A locked/sealed container could be delivered anywhere in the country before it gets a command or GPS-triggered signal to explode.
Conversion of a ship to allow for the launch of a medium range ballistic missile is a distinct possibility. A launch within a few hundred miles would provide little to no warning.
The Titanic did not strike the ocean’s surface at hundreds of miles an hour. I don’t think there will be much left for a late 21st century explorer to explore, just a debris field.
If you don’t have the knowledge or you are too slow to grasp the fact that this is an exercise in hypothecation why don’t you reserve your disparaging remarks so others can feel free to contribute with decorum?
A sympathetic US politician will help. Maybe, oh, someone representing a district in Minnessota. Or possibly military brass that is a soldier of Allah first and an American officer second...Sounds crazy right?
As a person who works for the manufacturer of that aircraft, I can tell you with 100% confidence that if that plane went into the water the debris would be strew all over the southern Indian Ocean. Not one piece of exculpatory evidence of the plane has been recovered. That aircraft has seating that floats, insulation that breaks up and floats, the entire tail assembly is composite and water tight and it will float as well. The wing fuel tanks would be empty by the time it supposedly crashed into the sea and they would float as well. I am dubious of the IO scenario.
Are suggesting that our enemies are unintelligent and don’t think about the plethora of ways to attack their enemies. THINK AGAIN! These people have PhDs in chemistry, engineering, and EVIL!
Good quality materials aren’t in the same league of emissions as medical isotopes with shorter half-life. I am assuming use of gamma emitter 99mTc as the most common.
If you had Naval quality pu 239, then neutron emissions would be minimal, and the alphas easily shielded. If a non- government had to process their own materials, likely it would be contaminated by 240 and 238 and radiating strongly. A search using a neutron pulse generator would be seeking a like echo.
Encasing a weapon in a neutron absorber would reduce its signature. Placing it concealed along the keel of a ship would also reduce odds of detection.
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